Last week we introduced you to Moses. Moses found himself in a face-to-face encounter with God Himself. Moses was a man whose destiny had played games. Raised up in a powerful Egyptian kingly family, he ended up being a fugitive. He was living an aimless and obscure life of a shepherd when God spoke to him from a burning bush. God told Moses about his calling to be leader and rescue a million Jewish people to the birth of the nation Isreal. Moses was afraid. He was not at all confident of himself. Hesitatingly he asked God to tell His name. God introduced himself, “I AM” “I AM WHO I AM”
What does I AM mean? What does it tell about God? In essence God is claiming to be the one without having a beginning, uncreated, self-existent God. My son used to recite a nursery rhyme, “God made it all”. Children are very inquisitive. The child may ask his mom, “Mom, who made the mountains?” Mom answers, “God”.
“And who made me?” “God”
“Who made daddy? And you?” “God”
“And who made God?”
The answer is obvious and yet elusive. No one made God. God was never created. He has always existed. He is the Supreme Being of this universe. In a series of effects and their causes that exist in this universe, God is the ultimate First Cause. This is the truth about the nature of God. We are human beings. There are other beings in the world. All beings derive their beings from the Supreme Being. We can neither start living on our own nor do we cease living by our means. In fact we live our whole life between two hospitals. God does not need anyone else to exist. We need God for our existence. We cannot exist apart from God. We are dependent on God.
Someone once said, “Man, despite his artistic pretensions, his sophistication and many accomplishments, owes the fact of his existence to a six- inch layer of topsoil and the fact that it rains.” By the way it is not natural to develop the quality of dependence. The story I tell you illustrates this.
Sign seen in a textile mill, "When your thread becomes tangled, call the foreman." A young woman was new on the job. Her thread became tangled and she thought, "I'll just straighten this out myself." She tried, but the situation only worsened. Finally she called the foreman. "I did the best I could," she said. "No you didn't. To do the best, you should have called me."
Another consequence of God’s self-existence is his power to create life out of nothing. In Genesis 1 the story of creation of this universe is captured. God did not need raw material to create this world. He created everything out of nothing. He can bring life out of death. When Jesus died on the cross, after 3 days He rose back to life. This is the meaning of ‘I AM’.
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