Daily Devotions for Difficult Days [89] Great I Am

Our Sunday Guest Devotional is by Mike Loveridge, assistant Pastor of Manor Park Church

Great I am

The song for this week is ‘Great I am’ by Phillips, Craig and Dean. You can listen to the song here. Like previous weeks, I suggest you listen to the song, dwell on the words and then read through my brief comments. I hope this song blesses you as it has me.

I want to be close, close to your side
So heaven is real and death is a lie
I want to hear voices of angels above 
Singing as one

Hallelujah, holy, holy
God almighty, the great I Am
Who is worthy? None beside thee
God almighty, the great I Am

I want to be near, near to your heart
Loving the world and hating the dark
I want to see dry bones living again
Singing as one

Hallelujah, holy, holy
God almighty, the great I Am
Who is worthy? none beside thee
God almighty, the great I Am

The great I Am
The mountains shake before you, the demons run in fear,
At the mention of the name, King of majesty
There is no power in hell
Or any who can stand
Before the power and the presence of the great I Am

Hallelujah, holy, holy
God almighty, the great I Am
Who is worthy? none beside thee
God almighty, the great I Am

This song reminds us of three great truths about God. That he is holy, ‘I am’ and worthy. Today let’s look at each of these in turn.

Holy

The holiness of God is a subject that is found throughout the Bible, almost on every page. A simple search will throw forwards over 100 appearances. Here are just two that speak powerfully of God’s holiness:

 1 Samuel 2:2 – There is none holy like the Lord; there is none besides you; there is no rock like our God.

 Isaiah 6:3 – And one called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory!”

 These two verses alone show us that our God is a holy God. But what does it mean to be holy? The word holy simply means to separate or cut off. So, God is separate or cut off from everything that is sinful and evil since God cannot tolerate sin. Saying that God is holy is to say that there is not a single trace of sin in his character. 1 Samuel 2:2 has it exactly right then. There is none holy like God since all of humanity is sinful.

 In thinking about the holiness of God there is a great challenge to us as believers. Peter writes in 1 Peter 1:16, “You shall be holy, for I am holy” quoting Leviticus 20:26. So as followers of Christ we are also called to be holy! What does that mean for us? It means that we are to be set apart. Set apart to live lives for the glory of God as aliens here in this world. We are no longer to conform to the ways of this world and our sinful desires but are instead to live lives that display Christ in this dark world.

 Alongside that, since our holy God cannot bear sin, we should strive each day to grow in our holiness and put to death the sin within us. As Christians we don’t do that in our own strength but through the power of the Spirit who is at work within us.

I am

This is the name that God chooses to first introduce himself to the Israelites. In Exodus 3:14 God says to Moses, “‘I AM WHO I AM.’ And He also said, ‘Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I AM has sent me to you’”. It became so sacred that in Judaism the name is not to be spoken. Why? Because this name ‘I am’ encompasses all that God is as well as how we relate to him. To understand it we have to understand what it meant to the Israelites. At the time the Israelites were living surrounded by temples dedicated to gods who had faces, bodies, life and death stories. These gods had names and dominion over certain aspects of life, the weather, health, women, children, etc. The name of the god was identified with their character. Up until this point the Israelites had been using the name ‘Elohim’ for God, which is a title not a name, more like Mr or Dr. So, when God gave himself a name for the Israelites to call him it helped them to get to know him on a more personal level. It revealed his character to them, if you like. And what a character it revealed! In two short words, the name I AM conveys so much. His dominion over all things, His power, His eternal nature. It points to that amazing truth that God is the self-sufficient, self-sustaining God who was, who is and who forever will be. I am simply says, ‘I have always been here and always will be.’

Why is this important for us today? Because it helps us to understand the complexity of who God is. He is the name above all names, self-sufficient, creating, powerful, in control God who sent his son to make us his children.

Worthy

Why is God worthy? Revelation 5:12 helps us to answer that. It says: "In a loud voice they were saying: "Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honour and glory and praise!"

God is worthy because of what he has done. God is the creator of all that we see and know, that alone makes him worthy of our praise. When we see a beautiful painting, we don’t think that the painting itself is worthy of praise but the painter who created it. The same is true with God. Yet he is also worthy of our praise for an even greater reason - because he is the Lamb who was slain. Jesus went to the cross to die an excruciating death in order to forgive all our wrongdoing. Without Jesus we would still be lost and dead in our sin, with no hope of escape. But God sent his one and only Son to take our place. He is so worthy of all our praise, glory and honour.

Prayer for today

Loving heavenly Father,

We thank you for all of your abundant blessings upon us. Thank you for who you are, the holy, worthy, great I Am. May you reveal to us today more of who you are. Thank you for Jesus who took our sin such that we can know you.

Father we pray today that our lives will praise, glorify and honour you name above all else. May we decrease and you increase in our lives today.

In Jesus’ name we pray,

Amen

Photo from Unsplash by Billy Pasco