"The tempest comes out from its chamber, the cold from the driving winds. The breath of God produces ice, and the broad waters become frozen" (Job 37:9,10). "The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of His being, sustaining all things by His powerful word" (Hebrews 1:3).

As we look forward we have a forecast of about seven days of frigid temperatures. Since it's not even supposed to be above freezing for the next week the snow we received Sunday will likely stay awhile!  It's just 6° as I prepare this message and several times this week it is forecast to be below 0°.

As we have mentioned several times our home is heated with a heat pump, specifically a "cold climate" heat pump which claims to be fully efficient in heating to 5°. Below 5 degrees the efficiency degrades and we may need to use the built in heat strips which are far more expensive to run.

Heat pumps use a technology that I find interesting and very hard to grasp. Brian is the trainer and tech specialist at JK Mechanical where we serve as chaplains. He has 30 years of experience and is quite knowledgeable and keeps up with the ever-changing technology in his field maintaining a passion for his work.

He tried to explain to me how a heat pump works. Essentially the device takes heat out of the air and can either provide cooling or heating. It's both our air conditioner in the summer and heater in the winter. In the summer it transfers heat from our home and replaces it with cooler air. In the winter it reverses but the concept is harder to grasp. Even when it's very cold it takes the "heat" from the outside air and heats our home!

It's very hard to grasp how there's heat in cold.

But Brian told me there is always some heat until the temperature is absolute zero, although thankfully it doesn’t get that cold around here! (Absolute zero should not be confused with zero degrees Fahrenheit – as Brooksyne did when she first edited this message, informing me that it does sometimes get that cold around here!)

Absolute zero is the physically impossible-to-reach temperature of 0 Kelvin, or -459.67 degrees Fahrenheit, when atoms would stop moving. As such, nothing can be colder than absolute zero on the Kelvin scale. The lowest natural temperature ever directly recorded at ground level on Earth is −128.6 °F in Antarctica in 1983. But that's relatively warm compared to absolute zero!

Brian shared a lesson from physics that I suppose I learned sometime in the past, informing me that essentially cold is just the absence of heat. Another way to put it is that there’s really not cold just less hot although I don’t think I’ll ever get Brooksyne to really believe that. When she’s cold she’s cold and there’s no convincing her otherwise!

God made a  promise to Noah after the flood that still stands known as the Noahic Covenant: "As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease" (Genesis 8:22).

Each event and season described in the covenant is easily observable. Here in our rural area we regularly witness "seedtime and harvest" as the farmers plant and harvest. And of course no one would contest that we still have "summer and winter, day and night". But today we focus "cold and heat".

We all experience varying degrees of "cold and heat" depending on where we live. My sister lives in Florida and "cold" to her might be when temps dip down to the 40°s. Right now for me that would be practically short sleeve weather!

As long as the earth endures, these Noahic covenant characteristics "will never cease". The earth is still enduring and each of these easily observable characteristics have not ceased! God faithfully keeps His promises. Using a powerful phrase from the Book of Hebrews He is "sustaining all things by His powerful Word".

An aspect of God's sustaining care is seen when we consider how much colder or hotter it could get! But there are design limits in God's continuing care over the earth as He faithfully sustains it. We may grumble about the cold or the hot, but I've never met anyone who is terribly worried that we will plunge to absolute zero!

Hebrews 1:3 says that Christ "sustaining all things by His powerful word". Today I am confident that He will sustain and keep the earth as long as He ordains its existence. He will also uphold you and me. After all, "all things" covers it all!

Be encouraged today, Hebrews 3:13