Every year the BBC Songs of Praise programme take a poll of the nation’s favourite hymns and every year it seems the same hymn comes out on top. The hymn is How Great Thou Art and the first verse and chorus goes like this:
Lord, my God, when I in awesome wonder
Consider all the worlds Thy Hands have made.
I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder,
Thy power throughout the universe displayed.
Then sings my soul, my Saviour God, to Thee.
How great Thou art. How great Thou art
Then sings my soul, my Saviour God, to Thee.
How great Thou art, how great Thou art
Have you ever stopped to consider all the amazing creation God has placed around us? Each Sunday a number of members of our Church drive from Camposol and the Condado area towards Puerto de Mazarrón and often comment on the hills ahead of them as they travel towards the end of the motorway. The sunlight just seems to catch the folds in the hills in a different way each week. The shadows are just a little longer or shorter than the last time we looked, but just enough to make a difference.
For us as Christians it is wonderful to look at all of creation around us and to say we have a personal relationship with the designer and creator of that beauty. Sometimes we can look up into the heavens and see the myriad of stars – the black sky speckled with millions upon millions of tiny dots all perfectly in place. Isn’t it reassuring to know that there is such great consistency in creation that the next time we look each and every star will be just where it should be?
The hymnwriter expresses our thoughts far better than we can when he rejoices in the chorus singing How Great Thou Art. Yes it’s true; God is great and furthermore He is our Saviour.
The joy of seeing all that nature has to offer us in the display of God’s amazing creative power is the same God with same power that brought us salvation through the cross of Jesus.
The second verse of the hymn goes on to say:
And when I think of God, His Son not sparing
Sent Him to die, I scarce can take it in
That on the Cross, my burden gladly bearing
He bled and died to take away my sin.
Of course after each verse there is the chorus proclaiming “How great Thou art” You see it is the realisation that this great and mighty God who designed and engineered the whole of creation also has time for each and every one of us to the point that He sent His one and only son to die for us.
Perhaps the most quoted verse in the Bible is John 3:16 – “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.”
You could say that all our belief is summed up in that hymn and that scripture reading. The great and mighty God who placed one billion trillion stars in the visible universe loves you so much that He sent His one and only son to die for you and to bring you into His everlasting kingdom.
Do you want to know more? Why not join us one Sunday and discover more of this amazing loving Father who created all around us and loves us with an everlasting love?
