Our God is the I AM – He is everything that we need; He is the true God, the living God, the eternal King, He is ever-existing and self-existing, and toward us, His people, He is the I am, the reality of all positive things. Hallelujah!
This week we come to another crystal in the book of Jeremiah – Knowing Jehovah, the Eternal God, in His Lovingkindness, Compassions, and Faithfulness.
In order for us to know God, we need truth and life; truth is the shining of light, the expression of the divine light.
For us to know God as revealed in the Bible and in particular in the book of Jeremiah, we need the Lord’s light to shine on the truth in the Bible, so that this shining light would make the objective truth in the word into reality.
Truth is the shining of the light; the content of truth is life. Life and truth are distinct, yet they are not separate. The Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is both truth, reality, and life (John 14:6).
We may say that truth is truth and light is light, and we may stand on the side of “experiencing light” and “enjoying life” yet not receive the matter of “knowing the truth”, but it is impossible for us to have life and spirit apart from the truth, the shining of the divine light.
It is a great mistake to separate doctrine from life and the Spirit.
If we simply read the Bible and the ministry books, if we just read the verses in the word of God and the footnotes in the Recovery Version, yet we don’t have the shining of the light, we only gain knowledge.
We may define truth in our way, we may know the facts, but truth according to God is the Triune God in His word as the divine reality. So whenever we read the word of God, whenever we come to the ministry to read it, we need to pray and seek the Lord for His light to shine on us.
Written words and mere human words can’t bring truth into our being, but the more the Lord’s light shines, even the little amount of things that we read impart life into us, and God Himself is being infused into our being.
As we approach this matter of knowing God, we need to seek and search to know God as revealed in His word and in Christ as the living Word, so that we may know Him in the way of the light shining on the word, and we want to touch reality.
Oh, what a Christ we have! How wonderful our God is! He really is the I AM – our God is the I AM, and He is everything that we need!
When we come to Him, open to Him, allow Him to shine on us through His word, He infuses us with the reality of all the positive things.
We may not know what we need, but if we just open to Him, if we just turn a little, He shines in us, He infuses us, and He meets all our needs, for God is the I AM, both the ever-existing and self-existing God, and the God who supplies all our needs!
Jehovah God is I am who I am – He’s the Eternal One, the Self-Existing and Ever-Existing One, the One who Is
Jeremiah often addressed God as Jehovah of hosts (see Jer. 2:19; 5:14; 6:9; 7:21; 9:7, 15, 17; 11:17; 20:12), and in 10:1 in particular he said, Jehovah is the true God; He is the living God and the eternal King.
To him God was something real – he knew the true God in the midst of idolatry and false prophets, and he could declare that Jehovah is the true God.
What does Jehovah mean? Jehovah means “I am who I am”, indicating that Jehovah is the eternal One, the One who was in the past, who is in the present, and who will be in the future forever (see Exo. 3:14; Rev. 1:4).
When God called Moses and sent him to the children of Israel, He introduced as being, I am who I am; thus you shall say to the children of Israel, I AM has sent me to you.
Jehovah is the self-existing and ever-existing God; this One exists eternally, having neither beginning nor ending.
The fact that God is self-existing and ever-existing is a challenge to our natural mind, for our mind wants to understand what was the cause of God, what caused Him to be, and how does He fit and work in space and time.
By its very nature and structure, our mind is limited by space and time and causality; we think that everything must have a cause. We were not here 100 years ago, but after a certain process we were caused to be, so we think it must be the same way with God.
We may try to explain what was the cause for the universe to exist, why did this and that happen, and what caused this to take place and that to not take place; but this is not the same with God.
God is self-existing and ever existing.
In one way or another, sooner or later, depending on our make-up or the way our mind works in seeking to know God, we will all eventually have an experience in which we are considering, How can God exist without being caused?
And then we will get the answer from God, I AM – I AM THAT I AM. He will not try to explain Himself to us, to help us understand who and what He is and why He is…He simply makes this statement: I AM.
The unique requirement for everyone on earth, according to Heb. 11:6, is that when we come to God we must believe that He is.
I AM denotes the One whose being depends on nothing apart from Himself (John 8:24, 28, 58).
He is the very definition and embodiment of the verb to be; God simply is – He was, He is, He will be, and long after we’re gone, He still is, for our God is the I AM.
In Daniel 5, when Belshazzar had a feast and asked for the utensils of the temple to be brought in, then drank wine from them, God came in and, as Daniel said, told Him, The God in whose hand your breath is…
We may assume that we are an independent being, and especially as things work our way and we have certain achievements, we may think that we’re an independent being, but there is no such thing!
No angel, no human being, and no creature is self-existing or ever-existing – only God is. Jehovah is the only One who is, and we must believe that He is (Heb. 11:6). This is what faith really is, to believe that He is; the parallel truth is that He is and we are not.
Lord, we come forward to You and we believe that You are! Hallelujah, our God is the I AM WHO I AM, the only One who is ever-existing and self-existing. Lord, we are not, but You are! We were caused to be, but nothing caused You to be – You simply are! We believe that You are, and we worship You as the eternal One, the living God, the True God, and the eternal King! Only You exist eternally, having neither beginning nor ending. We exist because You are; we have our being because You are the I AM. Hallelujah, our God is, and we are not!
Our God is the I AM – He is the All-inclusive One, the Reality of Every Positive Thing and of Whatever We as His People Need!
The verb “to be” cannot applied to anyone and anything except God Himself; our God is the I AM WHO I AM.
As we come forward to God to know God, we must believe that He is; He is, and we are not.
This title, I am, is not a complete sentence, so we can fill in whatever we need, for God is the I AM who meets our every need!
When the Lord Jesus came as God incarnated, He said in John 8 that, unless we believe that He is, we will die in our sins.
He said, I am the bread of life (John 6:35), I am the true vine (John 15:1), I am the light (John 8:12).
As the great I AM, God is everything that we need – He is heaven, earth, air, water, trees, bids, cattle, food, drink, everything!
This doesn’t mean that we are pantheists, believing that everything positive is God; rather, we declare that, based on the word of God, our God is the I AM, and He is the reality of all positive things! He is even our reality – He is you and He is me, for without Him, we have no reality of being.
Without the Lord, we are nothing, but when we have Him, we exist, we have reality of being, and we have everything.
He is sustaining us, He is everything to us, and He supplies us with whatever we need.
Without Him, we cannot exist; without Him, we are not real, genuine, and true…but when we have Him, we are genuine men, and we believe that He is – so we also are what we are through Him and in Him! What a precious name – God is the I AM who I AM!
God’s word is really amazing in both what it says and in what it doesn’t say; I AM does not say fully what He is, and the I AM implies there’s something not said yet.
If He said, I am love, then He would not be power or righteousness; if He said, I am power, He would not be peace and holiness. So He simply said, I am!
This implies that God is the I AM, the all-inclusive One, the One who is the reality of all what we need.
All throughout the Bible, from beginning to the end of the Bible, we see that God wants to be the reality of all positive things to man.
He is the tree of life, the reality of life to man; He is our covering and protection, our shelter and high tower, our comfort and joy, our love, power, wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, joy, and peace.
He is our victory, and we are in His victorious procession, spreading the aroma of the knowledge of God everywhere. He is our life, our light, our way; if we need a way, He is our way (John 14:6).
He is the real and true light, even the light of life. He is our food – He is the bread of life, the living bread, the bread of God, the bread that came down out of heaven to give life to man.
He is our Savior, our Redeemer, our God, our Lord, our King, our Ruler, and He is also our life, our breath of life (John 20:22), our patience, our forbearance, our peace, and our joy.
Whatever we need, He is. If we are thirsty, He is the reality of the living water for us to drink; we can come to Him as we are, and He gives us to drink (John 4).
If we are hungry, we can take Him as the reality of our food, our bread of life, the living bread, and we can eat Him and live because of Him (John 6).
He is our Good Shepherd, He leads us into pasture, He Himself is our pasture, He is our protection, and He is our supply; He is everything we need (John 10). Whatever we need, He is.
He is the life that overflows, the cheering wine, the best wine, the joyful element that causes us to rejoice (John 3).
He is the Lamb of God, the bridegroom, and the life supply to us. God is the I AM – God in Christ is whatever we need, and we simply need to ask Him to be what we need.
We can exercise our spirit of faith to believe that He is, and we will take Him as the reality of all our needs.
He wants to bring us in the realization that He is the reality of everything we need.
The more we realize that Christ is everything and we are nothing, the more restful we will be; we will take Him as the reality of all positive things, for we know that God is the I AM, and He is everything we need! We will not try to love others or try to be patient – we will turn to Him and take Him as the reality of our love and patience.
Lord Jesus, You are the I AM – You are everything that we need. Oh, what an all-inclusive One You are! We come to You, we believe that You are, and we take You as the reality of all the positive things. We stop our struggling to be this or do that – we just come to You and take You as the I AM, the One who is everything we need. We take You as our patience, love, joy, comfort, peace, life, and life-supply. You are our real food, our real drink, our satisfaction, our forbearance, our shelter, our protection, and our very breath. Lord, we can never exhaust You. We come to You with all our needs and we take You as the I AM; You are, we are not, and we take You as everything that we need!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Sources of inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by Ron Kangas for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Watchman Nee, vol. 9, pp. 263-274, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization Study of Jeremiah and Lamentations, week 7, Knowing Jehovah, the Eternal God, in His Lovingkindness, Compassions, and Faithfulness.
- Hymns on this topic:
– O Lord, Thy being is of old, / Before th’ eternal past began! / For Thou th’ eternal Father art, / The uncreated, great I AM! (Hymns #81)
– Thou art the living Truth! / All wisdom dwells in Thee, / Thou Source of every skill, / Eternal Verity! / Thou great I Am! In Thee we rest, / True answer to our every quest. (Hymns #192)
– Gracious Lord, Thy name “I AM” is, / Precious name, how rich and full ‘tis, / All-inclusive, faithful too ‘tis- / All we need, Thou art! / Thou the Son, the Father in Thee, / As the Spirit now indwell me, / That the riches of Thyself we / May experience. (Hymns #78)
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