"And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist" (Colossians 1:17).
Extreme cold can be a challenge for all living things. Unprotected cells of plants and animals will burst like water pipes in freezing temperatures. This leads to irreversible tissue damage.
People are much more sensitive to cold than most other creatures, and in a sense, more dependent upon our Creator God. If our core body temperature drops below 95° F (less than 35° C), we will die. According to the CDC (Centers for Disease Control), hypothermia causes approximately 600 deaths each year in the United States alone. With these facts in mind, the following account is nothing short of amazing!
In winter, the wood frog (Rana sylvatica) of North America freezes solid for many weeks at a time without harm. How does our Creator, Christ Jesus, accomplish this seemingly impossible feat? Simply put, He makes the frog extra sweet!
As temperatures drop, the liver of the wood frog churns out huge amounts of glucose (a sugar normally found in the body). Glucose accumulates in its tissues and acts as an antifreeze. The fluids inside the frog’s cells become thick like maple syrup; this prevents intracellular ice from forming. The fluid outside its cells can freeze without damaging its organs, though. The frog is safe as long as ice doesn’t crystallize within its cells.
This incredibly high concentration of sugar, pumped out by the liver, would quickly cause you and me to enter into a diabetic coma. But for the frog, it effectively prevents cells from exploding
in the cold.
As the wood frog becomes hard, like a Popsicle, its heart also stops beating and brain activity ceases—for all intents and purposes, it is clinically dead and remains this way for weeks at a time! In spring, however, the frog thaws and comes back to life, freely jumping around only hours after being frozen solid as a brick!
The wood frog’s testimony to our Creator’s genius cannot be ignored (Romans 1:20) and it is an incredible symbol of our future resurrection in Christ. If we stop to ponder this fantastic feat of survival we might better appreciate the certainty of our own eternal life found in Jesus. He is our Sweetness (Matthew 11:28-30) because He brings peace between us and God (Isaiah 9:6)—and He alone protects us from the coming storm of God’s wrath against sinners. Christ is our Resurrection (John 11:25) if we trust Him with our lives (1 Corinthians 15:20-23; 50-58). Oh, that our hearts might continue to fall upon Him with the simplicity of this true faith
in God. . .
"Yes, we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead" (2 Corinthians 1:9).
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