How Great is Our God!

Sometimes, in the business and complications of life, it is good to sit back and consider just how big our God is and how small we are. We are prone to get our thinking all backwards. We think, for example, about the vast size of the earth. Consider this- NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, launched in 2003, is currently 66 million miles from Earth in orbit around the sun. The telescope enabled scientist recently to discover a nearly invisible ring around Saturn. So, what is so great about a ring around Saturn? The answer is in the question- it is great (in size) beyond belief. According to scientist, the ring starts about 3.7 million miles away from the planet and goes out another 7.4 million miles. Scientists say the volume is so enormous that it would take about one billion Earths stacked together to fill the ring. That’s big!

Be reminded and be encouraged that our God is great. The universe is enormous. As Psalm 19:1 reminds us, “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.” He created this massive universe so big that even today with our advanced technology- i.e. NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope-we are still discovering how vast it is. But- in spite of its vastness- He knows you and me! In fact, He knows, according to Matthew 10:30, the number of hairs on our head! He knows the details of our lives. He knows what we are going through.
Take heart friend, your problems may seem big but God is greater. Remember, we are still learning of how great He is.

Are You Growing?

We are truly excited about having our first grandson. With his living eight hours away, we had not seen him since he was a week old until last weekend. It was amazing to see how much he had grown. He had doubled his birth weight and is starting to smile. Our time together went by so fast but we are already looking forward to the next time we see him. I fully anticipate that the next time we see him we will see yet more growth and more personality.


What if that were true of Christians? What if those who have not seen us in a while could notice how much we had grown? What if they could see our joy in Christ? What if they looked forward to seeing us because they knew they would see that we were growing up in Christ? Why does growth seem, dare I say, almost absent in many of our lives? Babies grow if they are healthy. Christians should grow. Besides not growing, many that profess Christ are not vitally connected to the church. Some estimates say that up to 61% of those in their twenties that were involved in church in the teenage years are spiritually disengaged. It kind of makes you wonder, does it not?

I am sure there are many reasons for the lack of growth among so many of us, but this much I know- a healthy Christian will grow. But, just as a baby must have a healthy mother from which to nurse, so a Christian needs to be joined to a healthy body. Do you see this? Could the reason that so few are growing have to do with the health of those of us in the church that have been on the journey a while? As a pastor, I am more and more inclined to believe that when we have a “birth” that the nourishment provided comes from a body that is not all that healthy. It might be worth thinking about- am I growing? Am I spiritually healthy enough to nourish another? If not, why?

Just as I want to see my grandson growing and am excited to observe his progress so far, as a pastor, I want to be growing and I want to see others doing the same. By the way, how spiritually healthy do you believe you are right now? Give it some thought. I am!