God Alone

"Turn to me and be saved,
all you ends of the earth;
for I am God, and there is no other.

²³ By myself I have sworn,
my mouth has uttered in all integrity
a word that will not be revoked:
Before me every knee will bow;
by me every tongue will swear.

²⁴ They will say of me, 'In the LORD alone
are righteousness and strength.' "
All who have raged against him
will come to him and be put to shame." Isaiah 45:22-24

Every time I read these verses in Isaiah, there are two lines in particular that make me pause. I read them over again, and I really see what the words there are saying. In verse 23, He says "every knee will bow and every tongue will swear" The key word there is every. And I think God truly means Every. Single. Person. Ever.

Think about this for a second. This means, that all those people who have chosen poorly in life, all those people who chose to follow themselves or to deny the existence of God will one day be on their knees, bowing in obeisance to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Even the worst dictators ever to walk this planet, Hitler, Stalin, Napoleon, will bow and acknowledge that HE is Lord over all.

Kind of makes you think a little more about what it is we're doing while we're here on earth. Because at the end of the day, what really matters is God. Who He IS, and what we can do for Him this day. There is no other like God! There are people who spend much of their lives wishing they could make a difference- wishing they could do something of importance. When the reality is, the most important thing that we could possibly do is acknowledge God as our sovereign Lord. Once we bend our knee, and make that choice, we are marked for life. When we bow our hearts and our minds to God, and accept the sacrifice of His Son, we become His for all eternity. But first, we have to make that choice. We can choose to bow now, to give Him our life, such as it is, or we can choose to go our own way. But in the end, we will bow anyway- won't we?

It's almost the ultimate in irony! If we choose our own path, not only are we choosing to suffer in torment for all eternity, but in the end we have to bow to the very being we are trying to ignore while we are here on this earth anyway.

So we can make the choice to follow Him, and then we can be a living example for all those around us too. That just seems to me to be the wise decision in the first place. There is no other God! The thing is, by choosing to serve Him now, rather than later, not only are we placing ourselves in a better scenario for eternity, but we get the benefits of being one of His while we are here. We get to walk through our everyday, carrying the love of God with us everywhere we go. And when people ask us "how on earth did you get through that?" We can look them square in the eye and say that "In God alone, we found strength."

You know, as I read these verses again, I see where it says "be saved all the ends of the earth." Do you know that God wants all of us to choose Him? He doesn't look down on the earth and say "no, I don't like them too much, or them to much, and oh, no, she is a bad egg, I don't care for her either." The crazy thing about God? He loves every single one of us. He loves that wacky neighbor, and He loves that guy going into the adult bookstore. God wants every single person on earth to choose Him for no other reason than that He loves them! God loves every single person that He creates.

And He summons each one of us by name.

"For the sake of Jacob my servant,
of Israel my chosen,
I summon you by name
and bestow on you a title of honor,
though you do not acknowledge me.

⁵ I am the LORD, and there is no other;
apart from me there is no God.
I will strengthen you,
though you have not acknowledged me," Isaiah 45:4-5

How much more will God do for those who acknowledge Him? We know that God can use all things for His purposes, and if He will bless those who don't even acknowledge Him as Lord and Savior, how much more will He bless those who do?

There is no other God! The world can lie to us and try to create all sorts of other gods for us to follow, but the truth is that there is only one God. There is only one Creator, there is only one Lover of our souls, and I make the choice to bend my knee now, and love Him now. I choose to acknowledge Him as my Lord, come whatever may.