2/23/10
My Heavenly Father is a Mighty Big God!
I have really been enlightened of late concerning a “Get-out-a-here” thought, “God sent Jesus to die for my sin, but more importantly so He could adopt me as son.” God is my Father, my Daddy, my Abba! I am His son! When I really transition from head knowledge to HEART REALITY and OWNERSHIP of this fact--- it changes everything.
God is love! His love defines my relationship, not my efforts nor my striving for perfections. There are sometimes I make a 97 on God test, but if you were to look more closely you would see more grades like 47, 79, 62, 85, 37, 94……. I can be all over the place. I am so fickle, but God’s love never changes.
When my children were born, I immediately had unconditional love toward the beautiful 8lbs of flesh that was filled with my dna. My babies did NOTHING to earn my love in that moment. As they grow, even a flawed and imperfect father like me continued to love them even when they struggled in school. Never one time did I think, “One more failed exam and I am disowning you and removing your last name. You will no longer me my son or my daughter.” If I, being a sin-ridden father love with a degree of unconditional love, then who much more my heavenly Father who is perfect!
I could go on and on about this fresh revelation, but I will stop at this moment. Sorry, one last thing--- if this interest you then go to our media page and watch or listen to a sermon I preached on 2/21/10 “A Good Father”.
Okay, here is my real thought for the day. I recently overheard someone confessing their lack of trust of God. This is what I heard, “If I could just KNOW God could handle my stuff, then I believe I would more quickly release this stuff in prayer.”
I think I real problem is: We overestimate our capacity in EVERY area of life and vastly underestimate God’s abilities in EVERY area of being. We need to turn that paradigm upside down and think more clearly about God and ourselves.
We often think of God as a little more intelligent, powerful or wise than we are. This human centered view of God creates a small gulf between us and God. Conclusion-GOD IS NOTHING MORE THAN AN INFINITELY MAGNIFIED MAN. Therefore we struggle to trust God and also there is the loss of the “AWE” of God.
I want to give you a little food for thought that will hopefully enlarge your concept of the God of the universe who happens to be intimate enough to be God, our Father.
The vastness of the universe in context of Psalms 33: 6-9 (NLT) 6The LORD merely spoke, and the heavens were created. He breathed the word, and all the stars were born. 7 He gave the sea its boundaries and locked the oceans in vast reservoirs. 8 Let everyone in the world fear the LORD, and let everyone stand in awe of him. 9 For when he spoke, the world began! It appeared at his command.
Just look it up: Our galaxy (the Milky Way), is over 90,000 light years wide. This means if you were traveling at the speed of light (186,282 miles per second) it would take you 90,000 years to get from side to side. For you joggers, that’s a distance of over 500 million billion miles. Although our galaxy is incredibly huge, it is only a small spec in comparison to the rest of the universe. There are at least a 100 billion galaxies in the universe.
Most galaxies consist of 10 to 100 billion suns (stars). Our Milky Way, however, has over 200 billion stars and there are some galaxies that have over 50 trillion stars. When we look up at night and see the stars scattered throughout the sky, we usually think we are seeing the various stars scattered throughout the whole universe. In reality, though, we are only seeing the stars in our own galaxy; and even then it is only a small portion of them (about 3,000 stars).
God spoke and the worlds were created- fathom the power of God!
Let’s look inside the human body as well!
Psalm 139:13 You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother's womb. 14 Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous--and how well I know it. 15 You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion, as I was woven together in the dark of the womb. 16 You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.
Dr. John Medina, genetic engineer, of the University of Washington helps us to understand a bit of the intricacies of the human body. He said, “The average human heart pumps over 1,000 gallons a day, over 55 million gallons in a lifetime. This is enough to fill 13 super tankers. The heart never sleeps, beating 2.5 billion times in a lifetime. The lungs contain 1,000 miles of capillaries. The process of exchanging oxygen for carbon dioxide is so complicated, that it is more difficult to exchange 02 for C02 than for a man shot out of a cannon to carve the Lord’s Prayer on the head of a pin as he passes by.
DNA contains about 2,000 genes per chromosome — [nearly 6 feet] of DNA are folded into each cell nucleus. A nucleus is 6 microns [one millionth of a meter] long. This is like putting 30 miles of fishing line into a cherry pit. And it isn’t simply stuffed in. It is folded in. If folded one way, the cell becomes a skin cell. If another way, a liver cell, and so forth. To write out the information in one cell would take 300 volumes, each volume 500 pages thick. The human body contains enough DNA that if it were stretched out, it would circle the sun 260 times.”
Our God is worthy of awe and praise!
andy