Power - The big debate

All photos courtesy of Unsplash 

Power. We all use it in the form of electricity, gas, petrol, diesel and without these sources of power our lives could not go on. 

As the years have gone by mankind has devised more and more ways of finding power. It was in the last century that science developed nuclear power. Whether we are  talking about nuclear fission or nuclear fusion the numbers are immense and the energy released when matter is converted into pure energy is enormous. 

In 1945 the first of two atomic bombs was dropped on Japan. It was only then that the general public saw the incredible effect of nuclear fission. It was calculated that the blasts that levelled Hiroshima and Nagasaki each had an energy release equivalent to 10 million tons of TNT.

At the time one news report said these words “we have never seen anything to compare with this and hopefully we will never see it again.”

In actual fact we have seen something to compare with this everyday of our lives. The sun which shines in the sky is itself powered by nuclear reactions. Every SECOND the sun produces the same energy as one billion atomic bombs!

EVERY SECOND

Of course, our sun is not the only one in the sky. Every star that we see in the sky is a sun and some of them are immensely bigger than our sun. So how many stars are there? On a clear night we can see a few thousand stars with the naked eye, but what we can see is nothing compared to all the stars that there are throughout the expanse of the universe. It has been estimated - and this is only an estimate - that there are as many stars in the Sky as there are grains of sand throughout the whole world. So, the next time you were on the beach just pick up a handful of sand and let the grains run through your fingers.Then imagine that each one represents a star that is turning out the power of a billion atomic explosions every second. Then look down at the beach you are standing on and  try to count the grains in your mind. Then imagine all the beaches and all the deserts and then you begin to understand the power that is there in the universe. As we try to grasp this with our feeble minds we just begin to see the immensity of the power of God - the one who is omnipotent. 

So now just pause in that thought and look at John 1 v 14. There we read that “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”  

The Eternal God stepped into time and what a step it was. 

The Mighty God became a baby. The One who called out each star by name had to learn to talk. The One who walked among the galaxies had to learn to walk. The One who had need of nothing became dependant on His mother for everything. The One who was Lord of all became obedient to a teenage girl and as this baby grew into a man He experienced hunger, thirst, weariness, pain and all the things we knew. 

Why? He came to give His life for us so that we could know Him and be with Him for ever. Jesus Himself summed it up in His conversation with Nicodemus. For God so loved the world that He gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.

Written by Stephen Treseder for Messages with Meaning (31/10/21) & Your542Day