Wednesday, January 15, 2020

I AM; You ARE

[1] 
Wednesday, January 15, 2020

“I, yes I, am the one who comforts you.  So why are you afraid of mere humans, who wither like the grass and disappear?  Yet you have forgotten the Lord, your Creator, the one who stretched out the sky like a canopy and laid the foundations of the earth.  Will you remain in constant dread of human oppressors?  Will you continue to fear the anger of your enemies?  Where is their fury and anger now?  It is gone!  Soon all you captives will be released!  Imprisonment, starvation, and death will not be your fate!  For I am the Lord your God, who stirs up the sea, causing its waves to roar.  My name is the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.  And I have put my words in your mouth and hidden you safely in my hand.  I stretched out the sky like a canopy and laid the foundations of the earth.  I am the one who says to Israel, ‘You are my people!’”  Isaiah 51:12-16

When God spoke to Moses out of the burning bush[2] it was in answer to Moses’ question as to the Lord’s name; God answered, I AM.  A name presupposes and proclaims existential character.  If I say I am carpenter, you already know I build things, and probably have leathery hands from doing battle with wood.  You know my eye will run to the plumb and level of things and I’ll take the time to measure twice and cut once.  In the same way, when you hear I AM, the existential nature of God revealing God sets up a battle of faith.  God’s name declares eternality.  He was before anything (in any sense of linear thought).  He is above all in any sense of moral or ethical consideration.  His sovereignty over the universe and all it holds is not bought, grabbed, or coronated by grant or permission; He simply IS!  And with that simple declaration, the struggle for faith is on; you either believe…or you don’t!
Enter Isaiah, a prophet to a disobedient Jewish nation.  They were a people who declared faith in that I AM God as their God, yet, they kept wandering away from Jehovah.  Their faith was (as Vance Havner used to say) fickle at first and fizzling at the finish.
And yet, God wasn’t done with them.  As the nation languished in the shame and pain of a national thrashing at the hands of enemies who would brutally massacre many thousands and enslave the rest in cruel bondage, God speaks through the prophet words of comfort; The I AM says to them, You ARE.  To a disobedient, sinful people God speaks existential reality of unbroken relationship.  They may have been facing an extinction event politically, but their God would hold true to His promises, that they would never be exterminated; punished, yes…but always held fast in the grip of I AM’s love.
For You Today
Sometimes you might feel like Israel, abandoned to the predators of life.  And, truth be told, you sometimes might BE Israel, having had a crisis of faith, punctuated by wandering in the far country.  But you always ARE; you are His creation and the object of His unfailing love.  The I AM says so!
You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

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[1] Title Image:  Pixabay.com   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©
[2] Exodus 3

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