Saving The Planet
It is a good thing to preserve the planet for future generations. Man may be right or wrong regarding the threat of global warming – climate change – or global cooling. Man in fact may or may not be able to impact such phenomena either by causing it or by correcting it. If you understood God, you may not be as concerned. Life is not about man’s harming the planet or about man saving the planet. I know that supporting efforts to keep our water clean and usable, doing what we can to reduce air pollution, and similar efforts are worthwhile. In this matter, there should be individual consideration, and local and/or national government policy. These things do save life’s, and allow for a healthier existence. However, life is about saving your soul and there is no environmental category in relation to achieving that goal. Your life will end and it will be judged relative to how you did in the battle between good and evil – that is your personal battle with sin. If you were an “earth polluter” or if you did not separate out your plastics from the rest of your trash it will not matter. Of course, if in the process of polluting you managed to harm others and did this with such an intent or did it for your own gain while doing harm to others this could be something that causes you eternal loss. However for such a person, this will undoubtedly not be the only sinful thing in your life. There will be hundreds of other things related to your selfishness and lack of concern for others. God, in the end will destroy the earth, all the planets, everything because it was just here for man.
There are thousands of causes like, “save the earth” that are notable and have some value and people get deeply involved in these causes. Again, this is fine BUT these things could cost you your soul because they become your life and you ignore, “save your soul.”
Your pursuit of salvation needs to be the number one thing in your life.
Is it more important than the college education of your children? Yes, much more important! Is it much more important than your financial well-being? Yes, much more important. You want to align with God’s purpose and that means doing what is necessary to assure heaven. That may sound selfish, but it is not because the only way you can truly help others is by getting yourself into a saved position and stay there. A part of “staying there” is to carry the message to others and of course your loved ones will be high on your list.
A person who is aligned with God can handle the difficulties of life. If you have taken care of your children’s spirituality by pointing them in the right direction and they responded appropriately that is much more important than any education they might have received. That child or other close loved one can die of a disease, or in an accident and you can even manage these terrible tragedies. God has provided the possibility for His children to remain strong through tragedy since they know life is about the soul and merely a test to determine your eternity. The response to such tragedy is quite different than that of one is totally devastated since they see no furtherance of existence for the loved one. Out of such an understanding comes bitterness, hatred, revenge, and blaming. As a child of God, your response could be to increase your efforts in terms of service to God – after all you want to assure your final demise places you with your loved ones. Everything is different for those whose life-focus is their soul.
The strange thing is that people become deeply devoted to something like “saving the planet” over which they have little or no influence for good, while, the most important thing in their life, namely their soul receives little or no consideration.
God puts this into perspective by pointing out the relative value of this life to the next.
2 Corinthians 4.18
18 while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.
One might say, God is blunt, to the point, doesn’t mince words and indeed, He gets to the bottom line. All you see is temporary and if you let these “seen” things dominate your actions, you will say yes to saving the planet and/or a hundred other wonderfully noble things. If you are guided by God’s way, His word, then your soul and the souls of people are most important. You have as God points out an eternal viewpoint – seeing the unseen. When I mention being able to handle those very difficult moments in life, I am talking about those who correctly understand God and His purpose and His plan and work daily at pleasing God. The extent of, or degree of your knowledge of God and the wisdom He provides the better you will be able to manage those tough times. You indeed understand what life is all about.
You cannot compare any human cause to the value of your soul and yet many people work hard at hundreds of noble causes while ignoring the real purpose of life. These causes are really just a distraction from what you really need. The interesting thing is many of the causes that have value are best improved if people are living the principles of the creator. In many, many cases the root cause is sin as God defines sin. Your cause thus, very likely exists because of sin. A couple of examples might help, but about these things I must just guess, be logical. I know that violating God’s laws can have earthy consequences besides the ultimate eternal consequence. Many, if not all the diseases could have resulted from various sins. Most, if not all wars are the result of envy, self-seeking, anger, deep pride and so many other sinful things. There is hardly a dispute that could not be handled with the right attitude. If you were to understand the importance of your soul and the soul of each person, it would be hard to imagine not doing everything possible to avoid conflict. God knows all, sees all and holds each person responsible and since He knows the heart of each person perfectly there would always be efforts to do the right, unselfish, humble thing to those who see the unseen as priority. The unseen would be God, the souls of men and women, heaven – all spiritual things.
Our subject of saving the planet, which we say has little relative importance compared to saving the soul can be seen as the result of sin. An example in today’s world might be a company that willfully dumps harmful materials into the water supply. Individuals or companies who are careless in handling pollutants that go into the air. If people see the value in each person – respect for people more than the selfish money saved by not following correct processes, then there would be less damage to the planet. It is very possible, as suggested that humankind does very little to harm the planet and can do very little to save the planet. We should do what we can and if we avoid sin, much of the serious damage humanity can inflict on the planet, really on each other can be greatly reduced.
You cannot save the planet and in the end you will see yourself as foolish if you judge ANYTHING of the world (temporary) as valued more than the soul
(eternal). The tragedy is our young people know more about “earth day” than the day there will no longer be any earth. God created all things and our planet is the stage for our test. God sees our soul as the thing to be saved, as the purpose for creation, namely eternal life with God. Humanity, in its ignorance of God’s way sees the earth as needing to be saved. It is a priority thing and the priorities should be clear.
A person who is aligned with God can handle the difficulties of life. If you have taken care of your children’s spirituality by pointing them in the right direction and they responded appropriately that is much more important than any education they might have received. That child or other close loved one can die of a disease, or in an accident and you can even manage these terrible tragedies. God has provided the possibility for His children to remain strong through tragedy since they know life is about the soul and merely a test to determine your eternity. The response to such tragedy is quite different than that of one is totally devastated since they see no furtherance of existence for the loved one. Out of such an understanding comes bitterness, hatred, revenge, and blaming. As a child of God, your response could be to increase your efforts in terms of service to God – after all you want to assure your final demise places you with your loved ones. Everything is different for those whose life-focus is their soul.
The strange thing is that people become deeply devoted to something like “saving the planet” over which they have little or no influence for good, while, the most important thing in their life, namely their soul receives little or no consideration.
God puts this into perspective by pointing out the relative value of this life to the next.
Our subject of saving the planet, which we say has little relative importance compared to saving the soul can be seen as the result of sin. An example in today’s world might be a company that willfully dumps harmful materials into the water supply. Individuals or companies who are careless in handling pollutants that go into the air. If people see the value in each person – respect for people more than the selfish money saved by not following correct processes, then there would be less damage to the planet. It is very possible, as suggested that humankind does very little to harm the planet and can do very little to save the planet. We should do what we can and if we avoid sin, much of the serious damage humanity can inflict on the planet, really on each other can be greatly reduced.
You cannot save the planet and in the end you will see yourself as foolish if you judge ANYTHING of the world (temporary) as valued more than the soul
(eternal). The tragedy is our young people know more about “earth day” than the day there will no longer be any earth. God created all things and our planet is the stage for our test. God sees our soul as the thing to be saved, as the purpose for creation, namely eternal life with God. Humanity, in its ignorance of God’s way sees the earth as needing to be saved. It is a priority thing and the priorities should be clear.
