In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth (Gen. 1:1). The land must not be sold permanently, because the land is Mine and you are but aliens and My tenants (Lev. 25:23 NIV). The earth is the Lord’s, and all its fullness, the world and those who dwell therein (Ps. 24:1).

The Word of God tells us that “God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1:1). And according to the New Testament, the same Jesus who came into this world to rescue us from ourselves is the One who first made our world and everything that is in it. “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him” (Col. 1:15-16).

[Photo source: Christ is Creator]

Here is what George MacDonald wrote in reference to this reality:

“If the world is God’s, every true man and woman ought to feel at home in it. Something is wrong if the calm of the summer night does not sink into the heart, for it embodies the peace of God. Something is wrong in the man to whom the sunrise is not a divine glory, for therein is embodied the truth, the simplicity, and the might of the Maker.” [Photo: RunnerJenny]

This 19th-century writer obviously believed and understood that we live and breathe in a world that shouts the reality of God from every piece of matter and every natural event. Almost without question, the most significant difference between the worldview of the Bible and the beliefs of secular humanism is the Christian understanding that God made the earth and it belongs to Him.

What comes of this belief is significant. When we are users and occupiers of property that belongs to someone else, we rightfully consider the interests of the owner as well as our own. In fact, as tenants and stewards, our own interests are secondary to that of the owner. Our challenge in any use of the land, air, water, or living thing that belongs to God is to ask how we can use what He has made so that we will honor Him and enjoy Him through it and in it.

More than a hundred years ago, Adam Clarke saw the practical implications of God’s ownership when he wrote:

The works of the Lord are multitudinous and varied. They are so constructed as to show the most consummate wisdom in their design, and in the end for which they are formed. They are all God’s property, and should be used only in reference to the end for which they were created. All abuse and waste of God’s creatures are spoil and robbery on the property of the Creator (quoted by Spurgeon in The Treasury Of David, p.335).

“All abuse and waste of God’s creatures are spoil and robbery on the property of the Creator.” How that reality should awaken us to a fuller awareness of our high calling to care for what God cares for! Those words take me back to my late twenties when, as a frustrated squirrel hunter one fall, I shot a porcupine high in a tall oak—merely because it was there and I had an unspent shotgun shell in my gun! Porcupines are common in Michigan’s north woods, and they are virtually unprotected by game laws because they are considered nuisance animals, “vermin” like woodchucks, gophers, and chipmunks. [Photo: by Enoch Ross]

I believe that God, who notes the death of a common sparrow, watches over all that He has made. Now I realize that the shame I felt looking into the lifeless eyes of one of God’s creatures I had thoughtlessly wasted might have been a reflection of God’s own heart. But at the time, I passed it off as an unmanly emotion.

My desire now is to celebrate the wonder of God in creation and acknowledge that as the Creator’s landholders, we are to examine the Word of God and prayerfully consider how we are to occupy His territory and humbly manage His works in a manner that glorifies Him.

Consider in conclusion the thoughts of Jean Mouroux penned over sixty years ago about the significance of man as the serving master—or “creation’s priest.”

Man is linked with nature in the vital, moral, and religious orders; and with her he forms an organic whole which finds its meaning and definitive fulfillment in the glory of God.  But man alone is conscious of it.  He alone is able to present the world to God in thought and love and to glorify God through the world.  Thus he is bound up with nature, but only to rule, complete, and achieve it: he is “the animal that commands,” but commands in order to serve and do homage; and thus he is truly creation’s priest.  And fraternal nature, not unhelpful, but seeking, desiring, looks up to him who alone can fulfill her desire by giving her a soul and a voice wherewith to honor her God.