2002-01-01
Good Morning Faithful Ones,
Yesterday, we began looking at “I AM WHO I AM,” the self-existent One. Because this is a difficult concept for limited human perspective (including mine) to grasp, the Lord leads me to certain citations that help us to reach to His perspective on it. REV 1: 8, “I am the First and the Last, says the Lord God Almighty, Who is, Who was, and Who is to come.” [GNB]. In the KJV, the words, “Alpha and Omega,” the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, are used in place of “First and Last.” This begins to help us understand what God meant when He identified Himself as “I AM WHO I AM” in EX 3: 13-15 to Moses at the burning bush. We are given further illumination on this issue in REV 21: 5-7. “Then the One Who sits on the throne said, ‘And now I make all things new!’ He also said to me [John], ‘Write this, because these words are true and can be trusted.’ And He said, ‘It is done! [referring to the establishment of the new heaven and the new earth]. I am the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End. To anyone who is thirsty I will give the right to drink from the spring of the water of life without paying for it. Whoever wins the victory will receive this from Me; I will be his God, and he will be My son.”
If there was ever any question in our minds about the connection between Christ and the Father, it is surely answered in the series of citations in this paragraph. REV 22: 12-13, “ ‘Listen!’ says Jesus, ‘I am coming soon! I will bring My rewards with Me, to give to each one according to what he has done. I am the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.’” These are not disconnected or new concepts. We can look back at Isaiah to see this. IS 40: 10, “The Sovereign Lord is coming to rule with power, bringing with Him the people He has rescued.” IS 41: 4, “Who has made this [victory over kings and nations] happen? Who has determined the course of history? I, the Lord, was there at the beginning, and I, the Lord God, will be there at the end.” The relationship between Christ and the Father is highlighted in JN 8: 23-24, & 27-28, “Jesus answered, ‘You [the Pharisees with whom Christ was speaking] belong to this world here below, but I come from above. You are from this world, but I am not from this world. That is why I told you that you will die in your sins. And you will die in your sins if you do not believe that ‘I AM WHO I AM’…They did not understand that Jesus was talking to them about the Father. So He said to them, ‘When you lift up the Son of Man, you will know that ‘I AM WHO I AM’; then you will know that I do nothing on My own authority, but I say only what the Father has instructed Me to say.’”
It is interesting to note that the name, “Jehovah,” was used as early as GN 2: 4-5, but the people didn’t see its significance until God’s call to Moses in EX 6: 2-4. GN 2: 4-5, “And that is how the universe was created. When the Lord God made the universe, there were no plants on the earth and no seeds had spouted, because He had not sent any rain, and there was no one to cultivate the land…” EX 6: 2-4, “God spoke to Moses and said, ‘I am the Lord. I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as Almighty God, but I did not make Myself known to them by My holy name, the Lord. I also made My covenant with them, promising to give them the land of Canaan, the land in which they had lived as foreigners.” One of the most significant passages in the Bible is GN 15: 13-21, which I hope you will read. It is here that God prophesies the 400 years of Egyptian bondage, the eventual punishment of Egypt [with the plagues], the exodus of the Jews with Egyptian wealth, that Abraham will live till old age, and victory over the Ammorites. But that is not all. GN 15: 17-18 describes the actual moment of the sealing of the Abrahamic covenant and the territory that should be Israel’s by divine right. From our hindsight view of human history, we can know the truth of these prophecies, all of which-except for Israel’s territory and that of the King to come, have been fulfilled. No one but a self-existent God could have done this. As I have witnessed before, I believe in my heart that in the not-too-distant future reckoned in God’s time, He will establish Israel’s boarders as they appear in this passage and see Christ installed with the saints as joint-heirs [RO 8: 17] to His permanent Kingdom.
Because I believe every word of the Scriptures to be true and encourage you to do the same, I can take comfort in knowing what we learn from HE 13: 8. “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.” HE 6: 17-18 conveys this same principle as God displays it. “To those who were to receive what He promised , God wanted to make it very clear that He would never change His purpose, so He added His vow to the promise. There are these two things, then, that cannot change and about which God cannot lie. So we who have found safety with Him are greatly encouraged to hold firmly to the hope placed before us.” That revelation certainly fits hand in hand with the compassion God shows for His children in EX 34: 5-7 when after the golden bull incident, He was willing to give them a second set of the Tablets with the Ten Commandments. “The Lord came down in a cloud, stood with him [Moses] there and pronounced His holy name, the Lord [I AM WHO I AM, Jehovah, Yahweh]. The Lord then passed in front of him and called out, “I, the Lord, am a God Who is full of compassion and pity, Who is not easily angered and Who shows great love and faithfulness. I keep My promise for thousands of generations and forgive evil and sin; but I will not fail to punish children and grandchildren to the third and fourth generation for the sins of their parents.’” The self-existent God makes His will for us clear. How can we miss the underlying love and need to demonstrate His righteousness in that? We are surely a blessed people when we have faith in I AM WHO I AM!
PRAYER: O Lord, as You continue to reveal Yourself to us through the different names used for You in the Scriptures, You are giving us a view of the Source of immeasurable blessings available to us when we have faith and obey You. How foolish we sometimes are when we worry that Satan can defeat us. What a powerful weapon against him and those who follow Him we have in You, the Son, and the Holy Spirit! We do not need to worry that You will abandon the faithful, that the Son ever does anything without Your authority, that You will ever break Your promises (including our eventual glorification and the establishment of Your eternal Kingdom to replace faulty human ones), or that You will suddenly change from Your purpose. Faith in You gives stability, guidance, and purpose to our lives. We know we can count on You to stand in the gap for us when we are troubled and suffer for our faith. For that and so much more, Dearest Jehovah, we humbly pledge You our worship, adoration, praise, honor, glory, and heartfelt thanks. In Christ’s name, we pray-amen.
Tomorrow, the Lord leads me to follow the path of citations that reveal Him as Jehovah-Jireh, the God Who provides. What a wonderfully fulfilling spiritual path He leads us on! In RO 10: 4, Christ is said to be the “fulfillment of the Law.” Another way of saying this is that through faith in Him, we have been given the free gift of God’s grace [RO 3: 24-25] replacing the imperfections of the Law with something that opens the way to us for eternal life. What greater love for us can there be?! Peter and I send you our love too.
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn