Reason Number Five:
We will be held accountable to God for all our actions. We should be motivated by a desire to be called God’s good and faithful servants.
When God comes in the full power of his kingdom, he will judge every one according to his works. Even Christians will face judgment before his throne, though our eternal fate is secure with Christ, through faith alone. God will hold each person to accountable. “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what He has done, whether good or bad.” (2 Corinthians 5:10) In Revelation God says, “I am He who searches the minds and hearts. And I will give to each one of you according to your works.” (Rev 2:23) “And behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to give to everyone according to his work.” (Rev 22:12)
Throughout Scripture is the idea that even believers will be held accountable for their works. Righteousness in this life will be rewarded. Fighting the good fight to the end will be rewarded. Strength and perseverance will be rewarded. Salvation is the free gift of God through faith alone in Christ alone, yet we still find that we are being judged as His servants and given crowns according to our faithfulness and work for His glory. We looked at the parable of the talents from Matthew 25 a few days ago. The wise servant who invested the master’s money received a reward when the master returned, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.” However, the servant who did not act wisely with the money was reprimanded severely: his master answered him, ‘You wicked and slothful servant! […] from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. And [he] cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness.” Jesus told this parable to describe the kingdom of God. We can expect to be likewise held to account for our works, whether they have been for the glory of God or the glory of man.
Will we be considered good and faithful servants when judged for the colossal task of working and caring for the earth?
When God judges us for our dealings with creation will we say: “Look, Master, you gave us the earth and its natural resources and everything good and we in turn made the ultimate goal of our lives our own comfort and convienence, bought every new toy that hit the stores and threw them away when we were done, kept our AC at 68 degrees, shipped produce from Peru to New York in January, blew up your mountains for cheap coal,
drove cattle in double-decker trailers 800 miles to slaughter, drained the soil to grow millions of acres of corn for government subsidies, doused the land with chemical fertilizers to make up for it, let our lust for tens of billions of pounds of beef contaminate the soil, water and air, fed our livestock antibiotics to keep them alive under unnatural conditions, let the medications seep into ground water to disturb and mutate the native wildlife,
spawned new and horrible diseases through poor crop and livestock management, brought destructive invasive species into fragile habitats, created every possible household product in a disposable form to fill landfills, dumped waste into your streams and rivers which contaminated our neighbors’ wells, drove thousands of your creatures to extinction though vanity hunting and decimating habitats …” ?
Will this be our answer to his call to accountability? Many of these things I’ve listed are corporate actions which we all, in some form or another take part in. Some things we might find unavoidable, other things we can change easily. The test will be our striving after righteousness, justice, and the glory of God in all these matters. For instance, we can support those who raise crops and animals responsibly. We can use our purchasing power to move industry toward more energy efficient products. We can recycle. We can eat less meat and lower the demand for destructive and inhumane farming practices. We can protect our local watersheds by responsibly caring for own lawns and gardens. We can vote to prevent further mountain top removal. We can choose to eat local food in the summer and avoid the foods with the highest vehicle mileage in the winter. We can act to preserve the glory of God in creation, or we can choose not to care. What I fear, looking down this list of destructive human activities, is that the God “who searches the minds and hearts” may find that, worst of all, we have participated in all these and not even cared.
Should Christians really file in among the apathetic millions? Should we be so flippant that what God made good and glorious we and the rest of humanity are daily desecrating? Don’t we have every reason to care?
I believe that one day God will ask “did you care about the creation I made to display my glory and to provide for your every need?”
Do you even care? Think seriously about your answer.
~Lauren Merritt, The Christian and Creation
first two photos courtesy U.S. Archives, CC copyright
third and fourth photos courtesy Farm Sanctuary
