Personal Encounters I

Every story, every misfortune, every action, every movement, every trial, every defeat, every tragedy, every victory, every miracle, every religious persecution, every birth, happens within a two-dimension setting: earth and heaven. “Who can speak and have it happen if the Lord has not decreed it? 38 Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that both calamities (bad things) and good things come? 39 Why should any living man complain when punished for his sins?” (Lamentations 3:37-39).

Heaven is heavily involved in everything that comes to pass on earth (the other planets as well). However, majority of the time, most people limit their minds to what is occurring before their eyes without questioning how is heaven involved in that particular situation.

  1. What was God’s involvement when you were fired from your job for no apparent reason? What was God's involvement when you became unable to attend school this semester for whatever reason?

  2. What was God’s involvement when you were abandoned by your mother (father, guardian)? What was God’s involvement when you became a cancer patient?

  3. What was God’s involvement when you were having a hard time studying for that midterm exam? What was God’s involvement when your kids would disobey anything that you ask of them?

  4. What was God’s involvement when your car got stolen? What was God’s involvement when that man (woman) broke your heart?

  5. What was God’s involvement when your plane flight got either canceled or delayed?

  6. What was God’s involvement when no bank wanted to approve you for a mortgage?

  7. What was God's involvement when you were pulled over for a traffic violation?

  8. What was God’s involvement when He allowed one or both of your parents to die when you were still an adolescent?

However you think or feel about God’s involvement in your misfortunes and/or victories be assured that"… God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose” (Romans 8:28).

  1. What is God’s involvement in your current situation that seems so impossible to be solved? ” The things impossible with men are possible with God" (Luke 18:27).

Do you ever ask yourself about your current lifestyle, your current career, your current pursuit in life etc.? Are you in tune with what God had pre-planned for you to become? You may have been directing and guiding your own life. Nevertheless, God is always involved. He is either trying to get your attention in order to redirect you on the right path or He is coaching you to continue on the right path. Everyone‘s journey on earth follows this particular model. God reassures us that He has one thing prioritized every second that ticks on the clock: He is eager to save the entire human race through the shed blood of His mysterious son ‘Christ Jesus.’ How does God coordinate the manner with which we have or will encounter Him personally? Only He knows. All I know is that these encounters have been synchronized with our lives from the foundation of the world.

God enters one's life when one is least expected. No one can tell God to ‘mind His business’. If you think you are able to do so, why didn’t you do so when He decided that you were going to be born on January XX, 19XX? If you think you are able to do so, why didn’t you tell Him to make you a man instead of a woman (vice versa)? If you think you are able to do so, why didn’t you do so while the earth was rumbling before your eyes on January 12, 2010? Why didn’t you tell Him to mind his business every time you survived earth’s catastrophic disasters? (9/11, tsunamis, earthquakes, typhoons, tornadoes, avalanches, gun shots, bomb explosions etc.) God is minding His business by being thoroughly involved in our lives. There is no one as ‘NOSY’ as God. We are God’s business. Let us discover how God did not mind His business in the lives of many Biblical characters. If Noah were not already a carpenter he soon became one as he put together the ark of safety using God’s dimensions

Then God said to Noah, "The end of all flesh has come before Me; for the earth is filled with violence because of them; and behold, I am about to destroy them with the earth. 14 "Make for yourself an ark of gopher wood; you shall make the ark with rooms, and shall cover it inside and out with pitch. 15 "And this is how you shall make it: the length of the ark three hundred cubits, its breadth fifty cubits, and its height thirty cubits. (Genesis 6:13-15).

Without Noah’s response to God’s voice it wouldn’t possible to keep himself, his family, and a good portion of the animals alive during the flood. Abram was a devoted steward of his personal possessions when God sent him far from his relatives and country “Now the LORD said to Abram, 'Go forth from your country, And from your relatives And from your father's house, To the land which I will show you' (Genesis 12:1).

It is through Abraham that a believer can learn the true meaning of ‘righteousness by faith.’

What does the Scripture say? 'Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness' (Romans 4:3; Genesis 15:6).

Moses had to float down the river Nile in a basket for God’s purpose to be fulfilled:

Now a man from the house of Levi went and married a daughter of Levi. 2 And the woman conceived and bore a son; and when she saw that he was beautiful, she hid him for three months. 3 But when she could hide him no longer, she got him a wicker basket and covered it over with tar and pitch. Then she put the child into it, and set it among the reeds by the bank of the Nile” (Exodus 2:1-3).

The accomplishment of Israel’s ‘Exodus’ came to pass because of the willingness of Moses. Paul encountered the Lord while he was persecuting the Creator’s disciples:

Now Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest, 2 and asked for letters from him to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the Way, both men and women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. 3 And it came about that as he journeyed, he was approaching Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him; 4 and he fell to the ground, and heard a voice saying to him, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?" 5 And he said, "Who art Thou, Lord?" And He said, "I am Jesus whom you are persecuting, 6 but rise, and enter the city, and it shall be told you what you must do.” (Acts 9:1-6).

Without Paul’s conversion we would have never known of Romans, Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Thessalonians, Timothy, Titus, and Philemon. Could anyone else have replaced Paul? But of course, however, since the Creator knew that he would accept the call, Paul’s name was already confirmed by heaven to be an apostle called by God through a revelation of Jesus Christ.

Peter encountered the Lord while on his daily fishing routine: “ And walking by the Sea of Galilee, He saw two brothers, Simon who was called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea; for they were fishermen. 19 And He said to them, "Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men” (Matthew 4:18-19).

It is through the life of Peter we can fully comprehend what it means to be converted by fully surrendering to the Holy Spirit. What did all these individuals have in common? God stepped into their every day lives and commanded them to start a new life by becoming a key figure in the fulfillment of heaven's preplanned prophecies. Has God commanded you to do so as well?


Whether you are eating, drinking, singing, preaching, whatever you do, do it all for the Glory of God. Live today as if it was the last day you will live for and in Christ.

TAKE UP YOUR CROSS DAILY AND FOLLOW CHRIST!

"Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near" Matthew 4:17