See, I was recently inspired by a video I watched by Louie Giglio in which he shows the bigness of God by illustrating the sizes of the stars God created. It made me want to investigate further. Then, later on, in an unrelated event, our lead pastor Rev. Stephen Coates preached on 2 Corinthians chapter 4 at one of our latest church services. He got to the following part:
2 Corinthians 4:15-18 (ESV)
15 For it is all for your sake, so that as grace extends to more and more people it may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God.
16 So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.
17 For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison,
18 as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.
In my 1599 Geneva Bible, 2 Corinthians 4:17 says:
For our light affliction which is but for a moment, causeth unto us a far most excellent and an eternal weight of glory:
Take a look at the following picture from wikipedia:
This picture shows a progression of planet and star size comparisons. In each panel, the scale gets increasingly larger, until the last panel, panel 6, shows VY Canis Majoris. This star is so gigantic that you cannot see our own sun at that scale. In fact, you cannot even see stars that are much bigger than our sun at the scale of Canis Majoris!
Wow!
Then it hit me: the Lord encouraged me to put the star-size chart and 2 Corinthians 4:17 together. God laid these stars in the expanse of space. Stars do not declare the future, nor your personality. They declare His GLORY.
Psalm 19:1 ESV To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David. The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.
The revelation I received was...
Earth, where we live, represents our life and our successes, and also our struggles and problems. But that earth (as big as it is to us) is so tiny in the cosmos that it disappears by panel 3 in the 6-panel progression of the photo above! And the biggest star makes earth microscopic by comparison! God's reward for you, as a faithful believer, is so very much bigger than the biggest star in the above diagram.
The point is this... just as the stellar giant Canis Majoris is "beyond all comparison" to earth's physical size, so is God's eternal weight of glory "beyond all comparison" to the struggles we have on earth.
Did you know that eternity is so much bigger than the temporal realm? The afflictions you are currently suffering in Christ, these are important character builders in the Spirit. But as difficult as they can be, they are temporary. These afflictions will not last.
But His glory will. If Jesus is your Lord, then you will dwell eternally in His Glory.
We cannot fully grasp the sheer magnitude of these objects in outer space. Yet eternity with Jesus is bigger, and far more permanent and more luminous.
His eternal weight of glory is worth the temporary struggle we endure for the moment.
Be encouraged, I pray that you can also see the revelation that the Lord brought to me.
Blessings!
Pastor Curtis
(Star image credit: Dave Jarvis (http://www.davidjarvis.ca/ )
Thanks, I needed that.
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