Theme: Freedom comes in knowing the God we serve.
Human skin is not skin deep. It is among the body’s most complex organs. Of its three main layers, only the paper-thin epidermis is usually visible. Beneath the epidermis is the dermis and subdermis. In one square inch of skin, you will find: 20 blood vessels, 65 hairs and muscles, 78 nerves, 78 sensors for heat, 13 for cold, 160-165 sensors for pressure, 100 sebaceous glands, 650 sweat glands, 1,300 nerve endings, and 19,500,000 cells. The sweat glands serve double duty, helping to eliminate waste and cooling our bodies. On a hot day the skin can release up to 2,500 calories of heat.
This is just one organ of our bodies. How precise and perfectly are we knitted together?
At the same time, our home, Earth, Is 93 million miles from our Sun. The Sun produces more energy each second than every human being would use in 2 or 3 years. If we were just 90 million miles from the Sun, the Earth would be a burning desert, and if we were just 3 million miles further, our planet would be a frozen rock.
Our home, Earth, is tilted precisely at 23.5 degrees. If it were not, we would not have seasons and half of our world would be in constant heat, while half would be always away from our Sun.
This Earth is spinning at 1,000 miles an hour, while traveling around the sun at 66,000 miles per hour. But that is not all. Our sun and the planets within our solar system are traveling around the center of our Milky Way Galaxy at an astounding average of 828,000 miles an hour. One orbit, scientists calculate, will take 230 million years.
What are the chances that, randomly, any planet in this universe, hurtling through space, would align a perfect distance from the energy source, have the perfect tilt, and have all of the ingredients to sustain life? The answer: 1 in 10 to the 282 power. Essentially, it could only happen by the hands of the God we worship.
This is the greatness of of our God, as Josh pointed out this past Sunday. He is the God praised in Psalm 147. The God, our God, who knows the number and names of all the stars in the sky, and yet focuses down on bringing rain, feeding the beasts of the field, and yet sets nerves in my skin to sense pressure, and hot and cold.
He created and sustains the universe, the cosmos, while carefully knitting and sustaining our bodies. Who else could do this all with such precision, care, and perfection? And, in His plan, one day the scar of sin will be removed, revealing the complete perfection of His handwork.
Our God of infinity and time, of eternity and now, of light years and this year, and of the cosmos and you and me.
And this God is the same God Paul spoke of in Romans 5:8, “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
This God who is the author and director of all life, all we see and know, and all we cannot see nor understand, is the same God who loves each of us so much that He became man in order to be our substitute and to take on the wrath we deserved, thus, in turn, giving us His righteousness. Justice and Justifier in one.
No wonder the Psalmist bracketed Psalm 147 with the command, “PRAISE THE LORD.”
Scripture: Job 37:5 (NIV); Hebrews 1:1-4 (NIV)
“God’s voice thunders in marvelous ways; he does great things beyond our understanding.”
“In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven. So, he became as much superior to the angels as the name he has inherited is superior to theirs.”
Prayer:
Oh Lord our God, can we ever understand your greatness? Will we, one day, know the boundless vastness of who you are? By your word the universe came into being, and by your word all we are and all that surrounds us is sustained. Lord, open our eyes to what you have done; how marvelously we were knitted in our mother’s womb, while you also called into existence an endless, yet perfectly placed cosmos. And still, you who created all, loved each of us so much that you became one with us, in order that we could be reconciled to you. Lord, let my mind grasp as much of this as possible, and let me never lose the awe in who you are and plant in me the desire to see you more clearly each day. In Christ’s name, Amen!
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