The Earth is the Lords (Ownership)

March 13 2011The earth is the LORD’s, and everything in it. The world and all its people belong to him. For he laid the earth’s foundation on the seas and built it on the ocean depths. Psalm 24:1-2 (NLT)It was a magnificent early spring concert rising up from the creek that crosses the back corner of our property. I had been cutting up a bull pine that went down in our horse pasture some months ago, but when the daylight waned and it got too dim to safely cut I turned off my chainsaw, sat down on a stump, took out my earplugs, and that’s when I heard it. While listening to the ebb and flow of the massive choir of frogs and crickets I was reminded of something they seem to instinctively know but we seem to quickly forget. The earth and all it contains belongs to God.As I already told you I was on my property, I had used my chainsaw, I was sitting in my pasture, and the stump I was sitting on belonged to me as well. It is all mine, I own it fair and square. Actually we, Susie and I, own it, because a long time ago we decided to share everything and said, “I do.” Where our fence ends our neighbors’ property begins and I can’t call it mine because Jim and Marianne hold legal title to it, it is theirs. Now the singing critters don’t know this because they come and go as they please. The birds too build their nests on our property without ever once asking if that would be okay. No, all those creatures lay no permanent and legal claim, they simply live without any thought of ownership to land they did not create.Now I have seen enough nature shows, read enough books, and spent time in personal observation to know that many animals, and even plants, are fiercely territorial. But no creature has taken ownership to the level we have as people. Thus it is a sobering, and challenging reminder, that none of us can claim ultimate ownership. Don’t misunderstand, neither I nor scripture discourages ownership. The trouble is that the more we own the more we are inclined to forget about God, the more we are inclined think that we are only accountable to ourselves when it comes to that which we own.The reason why God is the ultimate owner of not only all that you and I own, but of us as well, is that he made it all, even our very life. Thus he can lay claim and hold us accountable as to what we do with our lives, our things, our property, and our wealth.Those critters singing down by my creek I am sure have never contemplated any of this. In fact their singing down there is about mating not meditating on God. But you and I, because we are made in the image of God, are able to hear, see, and know God through all of creation, as well as all God entrusts to us. The reality of God’s ownership has deep, even radical implications. I would like to encourage you to go find a stump and listen to what God would have you know, contemplate, change, and live out when it comes to all that you can say to, “that’s mine.”To God be all glory, love you, Pastor Hans