Thursday, March 16, 2017

Creation Perspective

Thursday, March 16, 2017
Christ is the visible image of the invisible God.  He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation, for through him God created everything
in the heavenly realms and on earth.  He made the things we can see and the things we can’t see—such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen world.  Everything was created through him and for him.  He existed before anything else, and he holds all creation together.  Colossians 1:15-17(NLT)

Every time I read this passage I feel like the mouse that crossed the old wooden bridge riding on the back of his best friend, the elephant.  When they got to the other side the mouse turned and looked at the old wooden structure swaying under the tremendous weight that had just stretched its aging timbers and said to the elephant:  Wow…we really shook that old bridge.  The elephant looked at the mouse on his shoulder, smiled and replied:  Oh, I’d forgotten you were up there.

I’m not a skilled enough mathematician to calculate the percentage weight, mass and total impact a half-ounce moving mouse might create on a wooden bridge, but I suspect it is somewhat insignificant compared to a 6½ ton African elephant!

When it comes to the creation of the universe and all it holds, humans have been investigating the cosmos and its magnitude, as well as the atom and all its power for generations.  We are only beginning to scratch the surface.  And yet Holy Scripture tells us God created all of it simply by speaking it into existence.  Much has been said about the power of the pen and sword; consider His word!

Jesus is the Father’s image to us, existing before we could see him in a cattle feeder; He existed before anything else, and was/is the creator of all we can see and that which is still hidden.

By Christ God created with His will and word a universe.  We can only see with our toy telescopes (like the Hubble[ii]) about 15 billion light years’ travel into space.  Considering light travels about 6-trillion miles in one year (that’s a 6 with 9 zeroes), so to find out just how many miles from earth we can now see, multiply 15,000,000,000,000 by 6,000,000,000 (= 90 with 21 more zeroes). 
Now add one more thing:  the universe is expanding at a rate of about 46 miles +/- every second[iii]!  In the five minutes or so it took you to read this our universe got bigger by about half the circumference of the earth!
That’s God’s backyard…He created it in less than a week…without a backhoe and dump trucks!
By comparison I have a half-acre I’ve been working on landscaping for 17 years, and it’s far from done.  And I’m not increasing; I’m slowing down!
So, now you know why I feel like a half-ounce mouse on a 13,000lb elephant.  God is so vast it hurts my head to even consider His immensity.  It is no wonder God told Moses to get in the cleft of the rock when God passed by; there’s no way you can take in God’s presence and survive!
And it all comes down to this:

He came to love us, and we hung Him on a cross because we felt threatened.

For You Today

Paul wrote that Jesus is holding all of the creation together. 
You do know that includes you…don’t you?
You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road…have a blessed day!
NOTES

Title image: [Elephant] By Loadmaster (David R. Tribble), via Wikimedia Commons, [Mouse} By Vojtech.dostal, via Wikimedia Commons

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