ODJ: Lord of the Cosmos

April 18, 2017 

READ: Colossians 1:15-20 

He existed before anything else, and he holds all creation together (v.17).

As you read this, the moon is circling the earth at 2,300 miles per hour. Even at that speed, it will take it nearly a month to make a full rotation. Meanwhile, nearly a month to make a full rotation. Meanwhile, despite circling the sun at 66,000 miles per hour, the earth will take a whole year to make one orbit. And our sun is just one of 200 million other suns spinning around the Milky Way at 483,000 miles per hour—a speed which necessitates 225 million years to circle around once. And the Milky Way is but one of 100 billion other galaxies shooting through space at over 1 million miles an hour. The universe is immense!

In Scripture, the vastness of the universe is said to reflect God’s own grandeur. It is He who stretched out the stars of heaven, covered the earth with the seas and made the mountains rise (Psalm 104:1-9). “Through everything God made,” Paul says, “[we] can clearly see his invisible qualities— his eternal power and divine nature” (Romans 1:20). Modern telescopes help us see God’s power and divinity—not just in our earth and sky, but in faraway galaxies too.

Paul knew nothing of the universe being 100 billion galaxies large, but consider these inspired words he wrote about Jesus. “He made the things we can see and the things we can’t see” (Colossians 1:16)—including not only “kingdoms, rulers and authorities in the unseen world,” but everything in the cosmos. All those luminous galaxies were made by and for the divine Creator Jesus, and He holds them all together in His hands (v.17).

This is mind-boggling! The One who walked this earth two millennia ago is the same One who keeps the galaxies spinning like carousels. Jesus isn’t just the Lord of you or me. He’s the Lord of the cosmos.

—Sheridan Voysey

365-day plan: 1 Kings 17:1-24