This week Pastor Andy begins a new set of messages about us truly encountering God – not just knowing about Him. A real encounter is something that will change our lives forever. Andy desires for each of us to have a fresh encounter with Jesus in this New Year, that our lives be changed forever. Zacchaeus had to climb a tree to get an encounter without striving. We need to position our lives also to meet Jesus in a new way. What if he hadn't climbed the tree? What if the woman with the issue of blood couldn't have been bothered to push through the crowd? Answer, they would have missed out on an encounter that was life changing. We don't want anyone missing out on God encounters. The key is how we position ourselves to meet with God. 

In Genesis 28, we read about Jacob the descendant of Isaac and Abraham. He'd been raised in a Godly house and heard about God. He wasn't absent from concept theology or understanding that there was a God, but there wasn't yet a trigger point personally. In verse 16, we read of his dream where he looks up, and at the end of a ladder sees God, with ministering Spirits going up and down and God speaks to him in that moment of subconscious or dream state in such a way that when he wakes up his life changes. When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought ‘surely the Lord is in this place and I was not aware of it’. 

Jacob experienced an actuality of God, and awakening to His presence. The God of his Fathers that he had heard of became real. When God becomes real, everything we do finds its true purpose. We don’t need external motivations to serve in church or worship Him for example…….we can’t stop! There's no problem with the ingredients of our services and meetings – the problem is an absence of the actuality of God in our lives!

Actuality causes us to put legs on the things we claim to believe. How many people believe their loved ones are going to hell if they don't get a chance to receive Christ as saviour? Are we telling them? Maybe we are all guilty to some degree of not knowing as we should. But all of a sudden, the wind changes, the Spirit blows. We are woken and everything we believed suddenly makes sense. Like Jacob, we arise from an awakening ready to serve Him, give Him everything, and walk with Him all of our days. We don't need incentive or motivation. He is enough.