UNIQUE
1 Peter 5:6-7
"Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time: Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you."
Every second, our sun casts energy equaling over four-and-a-half million horsepower on every square mile of earth. Yet the earth receives less than one-tenth of one percent of the sun's energy.
Our galaxy contains 100 billion stars, of which our sun is only about average. Truly God's power is so great that we cannot even measure the relatively small amount of power He has used to energize the cosmos!
This makes many people ask, "How can such a great God care about me?" Yet He does, and He has shown us that He does. He has written a unique genetic code that describes you and only you. If your unique code would be written out as information in the average book today, it would take over a million pages to describe you. In all the universe, there is only one you! Why has He gone to all this work just for you? Because He wanted to get to know you, love you and have a relationship with you.
This is why God sent His only Son into our world. That Son of God, Jesus Christ, lived a life that was perfectly pleasing to God. In contrast, we have all gone our own way and have almost ruined God's creation. But God's Son died on the cross for us so that we might be forgiven. God accepted this sacrifice on our behalf, and this was proven by Christ's resurrection from the dead. You can learn more about God's special love for the unique person you are in the Bible.
Thank You, Father, that You decided to make me. Thank You, Jesus, that You lived a perfect life in my place and then took my sins to the cross, and rose again. Thank You, Holy Spirit, that You have worked faith within me so that I can spend eternity with my God and Savior. Amen.
Photo: False-colored infrared image of the core of the Milky Way Galaxy, taken by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope.
1 Peter 5:6-7
"Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time: Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you."
Every second, our sun casts energy equaling over four-and-a-half million horsepower on every square mile of earth. Yet the earth receives less than one-tenth of one percent of the sun's energy.
Our galaxy contains 100 billion stars, of which our sun is only about average. Truly God's power is so great that we cannot even measure the relatively small amount of power He has used to energize the cosmos!
This makes many people ask, "How can such a great God care about me?" Yet He does, and He has shown us that He does. He has written a unique genetic code that describes you and only you. If your unique code would be written out as information in the average book today, it would take over a million pages to describe you. In all the universe, there is only one you! Why has He gone to all this work just for you? Because He wanted to get to know you, love you and have a relationship with you.
This is why God sent His only Son into our world. That Son of God, Jesus Christ, lived a life that was perfectly pleasing to God. In contrast, we have all gone our own way and have almost ruined God's creation. But God's Son died on the cross for us so that we might be forgiven. God accepted this sacrifice on our behalf, and this was proven by Christ's resurrection from the dead. You can learn more about God's special love for the unique person you are in the Bible.
Thank You, Father, that You decided to make me. Thank You, Jesus, that You lived a perfect life in my place and then took my sins to the cross, and rose again. Thank You, Holy Spirit, that You have worked faith within me so that I can spend eternity with my God and Savior. Amen.
Photo: False-colored infrared image of the core of the Milky Way Galaxy, taken by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope.
THE AMAZING MEXICAN FREE-TAILED BAT
Job 5:8-9
"I would seek unto God, and unto God would I commit my cause: Which doeth great things and unsearchable; marvellous things without number..."
The largest community of mammals in one space spends the summer in Bracken Cave, outside San Antonio, Texas. Here, 20 million female Mexican free-tailed bats raise their 20 million pups, gulping down 150 tons of insects every night!
The bats winter in Mexico and mate in the spring. Then, for some reason unknown to scientists, the females head to Texas. While they make the difficult migration, the females store the male sperm in suspended animation. Once settled in at Bracken Cave, they become pregnant. Four months later, each has a single pup. Although the cave's one-room nursery has 20 million noisy pups, a mother bat can find her own youngster in as little as 12 seconds!
At night, each female leaves the cave and flies as far as 60 miles, consuming as much as her total body weight in insects. After about five hours, she returns to the cave to nurse her pup. The bat's normal diet does not provide enough fat for the mother bat's rich milk. But the nursing period also falls at the same time that an ant, that is a rich source of fat, grows wings. These flying ants are available, in the bats' airspace, at just the right time!
Someone has remarked that God must like bats a lot. He made more species of bats than any other mammal. And He has designed nature to provide for all the bats' needs.
Lord God, I ask that Your creating hand would be more evident to all who study the creation. Help us Christians to better live and witness the gospel of the forgiveness of sins in Jesus Christ so that more scientists may come to know You. Amen.
Carol Ezzell. 1992. "Cave Creatures." Science News, Vol. 141, Feb. 8, pp. 88-90.
Job 5:8-9
"I would seek unto God, and unto God would I commit my cause: Which doeth great things and unsearchable; marvellous things without number..."
The largest community of mammals in one space spends the summer in Bracken Cave, outside San Antonio, Texas. Here, 20 million female Mexican free-tailed bats raise their 20 million pups, gulping down 150 tons of insects every night!
The bats winter in Mexico and mate in the spring. Then, for some reason unknown to scientists, the females head to Texas. While they make the difficult migration, the females store the male sperm in suspended animation. Once settled in at Bracken Cave, they become pregnant. Four months later, each has a single pup. Although the cave's one-room nursery has 20 million noisy pups, a mother bat can find her own youngster in as little as 12 seconds!
At night, each female leaves the cave and flies as far as 60 miles, consuming as much as her total body weight in insects. After about five hours, she returns to the cave to nurse her pup. The bat's normal diet does not provide enough fat for the mother bat's rich milk. But the nursing period also falls at the same time that an ant, that is a rich source of fat, grows wings. These flying ants are available, in the bats' airspace, at just the right time!
Someone has remarked that God must like bats a lot. He made more species of bats than any other mammal. And He has designed nature to provide for all the bats' needs.
Lord God, I ask that Your creating hand would be more evident to all who study the creation. Help us Christians to better live and witness the gospel of the forgiveness of sins in Jesus Christ so that more scientists may come to know You. Amen.
Carol Ezzell. 1992. "Cave Creatures." Science News, Vol. 141, Feb. 8, pp. 88-90.
BENEFITS FROM REJECTING EVOLUTION
Daniel 1:20
"And in all matters of wisdom [and] understanding, that the king enquired of them, he found them ten times better than all the magicians [and] astrologers that [were] in all his realm."
He lived in the last half of the nineteenth century. He was a strong believer in the Creator God, and that made him very unpopular in some circles. As he pursued his scientific studies in Paris, he became a thorn in the side of his contemporaries, the followers of Charles Darwin. They argued that life arose spontaneously long ago from non-living material, but Louis Pasteur believed that life was created by God. He decided to apply his scientific expertise to Darwin's claims.
His careful experiments, conducted 150 years ago, showed that life could only come from pre-existing life. He effectively put out of business the claim that life could arise from non-living chemicals. His research also showed that fermentation was caused by tiny yeast cells. This led him to discover that many diseases were caused by living organisms too small to see. As a result of his scientific work disproving important evolutionary claims, Louis Pasteur developed vaccines to combat diseases like rabies, diphtheria and anthrax.
Today, millions of people enjoy better health and safer food because Pasteur sought to show that true science does not disprove the Bible. We can thank God that Pasteur did not sit back and quietly accept the atheistic, materialistic claims of his day. He once commented that the more he learned in science, the simpler his faith in the plain words of Holy Scripture became.
I thank You, Lord, for the blessings You have given to us through the service of those scientists who faithfully believe Your Word and apply its truths to their research. Grant us more of these workers and the witness and blessings they provide. In Jesus' Name. Amen.
Photo: Louis Pasteur, photographed by Pierre Lamy Petit.
"CAVE MEN" OR MEN
Matthew 25:40
"And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done [it] unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done [it] unto me."
There are numerous sites where evidence that people once lived in caves has been studied. It's an ancient idea that the first primitive human beings, on their way from becoming apes to humans, lived in caves. Greek and Roman evolutionists wrote about it over 2,000 years ago. However, we need to ask whether people who lived in caves are truly less human than we are today.
When we think of the term "cavemen", we usually think of creatures that are less than human. Evolutionary belief has had its effect even on minds that accept the truth of the Bible's account of creation. Several years ago, a group of so-called "primitive" cave people - called the Tasaday - were reportedly discovered in the Philippines. Dozens of scientific papers and articles were written about them, showing how they supposedly represented ancient man. Then it was discovered that the entire tribe was a hoax.
Later, Indonesian Christians made contact with another cave-dwelling people. These people, the Basap, live in a remote area of Indonesia. The Christians presented the gospel to the chief and left. Nine months later, they returned to find the fruit of their labors. One hundred members of the tribe said that they believed that Christ is their Savior. Baptisms were carried out with the chief's blessing.
The lesson is that from the very first individual, human beings have been fully and completely human. Each has been a creation of God, loved and sought by Him. And God has a special place in His heart for those we often consider the very least among us.
I thank You, heavenly Father, that You have loved me, not based on my own goodness or worth, but based on Your mercy and forgiveness in Christ. Help me to love others, even if I see nothing lovable in them. Amen.
"Harvest Among Cave-dwelling Basaps." The Church Around the World, Feb. 1992. Illustration of a caveman hunting a brown bear.
FOSSIL DRIVES EVOLUTIONISTS BATTY
Psalm 9:1-2
"I will praise [thee], O LORD, with my whole heart; I will shew forth all thy marvellous works. I will be glad and rejoice in thee: I will sing praise to thy name, O thou most High."
I'm sure everyone has noticed that whenever one of those interesting nature programs on television show an especially clever design in nature, the program is always quick to explain how this came about by evolution.
One good example is the unusual hearing ability of the moth. Night flying moths have hearing organs that are able to hear the ultrasonic signals used by bats. The bats use these signals to navigate and to find food, which includes the moths. However, evolutionists never want anyone to think about a Creator Who might have given the moths the ability to hear one of their main predators. So they quickly explained that as moths evolved, they developed the ability to hear the bats in response to bat attacks.
Several few years ago, a fossilized egg from a night flying moth was discovered. Evolutionists said that the egg was half again as old as any evidence of the first bat. Yet the egg clearly belongs to a moth species that can hear bats. Evolutionary scientists said that this discovery was most puzzling. They said that evolution would have no reason to evolve this species of moth before bats existed.
Those of us who believe the Word of our Creator in the Bible realize that all living things were made within a few days of each other. We see around us how each was designed in a way that keeps in mind the design found in other creatures. Moths have always been moths, and bats have always been bats. There's nothing puzzling about it at all.
Lord, I pray that You would help those misled by evolution to see their foolishness and repent. I ask that You would confound the efforts of those who seek to mislead Your people with stories of evolution and keep us under Your protection. Amen.
"Ears, Bats, and Early Moths." Science News, Feb. 12, 1983, p. 107. Photo: Night-flying Bogong moth commonly found in Australia. Courtesy of Donald Hobern. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.
THE SEARCH FOR EXTRATERRESTRIAL INTELLIGENCE
Romans 8:20-21
"For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected [the same] in hope, because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God."
A century before the birth of Christ, a Roman named Lucretius suggested that since life evolved on earth, one might expect that there are other planets like earth where life also evolved. Modern scientists who believe in evolution also feel that if life could be found on other planets, their arguments for evolution would be stronger. They even persuaded the United States Congress to approve millions of dollars to search for radio signals that might come from other planets. The centerpiece of their effort was a radio receiver linked to a computer. The system could simultaneously listen to over eight million channels for any sign of space communication.
A few scientists were critical of this effort. For any theory to be regarded as scientific, it must be capable of disproof, not proof. Almost anything can be proven by selection of evidence. The critics pointed out that given the size of the universe we could spend billions of dollars and never disprove that there is life on other planets. In this way, it leaves the situation open-ended and it can always be argued without proof that there may be life.
The Bible offers no direct mention of life on other planets. However, it does tell us that the entire creation was subjected to the consequences of man's sin here on earth. Likewise, Christ's atonement for sin on Calvary delivered the entire creation from the bondage of sin. This suggests that our earth is the only place in the universe where morally responsible beings live.
Lord, I thank You that when we ruined the creation, You loved us so much that You gave Your life that we might again be restored to fellowship with God through the forgiveness of sins. Amen.
D. E. Thomsen. "NASA to Help Listen to E.T.'s Call." Science News, Vol. 123, p. 52. Photo: Screenshot of SETI Home. Courtesy of Namazu-tron.
Daniel 1:20
"And in all matters of wisdom [and] understanding, that the king enquired of them, he found them ten times better than all the magicians [and] astrologers that [were] in all his realm."
He lived in the last half of the nineteenth century. He was a strong believer in the Creator God, and that made him very unpopular in some circles. As he pursued his scientific studies in Paris, he became a thorn in the side of his contemporaries, the followers of Charles Darwin. They argued that life arose spontaneously long ago from non-living material, but Louis Pasteur believed that life was created by God. He decided to apply his scientific expertise to Darwin's claims.
His careful experiments, conducted 150 years ago, showed that life could only come from pre-existing life. He effectively put out of business the claim that life could arise from non-living chemicals. His research also showed that fermentation was caused by tiny yeast cells. This led him to discover that many diseases were caused by living organisms too small to see. As a result of his scientific work disproving important evolutionary claims, Louis Pasteur developed vaccines to combat diseases like rabies, diphtheria and anthrax.
Today, millions of people enjoy better health and safer food because Pasteur sought to show that true science does not disprove the Bible. We can thank God that Pasteur did not sit back and quietly accept the atheistic, materialistic claims of his day. He once commented that the more he learned in science, the simpler his faith in the plain words of Holy Scripture became.
I thank You, Lord, for the blessings You have given to us through the service of those scientists who faithfully believe Your Word and apply its truths to their research. Grant us more of these workers and the witness and blessings they provide. In Jesus' Name. Amen.
Photo: Louis Pasteur, photographed by Pierre Lamy Petit.
"CAVE MEN" OR MEN
Matthew 25:40
"And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done [it] unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done [it] unto me."
There are numerous sites where evidence that people once lived in caves has been studied. It's an ancient idea that the first primitive human beings, on their way from becoming apes to humans, lived in caves. Greek and Roman evolutionists wrote about it over 2,000 years ago. However, we need to ask whether people who lived in caves are truly less human than we are today.
When we think of the term "cavemen", we usually think of creatures that are less than human. Evolutionary belief has had its effect even on minds that accept the truth of the Bible's account of creation. Several years ago, a group of so-called "primitive" cave people - called the Tasaday - were reportedly discovered in the Philippines. Dozens of scientific papers and articles were written about them, showing how they supposedly represented ancient man. Then it was discovered that the entire tribe was a hoax.
Later, Indonesian Christians made contact with another cave-dwelling people. These people, the Basap, live in a remote area of Indonesia. The Christians presented the gospel to the chief and left. Nine months later, they returned to find the fruit of their labors. One hundred members of the tribe said that they believed that Christ is their Savior. Baptisms were carried out with the chief's blessing.
The lesson is that from the very first individual, human beings have been fully and completely human. Each has been a creation of God, loved and sought by Him. And God has a special place in His heart for those we often consider the very least among us.
I thank You, heavenly Father, that You have loved me, not based on my own goodness or worth, but based on Your mercy and forgiveness in Christ. Help me to love others, even if I see nothing lovable in them. Amen.
"Harvest Among Cave-dwelling Basaps." The Church Around the World, Feb. 1992. Illustration of a caveman hunting a brown bear.
FOSSIL DRIVES EVOLUTIONISTS BATTY
Psalm 9:1-2
"I will praise [thee], O LORD, with my whole heart; I will shew forth all thy marvellous works. I will be glad and rejoice in thee: I will sing praise to thy name, O thou most High."
I'm sure everyone has noticed that whenever one of those interesting nature programs on television show an especially clever design in nature, the program is always quick to explain how this came about by evolution.
One good example is the unusual hearing ability of the moth. Night flying moths have hearing organs that are able to hear the ultrasonic signals used by bats. The bats use these signals to navigate and to find food, which includes the moths. However, evolutionists never want anyone to think about a Creator Who might have given the moths the ability to hear one of their main predators. So they quickly explained that as moths evolved, they developed the ability to hear the bats in response to bat attacks.
Several few years ago, a fossilized egg from a night flying moth was discovered. Evolutionists said that the egg was half again as old as any evidence of the first bat. Yet the egg clearly belongs to a moth species that can hear bats. Evolutionary scientists said that this discovery was most puzzling. They said that evolution would have no reason to evolve this species of moth before bats existed.
Those of us who believe the Word of our Creator in the Bible realize that all living things were made within a few days of each other. We see around us how each was designed in a way that keeps in mind the design found in other creatures. Moths have always been moths, and bats have always been bats. There's nothing puzzling about it at all.
Lord, I pray that You would help those misled by evolution to see their foolishness and repent. I ask that You would confound the efforts of those who seek to mislead Your people with stories of evolution and keep us under Your protection. Amen.
"Ears, Bats, and Early Moths." Science News, Feb. 12, 1983, p. 107. Photo: Night-flying Bogong moth commonly found in Australia. Courtesy of Donald Hobern. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.
THE SEARCH FOR EXTRATERRESTRIAL INTELLIGENCE
Romans 8:20-21
"For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected [the same] in hope, because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God."
A century before the birth of Christ, a Roman named Lucretius suggested that since life evolved on earth, one might expect that there are other planets like earth where life also evolved. Modern scientists who believe in evolution also feel that if life could be found on other planets, their arguments for evolution would be stronger. They even persuaded the United States Congress to approve millions of dollars to search for radio signals that might come from other planets. The centerpiece of their effort was a radio receiver linked to a computer. The system could simultaneously listen to over eight million channels for any sign of space communication.
A few scientists were critical of this effort. For any theory to be regarded as scientific, it must be capable of disproof, not proof. Almost anything can be proven by selection of evidence. The critics pointed out that given the size of the universe we could spend billions of dollars and never disprove that there is life on other planets. In this way, it leaves the situation open-ended and it can always be argued without proof that there may be life.
The Bible offers no direct mention of life on other planets. However, it does tell us that the entire creation was subjected to the consequences of man's sin here on earth. Likewise, Christ's atonement for sin on Calvary delivered the entire creation from the bondage of sin. This suggests that our earth is the only place in the universe where morally responsible beings live.
Lord, I thank You that when we ruined the creation, You loved us so much that You gave Your life that we might again be restored to fellowship with God through the forgiveness of sins. Amen.
D. E. Thomsen. "NASA to Help Listen to E.T.'s Call." Science News, Vol. 123, p. 52. Photo: Screenshot of SETI Home. Courtesy of Namazu-tron.
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