Astronomical Grace
I recently watched a video where the preacher talked about how awesome and great was the creation of the universe. He showed pictures of the planets, galaxies, the sun; he wow-ed the crowd with stunning numbers of how long it would take to travel the whole span of just one light year. He silenced the audience into awe as we stared at the image of one tiny, pale blue dot in space in the far distance when the Hubble Space Telescope transmitted images back to earth.
That tiny blue dot is us. I can just use one of my pinky fingers, and I would have not just blotted, but swallowed the entire existence of the blue planet we call Earth.
How small we are in the eyes of God!
When we look at that blue planet, the interesting thing is it's a whole mass of blue and white. Out of the earth, we look upon this planet and realise that you can't see anything else. All the wars, fights, nations, traffic, people, animals, issues, law, order... You can't see any of those. Everything just looks uniform, blue and white. That's all.
We are that infinitely small in the eyes of God. Wow.
And out of that infinitely small, near to nothingness in the eyes of God... He decided to love us.
Who are we, that God should consider loving us, mankind? Sometimes we think, isn't the universe too big to only have one planet earth covered with living people? Maybe from our perspective it seems so.
But if the universe was made THAT big on purpose so that God could show His majesty, glory and awesomeness, then the universe would be just the right size for Him to be there for us to discover Him.
And again it hits me, that we are so small to Him, our solar system is but just a tiny dot on the Milky Way, and the Milky Way is but just one small galaxy in the known universe... let alone there is still the undiscovered Unknown Universe?
Wow.
How can we not see Him in this grand master piece of Creation?
But what is far more out of this universe is that God, the Creator of all the things we see around us and the higher heavens in outer space, He chose to do something unimaginable. The Creator stepped down onto earth - that tiny blue speck of dust - and died for all of us.
We receive His grace for our lives knowing that we are but just a speck of dust floating in space. We receive His grace knowing that it isn't by what we do, that we can impress Him so much that He has no choice but to save us. We are so small? No matter how big our achievements are, the biggest achievements on the face of the earth might need a magnifying glass to bring to His attention if he were looking at the speck that we are :p
And in knowing this, I am in awe just how much He has shown His love to me. Especially for the past months. His loving kindness. His mercy. His redeeming love. His standing up and defending me when enemies pressed around and demanded my life. So many moments where I realise just how unworthy I am at times when I am unfaithful.
But the point is, it's not about me.
It's all about Him.
The heavens declare the glory of the Lord.
And even the rocks cry out to praise Him.
When I realise it's all about Him and not me, I begin to see that those around me are loved equally by Him. Regardless of what we've done or not done, grace is God at work, when man has failed in accomplishing.
By my strength or weaknesses, I can never increase or decrease the love that God has for every human that He created into being. By my setbacks, it does not deter Him from loving me just the same and accepting me as His child. By my failures, He does not use it as an excuse to bring a list of "to-dos" in order to regain His favour and love.
No, I ain't good enough, but He still loves me :D
And somehow, may we ALL remember that Christmas celebrates the birth of Christ. We celebrate Christmas because that is the day when hope came into mankind. His death brought us back to life so that we may proclaim the good news to those who have yet to hear it for themselves.
God has given us that role, to preach the good news. To tell those who think they have no return that there is a return. It isn't by penitence, it isn't by remorse, but the return comes through forgiveness and love.
For love, hopes all things, believes all things.
Love keeps no accounts of wrong doings.
Love never parades itself.
Love is not selfish, it is patient; Love is kind
Love is not jealous
Love covers a multitude of sins
Understanding the concept of Love with your brain works easy. We think we've got it all figured out and one fine day, circumstances will come to test your heart if what was learnt earlier had become a living conviction in the deepest part of our lives.
Love can be tested, and only true love triumphs. That is the love that Christ gave on the Cross, and it triumphs over sin and temptation.
Merry Christmas.
