To him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy— to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen.

Who is it that we have in our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ? With what can we compare him to?

As I thought about this, pictures entered my mind. First, a weary traveler who is heading for a specific mountain to return home. Starting hundreds of miles off, the mountain seems so small. What seems large are the obstacles on his path to the mountain. Yet as he draws closer to the mountain, he finds it majestic in its size and awesome in the diversity of life it supports. Sure, there are still pathway obstacles, but those now diminish in light of the massive mountain.

Jesus is like the mountain. When we are far away from him in a relationship, and focused on the largeness of our problems in life’s pathway, Jesus seems small to us. But when we draw close to him, his power and majesty come into full view! He is awesome in power and majestic in his love.

In our earthly travels, the distance between where we are and a far-off mountain may require a longer period of time to traverse. Cars can speed this up. However, the heavenly mountain of Jesus Christ is accessible every day, in a much shorter period of time. Why? Because when we accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior, God in the flesh, we see that he has already covered the distance our sin has created from God. So we can run to him each morning, the one with all authority and power over this world and all of the galaxies in existence, and we can personally meet him and dwell with him.

The challenges I have — the worries, stresses, temptations, and other obstacles in life — are no longer large and insurmountable compared to the spiritual size and significance of Jesus. It’s like he is a giant and my challenges are a small pile of dust and dirt. In one step, he could stomp on them.

This is the Lord and Savior we serve! He is able, strong and mighty like a majestic mountain, to keep us from stumbling and to present us without fault and with great joy!

Take heart with me, my friends, Jesus is worthy of our worship and praise. His glory is beyond comprehension and his power and authority are absolute and completely dominant!

Lord, thank you for the pictures in your creation that help us to understand you, the Creator. I will lay down all of my burdens at your feet and draw close to you each day. Then my problems will seem to fade away, in comparison to your glory.