{"id":995,"date":"2011-12-19T22:20:24","date_gmt":"2011-12-20T02:20:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.bottlerockettheology.com\/?p=995"},"modified":"2011-12-19T22:20:24","modified_gmt":"2011-12-20T02:20:24","slug":"what-about-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dave.dlscott.info\/?p=995","title":{"rendered":"What about now?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>One day in heaven &#8230;<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, 10 that <strong>at the name of Jesus every knee should bow<\/strong>, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 <strong>and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord<\/strong>, to the glory of God the Father (Philippians 2:9\u201311 NIV84).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>But what about now?<br \/>\n<\/strong>That was my thought.\u00a0 Yes, one day everyone will bow before the King.\u00a0 But why wait?\u00a0 What about now?\u00a0 And I have to admit that I was thinking more of Christians at the time, those who profess allegiance to the King of kings and Lord of lords.<\/p>\n<p>I had been \u201csitting on\u201d these thoughts for about a week and then was motivated by a friend\u2019s Facebook post this morning.\u00a0 \u201cKim Jong-Il and Christopher Hitchens have both discovered that Jesus Christ is Lord.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Too late &#8230;<\/strong><br \/>\nToo late for Kim and Christopher.\u00a0 They won\u2019t wake up from the bad dream and discover that it is Christmas morning after all.\u00a0 No Scrooge experience for them.\u00a0 For the first time ever their eyes will be open to the reality of life and the reality of God.\u00a0 Their blind eyes now see but not until they were dead.\u00a0 Now they know.\u00a0 Tragically too late.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Now on a dark planet far from the throne room of the great King &#8230;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>What about us?<br \/>\n<\/strong>Think of the opportunity we have as Christians to bow before God now, to live under the rule of King Jesus now in every aspect of our lives.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The ideal place to bow &#8230;<br \/>\n<\/strong>A planet shrouded in darkness, ruled by an evil despot and far from the throne room of the King is just the place to bow.\u00a0 Everyone will bow in heaven but what about now?\u00a0 Excellent opportunity indeed that God has presented to us.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>In a land of the blind, we see.<\/li>\n<li>In a land of the dead, we live.<\/li>\n<li>In a land of haters, we love.<\/li>\n<li>In a land of the rebels, we bow.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>We bow &#8230;<\/strong><br \/>\nWe bow, we bow, we bow! \u00a0Yes and amen! \u00a0Far from the throne of God we bow and live under the rule of King Jesus. \u00a0Praise the King!\u00a0 Praise the name of Jesus!<\/p>\n<p><strong>So my Christian brothers and sisters, what about now?<br \/>\n<\/strong>Are we making the most of this fantastic opportunity to bring glory to our King?\u00a0 Often it doesn\u2019t seem so.\u00a0 Too much of us.\u00a0 Too much of our agendas, our feelings, our desires.\u00a0 Too much taking care of ourselves, too little trusting in the benevolent rule of King.<\/p>\n<p>Just think for a moment how careful you will be in dealing with some of the people who profess Jesus in your life this week.\u00a0 Careful not to offend, not to say the wrong thing, because you know there is a price to pay if you do. \u00a0People who don&#8217;t bow usurp the authority of the King and seek vengeance. \u00a0(<a title=\"Vengeance is the King's\" href=\"http:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/passage\/?search=romans%2012:19&amp;version=NIV\" target=\"_blank\">See Romans 12:19 for the King&#8217;s own words<\/a>.)<\/p>\n<p><strong>Do you know why we don\u2019t bow?<br \/>\n<\/strong>Because we don&#8217;t trust the King to care for us. \u00a0And we don\u2019t trust because we are not tasting his goodness. \u00a0And we are not tasting his goodness\u00a0because we do not take refuge in him.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>O taste and see that the Lord is good; How blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him (Psalm 34:8 NASB95)!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The blessing comes in the refuge of the King. \u00a0We must trust God with our lives, our real lives, not merely our professions of belief and theological assent, but our lives. \u00a0<strong>We will never taste his care if we do not submit ourselves to his care.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>The best place in the entire universe &#8230;<br \/>\n<\/strong>The best place in the universe is bowed before the King.\u00a0 Whether still on the dark planet or in his throne room, there is no place that is as right and true as the created one bowed before the Creator, the redeemed one bowed before the Redeemer.<\/p>\n<p>Now is the time to bow low before King Jesus.<\/p>\n<p><strong>All hail King Jesus!\u00a0 All hail Emmanuel!<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Let all the world look to me for salvation! For I am God; there is no other. 23 I have sworn by my own name; I have spoken the truth, and I will never go back on my word: <strong>Every knee will bend to me, and every tongue will confess allegiance to me<\/strong>.\u201d 24 The people will declare, \u201cThe LORD is the source of all my righteousness and strength.\u201d And all who were angry with him will come to him and be ashamed (Isaiah 45:22\u201324 NLT).<\/li>\n<li>It is written: \u201c \u2018As surely as I live,\u2019 says the Lord, \u2018<strong>every knee will bow<\/strong> before me; <strong>every tongue will confess<\/strong> to God\u2019 \u201d (Romans 14:11 NIV84).<\/li>\n<li>Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, 10 that <strong>at the name of Jesus every knee should bow<\/strong>, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and <strong>every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,<\/strong> to the glory of God the Father (Philippians 2:9\u201311 NIV84).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One day in heaven &#8230; Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/dave.dlscott.info\/?p=995\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-995","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3dxA8-g3","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dave.dlscott.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/995","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dave.dlscott.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dave.dlscott.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dave.dlscott.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dave.dlscott.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=995"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dave.dlscott.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/995\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dave.dlscott.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dave.dlscott.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dave.dlscott.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}