Evidence All Around

'For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities - His eternal power and divine nature - have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither glorified Him as God nor gave thanks to Him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.'

As I lay in bed this morning, I was wondering what it would be like to think that God doesn't exist. It was probably the birds singing outside the window that awakened me in the first place. I felt and heard Lionel next to me, purring, and although the sun had not yet risen, the sky was getting lighter and I saw the pine boughs moving gently in the breeze. 

My plants on the window seat were still green and growing, my brain, heart, and lungs kept working during the night so that my body could stay alive and even heal a cut on my finger. Something outside the window caught my eye when the sky became lighter, and I saw a crane flying effortlessly over our cornfield on its way to the pond behind my friend Debbie's house, no doubt.

All of that was in the first few seconds after I awakened. Evidence of God is everywhere around me - and then I remember that this magnificent creation is only the fallen world we're looking at, the sinful world, not the perfect world as God created it.

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' Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God has prepared for them that love him.' 

In other words, we can't even imagine what God has in store for those of us who love Him.

So, 

'...let us lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.'

It's easy to be discouraged by the sinfulness of the world we live in. Stand firm. 'Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.'


Texts are from I Corinthians chapter 2, Romans chapter 1, and Hebrews, chapters 11 and 12.