HAVE YOU CONSIDERED...

A person who believes in God may have one of three concepts of Him — the God they think He is, the God they want Him to be, or the God who He is. They are not the same God. The turning point in a person's life comes when they stop seeking and serving the God they think He is, or the God they want Him to be and start seeking and serving the God who is.

For most of us that turning point comes in similar fashion as it did for Moses as narrated in the Bible's Exodus 3. While engaged in doing the ordinary, tending a flock of sheep, Moses experienced the extraordinary, a bush that was burning but not consumed. Initiated by his desire to know and understand, Moses moved closer to the bush. God rewarded Moses' desire by granting him a personal visit from God and calling him by the name, "Moses! Moses!"

When Moses answered, God warned him that he was standing on holy ground because He was the God of his fathers. Moses reveals the God that he thought He was, stern and harsh, when he covered his face with his hands out of fear to look at God.

Then God began to reveal Himself to Moses as a loving and caring God who has heard the cries of His people. God tells Moses He has a call on his life and is sending him to lead them out of bondage in Egypt. Moses responds as humans are prone to do and declares himself unworthy for such a task. He justifies his excuse by asking God, "When the people of Israel ask me, 'Which God are you talking about, what shall I tell them?'"

"The Sovereign God," God replies. "Tell them I AM THAT I AM has sent you, the God of your ancestors." God defines Himself as the great I AM, the God Who Is.

Most of us discover the God Who Is in like manner. In the midst of the ordinary, we experience the extraordinary, something beyond the human. Sensing the possibility of divine intervention, a God moment, we move closer to know more and God rewards us with a personal encounter with Him. He begins to reveal Himself to us as the God Who Is, the I AM, and calls us to a life of service and personal relationship with Him in which He becomes our own personal deliverer from bondage to freedom, from condemnation to forgiveness, from darkness to light and from death to eternal life sharing His glory! Wow, how exciting! Enough to make any believer shout, Hallelujah!!!

Coming to discover and related to the God Who Is, rather than the God we think He is or want Him to be is indeed the turning point in any person's life. Here are some reasons why:

Until a person seeks and knows the God Who Is, it is impossible for them to ever really know their true self. The only true lasting value and worth any persons has is that which comes from their relationship with the real God Who Is.

Until a person seeks and knows the God Who Is, they will never fully experience the abundant Christian life as Jesus died to provide and God intends every believer to have.

Until a person seeks and knows the God Who Is, their faith walk and witness to others is of a God that is unbelievable and undesirable to non-believers. Some Christians seem so uncomfortable in their faith, others do not care to have that kind of "religion."

Until a person seeks and knows the God Who Is, nothing in God's plan for them, formulated by Him before the world began, will ever seem to fit together. Thus, many questions arise.

Until a person seeks and knows the God Who Is, they will never be able to fully achieve God's chief purpose for them, which is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. His desire and purpose for every believer is to be increasingly conformed by the Holy Spirit to the likeness of Jesus, God's only begotten son. God desires an entire family of children just like Jesus (Romans 8).

If you have already experienced this turning point in your life by surrendering your life through Jesus to the God Who Is, rejoice and give Him the glory, praise, and thanksgiving.

If you haven't, let me encourage you to do so ... This alone is the prize of greatest value, far more than gaining the whole world and losing your own soul.

(Dr. French O'Shields is a Gaffney native and a retired Presbyterian minister.)