And God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. Genesis 1:16

As Moses was guided by the Holy Spirit to document the events and timeline of creation, we read how God simply spoke matter and physical laws into existence. “God said” is all that is noted about the manner in which He created, except in the creation of humans where we see a more intimate touch (Gen 2:7). He created everything ex nihilo, or “from nothing.”

Scripture records that on the earth’s fourth day of existence, God created the sun and moon to give the earth physical light both day and night. And then there’s this little statement, “and the stars.” When I read that it struck me as almost an afterthought… “oh by the way, God made the stars, too.”

Let’s consider that little statement for just a moment. There are hundreds or even thousands of trillions of stars in the universe. The nearest extrasolar star is so far away our minds can barely comprehend the gap, while the further ones are unimaginably distant. Our God built those, arranged them in their places (Job 38:4-8), keeps them in motion (Col 1:17), and even named each and every one (Psalm 147:4). He did this, Scripture says, for the earth to have light and to proclaim His power and glory to all creation (Psalm 19:1-14; Psalm 148:1-5, Rom 1:20).

This is the same God that by His marvelous and incomprehensible love chose us to be His adopted children with an everlasting inheritance even before the sun, moon, stars or earth were formed (Eph 1:4-14)! WOW!

The LORD God Almighty is infinite, timeless, omnipotent, all-knowing, all-seeing, sovereign, just, righteous, patient, trustworthy, beautiful, creative, loving, holy, glorious, consistent… the list of wonderful attributes exceeds what our language can even offer.

As we head into the weekend, let’s offer up our deepest heartfelt praise to the One True God; the God Who sits on an eternal throne of unending power; the God Whose mere voice brings all things into existence and sustains them from one corner of the universe to the other.