It's All His (Psalm 24:1)

"The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it." (NIV)

The other day I read a blog from a mom who is raising a toddler. She had taken her young son to the park along with some of his toys. Some other boys wanted to play with the toys and the mom was teaching her son that it was okay not to share with others; the toys were his and he had the right to decide what was going to happen to them. I thought of that this morning as I read this psalm, not because I agree or disagree with this mom’s view, but because of what verse 1 says.

This world, this creation, is God’s. He created it, all of it. And because He is Creator, He owns it. He owns all of it. He owns the planet, the dirt, the sky, the oceans, the plants and animals and . . . us! He even created time, all the laws that govern how this creation works, and the accompanying universes that surround us. He made it; He owns it. It’s all His and by every law and right imaginable, He gets to decide what happens in it.

How did things get so terribly turned around? How did it come to be that we believe somehow that we can own anything (including ourselves)? To understand this dreadful turn of events, we have to go back to the beginning, to the time just after God created human beings. In Genesis 1, beginning with verse 28, God gave authority of this earth to human beings. He gave them rulership over all animals (v. 28) and rulership over all plants (v. 29).

It was at that point that Adam and Eve were given this world as theirs, to do with as they wanted. They had free and complete rulership of this part of creation. And unfortunately, because they were given complete rulership, they also had the right to give that rulership to anyone else. When they chose to disdain God’s one law ("Don’t eat the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil") and did what Satan told them to do, they voluntarily subjected themselves under Satan’s control and he became the ruler of this earth.

But rulership and ownership are two different things. If I buy a house and then rent it to someone, the renters are legally given certain rights under the contract. They can live in the house full time. They can live there with their family, entertain their friends, bring into the house their possessions. They are legally allowed to make my house their home. But the house still belongs to me. I have the ultimate right to decide what belongs to that house.

It’s even more so with creation. God not only owns this earth and everything in it by right of creation, He bought back rulership when the Lord Jesus was murdered at Calvary. When the Roman government, in collusion with Satan, sentenced an innocent Jesus to death, Satan legally became a murderer. And as a murderer, he forfeited any and all rights to rule here. God took back what was His all along and He took it back, not forcefully (as He could have), but legally. He bought back what humans had willingly given away. This is why the apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 6:19-20: "You are not your own; you were bought at a price."

God owns everything. He delegated rulership to humans who gave it willingly to Satan. The Lord Jesus bought it all back with His precious blood. We belong to God twice over, once because of creation and again because of redemption.

His playground. His stuff. His rules.

Do we act like God owns us? Do we act like God owns that next minute, that next decision, that next situation? Do we trust Him to do what is best with what He already owns?

It’s kind of hilarious, how we act all big and stuff, like we can control anything! It reminds me of one of (the very few) jokes I know:

One day a group of scientists got together and decided that man had come a long way and no longer needed God. They picked one scientist to go and tell Him that they were done with Him. The scientist walked up to God and said, "God, we've decided that we no longer need you. We're to the point that we can clone people and do many miraculous things, so why don't you just go on and get lost."

God listened patiently and kindly to the man and, after the scientist was done talking, God said, "Very well! How about this? Let's have a man-making contest."

To which the man replied, "OK, great!"

But God added, "Now we're going to do this just like I did back in the old days with Adam."

The scientist said, "Sure, no problem" and bent down and grabbed himself a handful of dirt.

God just looked at him and said, "No, no, no. You go get your own dirt!"
"The earth is the Lord, and everything in it!" It belongs to Him because He made it. It belongs to Him again because He redeemed it. It all belongs to Him. When will we start asking like it’s His and He gets to do what He wants with it?

© 2017 Robin L. O’Hare. All rights reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.