Let’s Talk About the little word Am

I am the God of Abraham. With these words, Jesus silenced the Sadducees who say there is no resurrection. Yet it wasn’t the 6 words but the tense of the verb, The Pentateuch in Exodus, used the present tense ‘am’ instead of the past tense ‘was’ meaning that God is still the God of Abraham. So Abraham must still be alive.

When Moses asks God his name, God says:

¹⁴ God said to Moses, “I am who I am.^[a] This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I am has sent me to you.’”

Now, I am not a Hebrew scholar, but I take a step back to see God say who he is and use ‘I am’ as his name.

God is Am meaning he always is and always will be. It shows that he does not change and that he is not subject to time. Mostly, it shows that who he is is so much more important than what He does. It makes what he has, the universe, seems as nothing.

Therefore, when God makes us in his image, Abraham and we also, become an I am in the present tense without regard to time. We have a beginning, but no end.

From this we can also infer that God wants us to make who we are infinitely more important than what we do or what we have.

I can find myself being proud of the beautiful house I own here in China. but will God mention my buying that house as being something in Heaven? Surely not. I started a successful micro finance organization in China without ever seeing one for myself. Will that thing I did be the key thing I did to talk about before God? I think not.

God is laser focused on who we are. His first statement about us is that he will make us in his image. He made us an I am. It is who we are in that Christ made us, that is the great hurrah before our God. Do we grasp it, and do we make it something yet more? Do we believe God, and then walk as children of the King in humility?

Jimmy Carter died this week, and the news people said things he did but came back to talk about his humility as that drew us to him. That his who the noticed even in the news is notable. The who is always important.  In heaven it is foremost indeed. Humility is not something we do. It is something we are. So, in this life we come back again and again to see who Jesus is for that is what we need most. Finally, we look back at ourselves and invest in who we are and not centrally in what we accomplish or have.