Tuesday, October 21, 2014
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I'm pretty easily amazed by technology, so I am totally amazed by my wife's camera. She's a great photographer. You can take the same camera and get two totally different views, just by using two different lenses. She taught me this. For example, we took a lot of pictures at our local football games, because I worked with the team there. And when you put on the wide angle lens, you can see the entire field through that camera. Amazing! Now, when you change that to say a zoom lens, it really magnifies things. You can fill that camera's view with just one face. It amazes me to see how it can go from the big picture to some small, little detail.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Galaxies and the Groceries."
Our word for today from the Word of God comes from Matthew 6:9. I think you might just recognize these words. Jesus says, "This is how you should pray, 'Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread.'" You might have been kind of saying the words along with me. That's the Lord's Prayer. Did you know the Lord's Prayer is really a camera with two lenses? First, it's looking at our Heavenly Father.
Now, I don't know what you feel when you hear the word father; I don't know what that word means to you. It may depend on your growing up experience. I don't know what your father was like or if he was there for you. But remember, when you hear about God being our Father, we're not talking about the father you had on earth. No, God is the Father you and I wish we had.
Now, let's look at that God with the wide angle lens. He's in heaven. His name is to be reverenced, hallowed. We should be driven to our knees by who He is. He is the God who rules a hundred billion galaxies. And when you pray, you are in the Throne Room from which a hundred billion galaxies are governed. Prayer should never be boring. It should never be wimpy or trivial. Not when you know who you're with when you're praying.
The prayer then goes on and says, "Your kingdom come." This is talking about God's agenda on earth, His whole cosmic agenda. And the prayer is, "Lord, help me plug into Your cosmic agenda with my life." Your will, when it's done so awesomely in heaven we want that done on earth, Lord. So you pray with a sense of humility and awesomeness to God.
All of a sudden, "Give us this day our daily bread." Whoa! What just happened here? We just went from the galaxies to the groceries. Jesus is telling us that we can come to this awesome Father with this incredible plan and ask Him about today's lunch. Boy, you talk about going from the wide angle to the zoom lens. You can aim all the power of heaven on what you need on earth. Here is this unbelievably, awesome, powerful Father in heaven who is creating this great kingdom, who has this eternal plan, and you can talk to Him about "our daily bread." Wow!
Hebrews 4:16 says we can go boldly to "the Throne of Grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need." That's God through the zoom lens. He's the God who cares about the little details of your life. He's our Father, and we can come right to Him and curl up in His lap and know that He cares about the details of our life, though He runs a hundred billion galaxies. What a miracle this is, that Jesus brings us into the presence of a heavenly Father who is big enough to rule this mighty universe and small enough to live in your heart and care about your daily bread.