Poster Archive : APRIL 2008
Message: Planet Earth is God's favourite
Bible Verse: John 3:16 For God do loved the world that he gave his only Son.
Around the world there are people fascinated by the possibility of extra terrestrial life. Five million people from over 200 countries are signed up to the SETI@ home project, which means they use their computers to process signals gleaned from radio telescopes. They hope one day to pick up a signal that comes from intelligent life outside our solar system.
The way it works is the SETI@home program looks for signals that seem to have a pattern. Currently, the most promising result is a very weak signal observed three times in 2003 at 1420 MHz more than 1000 light years away in the constellations Pisces and Aries. However, scientists acknowledge it could be random chance, cosmic noise or just a technological glitch. So far, the more Scientists look, the more we seem to be alone.
Science can make a person feel insignificant. The bigger the universe, the smaller we feel. We used to think the sun revolved around our earth. Nowadays we know our '3rd rock from the sun' is tiny compared to the Sun and worse, that the universe is so big that our minds can't comprehend it.
It's tempting to feel irrelevant, even lost.
But science can't tell us what the Bible can. The Bible tells us that little old planet earth, is really, actually, the very centre of the universe.
Here's two reasons why. Firstly, our planet is the one where God put humans: creatures in his own image who are like him and able to relate to him.
Secondly and most importantly, this is the planet where God came to live in human form. He did it because we alienated our selves from God by rebelling against him. God has such an intense love for our planet that He sent his son Jesus to show us who he is, and to pay the price of our evil.
Jesus himself explained it like this:
"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life."
There might be more impressive planets in the universe and even other life forms, but God's favourite is the one God chose to live on and die for. Ironically, we don't need to look to outer space to find meaning and love. We need only look to Jesus to make sense of the universe.
Prayer: Thank you God that in this vast universe I am special enough for you to love and send Jesus to save me. AMEN