Who is God? (4) God is the Owner ...

Friday, June 5, 2009. Who is God? God is the creator and the owner of the earth. Jesus once is telling a story about the owner of a vineyard. He came to what was his, but his tenant farmers did not want to recognize him (Mark 12). The vineyard Jesus was talking about is the people of Israel. But the story points to much more. God is the creator and owner of the whole world, the suns as well as all planets. He owns the earth, our planet. It is not ours. He owns the plants and the animals. He owns all minerals, all food, all beauties and riches you can imagine.

There is an old saying by the aboriginees, the people who lived in Australia long before is was populated by people from the west. They did not have the concept of ownership for the land. It was there millions of years before they lived. It will be there millions of years after they are dead. Why should they claim to own it? This perspective is quite interesting.

Of course, the concept of ownership and control as used by all societies on our planet is of importance. Ownership is a steering mechanism to deal with all the land and all the things on earth. Someone has do make decisions how to use some mineral, how to use plants and crops. We need mechanism to come to these decisions and ownership is one key tool we employ. This tool has been supported by the bible, both in the Old and in the New Testament ownership is taken serious. But it is also connected to social responsibility and it is put into a framework of being responsible to God with everything we have and own. We would not be able to do anything if it would not be given to us by him. All possibilities we have in our life is a gift of the Lord. All our open doors and all our limitations are given by him.

The concept of responsibility is taken very serious in the bible. God is a responsible God. He is reliable, full of truth and trust. He wants us to care - and if we are honest we need to say that we fail strongly in terms of global care. Millions of people hungry, war and devastation in many countries on this planet, dictators and military conflicts within so many societies. Even in the western democracies justice is difficult to reach.

There are these global issues, but we are also responsibility in our personal framework, in our immediate environment. Here, we can act and exercise influence. Here, we can take God's ownership of everything serious. Instead of trying to get more and more for ourselves we can try to let everyone enjoy the beauties God has created. Instead of organizing the big fight about big wins we can work for a better win, where every human has the possibility of a reasonable existence, a share in the riches which definitely exist within this world. We have a real responsibility and can be sure that God takes this responsibility serious. [R.W.E.P., jesusnetwork.eu]

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