BE IN AWE OF THE LIMITLESS NATURE OF GOD

God created the oceans and the mountains to be just as they are.

DEVOTIONAL READING
Statement from "The Songs of Jesus" by Tim Keller and Kathy Keller, page 258 - "Psalm 104:5-9, He set the earth on its foundations, so that it should never be moved. You covered it with the deep as with a garment; the waters stood above the mountains. At your rebuke they fled; at the sound of your thunder they took to flight. The mountains rose, the valleys sank down to the place that you appointed for them. You set a boundary that they may not pass, so that they might not again cover the earth. - You Set A Boundary They Cannot Cross, The psalmist is meditating on creations third day (Genesis 1:9-10), when God divided the sea from the dry land (verses 7-8). Science is based on the regularity of nature - that if X creates Y under certain conditions, it will do so again under identical conditions. But why should nature be regular? It is because we don't live in a completely random, chaotic world but one with set "boundaries" (verse 9). A personal Creator has filled the world with the principles of physics, mathematics, chemistry, biology, and the like. Because of this we have aerodynamics (making flight possible), electricity, medicine - all harnessing a host of givens and limitations embedded in creation that have made civilization possible. Thank God for them all."

The Day God Created Us and Our Fall to Unrighteousness, Ezekiel 28, Verses 12-15 - You had the seal of perfection, Full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God; Every precious stone was your covering: The ruby, the topaz and the diamond; The beryl, the onyx and the jasper; The lapis lazuli, the turquoise and the emerald; And the gold, the workmanship of your settings and sockets, Was in you. On the day that you were created They were prepared. You were the anointed cherub who covers, And I placed you there. You were on the holy mountain of God; You walked in the midst of the stones of fire. You were blameless in your ways From the day you were created Until unrighteousness was found in you.

Hebrews 9, Verse 14 - How much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?
Revelations 1, Verse 8 - "I am the Alpha and the Omega," says the Lord God, "who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty."
Hebrews 13, Verse 8 - Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.
John 8, Verse 58 - Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am."

Excerpt from song, "I Hope You Dance" by Lee Ann Womack - "I hope you still feel small when you stand beside the ocean. Whenever one door closes I hope one more opens. Promise me that you'll give faith a fighting chance. And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance, I hope you dance."

DEVOTIONAL MESSAGE
My husband invited me outside this morning to show me a spider and her web. It was amazing. It was much larger than our body sizes together, intricately made, and grounded to a few branches and a couple of plants on the ground. And so we stood there in awe and traced it out. Humans are even more so amazing in their seemingly limitless abilities.

Decisions of War or Peace

Scientific Observation

Harnessing Power

Engineering & Construction

Creating Art

Taming Fire

The pictures above show man's activities in reaching towards the sky, so to speak. 
Bounded by God's laws, man whittles within. ​How powerful and perfect are God's laws!

But yet man is limited, and God is limitless. God created man and the spider both - compare that to what we create. God authors life and death, the stuff war and peace is made of. God authors beauty and scientific principles, so that we may harness power and create art. We also observe the microscopic world, even spending billions on collider experiments like CERN. Yet, God authors the entire universe and defines the way it must operate in reality, even at the tiniest sizes. Men have been inspired to complete huge feats of engineering and construction, but it pales in comparison to the mountains, oceans and millions of natural lifeforms on our planet. Since the beginning of man's history, man has been obsessing with the taming of fire for sustainable living. Today we have tamed fire into tiny wires for electricity, and a variety of resources are used to harness energy to deliver it in tiny packets to people across the globe. God is not only the author of fire, but He created light, and the sun shines on our earth because God said it should be so. And so our God is an awesome and powerful God. We are only as great as a lightbulb, compared to God's invention of the sun. Yet we created the lightbulb with gusto because we are made in our Lord's image. Our God is an awesome God.

We often look at nature and say, "nature is wild and free," but nature has a blueprint, it follows laws. I believe God to be the author of that blueprint - a.k.a. God's laws. I believe God works both within His own blueprint and outside of it. For sure, He was outside of the blueprint before he laid its foundation. Humans as part of nature have to follow these laws.  We are part of a blueprint.

History, the present, and what is to come, was put into motion from the very beginning as part of God's design. We can therefore, stand in awe of the words in our Bibles and the characters who wrote them. These words were inspired by God directly through the blueprint of prophesy. It says the Son of God, the Father, and the Spirit exist for the duration of history - eternally. Jesus is our eternal priest. The Father is steadfast and never-changing. The Spirit works upon the heart of every one of God's children. All of this has been revealed to mankind. And we are to have a relationship with Him, He who is the Perfect Creator, He who is limitless in Power.

DEVOTIONAL PRAYER
Dear Father, I am reminded of the song "I Hope You Dance" today. In that song, it reminds us to feel "small when you stand beside the ocean", and to "give faith a fighting chance". It is because I feel small compared to Your creation that I can be in awe of it and have faith. The even smaller spider I saw this morning was a gentle reminder of Your great works. Even in the city, surrounded by the inventions of mankind, I have been reminded of Your creation, and of our limitations compared to Yours. It is because we are in Your image that we strive to create. I pray that we are responsible with what we go about making, and how we use natural resources. It seems in our delusional beliefs of randomness, chaos and relative morality, we find ourselves experimenting and pushing beyond healthy limits. We face challenges in nuclear physics and biogenetic engineering; we face moral challenges on every front. We must tend to what seems a small deal because You are a big deal and we need to respect Your laws. In the name of the One who is eternal in three-persons - Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.