Friday - "What is Your Life Defining Moment?"

Title: What Is Your Life Defining Moment?

Devotional music suggestion: None But Jesus – Hillsong United
http://www.imeem.com/cj102087/music/MYCr7o2t/hillsong_none_but_jesusmp3/

Jeremiah 1:5 - "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you…”

What is the “defining moment” for your life? Most Christians would say it is the moment they accept Christ as their Savior. It is that moment in time they see their true sinful nature and character, and ask that it be changed forever. But, could it be another moment in time well before then? A moment less pronounced, when they were in willful control of their own path and made a decision on their own will, that put them on the collision glide path to salvation?

While the main definition and use of the phase “defining moment” is related to our response to a life-changing event like accepting Christ as our Savior. A far less popular definition of “defining moment” is that it is a “turning point” that determines or typifies all related events that follow. The turning point event could be as simple as a feeling that makes you make a decision a certain way, or perhaps simply making a new friend that led to …; or the death of a pet or loved one that caused you to …, or an accident that made you … . All these kinds of events and our response to them are far more centered on our own self-determined and direct will, and as such could be more significant as a defining moment.

My defining moment happened when I was 13 years old, at the intersection of Parker Avenue and Howell Place in Aurora, Illinois on a cool Saturday night on September 26th, 1964 at 6:50pm. John Marks, a public swimming pool friend from the summer, had invited me to a youth group hayride at a church he was invited to only days before! After walking almost 30 minutes from my house to his house, where we were to meet and then walk the final mile to the church together, I was greeted at the door by his mother. She said in sadness that John could not go because he had the flu. Frustrated and in total disappointment I left his small home and started my two and a half mile walk back home through the cool shadows of dusk, in the opposite direction from the church. I walked about a city block then slowed and stopped at the corner of Parker Avenue and Howell Place feeling “the nudge”, as Pastor Troy Gramling calls it. I reasoned to myself why I should go to the church alone and then reasoned why I shouldn’t. The “turning point” was a nervous right-foot back-step that turned me towards the church and the rest of my life. They welcomed me that night; it placed me onto a fast moving fatal glide-path collision coarse several months later where my own plan died on impact at God’s plan for my life. I met my future wife, my life friend Bill, my career and many other things on this new vector of life.

Again I ask, what is the “defining moment” in your life? Was it when you accepted Christ as your Savior or was it well before then when you did something that put you on a glide path impact to Christ?

If you have not accepted Christ as your Savior yet, are you at least on the glide path yet? God knew you and crafted a God size-plan for you before you were born and this moment may be your defining moment for your life.

All my delight is in You Lord
All of my hope, all of my strength
All my delight is in You Lord Forevermore!
None But Jesus lyrics
Hillsong United

Contributor: Jess Reyes (www.frccommunity.com)