Developing a Simple Life-Style - No 1 - Creation

Developing a Simple Life Style - Number 1 - Creation

A  new church in Cochabamba, Bolivia - many children present.

“Life” and “lifestyle” obviously belong together and cannot be separated. All Christians claim to have received a new life from Jesus Christ. What lifestyle, then, is appropriate for them? If the life’s new lifestyle should also be new but what are to be its characteristics exclamation?

In particular, how is it to be distinguished from the lifestyle of those who make no Christian profession?

And how should it reflect the challenges of the contemporary world – it’s alienation both from God and from the earth’s resources which he created for the enjoyment of all?

CREATION. We worship God as the Creator of all things, and we celebrate the goodness of his creation. In his generosity he has given us everything to enjoy, and we receive it from his hands with humble Thanksgiving (I Timothy 4:4, 6:17)

God’s creation is marked by rich abundance and diversity and he intends its resources to be husbanded and shared for the benefit of all. We therefore denounce environmental destruction, wastefulness and hoarding, we deplore the misery of the poor who suffer as a result of these evils we also disagree with the drabness of the ascetic for all these deny the creator’s goodness and reflect the tragedy of the fall we recognize our own involvement in them and we repent.
 

(This quote, the first of 10 posts, is from Developing a Simple Life-Style, a conference with 85 evangelical leaders from 27 countries at High Leigh Conference Center, London, England March 17-21, 1980)