Tag: amazing love

What’s the Smallest Thing You Can Think of?

Sunday sermon 6.5.21

Think for a moment, what is the smallest thing that you can think of?

An ant, bacteria, atom?

What’s the largest thing? Go ahead, think it through.

Our sun, our galaxy, something else?

Now, please, think about you, all of you, (que up John Legend singing “All of Me”) your insides, your brain, mind, emotions. Your curves and all your edges…. 🙂

For fact seeking readers, the smallest thing that we (the smart scientist people “we”) know of are Quarks.

Quarks, the building blocks of matter are a billionth of a billionth of a centimeter in diameter. But if you zoom in a billion times more, where units run out of names and keep going 100 million times smaller still – you finally hit bottom. This is where you will find The Planck length; approximately 1.6 x 10 to the negative 35 meters. THIS is the smallest possible length in the universe. The Planck length.

Our brains can’t comprehend these sizes, we overload with the enormity of the smallness.

On the other side- the largest known object in the universe is Hercules-Corona Borealis Great Wall. This is a galactic filament, which is a vast cluster of galaxies bound together by gravity. This guy is a mere 10 billion light years across! Talk about Hercules??!!

Again, our brains explode even trying to comprehend 1 light year, right? But 10 billion of them? Owwie.

Now on to you, my dear. Your physical body with its 11 finely tuned organ systems, 724 trillion cells, 86-100 billion neurons, and about 1 gallon of blood works mostly perfectly almost every day. Consider too your soul, spirit, mind- those intangible parts of you that make you who you are every bit as much as your physical packaging, probably even more.

From the smallest part of you to the largest part of you; from the Planck length to Hercules… Great Wall, where did it all come from?

Ephesians 1.18-19 says, “That the eyes of your understanding may be enlightened to know the immeasurable greatness of God’s power.”

We could say it this way- that our eyes would be open to fully understand God’s OMNIPOTENCE.

Omnipotence- all powerful. That describes the creator of the universe.

Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.”

Genesis 1:27, “God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; make and female he created them.”

Omnipotence. All powerful.

God saw to every detail of the Planck length, Hercules… and YOU, created it and called it forth at creation. He is omnipotent. Nothing to small for his attention nothing too big.

And yet, He is so much more.

He is Omnibeneveleant, which means he is all loving. 1 John 4:8, “God IS love”.

Psalm 86:15, “You, God are a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness.” God’s love never runs out on us and He keeps no record of our failings. His love for us is eternal and unrestrained.

He is Omniscient, too! That means he is all knowing. He knows everything, about everything and everyone, including me and you. There’s nothing he has yet to learn or uncover or discover. He already knows about it all, from the smallest to the largest. He knows inside you, inside me, inside the galaxy, inside the known and unknown universe . He knows it all.

And to top it all off, he is Omnipresent. God is literally everywhere. He is all present all the time! He is the great I AM. Not I was, or I will be, but I am. I am present, I am now. I am everywhere, present.

Psalm 139 asks where can we run from His presence or where can we hide. If we go up to Hercules in that galaxy cluster, he’s there. If we go down, into that smallest quark and even into the Planck length, he is there, too.

But my friend, as wonderful and grandiose each of this qualities of our God is, hear this…

“ When our hearts make us feel guilty and remind us of our failures, we know that GOD IS MUCH GREATER and more merciful than our conscience and he knows everything there is to know about us.”

1 John 3:20

Dear one, when our conscience accuses us, and holds us to task; when our memory is only of our failure and shortcomings, God knows already AND HE IS GREATER and more merciful than our conscience. He loves, He is compassionate, He is gracious, He abounds in love for you.

He is with you and nothing you do will drive him away.

His power is more than you need in every situation of your life and heart, and he stands within your reach whenever you call out for him.

How could this omnipotent, omnipresent, omnibeneveleant, omniscient God take notice of me, care to assist me, love me, empower me? He manages the smallest measurements of the Planck and beyond the Hercules Borealis, yet he loves me!

Incomprehensible, unbelievable, head shaking awe… never forget who he is and how he cares for the smallest thing that you can think of.

Go with God.

Debbie

Lavish love

When was the last time you were overwhelmed by someone’s generous, extravagant, elaborate, luxurious love? I mean truly blown away, melted, in awe, mouth open, stunned and head shaking in unbelievable amazement?

Think for a moment.

Can you relate to having love lavished on you in such an astonishing way?

To help us visualize this type of love, imagine a young person with a red, solo cup in hand saying, “Yes, I want it all, I’m ready. Here, fill me up”, and extending the red, solo cup to receive it all.

puny, red, solo cup

In response, comes a deluge from the skies totally engulfing the youngster, drenching him, filling the cup, overflowing the cup, and moistening everything in the youngster’s life with this lavish and extravagant outpouring. He/she was overwhelmed. Lavished. Unable to contain it all. The red, solo cup mentality was far too small for what rich, generous and abundant outpouring was available and coming.

There are two applications that I have recently seen in regards to this.

First, we are loved waaaaay more than our puny minds can fathom! God’s love for us is generous, excessive, abundant, beyond what we can imagine, rich, poured out without measure, indescribable!

His love reaches to the heavens, his faithfulness to the skies, righteousness to the mountains, justice to the great deep, is priceless and is a river of delights. (Psalm 36)

He gives generously to all without finding fault. (Jas. 1:5)

No one has seen or heard what God has prepared for those who love him. (1 Cor. 2:9)

We are unable to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ for us. (Eph. 3:18)

1 John 3:1 – Look with wonder at the depth of the Father’s love that he has lavished on us!

We are the one holding that red, solo cup, unable to hold the depth of the outpouring of his love for us.

His love for you is overwhelming. Beyond what the red, solo cup mind can hold or understand. Bask in the deluge of his love, let him drench you and moisten everything in your life. Receive his lavish love.

Last point worth making is this – God is generous, He is not tight fisted.

Just look at the natural world for a glimpse of his generosity:

  • There are 25,000 varieties of orchids
  • Orchids are 1 of 270,000 species of flowers
  • The galaxy has 100,000 million stars like our sun
  • Our galaxy is 1 of 100,000 million galaxies
  • The estimated number of sand on the Earth is 7.5 x 10 to the 18th power
  • Sand in the universe = 10 to the 63rd power
  • Atoms in the universe = 10 to the 80th power
  • Even though there are over 70 thousand, million, million, million stars in the universe there are
  • that same number of molecules in just 10 drops of water
  • YES! There are more water molecules in the universe than stars.

God is generous. Unfathomable. Beyond our understanding. No eye has seen nor ear heard what God has prepared for all who love him. Amazing!

Yet, he willingly pours out on us his love, grace, faith, knowledge and all we need. He willingly lavishes his love on us.

The unfathomable God has lavished his love and provision on you. Live in the deluge, dance in that deluge, be refreshed in that deluge and throw away that puny, red solo cup.

Cheers to you