I Am Who I Am

This was God's response to Moses, when he asked God what His name was.  "I am who I am."  I was thinking and praying into this yesterday and asking our Father what that really meant.  His response was very convicting.

"I am not the God of your father."
"I am not the God of your mother."
"I am not the God of your friends."

"I am who I am...not who you or they think I am."

oohhh...ouch!  This immediately led to a time on my face asking our Father to reveal to me all my misconceptions, misunderstandings and just flat out wrong thoughts about Him and who He is.  I realized many of these were just what I had come to learn and believe through family, friends, teachers and various other folks in my life.  All well meaning folks, but all just people in the end with their own filters.

I then read Deuteronomy 30:11-14-- "Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach.  It is not up in heaven, so that you have to ask, "Who will ascend into heaven to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?"  Nor is it beyond the sea, so that you have to ask, "Who will cross the sea to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?"  No, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it."

Do you see the great invitation in this truth?  "Come, sit at me feet, in my Presence and learn from Me.  I will reveal Myself to you and you will know I am who I say I am!

When was the last time you accepted your Father's invitation to sit at His feet and let Him speak to you?

There is no Easter, without Good Friday and there is no Good Friday without the Garden-Part 2

What possess an innocent man, one who has lived His entire life in love and peace to lay His life down for a guilty one?  How does He endure being arrested as a common criminal, bound and dragged before the religious people, who had already decided that "it would be good if one man died for the people?"  It was clear that a fair trial would not be possible among the very people He had actually come to save.  How did he stand silently during the false testimony of paid witnesses?  Did His heart break at the abandonment of his closest friends and their denials of even knowing Him? 

What possess a man to endure being beat and whipped, having His very flesh torn and pulled apart for the very people who rejected Him?  What causes Him to pick up and carry the very cross that He would soon be nailed to?  What enables Him to allow the Roman soldiers to nail His wrists and feet to this cross?  What causes Him to pray for the very people who are insulting Him as His life blood runs out where they are walking?

What possess a man to do these things?  A man who has been swept away with the knowledge of who his Father is, who He is in His Father's kingdom and what He was created for.

Do you know these things for yourself? 
Take a few moments today, on God's Friday, to be swept away and reflect on these questions as you listen to this song.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DIWlqa3xds

There is no Easter, without Good Friday and there is no Good Friday without the Garden-Part 1

Holy Thursday.  A night filled with great highs and bottomless lows.  It was on this night that Christ established the Lord's Supper.  It is what we partake in each time we celebrate communion and reflect upon the breaking of His body and the spilling of His blood, which established our covenant with God and allows us to enter into our Father's holy presence. 

It was during this meal that Christ got up and washed the disciples feet.  His action was one of the greatest lessons in humility and would set forth the principle of selfless service.  Here, the Lamb of God, perfect and faultless, greater than anyone sitting at the Passover table, gets up and does the most menial task that could have been done that evening.  It was only a foreshadowing of the greatest selfless act in history, which would take place the next day, Good Friday. 

After the meal, Jesus goes with his disciples to the Garden of Gethsemane and takes Peter, James and John to pray.  He shares that his "soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death."  He asks them to "Stay here and keep watch with me."  They fall asleep and leave Christ to pray alone.

Later the authorities come, being led by Judas Iscariot, one of the 12 disciples.  The night's first betrayal, in a long night filled with betrayals, lies and denials.  Jesus knew all of this would come, including Good Friday, yet he chose to bear your sins and die on your cross.  Know that whatever may be going on in your life today, whether filled with great highs or bottomless lows, that our Savior loves you more than His own life and chose you that evening in the garden.
 
Will you come to the edge of the garden and "watch and pray" with the One who loves you more than His own life?  You see, there is no Good Friday without prayer and the choice made in the garden.