For all the power God gives us, of what use would it be if we chose not to plug in and be connected?
It takes a vast amount of energy to generate the electricity we consume in our homes and offices. It may all be just a flick of the switch away, yet it requires vast resources to bring it all the way inside your living space.
Of course it would be no big deal if energy was required for you alone: then the cost would be nothing more than the price of a generator, unless you converted to alternative energy. But to deliver a thousand kilowatts of energy to one home for one hour, requires an infrastructure capable of delivering megawatts of energy for twenty four hours of every day.
It takes a vast amount of energy to generate the electricity we consume in our homes and offices. It may all be just a flick of the switch away, yet it requires vast resources to bring it all the way inside your living space.
Of course it would be no big deal if energy was required for you alone: then the cost would be nothing more than the price of a generator, unless you converted to alternative energy. But to deliver a thousand kilowatts of energy to one home for one hour, requires an infrastructure capable of delivering megawatts of energy for twenty four hours of every day.
The cost of a power station can cost over a billion Dollars: the same again for maintenance. But it depends on fuel and that fuel needs to mined at great cost: be it nuclear or fossil fuel. The fuel also needs to be transported to the power station.
A large power station can take five years to build, but to deliver its energy to living areas, vast networks of cabling and related management systems are needed. That also costs $billions to build and maintain. And of course local authorities need to also link you to the power grid. Lastly suppliers of electrical goods need to build and deliver appliances and tools that are able to convert the energy into useful work.
The fact that it takes a lifetime to build all of that is lost on all of us who take the availability of energy so for granted. Yet it would still be utterly meaningless if we opted out of the system. Power can only come to the plug points and switches in your living space, leaving you with the small task of flipping the switch – but if you don’t and for as long as you don’t, the energy delivered is forever wasted, as it cannot be stored.
To bring salvation to humankind, God invested His own life and the sacrificial offering of His beloved Son. That sacrifice represented the culmination of four millennia of human history and God’s patient, deliberate work to provide the resources we need for salvation and eternity. It was not easily or cheaply given: the cost was beyond measure and it has taken a further two millennia of maintenance through the handed down traditions and teachings of apostles, martyrs, theologians and faithful hearts, to bring it right into your own personal living space.
But if you fail to plug in or connect to that heritage, it will pass you by and do you no good. Yet if you call on Him, he will answer you.
For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not in cleverness of speech, that the cross of Christ should not be made void. For the word of the cross is to those who are perishing foolishness, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God ~ 1 Corinthians 1:17-18
A large power station can take five years to build, but to deliver its energy to living areas, vast networks of cabling and related management systems are needed. That also costs $billions to build and maintain. And of course local authorities need to also link you to the power grid. Lastly suppliers of electrical goods need to build and deliver appliances and tools that are able to convert the energy into useful work.
The fact that it takes a lifetime to build all of that is lost on all of us who take the availability of energy so for granted. Yet it would still be utterly meaningless if we opted out of the system. Power can only come to the plug points and switches in your living space, leaving you with the small task of flipping the switch – but if you don’t and for as long as you don’t, the energy delivered is forever wasted, as it cannot be stored.
To bring salvation to humankind, God invested His own life and the sacrificial offering of His beloved Son. That sacrifice represented the culmination of four millennia of human history and God’s patient, deliberate work to provide the resources we need for salvation and eternity. It was not easily or cheaply given: the cost was beyond measure and it has taken a further two millennia of maintenance through the handed down traditions and teachings of apostles, martyrs, theologians and faithful hearts, to bring it right into your own personal living space.
But if you fail to plug in or connect to that heritage, it will pass you by and do you no good. Yet if you call on Him, he will answer you.
For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not in cleverness of speech, that the cross of Christ should not be made void. For the word of the cross is to those who are perishing foolishness, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God ~ 1 Corinthians 1:17-18
For I am not ashamed of the Good News of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation to everyone who believes; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek (Rom. 1:16).
(c) Peter Eleazar at www.bethelstone.com
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