Transformational Experiences

Encounters with God are intended to radically alter our lives. When we allow change to happen, they can become transformational experiences.

In Exodus 24, God issues a very special invitation: Then the LORD said to Moses, “Come up to the LORD, you and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel. You are to worship at a distance, but Moses alone is to approach the LORD; the others must not come near” (vv. 1-2). In verses 9-11, we read that they “went up and saw the God of Israel. Under his feet was something like a pavement made of lapis lazuli, as bright blue as the sky. But God did not raise his hand against these leaders of the Israelites; they saw God, and they ate and drank” (NLT).

This had to be a life-altering experience for them. Later when Moses still had not come down from Mt. Sinai, the people gathered around Aaron and demanded that gods be made for them, to give them leadership (Exodus 32:1-2CloseExodus 32:1-2 When the people saw how long it was taking Moses to come back down the mountain, they gathered around Aaron. "Come on," they said, "make us some gods who can lead us. We don't know what happened to this fellow Moses, who brought us here from the land of Egypt." So Aaron said, "Take the gold rings from the ears of your wives and sons and daughters, and bring them to me." OPEN VERSE IN BIBLE (nlt) ). Sadly, there’s no record of the leaders of Israel standing up to oppose the people, to keep them from sinning. The worship experience had been given by God to transform these men into true leaders, not just men with titles.

Before we harshly judge these men, we must acknowledge that this can be as true for us today as it was for them. God gives us potentially transformational experiences and we, at times, do not allow them to transform us.

We walk away from the mountain, as it were, thinking about our great experience with God, and soon turn our thoughts to, “What’s for lunch?” or “What’s so-and-so doing after church?”

We can become experience junkies, moving from one God-event to the next, looking for bigger and better happenings. Yet, when the high of the experience is over, we are not satisfied.

We must allow experiences with God to transform us into His image. We need to be drawn closer to the Lord and to do the work of the ministry that He has called us to do. This is where we all find true satisfaction in the Lord.

We do this by asking the Lord, “What is Your purpose for us having this experience?” Then, we need to meditate on that purpose. Finally, we must ask the Lord to help us and allow the transformation to take place in our lives.

The Lord Jesus has chosen each of us to be His own. He wants to transform us into a royal priesthood—a holy nation—that we might, in turn, transform the world for His glory.