Editorial for L2L "I AM"

Over four thousand years ago, a booming voice proclaimed an important message to a humble shepherd in the wilderness.  Moses was hiding in the land of Midian after he had murdered an Egyptian man.  While tending his father in law’s sheep, Moses saw a bush on the mountain that was on fire, but the branches of the bush were not consumed by the flames.   The flaming bush told Moses to take off his sandals, and then commanded him to go to Egypt and deliver the Israelites from bondage and lead them into the land he promised to Abraham.  This event became one of the most important things that happened in the history of the Jewish people, because during this talk that he had with Moses, the one true God described and named himself with these two words, “I AM.”   

     In our day and time, the words “I am” have a completely different meaning.  On any given day, I hear people proclaim, “I am hungry,” or “I am happy.”  When meeting a new person, I might say, “I am in 9^th grade.”  But we use these simple words differently than our creator did when he used them.  We usually use the words “I AM” to describe our feelings or our position.  I have read many, many articles about the meaning of these two tiny words in Exodus 3:14.      

There are lots of theories about what God meant when he spoke them to Moses, but I believe that we must look at the words and their meaning in the Hebrew language, which was the language of the Jewish people, and the first language that Moses learned as a small boy.  The simplest explanation is that God was telling Moses, “I will be what I will be.”  This was an important message for the Israelite people because they had been treated terribly as slaves of the Egyptian people for four hundred years.  They knew the promises of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but they were starting to doubt that this same God heard their prayers anymore.  God told Moses to tell the Jews that “I AM” sent him to rescue them from their desperate life.  God wanted his people to know that he was all they needed, that he would give them what they needed to escape their slavery, and that he would deliver them safely to Canaan if they believed and obeyed.  Basically, God was telling Moses that he would provide them (“I will be) with everything they needed to escape bondage, and go to the land of milk and honey. 

     “And 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 3:14).  These were ancient words to an ancient people, but today, they are meaningful to us all the same.  I AM has provided a way for us to be delivered from the bondage of our sins in his son, Jesus Christ.  All we need to do is to believe and obey the gospel, and we will be delivered, too.