"Beyond the Earth"

     The human heart does not and cannot exist as a vacuum.  Something will and must fill our innermost being, to either blessed or disastrous results. 

    "Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness… They worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator" (Psalm 29:2; Romans 1:22; 25).

    I thought of this truth yesterday when reading a brilliant essay about the search for extraterrestrial life (a link to the essay is provided below).  Many scientists and others interested in the subject believe that life, including intelligent beings such as or greater than ourselves, exists in the universe.  Nothing or no one has ever been detected to confirm the premise, but the devotees believe that it is just a matter of time before their expectation is confirmed.  My primary interest in the matter concerns the reason for such devotion to a hope that even if confirmed, would almost surely have no bearing on the practical realities of the lives of people who, generally speaking, do not hold traditional religious beliefs regarding a transcendent God.  Why do they care so much about the premise of life beyond the earth?

    The answer is worship.  The human heart was made to look "beyond the earth" for life, particularly, for a life greater than its own.  "God… made the world and all things therein, seeing He is Lord of Heaven and earth" (Acts 17:24).  We seek transcendence because whether we admit it or not, our own limitation and frailty ever looms before us.  We must worship something of heavenly substance, and we will.  For many, science precludes the notion of supernatural beings, or "the host of heaven" loved by pagan religions and even by Israel during her times of idolatry (II Kings 17:16).  Thus, they seek natural "gods" who they wrongly believe will fill the void of their innate need for religious devotion and practice.  Since they cannot find such beings, they worship the hope that extraterrestrial life exists and will be found.  Or, in Biblical terms, they "walk by faith, not by sight" (II Corinthians 7:5).  The devotion is delusional, of course, but nevertheless constitutes the religious components of that which can only be defined as worship.  The void, the void of the human heart, must be filled with something beyond ourselves.

    Bible-believing Christians worship "alien" life.  We devote ourselves and our hearts to "the Lord from Heaven" (I Corinthians 15:47).  Our God visited this planet long ago, and spiritually seeded the earth with a new race of beings, born again of His transcendent life.  The Lord Jesus Christ birthed an alien race, of which you and I are members, or as Scripture declares, we are "strangers and pilgrims on the earth" (Hebrews 11:13).  We not only hope that life exists beyond our present realm.  We know and are living members of it, or rather, of Him.  Moreover, we gladly worship the living and true God "while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen, for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal" (II Corinthians 4:18).  Yes, everybody worships something or someone beyond themselves, even as the Apostle Paul declared to the unbelieving Athenians…

"For as I passed by and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, To The Unknown God.  Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, Him declare I unto you.  God, that made the world and all things therein, seeing that He is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands, neither is worshipped with men's hands, as though he needed anything, seeing He giveth to all life and breath and all things.

(Acts 17:23-25)

Here's that essay:   http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2015/04/25/100000-galaxies-what-quest-for-alien-supercivilizations-really-tells-us/

Weekly Memory Verse

    Grace and peace be multiplied to you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord.

(II Peter 1:2)