This magnificent, far-reaching telescope is deliberately situated above the smog, so this powerful instrument can better probe the galaxies. So it is with life, and seeing by the lens of faith. If we are to see things more clearly, we too must lift ourselves above the secular smog. Then, in the words of the hymn, we can “in awesome wonder consider all the worlds [God’s] hands have made … [and see God’s] pow’r thru-out the universe displayed” (“How Great Thou Art,” Hymns, no. 86). Otherwise, we will be kept from probing Jesus’ universal gospel and from seeing “things as they really are” (Jacob 4:13).
Nevertheless, by viewing the stretching cosmos, we can humbly contemplate the vastness of divine handiwork. Long before He was born at Bethlehem and became known as Jesus of Nazareth, our Savior was Jehovah. Way back then, under the direction of the Father, Christ was the Lord of the universe, who created worlds without number—of which ours is only one (see Eph. 3:9; Heb. 1:2).
How many planets are there in the universe with people on them? We don’t know, but we are not alone in the universe! God is not the God of only one planet!
I testify that Jesus is truly the Lord of the universe, “that by [Christ], and through him, and of him, the worlds are and were created, and the inhabitants thereof are begotten sons and daughters unto God” (D&C 76:24).
Having purchased us (see 1 Cor. 7:23) with His atoning blood (see Acts 20:28) in the great and marvelous Atonement, Jesus thereby became our Lawgiver (see Isa. 33:22). It is by obedience to His laws and His commandments that we may return one day to His presence and that of our Heavenly Father.
The foregoing cosmic facts should bring us to our knees even now—long before that later Judgment Day, when every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is the Christ. I testify that Jesus fulfilled these great roles as Creator and Lawgiver out of His desire to immortalize all of Heavenly Father’s children, with the most valiant to live in His Father’s house, which has many mansions.
When Christ comes again, it will not be to the meekness of the manger; it will be as the recognized Redeemer and the Lord of the universe! Then, in a great solar display, stars will fall from their places in a witnessing way (see D&C 133:49), with much more drama than at His birth, when “the stars in the heavens looked down where he lay” (“Away in a Manger,” Hymns, no. 206).
Yet in the vastness of His creations, the Lord of the universe, who notices the fall of every sparrow, is our personal Savior, of which I give apostolic testimony in the holy name of Jesus Christ, amen!
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