11-6-2015

Good Morning All!!

         Ephesians 2:7; “so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”

     We have been watching a cluster of planets in the night sky.  As I was trying to figure out which ones they were I stumbled across the following.  It is about how many stars and how big the galaxies are:

There are 170 billion galaxies, and 300 billion trillion stars. Dividing 300 billion trillion by 170 billion gives us 1.765 trillion stars per galaxy on average. There is likely some degree of error to this, as the total number of stars includes any extragalactic wanderers. Also keep in mind this number includes red and brown dwarf stars, some of which may straddle the border between star and super Jupiter.
The volume of the universe is 40 billion trillion trillion cubic light-years. Dividing this into 170 billion galaxies gives us one galaxy per 2.35 billion trillion cubic light-years. Taking the cube root of 2.35 billion trillion, we get an average distance of 13.3 million light-years between galaxies. Keep in mind this is offset by the distances between galaxy clusters. The distance between Andromeda and the Milky Way is only 2.5 million light-years.

40 billion trillion trillion.  That is a 4 with 34 zeroes behind it; who can measure that?  I can’t even fathom a number like that.  Yet somebody, somewhere, did.  Somebody is able to measure distances and volumes like that.  This intrigued me; I found the distance to the farthest star is believed to be 17,575,483,116,160,000 miles give or take a little.  Now that is a long way to go!  So I kept looking.  I read where they estimated that the weight of the biggest star was

11,700, 000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 lbs.  I don’t even know what that number is; fortunately I have never seen that number on my bathroom scale when I stepped on it even after a holiday weekend. 

    So I went the other way. A “planck” is 0.00000000000000000000000000000000004144 inches long.  Again, I have no idea how small that is.  Is there anything we can’t measure?  Yes, there is.  We cannot measure the richness of God’s grace.

    We cannot even begin to measure the amount of grace that God pours out upon us.  There is no scientist smart enough.  There is only a God who loves you and treasures you beyond any measure. 

Gracious God, I cannot even begin to grasp how great your love for me is.  You gave up your only Son to die for me.  The cost knows no amount, the mercy beyond my comprehension.  All praise to you!!  Move me to reach out to my neighbor and to share with him this wonderful news of love.  In the precious name of Jesus I pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret