Knowing I AM

I AM. 
LORD.
Your Bible most likely has this name written in all caps. It is God’s name that was to convey that He was a personal God with a personal name. He would be rescuing a people that were personally His with a personal purpose for Himself and them based on a personal promise He made with Abraham a long time before.

I AM. This same One has extended His hand to rescue us. He's the One we get to know.  

I AM was the One Rahab was grabbing onto for rescue as well. Why did she trust His hand? How did Rahab even know about Him? What did she know about Him? 

Numbers 14:13-14 tells us that stories were pouring out of Egypt about how God had rescued the Israelites. These stories had reached Jericho, where Rahab lived, and were powerful enough to make the city melt with fear. 

Not just rumor, but true story had it that "You, O LORD, are with these people and that You, O LORD, have been seen face to face, that Your cloud stays over them, and that You go before them in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night." 

Sometimes it's hard to think that words like cloud, pillar, and O LORD from Numbers fit into our own desire to live beyond our pasts. But consider the deeper truths Rahab believed as she reached out to grab onto I AM--the God…

Who is God. Whatever her experience with gods and worship in Jericho, and whatever her heart had wanted or wondered about gods, she was now certain of this one thing. I AM, this final, real name for the real true God told her He alone was God and He did these mighty deeds which she had heard about. She declared by faith that He was over everything, everywhere. (Josh. 2:11)

Who had a people He fought for.  The stories revealed that Israel was free. They were no longer slaves that belonged to masters; they belonged to a God Who fought for them to give them this new life. Rahab "belonged" for a moment to whoever purchased her body. I wonder if the reality of Israel’s freedom and a God Who fought for them gave her faith that she would no longer have to belong to someone for a moment, or for a price, because she could be free and truly belong to Him. I AM would fight for her, rescue her, and bring her into this new life.

Who could be known. He also was a God Who seemed to invite an intimate, personal knowing of Who He was. Moses had seen Him face to face. God had openly described Himself to Moses in Exodus 34:5-7a. 

Then the LORD came down in the cloud and stood there with him and proclaimed his name, the LORD. And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, "The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. 

Stop here and really consider the truths He shared about Who He is and how He relates to us int he verse above. God was in a relationship with His people—intimately knowing, and being known—and she could experience that too!

Who never abandoned or left His people alone. Regardless of what they did, He was committed to being with them. He stayed over them and went before them in every step. As a woman who had men come and go in her life, who had been perpetually exposed, and daily consumed and abandoned, her experience with Him could be radically different.

Can you relate to Rahab?

  Do you long to really know God? 

Not just what others have said or dreamed up or made Him out to be?

    

Do you hunger for Him to be real and powerful 

and more than a human conjuring of what a god might be?

     

 Do you desire to be free, living a new life where you truly belong?

        

Do you wish someone would be present and stay?

          

Do you hold out hope that you could fully know Him 

and be known for all you really are: spirit, soul, and body?

           

 Do you ache to be covered and never abandoned or alone again?

Rahab, by hearing, knew LORD, I AM, was a God that did those things. Surely if God could deliver and save them from Egypt, I AM could do it for her.

He could.

She believed.

If you have never heard it, hear it now. I am telling you, God is your personal, rescuing, redeeming God with a purpose for you that fits into His greater story where His glory gets center stage. He is the answer to every one of your longings, desires, secret hopes, and aching hungers. He is that God, and you are that person. 

Will you believe? 

Just another seed of my faith,
Ginny

A Name to Grab onto

(So, I've been editing and editing and editing and editing. You know I love words, and I have had to cut words by the thousands. It seems I can't edit and blog at the same time. So, the manuscript editing is done, and now we can pick up our journey together. Like good friends getting together for coffee, here we are again! To see our last conversation and remember where we left off, go to http://aseedofmyfaith.blogspot.com/2014/07/god-is-in-my-present-past-and-future.html)

I want to take a second and remind you why in the world we are looking at Rahab. She is a woman whose story comes full circle, from living in the mess of her culture to leaving it all behind and living in wholeness with God. The threads of her story tell us that what God did for her, He can do for us.

If we are going to live beyond our pasts, we need a way out. We may be in a place where we feel like we just need a leg up, a path revealed, or a hand to grab on to.

When our daughter was really little, it seemed her dolls were always falling off a cliff. They would be screaming this staring-death-in-the-face scream as their legs dangled over the edge of her bed, I mean, the cliff. Then someone steadily standing on the precipice would call out, “Gimme yor hand!” And the fair, screeching maiden would be rescued.

Many of us, like my daughter’s dolls, have been to the cliff’s edge. We have gone as far as we think we could go with this relationship, this need or desire, this approach to life, this sin, or “our pasts.” We want out; we seek healing, change, and freedom. In that place where we realize we need rescue, we need a hand that backs up the depth and weight of all truth, but a hand that’s easy to grab on to when trouble comes.

I AM THAT I AM is the depth and weight of God’s name. I AM is a shortened way of saying I AM THAT I AM. It’s the name God gave Israel to grab on to (Ex. 3:14) and the one Rahab grabbed on to in order to be rescued from the coming attack on her city. By His very name and nature, He extends His hand for us to reach out and grab onto Him too.

Who are we grabbing on to? I AM, LORD, tells each of us:

The LORD is committed to deliver us in ways that will show us Who He is. 

The LORD is committed to deliver us...
Like Rahab, the Israelites, and the rest of the world, God sees us as worth delivering. This shakes my soul, because I know how many times I felt like God wouldn't want to rescue me. I deserved to be where I was, and believed He felt that same way about me. I also know women who feel shame because once upon a time they said yes to rescue, and then went back into their old ways. They believe they had one shot at getting out and they blew it.  I believe many of us also think that time has run out for us. It's too late for rescue, so we resign to staying here, toughing it out, for the rest of our lives, maybe hoping time will help us feel better. (Has it?)

But He sees us as worth delivering. I know this, because He sent His Son when we were at our worst. We were His enemies and yet He still loved us and sent His Son to rescue us and bring us back to Himself. If we weren't worth delivering, He would not have made a way for rescue.

I AM says that He will rescue us out of sin, and shame, and the struggle with our pasts. Why? Because He doesn't leave anyone broken who desires to be whole. In the bigger picture, He desires that no one perish but that all come to repentance. (1 Pet. 3:9) He desires--wants--to rescue and bring us to a place of life with Him.

...in ways that will show us Who He is. 
But it gets better. He sees us as worth delivering and we will know Him by His delivering. Many of us may wonder if God rescues us if we'll really get to know Him. Will we be rescued because God rescues, but not get to have a close personal relationship with Him? Will the reason He had to rescue us be the very reason He will always hold us at arms length?

Think about rescue, about reaching out a hand and grabbing on. If you are drawn out of deep waters, your rescuer doesn't hold you away from his body. The strength of pulling you out of a terrible situation is found in arms that draw you up and towards the rescuer. You are wrapped in their arms, held close as you realize that you are finally safe. 

God grabs your hand and draws you into His loving, safe arms. He holds you there. You are pulled in close, but it doesn't stop there. You aren't dusted off, set upright, and left alone. Deliverance is the way we get to know Him personally, step by step, as He leads us out and beyond this place. It's being close to Him on a life journey of knowing Him. It starts with deliverance.

We will know Who He is by looking at what He has done.
This name, I AM, reminded Moses and the people that God had been known personally by their forefathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and He had done amazing things for them.

For us, that is true as well. If we want to know God, we need to look at Jesus and what He has done. Christ expresses this truth in John 14:9-11. According to these verses we can see God if we look at Jesus. We see God at work through Jesus, and by listening to the words of Jesus.

I cannot think of a single story where someone called out in faith to be healed--taken from broken to whole, from living in this sinful or terrible place to getting to live in a new life--where Jesus denied that cry. I can think of so many where He reached out first! He loved to reach out His hands and touch and make new, forgive sins and offer new life. That's our God. He doesn't change. He still loves to bring wholeness and a life in Him beyond the old story.

We also look at what He did on the cross. Here He stretched out His hands for our rescue. Because He delivered us by the finished work on the cross...

Later, knowing that all was now completed, and so that the Scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said, "I am thirsty." A jar of wine vinegar was there, so they soaked a sponge in it, put the sponge on a stalk of the hyssop plant, and lifted it to Jesus' lips. When he had received the drink, Jesus said, "It is finished." With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. (Jn. 19:28-30)

...we get to spend today and eternity knowing Him.

Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. (Jn. 17:3)

A hand that willfully, wants to, reach out and rescue. A hand that stretched out on the cross, and a hand that will hold us today and lead us into eternity. But hands are connected to someone. That hand is His hand. The One you can know, Who has known you all along, and wants you to know Him more. For all eternity.

It's that hand extended, reaching out to you, to rescue you, once and for all, out of your old story, out of your past.

We have the same choice Rahab did. Will we grab on?

Just another seed of my faith,
Ginny