God is powerful. I mean really powerful. In fact, the power of God is something that we cannot really comprehend. Just when we think we’ve got some kind of handle on it, something new is revealed and our minds are blown again.
Sometime last spring, I stumbled across what is perhaps, in my opinion, one of the greatest sermons of all time. It was given by a preacher with the name of S.M. Lockridge in the early 1980’s out of Calvary Baptist Church in San Diego, California. I think it’s only an excerpt (click here to listen on YouTube), but it sure is impactful.
Anyway, a major theme that runs through this message is one that I needed – and continue to need – to hear. You see, Lockridge quotes many Bible verses throughout this 14-minute long video. He visits the Old Testament, where he references Psalms and Isaiah. He also visits the New Testament, quoting from Matthew, Revelation, and Mark. And all throughout these verses, he is proclaiming a message of great consequence….
God is powerful. All powerful.
He is so great, so far above us in every way, that we cannot even begin to comprehend His outstanding glory and might. He is to us as the sun is to a speck of dust.
Just think about that for a moment.
Genesis 1 tells us that He created the world in seven days. A huge ball of rock, metal, soil, and water, weighing in at a combined 13,170,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 pounds, and He just snapped His fingers and it appeared! By contrast, the biggest structures in human history took decades, even centuries, to build. If we were to unite today as a species and direct all our efforts into constructing the biggest thing ever, we couldn’t build in a century what God did in a split second.
But our Creator didn’t stop there.
While He was forming the earth and separating out its seas and continents, He also created the entire universe. Now the universe is an unfathomably huge place – it’s so wide, our most powerful telescopes cannot see to its end. Light is the fastest thing known to science, and it takes 4 years to travel to earth from the nearest star aside from the sun. It’s estimated that the light from the edge of the observable universe would have to travel for over 12 billion years before reaching us.
Yet God created it all with the gesture of His hand. It takes the fastest thing in the universe an unimaginable amount of time to cross it, yet God just pointed his finger and said, “let it exist!” And it obeyed. Atoms popped into being, energy formed, stars and planets and solar systems came to be. He spoke, and it was so. The great nothingness obeyed Him at His word.
He is extraordinary, and worthy of all praise simply on the nature of who He is.
Now, here’s where things get even more mind-bending: that same God who made the earth also made you and me. The same God who can think an entire planet into existence knitted you together in your mother’s womb. He knew how all your days would turn out before they ever came to pass. And furthermore, although we are all sinners, this God gave us His only Son. He sent Christ to come, live a perfect life, and then die on the cross so that we would be justified and made alive in Him. The God who made the sun, the moon, the earth and the stars… He also made you. He lived for you, died for you, and arose once more for you.
Is that incredible or what?
Here in this world, we’d be absolutely shocked if the president, the prime minister, the king or the queen – whoever our leader is, wherever we live – came up to us, addressed us by name, and offered to take us out to dinner. We’d be shell-shocked. Beyond stunned.
Yet what many of us fail to realize – and I myself used to be one of them – is that we do have a King who knows us. We have a King who cares about us. We have a King who laid down His very life on Calvary so that we could live forever with Him.
That King is Jesus Christ.
That King has supremacy over all creation. It says in Colossians 1:15-17,
“The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”
Yes, all things hold together in Him. The stars shine because of Him – He is the one who allows them to go on doing so. If Christ gave the word, the sun would suddenly cease to give its light. If He gave the word, water would flow uphill. If He gave the word, the planets would fly out of their orbits and careen into the blackness of outer space.
All things, everything that ever has been or will be, hold together in Him. And that same Christ desires a relationship with you.
He desires you to lay down your life and come to Him, surrendering all you are to all He is. He is Lord, and He is Savior. He is Friend, and He is King. He is everything, or He is nothing. He gives life, and without Him there is none.
He calls to you. Will you answer?
For the Christian, will you answer His call to keep up the fight? Temptation is powerful. We all make mistakes: I have made them, you have made them. Our adversary, the devil, is always working against us. He’s warring for our joy, for our very life, and he is seeking whom he may devour. Do not let him devour you. Hold strong to the Lord, serving Him with a willing heart, no matter what you’ve done or how far you’ve slid. God is powerful enough to deliver you and set you upright. If He spoke the universe into being, imagine what He can do with your life if you’ll let Him.
Now, to the one who does not believe, will you answer His call in your heart? You can fill that emptiness within you with a lot of things. You can fill it with drugs; you can fill it with money. You can fill it with relationships, or even volunteer work. You can fill it with a career, or with achievement.
But it’ll never be enough.
Only Jesus Christ is sufficient. Only He can truly fill you with light and with love, with peace and contentment.
Come to Him. For He says, “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” (John 10:10). Lay down your life, surrender to Him, and know true peace, joy, and contentment forevermore.