The Wonder of the Season

I saw a video clip recently explaining how vast the universe is. It went into great detail about the sun, stars and planets, as well as our milky way in relation to the rest of the known universe. It made my mind boggle to think that God simply spoke it all into being. Psalm 33:9 says, ‘For He spoke, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast’.

Our own Milky Way galaxy has an estimated 100 billion stars, and there are an estimated 100 billion more galaxies like ours beyond us in deep space. Earth is really small in relation to the size of the sun, which is considered to be a very average sized star. Over a million earths would fit inside the sun, yet the sun is dwarfed by the magnitude of Arcturus, the fourth brightest star in the night sky, two hundred trillion miles from earth, yet visible with the naked eye. It has a radius twenty times greater than that of our sun.

It puts into perspective for me the absolute wonder of Jesus’ birth. God, the creator of the earth the stars and the galaxies, the One who simply spoke it all into being, sent His Son, Jesus, the Word, to become flesh, and live among us. He left the glory of Heaven and exchanged it for the reality of this minute, dusty planet, all because He loved us. And He chose to create us in His image. Even though we’re fallible, sinful, fragile people, we bear the image of our magnificent Creator. We carry His very presence within us, because Jesus came to redeem us, and to clothe us with His glory.

I’ve been challenged, over the recent Christmas season, to bear in mind the absolute wonder of the birth of Jesus. The One who holds the stars in place, the One who even knows them all by name, knows me by name, and made a way for me, through Jesus, to be in relationship with Him. Our magnificent, incomparable and immeasurable God gave without measure, because He loved me. ‘For God so greatly loved and dearly prized the world that He [even] gave up His only begotten (unique) Son, so that whoever believes in (trusts in, clings to, relies on) Him shall not perish (come to destruction, be lost) but have eternal (everlasting) life’ (John 3:16, Amplified).

Prayer: Lord Jesus, I stand in awe of Your amazing love. Thank You that You, as our Creator, were willing to humble Yourself to bring redemption to us and to reconcile us to Yourself, and to become ‘Immanuel, God with us’. I love You Lord. Amen.