Spiritual Astronomy

I watched a PBS program on TV the other night. It was from the 90's and the panel included Carl Sagan, Stephen Hawkings, and one other scientist. Most of the discussion centered on the material universe, but there was a segment that dealt with the existence of God.

Of course none of the men were religious, much less believers in Jesus. They dealt with the existence of God in the abstract, and pretty much just philosophically mused over the prospect. They all agreed that, like Einstein believed, God was the sum total of all the laws governing the universe. In other words, whatever could be observed and understood about the universe was God. A form of pantheism.

It was nice to hear none of them deny the existence of God. By the very definition of "creation", there has to be a "creator". But the existence of God is a no-brainer(I'm sure they would strongly object to that description). The Bible calls the person who denies God's existence a fool. The elephant in the room that they all ignored is that the observable universe is only observable because it reveals itself to us.

Being an amateur astronomer myself I have seen people misunderstand the nature of the observation of the material universe. We cannot observe anything unless it comes to the earth. The telescope only collects the light that has made its way to earth, it cannot go out from earth to observe. All the rays, waves, and light are only observable as they reach us. If an object does not give off or reflect light we cannot know it exits except by observing objects around it that do.

Well, there you have it. The principle was right in front of them and they did not make the connection. We could never know God unless He reveals Himself to us. Furthermore, He must reveal Himself to us on a level that we can understand; that our "Spiritual telescope" can observe. Not just so the left-brained intellect can understand, but that the uneducated can grasp also. Somehow the Creator was going to have to take the infinite complexity of His own nature and reveal it in the most simplistic way, and without compromising His intrinsic essence.

I realize that is a little heavy, but I hope you won't miss this glorious truth. How was the Creator going to condescend to reveal Himself to an incredibly primitive and sinfully blind creation? The most unimaginable and eternal mystery of all, GOD WOULD REVEAL HIMSELF TO US AS ONE OF US!! We could never Spiritually, emotionally, intellectually, or materially ascend to God, so God came down to us. But how do we collect all that revelation and observe it?

All of us can observe the moon, several planets, and approximately 2500 stars just with the naked eye. Many Christians go through life in the Spiritual universe just observing whatever they can see as they go. But when an astronomer wants to observe distant stars and galaxies, he must pinpoint his telescope in a certain direction, offset the rotation of the earth, and leave it in that direction for several hours. The correlation between astronomical observation and Spiritual observation is obvious.

Pinpoint your Spiritual telescope toward Jesus, through the lense of His Word, collected(understood) by His Spirit, and experience the knowledge of Him. Not just a cold, scientific knowledge of Christ, but an accompanying intimacy that transcends the senses and the intellect into a Spiritual revelation that not only brings us into a closer relationship, but changes us into the very likeness that we are observing - HIM. Jesus said,"Learn of me". Paul prayed,"that God would grant you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him". Paul again,"To know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings...". The writer of Hebrews, "Looking unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith".

By the way, if you really begin to take this Spiritual astronomy seriously, make sure you offset the rotation of this world. It will blur your view! PTL-Rick