The I AM, in you

“And God said unto Moses, I Am That I Am: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I Am hath sent me unto you.”-Exodus 3:14

We live in a world of limitations.  The physical world is limiting and the nature of humanity itself is just as binding.  These limitations define us and force us to recognize our need(s); they highlight our own mortality and (though we try to forget) remind us that we are not the most important thing in this universe.  Every day we face “reality”, and the reality of our own limitations.  The need for food, for water, for light, for shelter; these are just some of limits that we are forced to recognize and deal with.  Beyond that, we have universal limits, things such as time and space.  We are all terminal, we are all expiring; there’s a fun thought right?  Our world is one of limitation and structure, and despite our best efforts; humans will always be weak, fragile, and needy.  This is true in the natural sense and perhaps even more abundantly so in the spiritual sense.  We NEED God, who is limitless.  We NEED a Savior who is powerful, we NEED holiness more than anything.

God called Moses to go down to Egypt and stare down the most powerful man in the world; Pharaoh.  Also, he called him to liberate a people who at that time he hadn’t been a part of for forty years; the children of Israel.  In Moses’s mind, Pharaoh would have been as close to limitless as any man possible could be, and as stated, Moses was about as far from being “a part” of Israel as he could have been.  So, you can imagine Moses was probably a little hesitant when God called him to this task; however, what Moses didn’t yet realize, what Israel didn’t realize, and what Pharaoh certainly didn’t realize is that God is the I AM.  We as people consistently struggle with our own limitations and the characteristics of man will be flawed and limited.  We do not have inherent virtues such as: love, peace, gentleness, kindness, etc.  Without Jesus we will always trend towards: selfishness, bigotry, hatred, wantonness; and within all of that, there remains the self-destructive initiative that compels us to do things our own way despite consistent evidence to the contrary.  In short, we are born with the desire to walk by sight and not by faith.  So, when Moses asked God: “what is the name of the God that sent me?”  God replied: “I AM THAT I AM.”  There is no authority, power, or presences greater than the I AM.  God is present, past, and future.  He made time, and exist eternally.  When he speaks of himself as the I AM to Moses he is telling us all of a great eternal truth, which is: nothing exists without the existence of God.  In addition, he is telling Moses that you MUST walk by faith and not by sight. You must believe me, trust me, and yield to the I AM.  The limitations we endure on this earth are there because he made it that way.  The neediness of the human race is there because that is the way he created us.  He is above all, through all and he can be in you all.  The simple fact that he is the I AM reveals to us both his character, and ours.  He is God, he is holy, he is without flaw, and he is limitless.  He is the love that binds us, he is the peace that comforts us, he is the assurance that carries us, and he is God that will judge us.  When you begin to accept that he is the I AM, you can then come to see that His Son Jesus was God incarnate; the characteristics of the Almighty found in flesh, sent down from heaven to bleed and die for fallen, sinful, needy mankind.

Jesus was/is the ambassador of holiness, the one who left the majestic halls of heaven to represent the holiness of God here on earth; the one who would pay the debt that we might partake of His holiness.  Jesus made it so we can have the I AM, in us; all you have to do is say “I will”; you have to walk by faith and not by sight.