God loves diversity. He loves to see His creation change and grow. He loves to create things fresh and new. At the atomic level, God’s palette of 100 or so elements gives rise to a literally infinite number of possibilities and combinations, all with different properties and potential. The universe is filled with stars. A recent estimate of the number of stars visible to modern telescopes was just done. The number of visible stars was estimated at 70 sextillion, that’s 70 followed by 22 zeroes. Astronomers say there are more stars than grains of sand in all of Earth’s deserts and beaches. No two stars are alike, they are all different, they all have there own unique identity.
Take a look at creation. The world is filled with a huge array of animals, birds, fish and insects. To date, scientists have classified about 1½ million species of animal life, but they estimate that there are between 50 and 100 million species in the world. Science has hardly begun to scratch the surface of the diversity that God has created. People are unique as well. The world is now filled with 6.3 billion people. All of them created with their own unique divine design by God, no two alike, all having special gifts and abilities to serve God with.
Why did God create such a diverse and exciting universe? A universe that’s constantly expanding, constantly changing, constantly showing us new vistas to explore. I believe that God wanted life in this universe for His children to be an exciting adventure of walking with God as He shows us incredible things. NLT 1 Corinthians 2:9-10 “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him.” But we know these things because God has revealed them to us by his Spirit. God has wonderful secrets He wants to reveal to you, secrets about Himself, secrets about His plan for your life, secrets about yourself. Can you imagine walking with the creator of this incredible universe hand in hand throughout life as He reveals more and more about Himself to you? Nothing could be more exciting.
However, the sad fact is that most people, even most believers, go through life in a boring, mechanical way, stuck in the rut of life, spinning their wheels. Worrying about whether they will have enough food, clothes and shelter. Going through the motions day after day, just trying to make it for themselves and their families.
God has so much more for you. He wants you to have your own needs met and for you to have enough to meet the needs of others. God doesn’t want you stuck in a rut doing the same things in your life day after day, month after month, year after year. God’s plan is for you to experience supernatural change in your life. God wants your life to be an exciting life, changing all the time as you grow and develop to become more and more like Jesus, impacting more and more people for Him.
To hear more about this topic, listen to my May 1, 2005 message entitled Experience Supernatural Change
I am in awe about nature’s diversity and the universe’s infinte size. I believe in God. I believe in life after death, or to put it diferently, I believe in a higher purpose of life on earth. I believe in the soul as part of a bigger picture. I have been blessed with experiencing the miracle of prayers come true. Morning prayer in church conditions my day in an almost physical manner: there is a different taste, a clearer eyesight, a more open heart for the rest of the day. Less aggression, better ability to listen, in short: more compassion for one and another.
But, I am unsure, why we need exclusivity. why is Jesus the only way. Why the need for dogma? Why do we have to believe that Jesus was the son of God? Why is a clear feeling of sprirituality and why is a sense of connectivity with a higher being, which we Chrisians and the Jews call God, the Muslims call Allah, the Budhist call Buddah, to name but a few, not enough as a way of describing in good human tradition that omnipresent phenomenan? Why the need for, in equal good old human tradtion, exclusivity in light of such overwhelming dimension and diversity. Why can’t we just be in a state of grace once we have found it and hang on to it. Why the need to convert?
I was trained as a scientist. A scientist seeks to discover the laws of nature, laws that accurately describe how creation works in the physical realm. The laws are exclusive. If an apple is dropped on the earth, it doesn’t go up, or sideways, or diagonally, it falls straight down, due to the law of gravity. If someone says, well, I think that’s too exclusive, I choose to believe that when something is dropped, it will move sideways, they’re free to believe something that isn’t true. If they put that belief into practice and stand under something as it is dropped, believing it will move sideways, they will find out that their belief is false, as they are hit on the head. Physical laws that accurately describe creation are by definition, exclusive.
The same is true in the spiritual realm. Spiritual laws and truths describe, not what we want them to, but actual spiritual reality. There are not multiple spiritual realities, there is one. Something can’t have mutually exclusive properties in the physical realm or the spiritual realm. The common notion that all religions believe in the same God is not true. The way that the Bible describes God, is very different from the way the Koran describes Allah, is very different from the description of Buddah. They can’t all be true. A careful study of the Bible shows that the spiritual worldview presented is the only one that makes sense and fits with the physical and spiritual reality we know. The fact that Jesus is the only way to God, makes sense if we are dealing with a personal creator God.
You can find more proof for the exclusive truth claims of Jesus in my March 2005 message series, Why Jesus Matters.