Many scriptures, sermons, books and essays from throughout the ages highlight the importance of God’s creation for us, and for Him. Here are a few.
Christianity and sustainability
All creation is the Lord’s, and we are responsible for the ways in which we use and abuse it. Water, air, soil, minerals, energy resources, plants, animal life, and space are to be valued and conserved because they are God’s creation and not solely because they are useful to human beings. God has granted us stewardship of creation. We should meet these stewardship duties through acts of loving care and respect. (United Methodist Social Principles: The Natural World, ¶160)
Genesis 1:31
God saw everything He had made; it was supremely good.
1 Corinthians 10:26
All creation is the Lord’s: For the earth is the Lord’s, and all its fullness.
Stewardship of creation
We are now God’s stewards. We are indebted to him for all we have…. A steward is not at liberty to use what is lodged in his hands as he pleases, but as his master pleases…. He is not the owner of any of these things but barely entrusted with them by another… now this is exactly the case of everyone with relation to God. We are not at liberty to use what God has lodged in our hands as we please, but as God pleases, who alone is the possessor of heaven and earth and the Lord of every creature…. [God] entrusts us with [this world’s goods] on this express condition, that we use them only as our Master’s goods, and according to the particular directions which he has given us in his Word. (John Wesley, Sermon 77, “Spiritual Worship,” §II.3, Works 3:95)
Christians and the environment
Some people, in order to discover God, read books. But there is a great book: the very appearance of created things. Look above you! Look below you! Note it. Read it. God, whom you want to discover, never wrote that book with ink. Instead He set before your eyes the things that He had made. Can you ask for a louder voice than that? (St. Augustine, 354–430)
Reading about nature is fine, but if a person walks in the woods and listens carefully, he can learn more than what is in books, for they speak with the voice of God. (George Washington Carver, 1864–1943)
