From The Heavens Devotional by Kevin Hartnett
Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it. – Hebrews 2:1 ESV
There are a thousand ways to spend our time. These days, with the convenience and extraordinary reach of the Internet, hours can evaporate while Web shopping, catching the news, or trying to stay in touch with others on our favorite social networking sites. There are myriad entertainment venues that call to us as well: movies, Web videos, video games, television shows, music, sports, arcades, and on and on. We’re so inundated with entertainment options that most of us probably don’t even know how many channels are on our televisions! While all these things have their place, God has given us far richer fare to engage our minds and spirits. Ultimately, our souls find their deepest satisfaction in knowing Him and relating to Him. But like every other activity, this takes pursuit and practice. It involves a commitment to study both the Lord and His works. We can find these both in His Word, but we can also learn much of Him by studying His works in nature.
And how much there is to study! Scientists could spend whole careers probing the intricacies of even one blade of grass. But nowhere are God’s amazing knowledge, creativity, and power more loudly proclaimed than in the heavens. Take, for instance, the beautiful and wondrous Eskimo Nebula pictured here. In small telescopes, it looks vaguely like a face surrounded by a fur hood, but clearer views reveal strangely shaped bubbles and filaments of high-velocity gases—emitted in some yet unknown sequence by the troubled central star. What delight there is in probing and exploring such things! Each and every object in the heavens is fantastic in so many astounding ways.
In much the same way, what delight there is in probing and exploring God’s mighty work of salvation. What mercy, love, faithfulness, grace, justice, righteousness, and peace are revealed at the Cross! It is surely to our detriment, as well as our family’s, to drift away from looking into and loving these things more deeply.
Oh, Lord God, keep us from lives so caught up in worldly things that we stray away from meditating, studying, and delighting in You and Your great works, amen.
Of old you laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. – Psalm 102:25 ESV
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