SCRIPTURE: The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it; for he founded it on the seas and established it on the waters. Psalm 24:1-2 NIV
THOUGHT: Throughout Scripture runs the thread of God’s ownership of all creation. It opens in Genesis with Creator God and closes with the same. Revelation 14:6-7 tells one of the final stories in the thread: “Then I saw another angel flying in midair, and he had the eternal gospel to proclaim to those who live on the earth—to every nation, tribe, language and people. He said in a loud voice, ‘Fear God and give him glory, because the hour of his judgment has come. Worship him who made the heavens, the earth, the sea and the springs of water (Rev. 14:6-7).’” It’s really pretty simple. The eternal gospel is about ownership, and it’s good news.
As I survey our current milieu, I can see how this fundamental truth has been overlooked over and over – throughout history as in our day. “Overlooked” may be too gentle a word but it gets to the heart of what I want to say because it’s a deceptively simple misstep, often made early in life, that colors everything else we may or may not believe. The tragic consequences of that miscalculation set up a great and endless battle in the human soul, and thus in cultures, politics, and the world. If the world and everything in it belongs to God, then we are compelled worship a very big, very powerful God with a claim on everything and everyone we see – a claim that goes back to the beginning and forward into infinity. If we discard God’s ownership as fantasy, or regard God as a human construct, we make ourselves gods and descend slowly into the chaos of ‘every man for himself.’ Nihilism at its finest – a great and endless war against faith and meaning and the imago Dei.
PRAYER: Oh God, your word says, “you are not your own. You were bought with a price (1 Cor. 6:19-20).” Help us lay down any assault against your ownership and employ instead spiritual weapons that “demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God (2 Cor. 10:5).”
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Blogger Amy Clemens is the author of Walking When You’d Rather Fly: Meditations on Faith After the Fall. In it she explores childhood sexual abuse and how it impacted her faith (or lack thereof) for four decades. You’ll find not only her story, but better yet, the Big Story of God.
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