Imagine that scientists have finally solved climate change. Carbon emissions are completely under control. We still have occasional thunderstorms, but hurricanes, typhoons, and tornadoes are a thing of the past. Also, there are no more droughts or massive floods. The planet is under the control of brilliant scientists. Okay; I said conceived.
For all practical purposes, we have saved the planet. Mission accomplished! Praise science and scientists! Now what? We have some other problems worthy of our attention?
Oh, how about the state of humanity? What about all the lies, robberies, cheats, scams, beatings, rapes, mutilations and murders? Saving the planet didn’t fix that, did it? Only if you imagined it. Is not I could not Solve these problems that are within us!
May I suggest that it is humanity that needs to be saved, much more than the planet? If our planet has existed here for millions or billions of years as scientists estimate, surely it can survive even more radical climate changes than scientists predict. It can survive the pollution of the land, air and water that we cause. Yes, some of the species of life might not survive, perhaps no species would survive, but the planet did. I doubt that any scientist believed that any species would survive what human beings could do. For those who trust evolution, the planet would be able to launch that chain of creatures of whatever survived in the seas. Wait a few million, a few billion years.
That’s do not the hope that I have. I do not subscribe to the evolutionary fantasy of “going to the zoo”. I believe we were created by a Creator: the Almighty God of the Bible. Furthermore, what is wrong with humanity is that we have abandoned it. “All of us like sheep have gone astray, each one has turned his own way …”, said the prophet Isaiah (53: 6 NKJV).
Moses brought the 10 commandments directly from God. Jesus powerfully summarized all of God’s commandments in two: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind,” was the first (Mt 22:37 NIV). The second was this: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Mt 22:39 NIV). All hell on earth, appropriately attributed to humanity, can appropriately be related to the violation of Ten or Two. We do not love our Creator as we should; and we don’t love our neighbor as we should.
When Jesus came to save humanity, He called us back to these basics. Love the God who made you; love also your neighbor whom He made. Well, let’s imagine again. Imagine we all did that for a month. What would happen on earth? Wouldn’t it be sweet? We are all likely to join the “police defunding” movement.
However, if you have a realistic view of human nature, you will keep your distance from that movement now and even in our imaginative state of bliss. At the end of that 30-day trial, and probably before, someone would choose hate; and in a short time, many would choose it; eventually everyone would reject these loves for something less. This is how we roll. That is exactly what the Bible means when it says: “because all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23 KJV). The problem of our human condition is much deeper than criminal or violent behavior. We are all capable of doing hurtful things to others that would never impose a fine or imprison us.
There are those who think that education is the solution to our social ills. That is part of the answer. We need to be educated rather than ignorant. However, secular education (which now dominates the scene) is capable of creating smarter thieves, liars, cheats, haters, and murderers. Perhaps this is news to you: human beings not only need our heads to change, we need our hearts to change. The heart is the place where our opinions and core values are stored. Tackling this warehouse is the work of biblical religion. Biblical prophets, from Noah to Moses, Isaiah, Jesus, Peter and Paul, did it constantly. We need to get right with our Creator, then get right with each other. And this work of saving humanity, I will argue, is far more necessary than saving the planet.
We could go a long way to save humanity if four attitudes and behaviors changed substantially in our culture. Consider this with me:
Have devotion to the truth.
We all have problems with this. We want others to be honest and truthful with us, but we find it difficult to practice this ourselves. We separate the black and white lies. We tend to think that bears are white, other people’s lies are black. How about we just lie? Stop lying to others. Stop lying to ourselves. Part of this commitment is honoring our word; let’s do what we have told others we would do.
Let us choose to live in the truth as consistently as possible. I have found it important to be with other seekers of truth, those who live in my time and those who lived a long time ago. That is why studying the Bible has been invaluable on my journey. That Book emphasizes the importance of truth; it is, I believe, the highest value of God. More than He wants us to do the right thing all the time, He wants us to be honest all the time. Therefore, when we have not “done the right thing,” He wants us to be honest about it. Honestly, that goes in two directions, horizontally with other people affected by our wrongdoings and vertically with God, who defines “right and wrong” and holds us personally responsible. I pray that devotion to the truth will spread among humanity faster than any infectious disease in human history. And may that devotion be greatly appreciated.
Embrace gratitude instead of right –
Somehow, we seem to have become obsessed with things that we feel empowered to, whether we have them or not. A popular advertising practice is to tell ourselves that we “deserve” this or that. Of course, what we “deserve” is what we do not yet have. Have you noticed that an attitude of entitlement goes against gratitude? We tend to put gratitude aside, in a waiting area, until we have everything we feel entitled to possess. We assume that we will thank you later.
We are deluded into this, imagining that we will be grateful when … Everyone can be grateful now, and it changes our disposition greatly when we choose to be grateful for what we already have, be it little or much. Let’s be thankful and encourage each other to do the same every day. In addition, let us be more aware of the attitude of law in us; And when we recognize it, let’s replace that attitude with gratitude.
Respect the law and those who enforce it.
This is more lacking in our culture than most people recognize. Our bulging prison populations bear witness that grabs the attention of most of us. Have you been driving in traffic lately? We are not very law abiding! The majority we are not. I see many people treating stop signs as yielding signals. Running red lights has become increasingly popular. Yellow lights mean hitting the gas pedal, not the brake. These are signs of disregard for the low-level law. We create our own exemptions to laws that we don’t like. As long as no law enforcement officer catches us, we won’t feel any pangs of conscience. And when a law enforcement officer catches us, fines us, we are more likely to feel irritation towards him or her than remorse for our action.
This disregard for the law and those who enforce it has grown into seed. That a drug is illegal does not matter to many. “It makes me feel good and I love it,” they reason. Others reason that you have more things than me, so I should be able to take them. The store has dozens of these items; “You won’t miss this one that I put in my pocket, and I’m sure I can’t pay that excessive price for it.” Many people seem to think that “the laws were made for other people, not for me.”
Let’s acknowledge our own disregard for the law and law enforcement; So let’s opt for respect and obedience.
Embrace self-control and personal responsibility
It may seem like fun trying to control others, but self-control is what is really needed, although it is certainly less fun. Along with self-control comes personal responsibility. Many of us become masters at blaming others for our failures.
Our world would surely be much more heavenly if we all focused on controlling our own words and actions to match the expectations we have of others. We all make mistakes sometimes; Taking responsibility for ourselves would mean admitting it, correcting it as much as possible, and apologizing to those affected. Let’s build and solidify these attitudes and actions in our lifestyles. And let’s encourage our friends to join us on the journey.
Conclution
Please don’t get me wrong: I don’t want to encourage irresponsible stewardship of our planet and the many resources it contains. We can avoid pollution and waste of resources without becoming obsessed with “saving the planet.” We can conserve resources and invest in technologies that improve life on the planet without living in fear of the wrath of nature. However, there is a God of nature: the Creator, Almighty God. He has sent many prophets with corrective words, telling us where we have gone astray individually and collectively. They have also issued warnings of His anger that He is reluctant to pour out. The apostle Peter said of the Lord God: “He is patient with us, not wanting any to perish, but for all to come to repentance” (2 Peter 3: 9 NKJV).
The biblical book of Hebrews begins with an account of God’s sending messengers to us. Listen, if you like: “In the past, God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets on many occasions and in various ways, 2 but in these last days he has spoken to us through his Son, whom he named the heir of all things, and by whom he made the universe.3 The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things with his mighty word in heaven.4 So he became so superior to angels as the name he has inherited is superior to theirs (Hebrews 1: 1-4 NIV) This Messenger par excellence in the text, identified as “Son of God”, is the Lord Jesus Christ.
I have needed it to allow me to progress in the four aspects of character development that I shared in this article. It is more important than all of them, necessary for genuine progress in them. The secularists will continue to incite fear regarding the future of the planet and remind them of their responsibility to save it; Every time you hear one of those “doomsday messages”, and every time you act on one of them, let it be a reminder of the greatest need to save humanity. Not only is this need greater, it predates any climate change hype, and you can expect it to be here if scientists ever control the planet’s climate as they propose.
Our most serious problem is not the carbon footprint of human beings, but our footprint of sin. This problem will not be solved by the secular government and secular educators for very obvious reasons. Our sin issues are addressed in the arena of religion, between us and God. I am asking you to take your sin problem seriously, to seek God and His answers. Finally, imagine how much better our world would be if doing this had the same importance, received the same attention in our world as “saving the planet.”