I Am

13Then Moses said to God, “Indeed, when I come to the children of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they say to me, ‘What is His name?’ what shall I say to them?” 14And God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” And He said, “Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’ ”
Exodus 3: 13 - 14 NKJV

It is interesting in this interaction between God and Moses that Moses would think to ask of the living God who he should tell Gods own people just who had sent him forth with His message to the people.  Yet this is exactly what the Lords chosen messenger chose to do.  I can certainly understand the situation that Moses must have been in.  A burning bush that did not burn and a voice coming out of this said bush, it all must have seemed pretty overwhelming to Moses.  The fact that the God of his people had been a big part of the life of Moses from his birth is not lost here.  If Moses himself was finding this difficult to understand, how would the Isrealite people react to the news of Gods deliverance of them from the Egyptions?  The question, "What is His name?' what shall I say to them?"  More interesting still is Gods response to his question, "I AM WHO I AM."  With these words the God of Isreal will introduce Himself to His people.  With these words God will verify to the Isrealites just who He is.  I found this passage interesting due to the fact that it fit in with a topic we have been discussing in our group for some time, that of our Lord God as the one true self of the universe.  When God declared to Moses, "I AM has sent you," He was proclaiming Himself as the one and only.  Our discussion on God as the one true self has brought some interesting revelations.  We as our Lords creation have a tendency to think of ourselves as being in control of our own surroundings and situations from time to time.  Now, we may believe the illusion that we control our own lives and destiny, but nothing could be further from the truth.  For we are a creation, created by the spoken word of the living God.

 8“I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End,” says the Lord, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”
Revelation 1: 8 NKJV

If anyone had the devine right to call Himself "I AM," it is God.  For God was from the begining and will be until the end.  Before the formation of anything that was seen, God was there.  The very words of the history of our Lords creation attest to this as they proclaim, "In the begining God created the heavens and the earth" {Genesis 1:1}.  There was emptiness...and there was God.  Indeed, we as our Lords creation came onto the scene after that.  However, we all too often make the mistake of believing that we are truly independent of all which is around us.  We control our lives and circumstances.  Really?  Tell me again just how we created ourselves and this world around us.  Of course, it is we who blindly follow this leading of our flesh in this false belief.  It is the same false belief which satan held in believing that he would be higher than God.  Of course, we know how that turned out.  So it is with us, are we truly independent?  Can we claim that God has zero part in our very existence?  Yeah, good luck with that.  When it all comes crashing down around us, who do we turn to?  I find it interesting that the very same people who claim to be independent cry out to God when things go haywire.  Thus the story of our human independence.

28“for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring.’
Acts 17: 28 NKJV

~Scott~