Believers Armed and Dangerous

Psalm 14:1a  The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.”

I’m sure I’ve referred to God’s existence and the reasons for our belief a number of times, but I can’t find a blog post that addresses the topic directly.  Maybe that’s because it can become very involved.  Huge volumes have been written on the subject, but I’ll try to give some of the more basic arguments here to keep it short. 

First there’s the cosmological argument for God’s existence.  Cosmological is one of those big philosophical words, but it simply means everything which began to exist has a cause.  Aristotle looked around at things moving: leaves pushed by the wind, the motion of the planets, people pushing carts, and saw lots of things move.  He also saw that all things that move seem to have a mover, a cause for their motion.  He concluded, then, that there must be an “Unmoved Mover” something which started everything else in motion. 

It’s just a sort of unbroken chain.  I have parents, so they must have had parents who also had parents, etc.  Aristotle knew, though, that logically, you cannot cross an infinite number of events, so the chain needs to have an end, a source.  Thomas Aquinas said that Source was God.  So, the fact that things have a cause, that the universe didn’t just appear out of nowhere by itself is evidence of a Creator, an Unmoved Mover.

A second argument is called the Teleological argument.  It says that complex things with a purpose have a designer.  A fellow named William Paley gave a good explanation of this.  He said if we’re walking across a field and come across a pocket watch and have never seen one before, we instantly recognize someone made this thing.  It moves with the time of day, it contains a complex mechanism; it must have a producer, a designer.  Paley then applied this to creation.  We see man, for instance, who is complex with parts with a purpose.  Our bodies imply a Designer and not chance.

There’s a story about Isaac Newton, a Christian by the way, that is a good example of this.  He was trying to share that God designed all things while his friend told him it was all a result of chance.  Newton built an orrery (I had to look it up), a mechanical model of the solar system which moved the planets in relation to one another.  When his friend saw it, he marveled.  “Did you build this?” his friend said.  “No,” said Newton.  “It just came together from a bunch of parts I had on the table.” 

The point was made.  Things just don’t come together and form purposeful objects.  Even when we walk through the forest and come upon a circle of rocks, we know that simple orderly assembly isn’t an accident.  Someone arranged them, designed the circle.  It’s the same with the universe.  It is very orderly, so orderly in fact that we have discovered laws which rule it, the laws of physics and mathematics.  The more complex an object, the less likely it came to exist by chance.  This order and complexity point to a Designer.

I was in a group on FaceBook talking with other Christians and a guy entered the group introduced a friend.  The first fellow was a known atheist in the group.  The second was a sort of trainee.  The first guy asked if anyone could answer a question the second couldn’t answer.  I asked “Why is there something rather than nothing?  After all, the odds of something existing without a creator are infinitesimal to the point of impossibility.  The very idea of ‘something’ would need to come into the mind of whatever produced it.  So, where did it come from, where and Who is that Mind?”

The second guy struggled and struggled without success.  Finally the first atheist asked, “Does someone have an easier question?”

The possibility of nothing existing is so great that philosophers often call God a “Necessary Being.”  Nothing can exist unless something eternal exists to bring it about.

Why is this important?

Understanding the arguments for the existence of God are important for a couple of reasons.  Because these arguments are convincing, they are useful in easing doubt in the minds of Christians who might doubt God’s existence from time to time.  They are also useful in convincing others who do not believe in God. 

See also, Who Made God? and Faith and Science for additional information.

Last week I talked about doubt, what it is, how some doubt is sinful and some not.  A natural follow-up would be how to handle doubt, at least the sinful sort, so that’s what I’m going to attempt here.

Most of the doubt I’ve faced in my Christian walk has been related to the teachings of our faith and whether they are true.  That may just be me, but there may be someone out there facing some of the same doubts I did.  I’ll address my approach to these doubts first.

My first doubt was if God exists.  You can’t really go to the Bible to answer this since if God doesn’t exist, the Bible is irrelevant.  Whether God exists is not so much a theological issue as it is a philosophical one, and there are many arguments in favor of God’s existence.  A simple one is that God is what philosophers call a “Necessary Being.”  If God doesn’t exist, you really have no answer for why anything else exists.  Now, if the “God doubt” enters my head, I think “Necessary Being” and the doubt goes away.

I just went back through my 174 previous blog posts, and I was surprised I have nothing directly on the existence of God.  Stay tuned.  Doubtless that will be next week’s topic.

All the other doubts I’ve had over doctrines and practices in Christianity I have researched and settled them pro or con to my satisfaction through Bible study.

The serious doubts we face are seldom doctrinal, though.  Those doubts usually concern how or if God is working.  “Is God going to help me make my BMW payment this week?”  “Will God protect my wife while I’m away?” “Can I really do what God has asked?”  That sort of thing brings doubt.

I need to insert here that sometimes God doesn’t provide for the wants we have or have had and borrowed money to get.  He hasn’t promised to do that.  He also isn’t responsible or shouldn’t be expected to bail us out of our poor stewardship.  He may be telling you to live more modestly.

David faced doubts in his life.  He dealt with them by reflecting on the things God had already done, the promises God had fulfilled in his life, then turned his eyes to God.  As a result, his doubts were eased or eliminated:

I like to follow David’s example.  Should I doubt, I just replay for myself the spots God has gotten me out of, the promises He has kept, the needs He has filled, and the times He has prepared me to do the things He’s asked that were outside my skill set.

It also helps to dig into the Word and see how God has been dealing with the needs of folks for thousands of years.  Read His promises and how He fulfilled them.  After all, He’s the same today, yesterday, and forever.

One more doubt that used to hang over me was if I was saved.  God dealt with this in me through a dream decades ago.  I dreamt Jesus was coming back, and instead of hiding from him as a lost person would, I was standing, waving, and shouting “Here I am.”  Jesus stopped in mid-air and said to me, “You wouldn’t be excited if you weren’t my child.”

True, God doesn’t often speak to us in dreams.  The point, though, is are you excited about Jesus’ return?  If you’re frightened, you need to reread John 3:16 and commit your life to Christ to be sure.  Salvation is turning control of our lives over to Him, not just belief.

Why is this important?

This is important because doubt can stand in the way of your Christian walk.  As James says, “. . . the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind.”  Our walk suffers, our relationship with Christ suffers, if our faith isn’t firmly grounded.

Doubt is a common experience.  It comes not from God but from our flesh and from the enemy.  Don’t let it sidetrack you.  Fight, pray, remember.  God is always here reaching out to us especially in these times.

In the first chapter of James, he describes the man who doubts what God has said and promised as “like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind.  Let not that man expect that he will receive anything from the Lord being a double minded man unstable in all his ways.”

From that we might expect God’s reaction to our doubts will be quick and severe.

I did a little research, though, on the Greek word used for “doubt,” diakrino, in the passage and found other places this word is used.  At the tomb when the women entered the tomb not finding a body, they were “perplexed.”  This is the same Greek word.  They were not judged for their lack of understanding.  In fact the angel told them not to be afraid. Their doubt, perplexity, was not sin.

At Pentacost, the disciples spoke in tongues to the crowd, and the crowd was confused.  The word for doubt is translated as “confused” here.  Confusion can be a form of doubt yet not sin.

Doubt which seeks an answer, a resolution for the doubt, perplexity, or confusion is honored in Scripture.  In Acts 17:10f, the Bereans were called “noble” not for their doubt but for seeking to belay that doubt through evidence.

In John 20:26-29, Jesus didn’t condemn Thomas’ doubt that He was risen.  He presented evidence to alleviate Thomas’ doubts.  He did the same for the other disciples in Luke 24:36-49 and used the evidence He presented to help the disciples understand the Scriptures.

Doubt is not always a bad thing, then.  Someone once said doubt is the first step to understanding.

I think the important thing here is what we do with doubt.  I doubted the gospel until I was convinced of its validity.  After that, I doubted nearly every major doctrine in the faith.  That doubt, though, drove me as it did the Bereans to seek the resolution to those doubts.  The result was a stronger faith founded on evidence.

Jude 22 says we are to have mercy on those who doubt.  If doubt truly is the first step to understanding, then I can see why God has such a special place in His heart for doubters.

Why is this important?

In Luke 7:18-23, John the Baptist was beginning to doubt Who Jesus was.  John was in a prison awaiting execution.  He wanted to make sure what he believed was true, so he sent messengers to Jesus asking if He were truly the Messiah.  Down deep, John knew He was.  He had seen the Holy Spirit descend on Him at His baptism.  He had heard the very voice of the Father saying “This is My beloved Son in Whom I am well pleased.”  He had told others Jesus was the Lamb of God Who takes away the sins of the world.  But, doubt was arising in his heart.

Jesus’ response is interesting.  He performed miracles in the presence of John’s messengers then sent them back to John with evidential confirmation that He was the Messiah.

John sought confirmation.  He was not dwelling on doubt, he was not giving in to his doubt.  He was seeking confirmation for what he already believed was true.

When we doubt we have not yet sinned.  It is when we dwell on the doubt without seeking to resolve it that it becomes sin.  It is similar to how James described temptation earlier in that same first chapter.  Temptation is not a sin in itself but can lead to sin.  There are steps involved.  James says we are first tempted, but when we dwell on the temptation until it becomes desire.  It is that desire to yield to the temptation that becomes sin.  In the same way, yielding to our doubts gives birth to sin.  We are to resolve our doubts, not yield to them.

Tenacity

Galatians 6:9 (ESV)
⁹  And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.

Some weeks are harder for us than others.  Sometimes even those in ministry get tired once in a while.  I taught an adult Bible class for over 35 years every week.  I probably averaged fewer than two Sundays off per year.  I have to confess I sometimes had taken on too much and didn’t feel like preparing a lesson or even getting up to teach that lesson.  We can just get burned out at times.

Once in the classroom, though, I was energized and thrilled to see the happy faces of my friends learning the concepts I was presenting.

Certainly those in ministry need a break.  God created a day of rest for us for just that reason. Tenacity is something that needs recharging.

The years I served on the elder board of a church, I got to see the job of a pastor.  I’ve seen it, and I don’t want it.  Pastors spend long hours preparing their messages for mid-week and Sunday.  A pastor friend of mine told me he spent an hour of study for every minute of his sermon.  That means a typical 45 minute sermon took more than an average workweek.  And that’s just Sunday’s message.  For many churches, there is also a mid-week service and other duties on top of that.

A few years ago I asked my pastor how many hours he spent preparing for Passion Week.  He had a Wednesday study to do, a Good Friday service, plus Easter Sunday’s message to prepare for.  In addition to those hours of preparation, he had the sick to visit, marriages to counsel, and home life to attend to.  As I’ve said, I’ve seen the job, and I don’t want it.

The pastors I’ve had over the years have all understood the value of taking time from the pulpit.  They need to unwind.  They need time away. This isn’t a sign of weakness. It provides energy to pursue the ministry with vigor.

This goes for the average ministry volunteer as well.

Back when I was a pretty new Christian, my wife and I volunteered for anything we were asked.  After a few years, this became so burdensome we left the church to get out from under the pressure.  Though we loved our church and the people there, I thought it unspiritual to just say “no.”  I was so wrong.

My wife and I discussed the issue and resolved to take it slower. We returned to that church a year or so later with a new attitude.  We had made a pact that we would only volunteer for things after prayer and then only if we felt God leading us to that ministry.  What a total relief!  Our whole view of ministry changed and so did our effectiveness.

Why is this important?

Bruce Wilkinson in his book The Seven Laws of the Learner tells a story of a time when he needed to fire an employee.  He figured the woman was fully aware she wasn’t fulfilling her duties and could be easily persuaded to “fire herself” if he just asked her about how her job was going.

He did that, and the woman enthusiastically recited a series of duties she was performing and loved every minute of it.  Wilkinson said he wanted to give her a raise after hearing her.  He snapped back to reality, though, and explained to her that he was glad she was doing all those things, but it wasn’t what she was hired to do.

Do we really want to stand before God with a list of things we’ve done for Him that doesn’t match the list He had for us?

Christians who want to please God and others in the church, might take on too much.  We want to do all we can to serve God, but are we taking regular breaks and doing only what we should?  We could be robbing someone of a blessing if we do their job. We could even be neglecting the ministry God has called us to do.  We need to be careful we do only what God has asked of us and leave the rest for those God has called for the other tasks.  That way, we can continue to do our jobs effectively, consistently, and tenaciously.

John 20:28 (ESV)
²⁸  Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!”

There is a controversy among Christians today concerning what it means to be a Christian.  Do we just believe that Jesus is God?  Is that all it takes, or is there more?  Or do we need to make Him Lord of our lives?  This is called the “Lordship Controversy.”

The Greek word for “Lord” Thomas used in John 20:28 is kurios and means lord, master, and even owner.  “Sure,” someone might say, “That was Thomas.  He was an apostle.  They turned their lives over to Christ.  Their’s was a super heavy commitment.  We’re not required to have that sort of relationship with Christ, are we?”  Let’s see.

Those who argue against lordship will often point to Acts 16:31 “And they said, ‘Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.’”  “So,” they say, “only belief in Jesus is needed for salvation.”  Pisteuo is the Greek word there for “believe,” and it means to believe, but is belief all that is involved.  Is a simple belief enough to assure one’s salvation?  The Greek word can mean a variety of things from simple belief something is true to belief that is so strong, so deep, that someone would commit their whole life to that belief.  Which sort of belief is Acts 16:31 talking about?

The story surrounding Acts 16:31 is about the Philippian jailer.  The verses following show that he didn’t just accept the message was true.  He acted on it.  He was baptized, and rejoiced in his newfound faith.  His life had been changed. 

What sort of belief changes our lives?  Is it just acceptance of a truth, or is it a belief so strong it forces us to commit to that truth?

In Acts 8, we are introduced to an interesting character in Church history, Simon Magus, Simon the magician.  According to the passage, Simon believed and was even baptized (vs 13), but was his life changed? Verses 18 through 23 of Acts 8 tell us in fact Simon’s life was not changed.  He had not truly made that commitment required for a life changing relationship with Christ.

Our churches have people in their pews who have accepted the gospel as true but never acted on that truth, never committed their lives to Christ.  I know because I attended church and counted myself as a Christian for five years before I was shown a commitment was needed, and my life changed.

Why is this important?

Matthew 7:21-23 (ESV)
²¹  “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. ²²  On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ ²³  And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’

Matthew 7:21-23 should be the scariest verse in Scripture.  Certainly, it speaks of cultists and followers of false religions, but I think it is speaking to some in the church today as well.  God doesn’t want them to rest on a mere acceptance of the gospel as true.  He wants them to act on it.

When I was in this situation, I didn’t think there was something more than just belief.  If you have belief without commitment, church is a club of likeminded members.  It’s not much different than the Elks or Masons.  God wants more than that for us.  He wants a personal relationship with each and every one of us.

If you are only holding a belief that Jesus is God and Savior but have not committed your life to that truth, like Simon the Magician you are still lost.  A Christian is not someone who is independent of God.  We are God’s servants, God’s property.  We are not our own.  We have been bought and paid for.  Something to think about.

1 Corinthians 6:19-20 (ESV)
¹⁹  Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, ²⁰  for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.

Hebrews 1:1-2 (ESV)
¹  Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets,  but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.

We read of all the incredible miracles in the Bible, the Red Sea is parted as Moses raises up his rod, ten plagues were inflicted on Pharaoh’s Egypt, God created the heavens and the earth by only speaking.  But, is that how God speaks to us as today’s Christians?

There are lots of ways He speaks to us.  There are dreams, visions, the advice of a fellow Christian, and especially by His Word.  But, when we need to decide if God is leading us and the Bible doesn’t seem to give a clear answer, how do we know?

I have friends who wanted to be missionaries.  They prepared from their youth, trained, and were educated to do the job effectively.  They later discovered the mission field was not for them after all.  How can you spend so much time preparing for something God doesn’t want you to do?  God sometimes uses preparation for one thing to be applied somewhere else. 

My friend ended up with a Masters degree in theology.  Today, he’s a pastor blessing his congregation and those in the surrounding community.  His wife uses her education to home school their children and minister to others in their community. Sometimes God speaks to us like that.

Much of what I do to serve the Lord hasn’t come directly from my youth, though some has.  I have to say mostly God just nudges me to do something.  If there’s something I see that might further God’s kingdom, I wait for God’s nudge.  He tends not to be aggressive anymore to get me to do things.  He’s had to throw me up against the wall a couple of times over the years to spiritually get my attention, but He hasn’t had to lately. I like to think I’ve started to listen more.

That nudge toward something is what I depend on for His direction.  Let’s say I feel led to go on the mission field (which I don’t).  What’s the next step?  Pray, of course.  Then, if I still feel led, I might ask a few spiritually mature friends what they think.  If they think it’s God’s will, I might be tempted to sell everything and head on out, but I have a wife.  God has her phone number, too.  Is He telling her the same thing I think He’s telling me?  God is all for keeping marriages together, so if my wife doesn’t feel led to the mission field, that door is closed.  God is saying “no.”  Suppose she says, “Okay.”  Then maybe it’s time to sell everything, and it turns out you just can’t sell your house.  That could be a sign you’re misreading the nudge as well.  Step by step, take it slow. Rely on the Lord.

Why is this important?

If we act without God’s prompting, we may end up acting against His will.  What we do might turn someone away from the Truth and make it harder for the next brother or sister to witness to him.

God has a plan.  He wants to use each of us in it.  He doesn’t want to use only me or you, though.  He has individual jobs for each of us.  I have friends who are driven to walk the streets and tell people about Jesus.  That’s not my calling, though. And, they would never consider teaching a class or writing a blog either.  That’s not what God has equipped them to do. 

Just as God spoke to Elijah in that still small voice (1 Kings 19:9-12) He talks to each of us the same way.  So next time we feel God nudging us or whispering to us, we should take the first step toward completing what we believe God wants us to do, then the next step and the next.

Many times God asks us to do things that are outside of our skill set.  As has been said before, “God doesn’t call the equipped, He equips the called.”  If God is calling us to do something, and it truly is God calling us, He will provide all that we need in skills and resources to accomplish His will.  He’s just happy to include you and me in His work.

Philippians 2:4-8 (ESV)
⁴  Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.
⁵  Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, ⁶  who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, ⁷  but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. ⁸  And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

When I was a kid, there was a “Character Development” section in every bookstore.  Individuals were interested in become better human beings.  They sought to learn where the sharp edges of their character were and how to round them.  That section of the bookstore has now been replaced with books on self-love and how to influence others.   JFK’s famous statement just 60 years ago, “Ask not what your country can do for you.  Ask what you can do for your country” now falls on deaf ears.

The passage above from Philippians tells us Christians we are not to think like that.  The idea of God the Son emptying Himself of the use of His divine attributes in order to come to be with us is staggering.  The God who spoke and all that exists came into existence from nothing came to wash the feet of men (John chapter 13).  The Person Who had never known pain, endured the horrible pain of a Roman flogging and then of crucifixion.

He saw a world in need of salvation and humbled Himself in order to provide it.

If we’re to be Christlike, we’re to humble ourselves in order to provide for the needs of others.  Is that the sort of concern you and I have for others in need?  Do we ask “how can I help spiritually and physically?” 

“Maybe this is just one of those impossible goals like Jesus telling us to be perfect.”  We tell ourselves that, but is it true?  Even if it were, can’t we do better?  Are we yielding to the Spirit of God?  That would be humbling.

Humility means to bring ourselves low, lower than we think we ought to be.  C.S. Lewis defined humility as not thinking less of ourselves but thinking of ourselves less.  We are a selfish people.  Humbling ourselves is hard, harder for some than for others, but it’s not a suggestion.  It’s a command.  No loopholes.

Why is this important?

The United States is currently seeing cities burning, people killed randomly, and corrupt officials standing by allowing this to happen.

Isaiah saw Jerusalem in the same situation, and God noticed:

Isaiah 1:21 (ESV)
²¹  How the faithful city has become a whore, she who was full of justice! Righteousness lodged in her, but now murderers.

God told Isaiah the reason He didn’t destroy the land was that there were still survivors, sincere followers of God there.

Isaiah 1:9 (ESV)
⁹  If the LORD of hosts had not left us a few survivors, we should have been like Sodom, and become like Gomorrah.

 It turns out humility is a powerful defense for the Christian. The very presence of humble believers had kept God’s total wrath from the city of Jerusalem.  The city was destroyed by the Babylonians a hundred years later but only because the people failed to humble themselves.

There are survivors here, sincere followers of God in our nations today holding back the total wrath of God.  But, God wants more from us.  God honors our faithfulness, but humbling ourselves before God can have an even greater effect:

1 Kings 21:29 (ESV)
²⁹  “Have you seen how Ahab has humbled himself before me? Because he has humbled himself before me, I will not bring the disaster in his days; but in his son’s days I will bring the disaster upon his house.”

2 Chronicles 7:13-14 (ESV)
¹³  When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command the locust to devour the land, or send pestilence among my people, ¹⁴  if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.

Let us humble ourselves before the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  Let us have the mind of Christ and reach out humbly to those in need.  In doing so, God may heal our land.

“Be perfect?”  That’s a pretty big bite to chew.  How in the world can we humans be perfect?  And, we’re not just to be perfect as we understand it but as God the Father is perfect.

Christians are “perfect” in the eyes of God through the cleansing of Christ’s blood, but I don’t think this is what Jesus is talking about in Matthew 5:48.  The Greek word here for “perfect” is teleios.  It means perfect in the sense of being mature, and it is translated several times in the New Testament as “mature.”

Ephesians 4:11-13 (ESV)
¹¹  And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers,
¹²  to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ,
¹³  until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ,

The Greek word translated “mature” here is the same teleios.  I think that’s what Jesus is saying in Matthew 5:48.  We are to grow into maturity.

2 Peter 3:18 (ESV)
¹⁸  But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.

How do we become more mature?  Growth toward maturity is simple but not easy.  Prayer is certainly a path to maturity.  We are to pray without ceasing (1 Thess. 5:17).  Some Christians don’t know Who exactly to pray to.  God is triune.  In the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus taught us to pray to the Father, so we should certainly pray to Him.  In John 14:14, Jesus tells us to pray to Him, so He is another Person we should pray to.  In Acts 13:2, the Holy Spirit speaks to the faithful in answer to their prayer, so I think we should pray to Him as well. 

I do think there are basics to prayer.  We should approach God cleansed of sin.  We do that by confessing our sins to Him (1 John 1:9).  From there on, we’re free to ask, adore, praise, and thank or whatever we wish.  Sometimes, it’s nice to just hold a conversation.  Don’t you like that from your kids?

Bible study is also an important element of becoming mature.  We don’t’ become Christlike solely by talking with Him.  We need to see what He is told us to do.  In 2017, I presented several methods of personal Bible study.  They are Topical, ABCD, Character, and Word Studies.  If you would like to learn more about how to study the Bible for yourself from a plainly written and extremely valuable book, you might pick up a copy of the Navigator’s book on Bible Study methods.

One more thing adds to our Christian maturity: church attendance and mingling with other believers.  We learn from one another, comfort one another and are comforted by one another.

Hebrews 10:24-25 (ESV)
²⁴  And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, ²⁵  not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.

Why is this important?

To become more Christlike is to fulfill the will of God.  Like the rich man in Matt. 19:21, we need to put Christ-likeness first over all other things we love. 

Christ-likeness is the goal set before us.  We will never achieve it this side of heaven, but we are to try and to work toward it.

Some will do better than others in our quest to become more like Christ, mature.  Don’t be discouraged.  I like the analogy of standing on the Santa Monica Pier and trying to jump to Catalina Island, 26 miles away.  Some will jump closer to the island, but no one will reach it.  Still, God is telling us to jump as far as we can, become as mature in Him as we can.  Our relationship with God is personal.  It is not our friend’s relationship, it’s ours.  We should follow what God has for us. 

Exodus 3:14 (ESV) ¹⁴  God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’”

At the end of Exodus 3:14, the God of the Bible tells us His name, at least one of His names, is I Am.  He is called the Great I Am in literature and hymns.  In Exodus 3:14, the Hebrew word is ehyeh which is a form of the familiar Yahweh. 

The name Yahweh appears 6,519 times in the Old Testament.  “I Am” is as much God’s name as Yahweh.  He used it to identify Himself through Moses to the Egyptians and to God’s people.  To both Jew and Gentile, the God of the Bible can be known as the Great I Am.

Yahweh is based on the Hebrew word “to be.”  In the first part of Exodus 3:14, God calls Himself “I Am That I Am.”  Hebrew scholars Keil and Deilitzsch in their commentary on this passage say Moses almost certainly knew God’s name, the name of the God of his fathers.  They believe Moses was asking about God’s nature.  “I Am that I Am” means “The Becoming One” or that God can be whatever is needed.

Now let’s move on to the New Testament.  In John chapter 8, Jesus is in a long argument with the Pharasees.  He embarrasses them with the woman caught in adultery by asking the one without sin to cast the first stone.  They accuse Jesus of being illegitimately born, but Jesus continues to tell them He is the Light of the World, that He is the Messiah Who will die for our sins, and what He is teaching is true.  Then Jesus tells them they are of their father, the devil. And the Pharisees’ angry accusations continue.

The Jews accuse Jesus of being demon possessed, and Jesus says Abraham saw Jesus’ day and was glad.  The Jews accused Him of having a demon again since Jesus was still a fairly young man and claimed to have known Abraham.  Jesus’ answer was interesting.  He said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I Am” (vs.58).  Jesus used the divine name and applied it to Himself.  How do we know?  In the very next verse, we’re told the Jews picked up stones to stone Jesus.  This was the punishment for blasphemy.

Just two chapters later in John, the Jews once again pick up stones to stone Jesus.  Why?  John tells us:

John 10:33 (ESV) ³³  The Jews answered him, “It is not for a good work that we are going to stone you but for blasphemy, because you, being a man, make yourself God.”

Jesus used the divine Name and applied it to Himself.  Look at one more passage in John:

John 18:4-6 (ESV) ⁴  Then Jesus, knowing all that would happen to him, came forward and said to them, “Whom do you seek?”   They answered him, “Jesus of Nazareth.” Jesus said to them, “I am he.” Judas, who betrayed him, was standing with them. ⁶  When Jesus said to them, “I am he,” they drew back and fell to the ground.

Have you ever wondered why they fell to the ground?  Was Jesus’ reply so overwhelming?  Who were these guys who came to arrest Jesus anyway?  John 10:3 says these were the chief priests, soldiers and officers who came with them.  Were these soldiers Romans?  Luke tells us who they were:

Luke 22:52 (ESV) ⁵²  Then Jesus said to the chief priests and officers of the temple and elders, who had come out against him, “Have you come out as against a robber, with swords and clubs?

So, all these guys who came for Jesus were Jews and officers in the Temple.  They knew God’s Name.

What’s interesting is that “he” is not in the Greek In John 18:6.  Jesus didn’t say “I am he.”  He said “I Am” using the divine name.  This was so powerful and so shocking to the Jewish officials and soldiers they fell to the ground in fear.

Why is this important?

We as Christians need to understand who Jesus really is.  I’ve spoken with some who believe Jesus is God but a sort of lieutenant god; that He’s certainly called God but just doesn’t rise to the level of the Father. 

That’s not true.  The Jesus who stood before the soldiers and Pharisees proclaiming He was the I Am is the same God who spoke from the burning bush in Exodus 3:14, the God who delivered the Jews from the Egyptians, the same God who walked with Abraham in Genesis 18 and destroyed Sodom in Genesis 19.

Our God in the Person of Jesus Christ is equal in power and authority to the Father and the Holy Spirit.  So, when we pray to Jesus we pray to the God who brought the universe into being (Col. 1:16).  The wonderful truth is that same power lives in us (Rom. 8:9-11).  The Jesus we know is the same Jesus who carries the divine Name.  He is the Great I Am!