Happy Earth Day. I don't know, is that the proper greeting on Earth Day?

Revelation talks about the old earth and the old heaven passing away.

It might feel to many of us like that's happening during our generation, as it has been during many previous generations and may continue into who knows how many future generations.

Until this Earth 1.0 does pass away and get replaced by the New heaven and New earth, this is the one we've got.

If we're obedient to the one who made us, we don't just sit it out, using up this earth and waiting for the upgrade. We've been given a mandate by our creator:

• to be fruitful, in all that means as God has taught us throughout all of scripture - what are the outcomes?
• to multiply and fill the earth - how are we doing on that one, when will it be full?
• to rule over, have dominion over, have stewardship over, be in charge of Earth 1.0

And until we have a New Jerusalem (which by the way won't be anything like the Jerusalem we have now, the new one will be SO different that it will come down from heaven) how well are we caring for the Jerusalem we've got? It's a place of division, mistrust, injustice, anger, violence, and suffering. All this happens in the streets and hillsides surrounding the temples and churches and mosques in various parts of the city.

Blessed are the ones who advocate for fruitfulness, who fill the earth as they work for true and lasting peace in the hearts and hillsides of the old Jerusalem and throughout the rest of the Earth 1.0.

May God's kingdom come and will be done on earth today and tomorrow, just as it is in heaven.