Revelation 1:17-18 (LSB) 17 And when I saw Him, I fell at His feet like a dead man. And He placed His right hand on me, saying, “Do not fear; I am the first and the last, 18 and the living One; and I was dead, and behold, I am alive forever and ever, and I have the keys of death and of Hades.

While the apostle John was exiled to the island of Patmos, he experienced a vision that he was faithful to write down in great detail.

That vision became what we know as the book of Revelation.

As John encountered God, he fell at His feet “like a dead man.”

And though John had personally spent much time with Jesus prior to His crucifixion and eventual ascension, this particular encounter was enough to make him drop to the ground like a limp rag.

Many people today experience something similar, coming completely undone by the presence or the touch of God.

But we also need to understand that encounters with God are not always as dramatic as John’s, Peter’s, or Isaiah’s.

Sometimes these encounters are more subtle; a whisper that shakes us to our core, but no less life changing.

Sometimes these events change the path of our lives forever, placing us on a course that we would never have imagined.

Many of us have had these “God moments” that permanently changed us.

And if we were to look back, we would clearly see where we were headed, and where God led us instead.

It is, for lack of a better phrase, mind-blowing at the very least.

And to be clear, this is not an emotionally based experience. It is not simply a hyped up or conjured up event.

Sure, some may try to fake it. But a true encounter with God cannot be imitated. It is impossible.

The event itself, or how it plays out, is not what should be focused on. It is the touch of God that truly matters.

It is how He changes us that makes the difference. And it is that touch that alters our lives and the paths thereof.

Let us endeavor to draw ever closer to Him, giving Him the freedom to move in our lives in whatever way He chooses.

And if that encounter with God happens, let Him use it to accomplish whatever it is that he desires to do in our lives.

We will never regret it.

Pastor Curt & Pastor Ellie

Seven Seas Ministries
49 N Lamplighters Walk
Hampstead, NC 28443

401-439-3780

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Isaiah 6:1 (LSB) 1 In the year of King Uzziah’s death I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, with the train of His robe filling the temple.

When Isaiah was still relatively young (likely in his 20s), he had a vision that marked the beginning of his time as God’s prophet.

The vision was so vivid and overwhelming it devastated him. He saw himself for who he was; a sinful man.

Isaiah woefully proclaimed, “I am ruined!”

Isaiah 6:5 (LSB) 5 Then I said, “Woe is me, for I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, And I live among a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, Yahweh of hosts.”

This is the epitome of a true encounter with God; we see Him, and His holiness overtakes us. And then we see ourselves for who we are; completely inadequate and sinful.

Nothing has changed since Isaiah had his first vision and encounter with God.

God is still the same today; holy and pure.

And it is the same for us today. No one can stand before God. No one can encounter Him and come away unfazed. It leaves a mark on our lives every time.

Many of these encounters cannot be put into words that sufficiently describe them.

And that is fitting since God is higher than anything we can truly comprehend.

The vision that Isaiah had in the verses above set him on a path to be used by God for more than four decades, proclaiming God’s truth to Judah and Jerusalem.

His visions and prophetic words were often fierce and cutting, warning people of God’s coming judgements. Considering this, the life of Isaiah was anything but peaceful and glamorous.

Prophets of his type were despised for the hard truths that they spoke in obedience to God’s Spirit.

But he was faithful to his call. And he persisted in doing what God told him to do, speaking words of truth even when they were extremely difficult.

Though he proclaimed that he was “ruined”, he allowed God to use him mightily.

Please join us tomorrow as we conclude this series.

Pastor Curt & Pastor Ellie

Seven Seas Ministries
49 N Lamplighters Walk
Hampstead, NC 28443

401-439-3780

If you know someone who will enjoy this or be encouraged by it, please feel free to share it with them!

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John 4:15-18 (LSB) 15 The woman said to Him, “Sir, give me this water, so I will not be thirsty nor come back here to draw.” 16 He said to her, “Go, call your husband and come back here.” 17 The woman answered and said, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You have correctly said, ‘I have no husband’; 18 for you had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband; this you have said truly.”

As we study people who have had life-changing encounters with God, we will look today at “the woman at the well”, as she is commonly known.

As Jesus and the disciples were passing through Samaria, Jesus rested beside a well. He was tired from the journey, and His disciples had left Him there and had gone into the city to buy food.

As He waited for them to return, a Samaritan woman came to draw water. Jesus asked her to give Him a drink.

The woman was surprised at this because Jews of that day typically would not interact with Samaritans.

When the woman questioned why He, being a Jew, would ask her for water, Jesus used that opportunity to speak words of truth to her that would change her life.

Jesus instructed her to go and call her husband, and return with him. And when she said she had no husband, He proceeded to tell her that He knew she had had five husbands, and the man she was currently with was not her husband.

Through His prophetic words, the woman’s eyes were opened, and she knew He was more than just a common man. She discerned that He was a prophet, and she spoke of the coming Messiah.

Jesus then proceeded to tell her that He was the Messiah that she spoke of.

As the disciples returned, the woman left her water jar and went into the city, proclaiming, “Come, see a man who told me all the things that I have done; is this not the Christ?”

People immediately left the city and came to Him.

This woman had an encounter with God. Her life was immediately changed. And it is quite likely that the lives of others were changed as well, as they flocked to see this Jesus that she so enthusiastically spoke of!

We never know where or when we will encounter God. But we do know that when it happens, we will never be the same.

Please join us tomorrow as we study another God encounter!

Pastor Curt & Pastor Ellie

Seven Seas Ministries
49 N Lamplighters Walk
Hampstead, NC 28443

401-439-3780

If you know someone who will enjoy this or be encouraged by it, please feel free to share it with them!

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Luke 5:3 (LSB) 3 And He got into one of the boats, which was Simon’s, and asked him to put out a little way from the land. And He sat down and began teaching the crowds from the boat.

The word of God is full of examples of everyday, ordinary people having extraordinary encounters with God that forever changed them.

In fact, when people do meet God, they often come away broken; no longer themselves, but a person permanently changed by that encounter.

In the verse above, Jesus was surrounded by a large crowd as He walked along the shore. Nearby was a fishing boat that had been pulled up to the shore.

The fishermen from this boat, which belonged to Peter, had spent the previous night on the water in search of fish. But they had come up empty-handed and were busy cleaning their nets as Jesus approached.

Jesus got into the boat and directed them to pull a short distance out from shore so He could speak to the crowd.

After Peter pulled the boat out as directed, Jesus spent some time teaching. And when He was finished, He told Peter to pull out to deeper water and “let down your nets for a catch.”

Peter objected immediately, saying, “Master, we labored all night and caught nothing, but at Your word, I will let down the nets.”

Upon lowering their nets into the water as Jesus had instructed, the net became so full it began to break.

Peter called out to the other nearby boats, and they came and filled their boats with fish.

At that moment, Peter realized He was face to face with God. And he was immediately fearful and reverent.

Luke 5:8 (LSB) 8 But when Simon Peter saw this, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Go away from me Lord, for I am a sinful man!”

Peter was broken before Jesus, exclaiming that He was a sinful man.

From here, Peter’s life was turned upside down. He followed Jesus and surrendered his life to Him.

He was never the same.

He lived out the rest of His life in service to God’s kingdom because of His encounter with God in the flesh, Jesus Christ, the true Redeemer.

And, that faith eventually cost him his life. He died a martyr after spending the remainder of his life helping to spread God’s message, proclaiming the truth and the power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Please join us tomorrow to look at another life that was forever changed by an encounter with God.

Pastor Curt & Pastor Ellie

Seven Seas Ministries
49 N Lamplighters Walk
Hampstead, NC 28443

401-439-3780

If you know someone who will enjoy this or be encouraged by it, please feel free to share it with them!

To have the Bible Verse of The Day delivered to your inbox each day, please Click Here and then enter your email address in the box near the upper left corner of the page. 

Exodus 3:5 (NKJV) 5 Then He said, “Do not draw near this place. Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground.”

Yesterday we had briefly discussed the fact that Moses was set aside by God at birth, escaping death at the hands of Pharaoh of Egypt by way of his mother’s bravery.

When Moses was born, there had been an edict issued by Pharaoh that all newborn Hebrew boys must be killed immediately upon birth.

But after giving birth to Moses, his mother quietly hid him for 3 months and then placed him in a waterproof, floating basket in the Nile River, trusting God to deliver her son wherever He wanted Moses to be.

And as God orchestrated it, Moses was found in the river by the daughter of Pharaoh, who adopted him.

From then until Moses was an adult, he was raised by this same woman, as a member of Pharaoh’s family.

But then the life of Moses took some incredible turns that could only have been orchestrated by God Himself (see Exodus chapter 2).

And when he met God at the burning bush, his life was changed forever by what God asked him to do.

The rest of the life of Moses was spent in face-to-face encounters with Pharaoh, demanding that he let God’s people go.

God used him to demonstrate His miraculous powers.

But Pharaoh was a stubborn man whose heart was hardened. And he refused to surrender until the day in which God sent the angel of death throughout the Egyptian households, taking the life of every firstborn son.

By the power of God, Moses led the Israelite people for the next 30+ years as they traveled through the wilderness, wrestling with God every step of the way.

His life was not easy. The Israelites were “a stiff-necked people” who rebelled against God repeatedly as He chastened them for their incessant idol worship.

Moses failed to make it into the Promised Land because he disobeyed God in one situation. But as a concession, God did allow him to see it from a distance before he died.

Needless to say, the life of Moses was changed immeasurably by his encounter with God.

Please join us tomorrow as we further examine this intriguing topic.

Pastor Curt & Pastor Ellie

Seven Seas Ministries
49 N Lamplighters Walk
Hampstead, NC 28443

401-439-3780

If you know someone who will enjoy this or be encouraged by it, please feel free to share it with them!

To have the Bible Verse of The Day delivered to your inbox each day, please Click Here and then enter your email address in the box near the upper left corner of the page. 

Exodus 3:4 (LSB) 4 And Yahweh saw that he turned aside to look, so God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.”

It is impossible for a man or woman to have a true encounter with God and remain unchanged.

Many may claim to have had a God encounter. But if their life is not changed in some significant way, the encounter they claim to have had was not with the God known as Yahweh (YHWH).

For if it were, there would be no doubt about the authenticity of that encounter. And the evidence of it would be displayed in their life in some way.

It is possible that one may have a genuine encounter and not fully realize or understand the significance of that encounter until a later date. In these circumstances, the results of that encounter may not be evident until the time at which the person fully comprehends what happened.

Over the next several days we will examine various Biblical encounters with God and look at how those encounters played out in the lives of the men and women who experienced them.

As referenced in the verse above, Moses encountered God for the first time at the burning bush while tending the flocks of his father-in-law, Jethro, at Mount Horeb (the mountain of God).

Little did Moses know that his life would be forever changed by this encounter as God laid out for him what He had for him to do.

Based on what we can glean from scripture, Moses knew little or nothing of God prior to his burning bush experience.

But the life of Moses was already unique and had been touched by God at birth.

His mother rebelled against the Pharoah of Egypt, ignoring his command to have all newborn Hebrew boys killed at birth.

Exodus 1:15-16 (NKJV) 15 Then the king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives, of whom the name of one was Shiphrah and the name of the other Puah; 16 and he said, “When you do the duties of a midwife for the Hebrew women, and see them on the birthstools, if it is a son, then you shall kill him; but if it is a daughter, then she shall live.”

We will examine this more closely tomorrow. We hope you will join us!

Pastor Curt & Pastor Ellie

Seven Seas Ministries
49 N Lamplighters Walk
Hampstead, NC 28443

401-439-3780

If you know someone who will enjoy this or be encouraged by it, please feel free to share it with them!

To have the Bible Verse of The Day delivered to your inbox each day, please Click Here and then enter your email address in the box near the upper left corner of the page.