Good Morning Friends,
“Moses said to God, ‘Who am I, that I should go
to Pharaoh and bring the
Israelites out of Egypt?’ And God said, ‘I will
be with you. And this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: When
you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this
mountain.’ Moses said to God, ‘Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them,
“The God of your fathers has sent me to you,” and they ask me, “What is his
name?” Then what shall I tell them?’ God said to Moses, ‘I AM WHO I AM. This is
what you are to say to the Israelites:
“I AM has sent me to you.”’” (Exodus 3:11-14)
When you are doing God’s work, who you are doesn’t
make any difference. David was just a young shepherd boy. Peter was a simple
fisherman. Paul was a Hebrew scholar. Mary was a young maiden and Joseph just a
poor carpenter. Just ordinary folks, and God used them in mighty ways to impact
eternity. When Moses wasn’t sure that he was right one to go deliver the people
of Israel from their slavery, God reminded him that who he was didn’t really
matter. What mattered was that God was with him!
That brought follow-up question: who is God? To
answer that, God told Moses a secret. God revealed His name to Moses. It’s a
strange name, I AM WHO I AM, or just I AM for short. What is God communicating
by calling Himself by that name? He’s saying that He is eternal. There is no
past or future in God, He lives in the eternal now. There was no beginning to
Him and there will be no end. He’s saying that He owes His existence to no one
else. There was no other being responsible for bringing Him into existence. He
is the self-existent One. He just is and always has been.
The name by which God identified Himself to
Moses has been His sacred name ever since for the Hebrew people. It’s a name so
sacred that they refuse to speak it. When they come to it in the biblical text,
they substitute another word for it, afraid that they will speak the name of
God without the reverence He deserves. It is God’s name, it still is. He’s
revealed it to us. He’s invited us to know it and to use it. Bring the Hebrew
name into the English language and it becomes Yahweh or perhaps Jehovah.
God revealed His name so that the people of
Israel would know what power and authority was behind Moses. It didn’t matter
how insignificant Moses was. It only mattered that God was with him.
His, by Grace,
Steve
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