Encounters of the God Kind

Have you ever hear of an early eighties show called Star Trek?  Do you remember the shows where members of starship enterprise were abducted and taken to another galaxy?  Those who were taken from the starship to another atmosphere were usually taken against their will.  In fact, it would happen when the starship member was being transported from one region back to the enterprise.  Those who were abducted fought really hard to make communication with starship enterprise because they knew that they could not survive in such strange environments. Until they were delivered by members of starship enterprise, they were disillusioned and upset.  How could they survive in such a strange environment?  It was not what they were used to on the starship.  Moreover, they had a particular mission that they were supposed to finish, and being abducted was not apart of the plan.  Getting back on the right path was their only option.  Yet they could not get back on track without the help of Captain Kirk or Spock, the second commander in charge.

            I can identify with those who were abducted in the late Star Trek films. At the age of 33, I felt that my life was off course.  I had no job and I was not working in ministry. I dropped out of graduate school because I decided that I must work.  But nothing was working out for me.  I had gone to undergraduate school and earned graduate degrees in mathematics.  I had even studied missions.  This should not be happening to me.  Needless to say, I was very disillusioned and perplexed concerning the course of my life.   I felt like Moses on the other side of the desert tending to cattle.   “Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the desert and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. Exodus 3:1”   For Moses, this life style was very different from the one that he had in Egypt living in the Pharaoh’s house.   Surely, Moses did not plan to be on the other side of the dessert tending cattle.  Nor did I plan to struggle managing a math consulting business that did not bring in enough clients.  Yet God spoke to me and changed the course of my destiny through a missions trip to the Sudanese community in Memphis Tennessee.  It is through this trip that I have heard the Spirit of God lead me clearly to a fiancé, ministry and full-time employment.  Through worshipping God and serving Him through missions, God is and has supplied my every need.  Praise the Lord!

Is your life off course; are you disillusioned?  Have you accomplished the things that you want in your life?  Do you like the path that your life is going? If not, perhaps and encounter with God could help you to actualize your goals.  An encounter from God can change the course of your life forever.  Consider Moses’ life and His life in the passage below:

There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. So Moses thought, "I will go over and see this strange sight--why the bush does not burn up." When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, "Moses! Moses!" And Moses said, "Here I am." "Do not come any closer," God said. "Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground."  Exodus 3:2-5

The angel of the Lord appeared to Moses in flames of fire.  What is significant about fire? The Hebrew word esh means “supernatural fire (accompanying theophany).” [1] A theophany is a physical appearance and/or manifestation of God.  The Word of God describes God as “a consuming fire.”[2]  Moreover, the fire of God represents the glory of God and the destruction of all of His enemies.[3] Why did the angel appear? Some scholars believe that the angel was a messenger of God, yet John Wesley suggests that it is referring to a “divine being.”[4]  Moses went to approach the bush in order to understand the strange situation.  It was not strange that the bush was burning; only that it was not consumed.  “The idea of burning and yet not being consumed is brought into the narrative by Moses’ wonderment in the moment of his ignorance, before he knew that God was in the bush”^[5].  “The curiosity Moses had to enquire into this extraordinary sight:  I will turn aside and see, v. 3. He speaks as one inquisitive and bold in his enquiry; whatever it was, he would, if possible, know the meaning of it.”^[6] Moses took a risk/had faith to go over to the sight without knowing what was occurring.          

God can speak to you through strange situations in your life.  Why did God choose to speak to Moses through a bush?  “The real significance of the flame in this case seems to be light and glory and preservation where God manifests Himself graciously.”[7]   Note that there is a reason for your particular situation in your life.  God desires to manifest Himself graciously to you through the situation of your burning bush.  For the abducted starship member, their burning bush was being able to miraculously survive and/or escape a foreign galaxy.  For me, my burning bush was to go on a local missions trip to minister to Sudanese people—a people I had only studied about in text books.  The first day that I met my fiancé, he asked me, “What if God is sending you a Sudanese husband to help you carry out your mission to start Sudanese schools and orphanages.”  I told him that I did not come to Memphis to get married, but to serve Sudanese children.  Yet, through the leading of the Holy Spirit, I agreed to marry him several months later.  Housing and employment quickly followed, as an answer to prayer.  Praise the Lord!

God calls you to see how He is moving in the earth—He wants you to observe and understand what He is doing in your life.  God called to Moses from within the bush.  In Deuteronomy 33:16, Moses suggests that God himself dwelt within the bush, as he says “for the will of him that dwelt in the bush.”  Jamieson affirms that “"God was in the midst of them."[8]  Moreover, in Mark 12:26, Jesus affirms that God spoke from the bush, declaring exactly who He is, “how in the bush God [spoke] unto him saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.”   In addition, in Luke 20:37, Jesus emphasizes the fact that God was not dead, but alive in Moses life. 

Perhaps you are thinking that God is dead in your life.  After all, you’re living life your way with very little help.  Or perhaps you are receiving help from others but God is seemingly no where to be found.  But the question at hand is why did God choose to reveal himself to Moses from a burning bush?  Romans 2:11 states that God is no respecter of persons.  If He revealed Himself to Moses, is it possible that He desires to reveal Himself to you.  Where is God calling you from?

Well, I don’t know where you are in life today.  And really, it does not matter where you are currently located.  If you are like Moses, God will always begin communication with you from a place of worship.  Worship begins any encounter that you wish to have with God.  God commanded Moses not to come any closer. Though God calls us, He will tell us how to approach Him.  Moses did not know what to do in that new situation with God.  At this new place and time with God, Moses needed to take off His sandals.  Why? “Putting off the shoe was then what putting off the hat is now, a token of respect and submission. ‘The ground, for the present, is holy ground, made so by this special manifestation of the divine presence, during the continuance of which it must retain this character; therefore tread not on that ground with soiled shoes.’”^[9]  

God directs Moses to participate in a new activity.  When you are in God’s presence, the place where you are standing is holy ground.  Although God has called you, He will teach you how to enter into His presence.  Worshipping God is a different activity that changes the heart and mind of the believer.  “The removal of the shoes is a confession of personal defilement and conscious unworthiness to stand in the presence of unspotted holiness.”^[10]  Imagine that God is able to be with you in spite of your defilement.  It does not matter what you have done, or how you have fallen short, God loves you and desires for you to come into His presence.  I believe that God wants us to be comfortable in His presence; however, He also requires us to be holy.  Qodesh, the Hebrew word for holy, means the “apartness, holiness, sacredness, separateness” of God and the things of God.[11]  So the beginning of an encounter with God will always include separating from the world and others to be communicate with Him.

Earlier I asked why God chose a burning bush to speak to Moses.  I believe it is in strange environments that you feel the most alone.  Moreover, you feel helpless.  Like Moses observing the burning bush, you don’t know what caused you to be in the strange situation, and you don’t know how to stop the strange situation.  The only thing you can hope to do is to observe the situation, hoping to find an explanation.  Yet there are some situations that you find yourself in, and only God Himself has the explanation.  And when you are sufficiently close enough to the fire to get burned, when you’ve left your comfort zone and are determined to find out cause of the strange phenomena—it is then you will hear God’s voice.  “Come closer.”  “Worship Me.”  “I want to talk to you.”

For Moses, God spoke to him through a burning bush.  God showed Moses that He was God. God showed Moses that He was all powerful.  Today, God speaks to us through Jesus Christ.  John 3:16 testifies that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and that Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins.  “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” Moreover, Jesus rose from the dead with all power, sitting at the right hand of God the Father.  “Who being the brightness of [his] glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high…Hebrews 1:3” God is great, and this great God of the universe wants to live inside your heart.  You can accept God into your heart today! Jesus is God!  Jesus will forgive you of all of your sins!  Through His power, Jesus will give you eternal life and purpose for living.  Then, like Moses, you will enjoy encounters of the God kind every day!

Bibliography

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http:// cf.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=H0784&t=kjv. 

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Henry, Matthew. Matthew Henry Complete Commentary on the Whole Bible.

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Jamieson, Robert, D.D. Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible.

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Jamieson, Robert; A.R. Fausset; and David Brown. Commentary Critical and

Explanatory on the Whole Bible. "The Second Book of Moses, Called Exodus." Available from http://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/jfb/Exd/Exd003.html. Internet; accessed 31 July 2008.  19 Feb 2000.

Kyle, M. G.. International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia. "Bush, Burning," Available

from http://cf.blueletterbible.org/isbe/isbe.cfm?id=8407.  Internet; accessed 31 July 2008. 1913. 5 May 2003.

Wesley, John. John Wesley's Explanatory Notes on the Whole Bible. "Commentary on

Exodus 3".   available from http://bible.crosswalk.com/Commentaries/ WesleysExplanatoryNotes/wes.cgi?book=ex&chapter=003. Internet; accessed 31 July 2008. 1754.