A New Beginning

Received this from a friend just recently. Thanks Hooi Hooi!
This is a short video with a message of love; a collection of scriptures celebrating life in Christ. Thought this is really a good way to start the New Year with ....a New Beginning.

Recommend taking a short break from whatever you are doing, dim the lights if possible, sit back on your chair or sofa with a cuppa and turn on the volumn.

An Inspirational DaySpring Movie - A New Beginning

This video is sourced from DaySpring a shop online site, inspired by the words of Luke 1:78.

Luke 1:78 (NLT)
Because of God's tender mercy,
the light from heaven is about to break upon us,

The Cross in Our Bodies

This is a pretty neat story and an interesting thing that few of us know. It's brief, so please read. (FROM A DOCTOR)

A couple of days ago I was running (I use that term very loosely) on my treadmill, watching a DVD sermon by Louie Giglio, ...and I was BLOWN AWAY!

I want to share what I learned...

Louie was talking about how inconceivably BIG our God is. How He spoke the universe into being. How He breathes stars out of His mouth that are huge raging balls of fire... etc. etc. Then He went on to speak of how this star-breathing, universe creating God ALSO knitted our human bodies together with amazing detail and wonder. At this point I am LOVING it (fascinating from a medical standpoint, you know.) And I was remembering how I was constantly amazed during medical school as I learned more and more about God's handiwork. I remember so many times thinking..."How can ANYONE deny that a Creator did all of this?"

Louie went on to talk about how we can trust that the God who created all this, also has the power to hold it all together when things seem to be falling apart ...how our loving Creator is also our sustainer.

And then I lost my breath. And it wasn't because I was running my treadmill, either!!! It was because he started talking about Laminin.

I knew about Laminin. Here is how Wikipedia describes them:

"Laminins are a family of proteins that are an integral part of the structural scaffolding of basement membranes in almost every animal tissue."

You see, Laminins are what hold us together... LITERALLY. They are cell adhesion molecules. They are what hold one cell of our bodies to the next cell. Without them, we would literally fall apart. And I knew all this already. But what I didn't know is what they LOOKED LIKE. But now I do. And I have thought about it a thousand times since (already).

Here is what the structure of Laminin looks like... AND THIS IS NOT a "Christian portrayal" of it. If you look up Laminin in any scientific/medical piece of literature, this is what you will see.

Now tell me that our God is not the coolest!!! Amazing!! The glue that holds us together.... ALL of us.....is in the shape of the cross. Immediately Colossians 1:15-17 (NIV) comes to mind.

"15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For by him all things were created; things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; All things were created by him and for him. 17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together."

Call me crazy. I just think that is very, very, very cool.....thousands of years before the world knew anything about Laminin, Paul penned those words. And now we see that from a very LITERAL standpoint, we are held together...one cell to another....by the cross.

You would never in a quadrillion years convince me that is anything other than the mark of a Creator who knew EXACTLY what Laminin 'glue' would look like long before Adam breathed his first breath!!

Other examples of the structure of Laminin when googling "Laminin" are:

Contributor - Anonymous

Personal Note:
A question asked,

"If five years from now we discover that the laminin protein actually has a different shape, would that change the truth found in Colossians 1:17?"

While the extract above from an anonymous medical doctor is exciting and certainly worth noting ....can't help it ...the structure do look like the Cross, and that God do speaks through the natural world (Romans 1:19-20) ....our belief in the truthfulness that Christ holds all things together should start and end with God’s Word alone. It is through faith that we are saved/redeemed.

Referencing "Laminin and the Cross - Is There a Connection?" by Dr. Georgia Purdom, AiG-U.S. on October 29, 2008.

NASA and The Bible

For all the scientists out there, and for all the students who have a hard time convincing these people regarding the truth of the Bible, here's something that shows God's awesome creation, and that He is still in control.

Did you know that the space program is busy proving that what has been called 'myth' in the Bible is true?

Mr. Harold Hill, President of the Curtis Engine Company in Baltimore, Maryland, and a consultant in the space program, relates the following development.

'I think one of the most amazing things that God has done for us today happened recently to our astronauts and space scientists at Green Belt, Maryland .

They were checking out where the positions of the sun, moon, and planets would be 100 years and 1,000 years from now. We have to know this so we won't send up a satellite and have it bump into something later on in its orbits.

We have to lay out the orbits in terms of the life of the satellite and where the planets will be so the whole thing will not bog down.

They ran the computer measurement back and forth over the centuries, and it came to a halt. The computer stopped and put up a red signal, which meant that there was something wrong with either the information fed into it or with the results as compared to the standards.
They called in the service department to check it out, and they said, 'What's wrong?' Well, they found there is a day missing in space in elapsed time.

They scratched their heads and tore their hair out. There was no answer.

Finally a Christian man on the team said, 'You know, one time I was in Sunday School, and they talked about the sun standing still.' While they didn't believe him, they didn't have an answer either, so they said, 'Show us, '

He got a Bible and went to the book of Joshua where they found a pretty ridiculous statement for any one with 'common sense.'

There they found the Lord saying to Joshua,

The LORD said to Joshua, "Do not be afraid of them; I have given them into your hand. Not one of them will be able to withstand you."(Joshua 10:8 NIV)

Joshua was concerned because he was surrounded by the enemy! And if darkness fell, they would overpower them. So Joshua asked the Lord to make the sun stand still! That's right... 'The sun stood still and the moon stayed and lasted not to go down about a whole day!'
(Joshua 10:12-13)

The astronauts and scientists said, There is the missing day! They checked the computers going back into the time it was written and found it was close but not close enough. The elapsed time that was missing back in Joshua's day was 23 hours and 20 minutes. not a whole day.

They read the Bible, and there it was about [approximately] a day. These little words in the Bible are important, but they were still in trouble because if you cannot account for 40 minutes, you'll still be in trouble 1000 years from now...

Forty minutes had to be found because it can be multiplied many times over in orbits. As the Christian employee thought about it, he remembered somewhere in the Bible where it said the sun went BACKWARDS.

The scientists told him he was out of his mind, but they got out the Book and read these words in 2 Kings that told of the following story: Hezekiah, on his death bed, was visited by the prophet Isaiah who told him that he was not going to die. Hezekiah asked for a sign as proof. Isaiah said 'Do you want the sun to go ahead 10 degrees?'

Hezekiah said, 'It is nothing for the sun to go ahead 10 degrees, but let the shadow return backward 10 degrees.' Isaiah spoke to the Lord, and the Lord brought the shadow ten degrees BACKWARD! Ten degrees is exactly 40 minutes!'

Twenty-three hours and 20 minutes in Joshua, plus 40 minutes in Second Kings make the missing day in the universe! Isn't it amazing?

References: Joshua 10:8 and 12,13 and 2 Kings 20:9-11.

If God could do this then; how much more can he do for us today. If we only believe in his word. Never be afraid to try something new.

All I have and all that I am is by the Grace of God!

Contributor - Anonymous

Picture from NASA Picture Album Gallery
Polar Ring Galaxy NGC 4650A: A Disk of Red Stars Ringed By Dust, Gas, and More Stars