All the Earth Will Worship Jesus- Every Knee Shall Bow to Him

This photograph gives me chills! Here is a worship service in Asia, where people are celebrating the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Certainly, from the photo, it is easy to guess that these folks were probably not raised as believers but instead in another faith. 

As I read these verses in the Bible (Romans 14:1-12), the fear and awe of God hits me:  

"Why do you pass judgment on your brother? Or you, why do you despise your brother? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God; for it is written,

“As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me,

    and every tongue shall confess to God.”

So then each of us will give an account of himself to God."

What a beautiful but scary picture of what heaven will be like! Giving an account to God for how we've lived our lives! What we've said. What we've done. Even what we've thought. We are all sinners who need the gift of Jesus Christ to save us. But also, what joy is coming! People from all over the earth, from all generations, praising His Name forever! 

AI and Apple- For Good or For Evil? A Prediction from 1927.

This guy is so ahead of the times! He certainly called it regarding AI- and he did so a long, long time ago. In the previous century, actually, almost 100 years ago. It was the year 1927 to be exact. Take a look at what the late great Oswald Chambers wrote in his devotional classic, My Utmost For His Highest in today's entry:

 

"He moved from there to the mountain east of Bethel, and he pitched his tent with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east; there he built an altar to the Lord and called on the name of the Lord. Genesis 12:8

Worship is giving God the best that He has given you. Be careful what you do with the best you have. Whenever you get a blessing from God, give it back to Him as a love-gift. Take time to meditate before God and offer the blessing back to Him in a deliberate act of worship.

If you hoard it for yourself, it will turn into spiritual dry rot, as the manna did when it was hoarded (see Exodus 16:20). God will never allow you to keep a spiritual blessing completely for yourself. It must be given back to Him so that He can make it a blessing to others.

Bethel is the symbol of fellowship with God; Ai is the symbol of the world. Abram "pitched his tent" between the two. The lasting value of our public service for God is measured by the depth of the intimacy of our private times of fellowship and oneness with Him.

Rushing in and out of worship is wrong every time there is always plenty of time to worship God. Days set apart for quiet can be a trap, detracting from the need to have daily quiet time with God. That is why we must "pitch our tents" where we will always have quiet times with Him, however noisy our times with the world may be.

There are not three levels of spiritual life worship, waiting, and work. Yet some of us seem to jump like spiritual frogs from worship to waiting, and from waiting to work.

God's idea is that the three should go together as one. They were always together in the life of our Lord and in perfect harmony. It is a discipline that must be developed; it will not happen overnight."

So, even though it's a play on words, Chambers makes a good point. God's way is the truth. AI is an opportunity to create falsehood as well as being used for good. There's a reason the Apple symbol includes a bite mark. It goes back to the story in the Garden of Eden of Man and Woman disobeying God so they can have His Knowledge in exchange for relationship with Him. AI is just another opportunity, isn't it?

(Text copyright Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest. Graphic copyright The Independent.)