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I came across a link that John Piper shared on facebook a few days ago. It affected me so much that I decided to do a blog post about it. On January 5, Nasa released an image taken by the Hubble Space Telescope of our closest neighbor the Andromeda Galaxy.

"The Hubble Space Telescope is powerful enough to resolve individual stars in a 61,000-light-year-long stretch of the galaxy’s pancake-shaped disk. It's like photographing a beach and resolving individual grains of sand. And there are lots of stars in this sweeping view -- over 100 million, with some of them in thousands of star clusters seen embedded in the disk."

What rocked my world was not the photo or the video per se, but the fact that God commanded these galaxies (over a hundred billion) into existence.

Isaiah 40:26 (ESV) Lift up your eyes on high and see: who created these? He who brings out their host by number, calling them all by name, by the greatness of his might, and because he is strong in power not one is missing.

Of course no one knows (or ever will know) the number of galaxies or stars in the universe. The only one who knows the exact number is the one who created them.

It is absolutely mind boggling to watch this video knowing that with a word Christ created every star you see (Col. 1:16). Not only that, but Isaiah 40:6 and Psalm 147:4 say that God has given a name to each and every star!

Psalms 147:4 (ESV) He determines the number of the stars; he gives to all of them their names.

Think of it! Every star you see in this video has a specific name given to it by God. If every star in the universe has a name, it's no wonder that "no creature is hidden from His sight."

Hebrews 4:13 (ESV) And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.