Friday, May 16, 2008

TWG - May 16, 2008

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TWG - May 16, 2008
To Listen to Today’s Reading http://timewithgod.mypodcast.com
Exodus 2; Psalm 12; Matthew 16

Today is May 16, this is time with God, I’m Pastor Dennis - I’ve been waiting here for you. Welcome to our life transforming community. TWG is a complete turn of events, it is a 180 degree turn around. God is changing us and turning us around as a community. This is not business as usual, this is transforming, this is spiritual, this is essential.

Yesterday was all sunshine! What a beautiful day. I prepared the bulletin as usual, uploaded our Radio broadcast to the internet, worked on the Church Web Page a bit. There are a few new pages us. Little by little it is being revamped. And I spent some time on power point for Sunday’s services. I also mowed and watered the amphitheater. It is beginning to look pretty good. Last night I worked out and then at 7 pm, ran to the tennis courts where Shaphen and I played a few sets – Shaphen won the first set. Then we joined two of his friends and played doubles… we slaughtered them on the second set. And boy was it hot last night. We had all the windows open and the fan going and it was somewhat bearable. I put a picture of Waynes legs on the net. He is trying to do a temporary fix job of the fence in my back yard that we crushed when he cut down my walnut tree. It’s on the blog at timewithgod.mypodcast.com.

This week’s theme verse is Romans 1:19-20. What may be known about God is plain enough, because God has made it plain to them. 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.

Since the creation God’s Divine Nature has been clearly seen. The first Russian cosmonaut, Yuri Gagarin, was an atheist. After his jaunt into outer space he declared, "I did not see God up there." A 12-year-old girl in Sweden was troubled by the remark so she wrote him a letter. "Dear Cosmonaut Gagarin: I understand that you have flown in space and that you did not see God. Sir, I just want to ask you if you are pure in your heart?" She was repeating the words of Jesus who told us, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God." When we gaze out through the endless void of space, past billions of stars and planets where nothing exists except time, space and matter, what can we discover about God’s character? Maybe we need to do nothing more then turn around and view our home from afar, a tiny, lovely, and fragile "blue marble" hanging in the blackness of space. This little blue and green planet is one of a kind. As far as we know there is no other planet like it that can sustain life. From this we can conclude that we are unique and that even though God has a vast universe at his disposal, he chose to focus all his LOVE in one place: us! Zoom back in to any city or town and get a close up of any human. Compare humanity to any and every animal… loyal dogs, chattering monkeys, sleek dolphins, awesome whales… as beautiful as they are, again we are struck with the fact that we are a unique creation, a special creature. We can talk, think grand thoughts, even invent and build amazing things. And we can contemplate on spiritual things like God and heaven, something nothing else in vast universe can do. Our uniqueness tells us something about God’s Divine Nature. He loves us in a unique way! He has given us gifts that no one else has! But God didn’t just plant us on this little blue marble and then leave us on our own while he took a long trip through the blackness of space to the far side of the universe. On the contrary, He did something of universal importance. He walked among us. God walking on the Earth is more important than Man walking on the Moon. The cosmonaut may not have found God in outer space, yet God wants us to find him in such a bad way that he walked among us in our space. Another glimpse into God’s divine character: His love is almost desperate for us. It is a desperate love because we are in a desperate condition… we are truly lost without Him. So desperate is His love that he endured the mockery of man and paid the ultimate sacrifice to communicate His love to us. “For God SO LOVED the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him, should not perish but have everlasting life!”

Dear Loving Savior. I am grateful to learn that you love me. I see now that you always have. You have heaped all your love upon me. In all the vast universe, you chose to love a singular planet and a simple person like me. I am humbled by your love and attracted to it. I love you too.

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