Feeling Green?
Being a Christian means that one should live his life like Christ. Of course, the life of Christ is just the ideal and that no one will be able to live up to and match 100%, but one must bear in mind that a Christian should strive to live in a way that resembles Christ as much as possible. A transformation may be a way of seeing this process, and when we reach Heaven, our transformation will be complete.
However, living like Christ does not mean to do good things like how some people perceive Jesus to be. That is not the main point of living like Christ. Living like Christ means that, with faith in God, we should live our lives in accordance to God's will, "... yet not my will, but yours be done." (Luke 22:42). We should not live for ourselves, but we should live for how God wants us to live.
Part of my personal transformation is that I seem to be more environmentally aware lately. Maybe the current drought situation in some way has some influence, but environmental news appeal to me in a different way to before. Before, it only seemed to appeal to me as some good deeds about a bunch of people going around the world in a boat stopping Japanese killing whales; however now I feel that it is a concern to me, not that this means I'll have to hop onto that boat as well to stop people killing whales, but it makes me think what I should do in my part to help conserve an ailing world.
While in Genesis 1:26-28, we are told that God has given us 'dominion' over the world, it does not mean that we are free to use or abuse the creation as we see fit. We still have to rule the world according to God's will and purpose as all creation belongs to God. We are told that we are to 'work' God's creation and 'take care of it' (Gen 2:15).
Being environmentally aware is just one example in my transformation process to live more like Christ.
However, living like Christ does not mean to do good things like how some people perceive Jesus to be. That is not the main point of living like Christ. Living like Christ means that, with faith in God, we should live our lives in accordance to God's will, "... yet not my will, but yours be done." (Luke 22:42). We should not live for ourselves, but we should live for how God wants us to live.
Part of my personal transformation is that I seem to be more environmentally aware lately. Maybe the current drought situation in some way has some influence, but environmental news appeal to me in a different way to before. Before, it only seemed to appeal to me as some good deeds about a bunch of people going around the world in a boat stopping Japanese killing whales; however now I feel that it is a concern to me, not that this means I'll have to hop onto that boat as well to stop people killing whales, but it makes me think what I should do in my part to help conserve an ailing world.
While in Genesis 1:26-28, we are told that God has given us 'dominion' over the world, it does not mean that we are free to use or abuse the creation as we see fit. We still have to rule the world according to God's will and purpose as all creation belongs to God. We are told that we are to 'work' God's creation and 'take care of it' (Gen 2:15).
Being environmentally aware is just one example in my transformation process to live more like Christ.
Indeed an interesting post, in terms of the perspective taken.
God intends us to live responsibly in life and part of it includes being environmentally friendly. Though it was never explicitly quoted in the Bible, the whole mindset of being considerate to our future generations encompasses the concept of being more environmentally conscious.
In a way, in the affluent world that is today, wastage and selfishness goes hand in hand together. While we cannot avoid the criticism ourselves since we are living in the society where we are indeed quite well off and hence prone to being a bit wasteful, we should spare some time in thinking about the future generations.
Things we could probably do, as Ivan mentions, is to be more environmentally alert. This would definitely be something we need to put into action, rather than just say it.
Just settling down in Hong Kong myself at this moment, we come into the issue of purchasing furniture. Because I am quite certain that Hong Kong is not the place I plan to settle down with a family, I feel that it would be an important issue for me to think about when I buy furniture. If I do move, what should I do with it? Also, if I purchase a lot of miscellaneous items, clothes, etc., will I be throwing them away if I decide to leave HK? All these I do pray to God for guidance. Hopefully through my parents' counsel, I am able to play my part in living a more environmentally alert type of life...
Thanks for bringing this concept up, Ivan. Hope that we can all gain a lot from hearing each others' views...
YBIC,
Brian
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Anonymous |
4:09 am, December 18, 2004