Who is God?

"I AM the LORD and there is NO other;  apart from Me there is no God” (Isa: 45:5)

On Mount Sinai, as Moses knelt before the burning bush he asked God for His name, that , is,  “who are you?”, God’s reply “ I AM WHO I AM”, (Ex:3:14-15) you will tell them “I AM has sent you”.  

We can, and do, understand this as a description of God’s eternal existence, yet this name of God speaks even more to the human need for God and His place in all  of our lives.   He is saying in effect “ I AM everything that you need Me to be” , whatever the need of humanity, God meets that need for us,  just as He did for Israel in their journey  from slavery to the wanderings in the Wilderness, to their establishment  in Canaan.

Does What He Is

God’s nature and character are seen in what He does and what He does is who He is.  The names of God, that is, who He is, represents needs that He meets for humanity, not just meeting material needs, He is everything we need. He just does not have everything He is everything. (Ps: 23, Phlp: 4:6, 19)
 

The Eight Compound Names of God

 Yahwah Yireh (Gen 22:14) "The Lord will provide "
Yahwah Rapha (Exodus 15:26) "The Lord our Healer"
Yahwah Nissi (Exdos 17:15) "The Lord our Banner"
YahwahShalom (Judges 6:24) "The Lord our Peace"
Yahwah Rraah (Psalms 23:1) "The Lord our Shepherd"
Yahwah Tsidkenu (Jeremiah 23:6) "The Lord our Righteousness"
Yahwah Shammah (Ezekiel 48:35) "The Lord is Present” 
Yahwah Sabaoth (Isaiah 47:4) "The Lord of Host"

These names of God teach us much about our Creator, that He is everything that we need Him to be, and they are useful to our understanding of Him.  But above them we see in Jesus all of them fulfilled for us. 

“Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name” Phip: 2:9

This tells us , that Jesus fulfills all humanities’ needs, and it is, in Jesus,  that we meet our God. That is and by Jesus Who is the Great "I AM" is perfectly revealed to any who will look to Him.

Idols of Self Dependency

God frees us from the slavery of the idols of self dependency, and brings us to His very  Self, where He alone can truly meet all of  our needs.For all an idols is, is humanities attempt to meet their needs apart from the means God has provided in Jesus Christ. 

Jesus is who we all  are in search of , humanity spends it's existence looking for the fulfillment that it longs for,  yet can never have apart from a relationship with God.

"Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk  without money and without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread,and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and you will delight in the richest of fare. “Isa: 55:1-2

Humanity, moves through this life looking for ways to create a meaningful existence,  they are looking in vain.  God is, yet, for the most part in the minds and lives of some  is a distant or foreign to their  thought. 

He is not the focus of their lives, that is unless God Himself reaches out of eternity and  gets our attentions and introduces Himself to us, that is  He tells us Who He is

  “There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God.

All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good,  not even one.”  “Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit.”“The poison of vipers is on their lips.”“Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.”“Their feet are swift to shed blood;ruin and misery mark their ways,and the way of peace they do not know.”“There is no fear of God before their eyes" Rm:3:10-18,    

" The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us. This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words.The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit.The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human  judgments," 1Crth:2:10-15

God, speaking to us out of eternity and through the pages of the Holy Scriptures “I AM the  LORD and there is no other; apart from Me there is no God” (Isa: 45:5-11)

  

Declaring His Glory

 He tells us that,  He is  the One who brought all things in to being, that it is He who design the life of humanity ,that He  has a prior claim to direct us, to move us through life to have our lives for His purposes. 

He is the Creator and as such the universe will reflect who He is, we see a universe that  is full of power and intricacies , of great design , order, law, of vastness. The universe  in which we  inhabit  requires a God such as is described in the Scriptures in order to  have been brought in to being, a lesser god could not of produced the Cosmos , we   can see Him in every part of the creation. (Rom: 1:19-20,) 

 

"The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge. They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them. Yet their voice goes out into all the earth,their words to the ends of the world." Ps: 19:1-6

God has given humanity minds and self awareness; He has even encoded within us a   sense of right and wrong. He has made choice a part of His purpose for us, this choice   creates the necessity of random occurs which follows the choices that we make. At times the  results are positive, and at times it produces chaos or are harmful, yet God is ultimately in control.  

His “prevenient will” , that is what God wants to occur will, in the end overrides the choices and random actions of the world and persons. A world that is filled with the random occurrences is the best arena of  instruction, that is, in order  for a life to be real , it needs to be random, this is the only way  our choices can be truly ours as we are confronted with any given situation in life. (Isa: 46:8-11, Jos: 24:14-15, Det: 30:19, Eccl: 7:14, 9:11-12)

 Guides Us

 He is the one Who meets our needs  for moral guidance and speaks  it forth that we might understand  how to live in relationship to Him as Creator  and with others, that we might know right from wrong truth from error (Isa: 45:19)

"But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law." Gal:5:18

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. 
And so he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace. The mind governed by the flesh is hostile or indifferent to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so" Rm:8:1-7

This God that is revealed through the pages of the Bible is beyond the words of any  language to express. This God is from eternity past, He is uncreated spirit and all that is,  and it’s continuance is by His will and providence (Jhn:1:1, Jhn:4:24, Heb:1:3,10-11, Cols:1:17)

 God Is Love

God is the very essences of Love, that is all He does is focused on the ultimate and eternal best good all. His very nature is that of outgoing concern for the welfare of others   and this motivates His every interaction with humanity. 

Love is not regulated by some "law" or "set of rules" or a "power" outside of God which compels Him , if this were true, then  God would not be God. Yet out of Love He has chosen to have us and would not be God without us.

  

This love is not a mere “emotion” it is what He is, “God is Love”, and God is not  governed by any force or “need” God is free,  nothing rules God , He is supreme He is  sovereign. (1Jhn:4:16, 19, Jhn: 3:16, 1Tim:6:15-16)

 I AM

This God who is “I AM”, this God who’s nature is above and beyond the understanding  of humanity shows Himself in to us in glimpses  that we can not readily comprehend.

 God is a being of such perfect inter-physic integrity, such oneness yet distinctiveness,  we  can’t grasp it, He is Father, He Son and He is Holy Spirit,  this is more than just an   “arrangement” of co-equal beings that share a common  essence  and purpose  and   have found it in their best interest to co-operate , this is the One True God .  He is the Trinity, how this can be is, again, above the mind of human beings to fully grasp.

The great God who has reached out of eternity and showed us Himself through the

 Person of Jesus Christ has met our need to know Him, through His eternal Son. 

Through  Jesus we learn everything we need to know about who God is, He shows us Himself in  His Son (Jhn: 14:1-11, Jhn: 17:1-26)

As well, it is through God Himself indwelling in our lives through the Holy Spirit, unites  us with Him in a unique and very personal way, this may be the greatest proof of His  existence, yet to the most elusive to the natural mind but to the mind filled with the Spirit  the most “tangible” evidence is seen as the fruit of His presences surfaces in the life of a Christian as the very attributes of the Person of Jesus Christ are manifested in their lives. (Jhn: 14:16, Gal: 5:19, 2Crth:3:17)

When we come to see the Great God all of our Idols of self dependency can  be cast down. We can look to Him who loves us and is and always will be with us

God is God, there is no other, He is “I AM”, He is everything that we need Him to be. Amen.

Rev.Todd Crouch, Pastor

The Fountain of Life Church a Congregation of Grace Communion
2101 Old National Pike.

Washington, Pennsylvania.   www.gcfountainoflife.org

The Fountain of Life is heard  on the RKP Radio Network 1710 and 1670 AM in Washington and North Franklin ,and 1790 AM  in the Arden Fair Grounds area of Washington Pennsylvania, and on 1710 AM in Bentleyville and Monongahela, Pennsylvania. And online around the world at www.rkpradio.com