A chatbot is a “program or application that users can converse with using voice or text.” The bots simulate human conversation by using natural language processing to understand users and respond to their questions.
I suppose it was inevitable that chatbots would come not only to customer service, e-commerce, entertainment, and media but also to the church. Here are some examples:
- One Day Confession uses AI to “simulate the experience of confessing to a Catholic priest, providing thoughtful responses based on biblical teachings and principles.”
- Confession–Catholic also allows the user to “enter the content to ask for forgiveness” and then “receive forgiveness” from the app.
- EpiscoBot.com allows users to ask questions and receive answers reflecting “the teachings and policies of the Episcopal Church.”
- A pastor named Ron Carpenter has created an AI app that allows you to ask questions and receive answers drawn from his sermon archive.
And there’s even Text With Jesus, an AI-powered chatbot billed as “a divine connection in your pocket.” It invites you to “embark on a spiritual journey and engage in enlightening conversations with Jesus Christ, the apostles, and a multitude of other revered figures from the Bible.”
Of course, chatbots creating the illusion that we are talking directly with Jesus are just that—illusions. However, many of us who would never use an app to talk to Christ nonetheless have a “chatbot” relationship with the real Jesus.
I know. For many years, I was one of them.
God with a massive set of scales
As I have often recounted, I grew up in a family that never attended church services. I believed there was a God but had no concept of a personal relationship with him.
In my theological worldview, he was a divine judge with a massive set of scales, balancing the good I did on one side against the bad on the other. Whichever way the scale tipped determined where I went when I died. Since I thought I was basically a good person, I assumed I had all of God I needed in my life.
As a teenager, I was invited to attend a local Baptist church, where I heard the gospel and eventually made a commitment to trust in Christ as my Savior and Lord. I then began practicing what I understood the Christian life to be—praying, reading the Bible, attending church services, serving others, and sharing my faith. Over time, I sensed a call into vocational ministry (another story for another day). Theological degrees followed, as did service on a seminary faculty and pastoral ministry in three churches.
Then came a day that changed everything.
“Trying to prove to yourself that you are loved”
I was pastoring a church in Atlanta, Georgia, when our staff participated in a silent retreat at Ignatius House, a Jesuit retreat center on the Chattahoochee River. During the retreat, we were given an essay by the writer Mike Yaconelli in which he recounted a remarkable experience at a spiritual retreat of his own. He testified:
God had been trying to shout over the noisiness of my life, and I couldn’t hear him. But in the stillness and solitude, his whispers shouted from my soul, “Michael, I am here. I have been calling you. I have been loving you, but you haven’t been listening. Can you hear me, Michael? I love you. I have always loved you. And I have been waiting for you to hear me say that to you. But you have been so busy trying to prove to yourself that you are loved that you have not heard me.”
What God said to Mike, he said to me. In those days, my Father showed me that he wants a personal, intimate relationship with me above all else. He wants to be as real, alive, and active in my life as any other living person. More so, in fact, since he and I can commune directly any time, any place.
By contrast, I was relating to him as transactionally as I would to a chatbot: asking questions and deriving answers and advice. I prayed when I needed forgiveness or guidance, read his word to prepare sermons and Bible studies, and worshiped as part of my pastoral responsibilities. But I could not remember the last time I spent an hour with Jesus just to be with Jesus. I could not remember the last time I read the Bible for no reason except to hear his voice.
And this broke my heart: I could not remember the last time I told Jesus from my heart that I loved him.
“So shall your God rejoice over you”
Yesterday, we focused on life-changing intimacy with God. The day before, we discussed the private sins that imperil such intimacy. Today, let’s add one more fact: sins no one else sees are just as effective in blocking the Holy Spirit as those that are obvious. Such sins are even more nefarious in a way, since we think we can commit them, confess them, and face no consequences for them.
In truth, they are bricks in a wall separating us from the personal, transforming presence of Jesus.
By contrast, seeking true intimacy with Jesus is the path to experiencing his best and reflecting his transforming character to a broken culture. Our Lord says of his people, “As the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you” (Isaiah 62:5). He is already “living among you” as your “mighty savior” (Zephaniah 3:17a NLT). As a result, “He will take delight in you with gladness. With his love, he will calm all your fears. He will rejoice over you with joyful songs” (v. 17b NLT).
If you want to experience his delight, gladness, love, calm, and joy, ask his Spirit to lead you into greater intimacy with Jesus than you have ever known, then follow his lead. There will be things to do and stop doing, steps to take as you journey further into his transforming presence. He promises: “You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart” (Jeremiah 29:13).
Dr. Duane Brooks noted in a recent devotional,
“We cannot go with God and stay where we are.”
Will you “go with God” today?
Quote for the day:
“To fall in love with God is the greatest romance; to seek him the greatest adventure; to find him the greatest achievement.” —St. Augustine
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