I is for I AM

 

I am convinced it is often better just to let the Word of God speak for itself.  As it does, I hope you will be encouraged to find out more about the Christ, and let go of doubt.  Give it your all as you hold on to something oh so much better - the Great I AM.

Image Source

 God said to Moses, “I am who I am.” He said further, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘I am has sent me to you.’”   Exodus 3:14

“As for me, I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you,”
                                        Genesis 9:9

“… Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.”  Genesis 15:1

And that very night the Lord appeared to him and said, “I am the God of your father Abraham; do not be afraid, for I am with you and will bless you and make your offspring numerous for my servant Abraham’s sake.”  Genesis 26:24

He said further, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.  Exodus 3:6

God said to Moses, “I am who I am.” He said further, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘I am has sent me to you.’”  Exodus 3:14

Say therefore to the Israelites, ‘I am the Lord, and I will free you from the burdens of the Egyptians and deliver you from slavery to them. I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment.  Exodus 6:6

He said, “If you will listen carefully to the voice of the Lord your God, and do what is right in his sight, and give heed to his commandments and keep all his statutes, I will not bring upon you any of the diseases that I brought upon the Egyptians; for I am the Lord who heals you.”                                                  Exodus 15:26

“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery;”   Exodus 20:2

Image Source

Jesus said to her, “I am He, the one who is speaking to you.”  
                                                                           John 4:26
                           
Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to Me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in Me will never be thirsty.  John 6:35

Jesus then said, “I will be with you a little while longer, and then I am going to him who sent me.”  John 7:33

So Jesus said, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will realize that I am He, and that I do nothing on my own, but I speak these things as the Father instructed Me.”  John 8:28

Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I came from God and now I am here. I did not come on my own, but He sent Me.”  John 8:42

Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, before Abraham was, I am.”  John 8:58
                              
So again Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep.”  John 10:7

But He was silent and did not answer. Again the high priest asked him, “Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One?” Jesus said, “I am; and ‘you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of the Power,’ and ‘coming with the clouds of heaven.’”           Mark 14:61-62

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in Me, even though they die, will live,”  John 11:25

            God bless, Maria

A to Z Challenge

C is for Christ

He lives! 

Christ came to bring deliverance, freedom, life abundant.  He claims to be “the way, the truth, and the life.” (John 14:6)  That’s difficult to grasp and can’t be completely understood, but it is worth taking the time to consider because if it is true, if He is who He claims to be, God incarnate, then what you do with Christ makes all the difference in your world. 

So let your eyes gaze upon Jesus.  I used to wonder what it meant to keep your eyes on the Lord.  I mean, isn’t being a good Christian about believing Jesus died for my sins and rose again to give me eternal life and then living the good moral life set forth in the Bible.  However, the longer I live the committed Christian life, the better I come to understand how its all about keeping my eyes on Christ.

Jesus Christ is central to the Christian faith.  Unlike other religions, Christianity can’t be separated from its founder, Jesus Christ.  Who He is and what you do with Jesus is what makes Christianity what it is.  You can’t take Christ out of Christianity and still have Christianity.  If you take other founders out of their religions, leaving only with their teachings, their religions could still function.  They are separate from what they taught.  Christ is integral to what He taught.  For the Christian, if Jesus isn’t who He says He was, the religion falls apart.  One could still live according to some of the moral principles He taught.  In fact a lot of people do just that without embracing Christ for who He claimed to be.  That isn’t Christianity though.  Christianity demands confronting Christ.

You see, as C.S. Lewis and other renowned thinkers have put it, Jesus was either liar, lunatic, or the real deal, God incarnate.  He can’t be just a good teacher, just a prophet, just a great guy.  He doesn’t leave that option open to us.  He claimed to be God.  He claimed to be the answer to man’s sin problem.  He made claims that don’t leave those other titles as possibilities.  What would you say to someone who claimed to be God if he wasn’t?   You see if Jesus wasn’t God, as He claimed to be, he was either deluded, or He knew He wasn’t God and He aimed to delude. 

As I spend time reading my Bible, praying, meditating on what I read, considering divergent thoughts and analysis, and conversing with skeptics, questioners, and those who have studied this in depth, as I consider the evidence for and against each of these propositions, deluded, deluder, truth, I am convinced of Jesus Christ’s authenticity as the Son of God.  His claims best fit the evidence and reality.  Christianity is not blind faith, but reasoned faith, yet faith none the less.  We can’t prove who Jesus Christ is, but we can, if we examine the evidence carefully, come to a reasoned conclusion to feed a confident faith.

Yes, Jesus was a great teacher.  He was a prophet and a good man.  He fulfilled many roles.  However, Jesus is so much more.  He was and is the Christ.  And if that is the case, does it make reasonable sense to ignore Him or treat Him as just one choice among many?  He doesn’t leave us that option either.  If His words are true and He says there is only one way to find the way to eternal life, shouldn’t we pay attention?  If He is God incarnate, then He has the answers to life’s big questions and other answers are just wrong.  If you have a disease that will kill you, you want the right medicine.  The wrong medicine won’t solve your problem.  Neither will the wrong belief solve a problem for which only Christ is the solution.

“Therefore, holy brethren, partakers of a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the Apostle and High Priest of our confession; He was faithful to [the Father] who appointed Him, as Moses also was in all His house.  For He has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses, by just so much as the builder of the house has more honor than the house. For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God.  Now Moses was faithful in all His house as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken later; but Christ was faithful as a Son over His house—whose house we are, if we hold fast our confidence and the boast of our hope firm until the end.”                                Hebrews 3:1-6  

If Jesus Christ is who He says He is, and the evidence certainly points in that direction, can you afford not to consider Him and what He had to say?  Consider Jesus Christ.  Even better, discover the delight:  the deliverance, the freedom, the life-abundant in knowing Him.

…“fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” Hebrews 12:2  

Imagining the Abundant Joy of Eternity

Five Minute Friday:  Imagine

1.  Write for 5 minutes flat - no editing, no over thinking, no backtracking.

2.  Link back to Five Minute Friday

3.  Visit the person who linked up before you and encourage them with your comments.  The one unbreakable rule.

I haven’t written a Five Minute Friday for awhile.  I haven’t blogged for a few weeks either, come to think of it.  I’ve barely gotten online to leave a comment here or there, but at least I have done that over the last few weeks a time or two.  It has been nagging at me to sit down and write something more than a journal entry, a homeschool test, or something work related.  

"Ah, it’s Friday, I’ll check in and at least write for 5 minutes,"  I think.  So I checked in to find the word “Imagine” was the prompt for the day.  Then I was immediately summoned to perform mom driving duties.  The word "Imagine" hummed in my head as I drove.

Upon return:  Five minutes begin.  

GO!

I couldn’t help but immediately think of one of my favorite songs, “I Can Only Imagine.”  

Image source

Every time I hear it, my heart turns to praise.  I can’t help but meditate on the concept of being in the eternal presence of God.  The sense of abundance, not of lots of stuff as in the physical, but of abundant filling of the Spirit, with a satiation that leads to sense of satisfaction and sanctification that is palpable.  I can breathe it, feel it, bask in it:  the abundance of joy that overwhelms me as I imagine.  The song often moves me to tears of joy, and I love to just sing along, and then think about it when it is done.

I drove along and thought about the song.  I thought about the words and the concept on my way back after dropping the kids.  Then I turned the radio on.  I confess I usually listen to talk radio in the afternoon.  There was a commercial on; so I switched the channel to the Christian radio station.  Just as I turned it on, “I Can Only Imagine” began to play.  I couldn’t help but well up with tears of joy at the realization that my God was speaking directly to me.  

Five minutes up:  Stop.

______________

I also can’t help but think about Team Hoyt every time I hear the song since when I first heard it, it was in conjunction with a music video about this amazing father and son duo.  Their story is quite incredible.  Son, Rick Hoyt was born with cerebral palsy which left him paralyzed with minimal mobility.  Medical personnel held out little hope, but the Hoyts, Dick and Judy, would not give up on their son.  As he grew, they grew too ministering to him as loving parents might.  Along the way, they discovered that young Rick Hoyt got a tremendous sense of freedom from being out with his dad in racing events, Father Hoyt pushing his son in some kind of chair or bike, or carrying him along in some way.

After the initial 5 mile benefit run in 1977, the Hoyts went on to participate in more and more races including marathons and triathlons.  In 1989 the Hoyt Foundation was started to raise awareness of the challenges of people with disabilities as it, “aspires to build the individual character, self-confidence, and self-esteem of America’s disabled young people through inclusion in all facets of daily life...”   One of the ironic and quite poignant vignettes of their larger story came when Dick Hoyt had a heart attack after years of racing with his son.  The doctor’s told him he wouldn’t have survived had he not been in such tremendous physical condition.  Here the Dad had been thinking he was helping his son all these years, and it turns out the son saved his dad’s life.

There is lots more of the inspiring story, and the music video is worth watching again and again.  I hope you’ll take the time to visit Team Hoyt.