Un-BOT-able

Tuesday, October 10, 2023

“Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches.  Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit.  For apart from me you can do nothing. 

John 15:5

There are many things a human cannot do.  Unlike the cow in the children’s rhyme, humans cannot jump over the moon, (at least not without a Bazillion-dollar Space Shuttle).  We also cannot change our DNA, or place of birth, or a bunch of other characteristics:  eye-shape, fingerprints, genetically-inherited diseases or some traits, like color of our hair (well, aside from Miss Clairol and Sally Beauty salon revisions…which are entirely external masks).

On the reverse side of that stuff that humans cannot do, is what science cannot do.  In one of the comparatively new branches of science, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Robots are being taught how to (at least) mimic human characteristics for a wide range of applications, doing tasks that humans no longer want to do.  If you’ve ever asked Alexa to change the channel, turn on the lights, or lock your front door from 20 miles away, you understand.  

But in today’s culture AI is much more than having a butler do everything you want in the house, from taking out the garbage, to picking out which cool T-shirt to wear to the game.  Today’s research is already overwhelmingly-involved with virtually everything you buy, including cars, food, clothing, furniture for your front porch, and pet shampoo.  Frankly, you cannot do a single thing online without someone getting ahold of your preferences in where to take a vacation and what toothpaste you love.

Billionaire tech genius, entrepreneur, co-founder of Google, CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, and now owner of Twitter, rebranded as “X”, Elon Musk has been involved in developing AI in the form of bot-tech (computer brains that serve humans by imitating being human).  Despite that deep immersion in artificial intelligence, and being armed with a bankroll larger than most small countries, Musk has some cautions now about the whole thing; in an interview this April he said:

[1]

For all the magnificent (some would say malevolent) machinations of mankind to copy human intelligence into machines, there is one human characteristic (at the very least) science cannot force into wired circuit boards, chips, and whatever other mysteries run computer thingies…and that is eternity…an eternal soul that will never die.  They couldn’t even get to the point of a temporary soul that has genuine compassion.  

All humankind’s science can muster is mimicry – a painted  face doll, with programed responses, and not an ounce of caring for what becomes of its fellow inhabitants of planet earth.  God, who is creator of all that is seen, and that which we haven’t yet seen, has declared many times within the pages of Scripture that he will not share his glory with anyone.  I will not give my glory to anyone else,  Isaiah 42:8.  So as for AI, it will remain artificial; the real thing is God’s, and quite unique! 

For You Today 

For those who trust in God’s promises, this world may rob you of your job, your health and play a lot of nasty tricks on you.  There is one thing God has given each of us complete control over; our eternal soul.  Its Un-BOT-able!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

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There are about 2,600 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road library.

Title Image(s) courtesy of Pixabay.com                   

Images without citation are in public domain or cited via weblinks.  Unless noted, Scripture quoted from NLT^©  

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[1] Elon Musk Believes AI Could Destroy Us All – So Why Is He Investing In It?

The Lord Keeps Watch Over You

Monday, September 11, 2023

I look up to the mountains—does my help come from there?  My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth!  He will not let you stumble; the one who watches over you will not slumber.  Indeed, he who watches over Israel never slumbers or sleeps.  The Lord himself watches over you!  The Lord stands beside you as your protective shade.  The sun will not harm you by day, nor the moon at night.  The Lord keeps you from all harm and watches over your life.  The Lord keeps watch over you as you come and go, both now and forever.  

Psalm 121:1-8

For more than two decades today’s date on the calendar brings remembrances of the coordinated attacks on American soil in 2001.  It also recalls other times when the sovereignty of our nation was tested.  By the late 1950’s Baby Boomers were losing sight of what happened at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.  Memories fade as generations age-out.  However, as the 2^nd-Century church father, Tertullian, wrote of the church being persecuted by Roman emperors:   We multiply whenever we are mown down by you; the blood of Christians is seed. 

This strong belief spawned the ideas of freedom, which produced this nation, birthed in the blood struggle of revolution.  Renewed times of sacrifice are the hallmark of any nation committed to living free.  We enjoy freedom, but the cost is anything but cheap.

The same can be said about the freedom of a human soul.  Such freedom is not from tyrants of flesh-and-blood.  Rather it is the enslavement of human will, chains that restrain us from living as intended by our Creator. 

Genesis records that when God made Adam and Eve, He blessed them.  It was that first blessing which instilled in humankind the desire for freedom.  That remains our heritage and future…freedom in Christ. 

Today’s text views how God intended for that to work.  When we feel small, weak, or threatened, we look for help.  The mountains are symbols of great strength and endurance.  The Psalmist asks:  will help come from what I can see…those mountains which are forever?  The question is rhetorical, and implies the answer with the absurdity of piles of dirt, rocks, and trees providing help.  Those hills are beautiful, but impersonal; they are impassable hinderances to travelers, or beautiful reminders of home and majesty, but help is something that comes from the Lord who watches over us.

So, it is folly to look to mountains for help.  Rather it is Scripture’s intent to remind us to look past the gift of such majestic beauty like mountains, or freedom.  Look past the gift…all the way to the Giver, He who created, and gifted those mountains to the likes of us.  Governments and their programs are gifts to us of order, controlling what might be the mayhem of evil.  Other humans are capable of both good to help, and evil to harm.  Your own strength is a gift, and God expects you to use it for his divine and benevolent purposes.  But ultimately, you can depend on nothing more (or less) than the divine, loving heart of God, filled with compassion and love for you.

For You Today 

It is right for us to honor the lives lost on September 11^th.  And all lives taken too soon by wars and all sorts of evil.  It is a Godly thing to remember, and bless that memory. 

Let us also go further than ceremony; let continued resolve recall the source of our freedom:  He who watches over us without sleeping or skipping a beat.  It was His blood which bought freedom for the soul.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

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There are about 2,600 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road library. 

Title Images:  Pixabay.com   Images without citation are in public domain. Unless noted, Scripture quoted from NLT^©   

Spiritual Blindness

Thursday, October 13, 2022

So Paul, standing before the council, addressed them as follows:  “Men of Athens, I notice that you are very religious in every way, for as I was walking along I saw your many shrines.  And one of your altars had this inscription on it: ‘To an Unknown God.’  This God, whom you worship without knowing, is the one I’m telling you about.  “He is the God who made the world and everything in it.  Since he is Lord of heaven and earth, he doesn’t live in man-made temples, and human hands can’t serve his needs—for he has no needs. He himself gives life and breath to everything, and he satisfies every need.  From one man he created all the nations throughout the whole earth.  He decided beforehand when they should rise and fall, and he determined their boundaries.  “His purpose was for the nations to seek after God and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him—though he is not far from any one of us.  For in him we live and move and exist. As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’  And since this is true, we shouldn’t think of God as an idol designed by craftsmen from gold or silver or stone.  “God overlooked people’s ignorance about these things in earlier times, but now he commands everyone everywhere to repent of their sins and turn to him.  For he has set a day for judging the world with justice by the man he has appointed, and he proved to everyone who this is by raising him from the dead.”  Acts 17:22-31

With deference (and no disdain) to the struggles faced by the many who face the challenge of blindness, I wish to point to what Paul described as a universal blindness worse (by far), than not having physical eyesight.  He points to spiritual blindness, a malady so consequential, there is nothing worse in the universe.  Unsighted physically, we might stumble; blinded spiritually, we are a total loss.

As a child I had no clear understanding of God’s image stamped on my soul.  I felt, but could not articulate an inkling of being special – that there was something not-quite-me, yet defining me as unique, but not quite where I was meant to be.  That was a child’s innocent understanding of longing to be connected to God, who created me.  I understand now that was His image and purpose, because of loss.  With each step away from that image it dimmed just a little more. 

The apostle was trying to help the citizens of Athens understand that their  religious “bent” was like a blind man feeling his way to find God.  They knew God was there, but they couldn’t see Him, much like I felt the presence of His image stamped on my soul, but only vaguely suspected it was something holy and good; I was on the verge of spiritual blindness.

Paul could help the Athenians because he knew what it was like to be spiritually blind.  He blindly flailed-away at Christ’s church, attempting to stamp out the darkness by persecuting the Son of Light.  When he met the true light on the road to Damascus, Paul’s physical vision ended temporarily, while his spiritual vision was undergoing surgery at the hand of the Great Physician.  When all was said and done, Paul could say, along with John Newton:  Once I was blind, but now I can see.

For You Today

You were created for that which is much greater than any of us experience in this life, complete fellowship with God.  We move in a training ground for 70 or so years, sometimes stumbling in the darkness of a wandering soul.  But Jesus Christ opened to us the bloody pathway to spiritual sight.  His blood cleanses us from sin when we confess His Lordship.  It’s the exchange of our sin for His sight!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

Go to VIDEO (read by author)

There are about 2,000 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library.  To dig deeper on today’s topic, explore some of these: 

The End of Sacrifices   and   The Patience of God with Spiritual Blindness

[1] Images:  Pixabay.com   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©   

The Rough Road Home

Wednesday, August 31, 2022

God says, “Rebuild the road!  Clear away the rocks and stones so my people can return from captivity.”  The high and lofty one who lives in eternity, the Holy One, says this:  “I live in the high and holy place with those whose spirits are contrite and humble.  I restore the crushed spirit of the humble and revive the courage of those with repentant hearts.  For I will not fight against you forever; I will not always be angry.  If I were, all people would pass away—all the souls I have made.  I was angry, so I punished these greedy people.                        I withdrew from them, but they kept going on their own stubborn way.  I have seen what they do, but I will heal them anyway!  I will lead them.  I will comfort those who mourn, bringing words of praise to their lips.  May they have abundant peace, both near and far,” says the Lord, who heals them.  “But those who still reject me are like the restless sea, which is never still but continually churns up mud and dirt.  There is no peace for the wicked,” says my God.  Isaiah 57:14-21

The prophet reaches into the psyche of every wanderer; thoughts of home seep into every waking moment of silence.  This part of Isaiah’s comforting word to God’s people, in captivity because they strayed from God’s ways, opens the possibility of return.  It’s a rough road home, but God is the one with peace for the troubled soul at the end of the journey.

Grasping the surreal possibility of being able to come home, after rejecting God, may not be easy to accept.  However, the only other alternative is the way the passage ends…no peace for the wicked!  The Father says you must come home!

Passages in Scripture like this one, and the Prodigal Son, the forgiveness of the thief on the cross next to Jesus, and many others, are so precious, offering hope to those who have strayed from their Creator.  They are precious because they reveal the heart of God, which is love that desires the best for each of us. 

In many lives, that central, loving heart of God’s may take many years to get through the hard exterior life tends to build around our own hearts.  But God’s love is tough, and relentless, and impervious to our foolish ways.  And when the weary, wandering soul finally arrives at nowhere else to go, the rough road of humble repentance only requires one small step.

And that one, contrite step towards God is all that’s required to have the floodgate of peace opened.

For You Today

You may have travelled the highways of life that seemed easier and much more suitable to bring you what you wanted, and been successful, or a dismal failure.  Either way, if you’re reading this far, you’ve also no doubt discovered rejecting God’s way has been emptiness of the soul.  The missing piece is like the dangling carrot in front of the mule pulling the cart….he’s never going to reach it, just like peace will always be just out of reach for you.  Time to rebuild the road home?

Hear one more time what the rebuilt road home looks like in your life:

The high and lofty one who lives in eternity, the Holy One, says this:  “I live in the high and holy place with those whose spirits are contrite and humble.  I restore the crushed spirit of the humble and revive the courage of those with repentant hearts.  

Restoration and reviving…it’s worth the trip, no matter how rough the repair job gets on the road back home.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

Go to VIDEO (read by author)

There are about 2,000 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library.  To dig deeper on today’s topic, explore some of these: 

Resting in Peace and Two Billion

[1] Images:  Pixabay.com     Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©   

The Soul's Freefall

 

Tuesday, March 29, 2022

Only fools say in their hearts, “There is no God.”  They are corrupt, and their actions are evil; not one of them does good!  God looks down from heaven on the entire human race; he looks to see if anyone is truly wise, if anyone seeks God.  But no, all have turned away; all have become corrupt.  No one does good, not a single one!  Will those who do evil never learn?  They eat up my people like bread and wouldn’t think of praying to God.  Terror will grip them, terror like they have never known before.  God will scatter the bones of your enemies.  You will put them to shame, for God has rejected them.  Who will come from Mount Zion to rescue Israel?  When God restores his people, Jacob will shout with joy, and Israel will rejoice.  Psalm 53:1-6

There are a lot of moving parts to this Psalm…all processing in the same direction, downward!  Note the movement and the sudden change:

     ·       Fools ignore God and God’s prior claim on our existence.

     ·       God is watching, but doesn’t prevent our corrupt choices.

     ·       Evil turns abusive and arrogantly destroys the lives of others.

     ·       The result of it all will be terror when God says “enough of this”!

     ·       Those who have trusted in God will rejoice at the outcome of it all.

One consistent thought that permeates this whole process is that those who choose evil prefer so, and will never be content with worshipping God.  Their interest lies only in the temporary self-gratifying conquest of what they can see and feel.  Eternity is snubbed for a few fading perks.

Watching all this play out would be humorous if it were not so tragic.  It’s a little like watching the bad guy in a “B-movie”.  You know that guy, the one with the black hat and thin mustache that’s curled-up at the ends.  He is always tying-up the beautiful heroine on the railroad tracks.  He leaves her there with a sneer and laugh; her fate is sealed.  But you know the plot.  The good guy with the white hat, riding a white stallion swoops in and saves the girl just before the train comes.  Then there’s a fight and the bad guy loses…again.

Question

Was this just a poor beginning of Steven Spielberg’s movie producing career?  Or could it be Psalm 53 stuck in our DNA?  Since the foundation of time, space, and eternity, God has known what we’d be up to here on planet earth.  He’s told us in many ways, and with every bit of creation’s majesty, to look to Him.  All else is, as Solomon would write in Ecclesiastes, vanity.  And the Psalmist would agree with Solomon, evil leads to more evil; ignoring God leads to increasing ignorance.  And those who choose this pathway do not learn it’s painful lesson, nor do they care!  And, in the end, the judgment will be final, fatal, and fearsome.

For You Today

If you’re tempted to question God’s (apparent) lack of intervening in history, and the pressing injustices of current times, or even why the bad guy got the promotion, and you’re still wondering how to pay this month’s grocery bill, remember that the time is coming…in HIS time.  And the freefall of the soul is in God’s hands.  So don’t do so much questioning of God…lean more to trusting!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!  

[1] Title image: Pixabay.com   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©    

When Time Stops and Judgment Doesn't

 

Tuesday, June 8, 2021

When the thousand years come to an end, Satan will be let out of his prison.  He will go out to deceive the nations—called Gog and Magog—in every corner of the earth.  He will gather them together for battle—a mighty army, as numberless as sand along the seashore.  And I saw them as they went up on the broad plain of the earth and surrounded God’s people and the beloved city.  But fire from heaven came down on the attacking armies and consumed them.  Then the devil, who had deceived them, was thrown into the fiery lake of burning sulfur, joining the beast and the false prophet.  There they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.  And I saw a great white throne and the one sitting on it.  The earth and sky fled from his presence, but they found no place to hide.  I saw the dead, both great and small, standing before God’s throne.  And the books were opened, including the Book of Life.  And the dead were judged according to what they had done, as recorded in the books.  The sea gave up its dead, and death and the grave gave up their dead.  And all were judged according to their deeds.  Then death and the grave were thrown into the lake of fire.  This lake of fire is the second death.  And anyone whose name was not found recorded in the Book of Life was thrown into the lake of fire.  Revelation 20:7-15

The apocalyptic prophecy of God, written in this final book of God’s Word, declares the eventual disposition of evil…forever punishment in the lake of fire, a buring torment, an image that ought to  produce jaw-dropping awe.  

For a human context I immediately recall Sadaam Hussein, a despotic madman visiting unchecked decades of evil on his own people, murder, arrogant imposition of poverty, the work of a man gone insane with absolute power.  Pursued by an army, Sadaam was ferreted out of a hole in the ground, and hanged.

Where this analogy breaks-down is the aftermath.  Sadaam is gone, his body buried in 2006 in a grave not far from where he was born in Tikrit.  In a hundred years most every work of his hand on this earth will be forgotten.  But what of his soul?  What of that part of his being, created in the image of God, which still exists.  And what is that like now?  And what will it be in 100, 1000, or 10-billion years?

The answer is fraught with some grey area, certainly, but God does not leave us without understanding that evil is punished, not simply for a brief season; it is eternal.  And the moment the word “eternal” is uttered, the game clock shatters, stopped by Divine fiat. 

In much the same way as those who live in the grace of God also mirror the image of their Creator, those who choose to reject God live in the image of the chief rejector, Lucifer.  And the fate that awaits their judgment is a shout from Heaven, pronouncing their eternal residence in the lake of fire.  Scripture calls this fate of those who separate themselves from worshipping God The Second Death. 

No human can look into the eyes of another human and declare lostness; that judgment is reserved for God alone.  But, the fact that we cannot judge each other does not negate the reality of that judgment.  Hear the word of God on this:

And just as each person is destined to die once and after that comes judgment,  Hebrews 9:27

For You Today

Eternal judgment for sin means time stops, but we don’t.  The eternal day of those who live in the light is mirrored by the eternal night of those under judgment.  May we spend our lives pointing others to the light, the joy of Christ, Who is the only escape from the wrath to come.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!   

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[1] Title Image: Pixabay.com   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©

The Truth Will Set You Free - From What?

 

Wednesday, May 13, 2020

John 8:31-34

Jesus said to the people who believed in him, “You are truly my disciples if you remain faithful to my teachings.  And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”  “But we are descendants of Abraham,” they said.  “We have never been slaves to anyone.  What do you mean, ‘You will be set free’?”  Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave of sin.

Our dog, Wellington the Methodist, is a prisoner each night.  He has an issue with his bladder, so his little “kennel condo” is his nighttime castle.  Each day well-before sunrise I open the little door to his kingdom and tell him, you’re FREE!  He lifts his head slightly, sniffs, and goes back to snoreing like a chain saw.  It’s the doggie version of OK…free…whatever; keep it down, please…dog trying t’ sleep here.

Those who were listening to Jesus didn’t understand the kennel they were in, either.  They didn’t get it, that there was any need for being released.  They had their heritage of being descendants of Abraham…that made everything OK with the Creator.  So, Jesus, free….from WHAT?

I’m not sure the larger part of humanity understands this any better than those who were following Jesus around.  In just about every context I hear those words, the truth shall set you free, they just sound like another platitude, a cliché flung-out to fill space by the self-proclaimed wise, so that others will know they’re in the presence of wisdom.  It’s used as a foil in a verbal fencing match to proclaim, hey, I know the real story here, and you don’t, so see my point of view and, when you know the real truth, you’ll be better off.

So, at the risk of proving my own ignorance, let me just offer that Jesus wasn’t talking about truth, as in, was it the butler or Colonel Mustard who killed Professor Plum…or freedom, as in having the right to move from point A to point B unhindered…or freedom to be a plumber, doctor, or any other vocation.  Rather,  knowing the truth is becoming a genuine disciple of He who IS the truth.

Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.  John 14:6

The freedom of which Jesus spoke is not a matter of having your kennel door opened, merely for the purpose of personal choice to wander about and chase squirrels or whatever else turns you on…it’s a matter of having your mind opened to what’s really important in the universe – responding well to a loving Creator who gave you life in the body, and wants to energize your soul and spirit.

For You Today

So, how is life going…I mean, with all that freedom you enjoy?  Is it kind of dependent on the CDC guidelines, or whatever the day brings?  Or do you find yourself sleeping through life like Wellington the Methodist, just waiting for whatever handout of “freedom” those in charge decide to hand down? 

One day, all the personal choices you’ve been granted constitutionally, or those, by virtue of whatever slots in life you’ve been able to carve out for yourself, have come to an end, the only question that will matter is,

did you trust He Who IS the Truth to set you free?

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road today.  Have a blessed day!

Go to VIDEO

Title Image:  Pixabay.com  Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©

For other posts on John 8 see The Truth Shall Set You Free and Failure and The Cost of Truth