Classic Episode - The Great I Am

Today’s classic episode is The Great I Am. As you listen be blessed, empowered and transformed in Jesus name.

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Transcript

00:00 Intro music and voice over.

Welcome to jesus loves the world podcast. For more information and free resources visit our website jesuslovestheworld.info Be blessed empowered and transformed in Jesus’ name! 

00:21 Speaker

Today’s classic episode is The Great I Am.

Imagine you have sacrificed everything for others. You believe your motive is pure, as it is to right the wrongs and set people free. Yet the people can only see your mistakes, weaknesses and fear. They don’t respect you nor do they want you. You feel rejected. Conflict arises. Tension builds. 

You can’t stand it anymore. So you run. Running away from your true destiny by refusing to confront and surrender your mistakes, weaknesses and false humility. You run into the wilderness where no one knows you or your past. Yet even though you have run away, your true destiny is still is waiting.

Year after year your life is filled with nothingness. The same familiar routines and daily grind. Living in a spiritual wilderness with a sense of unfulfilled purpose.

In this nothingness a desolate place both physically and spiritually, God’s presence breaks in and declares it holy. 

Let us look at one of the most extraordinary close encounters with the Living God in God’s love story the Bible. Exodus 3 and we will journey with Moses one verse at a time.

Exodus 3:1 Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian. And he led the flock to the back of the desert, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God.

Remeber Moses is in a physical wilderness, at the back of the desert. 

From God’s perspective Moses was in training, tending and caring for the sheep of his father in-law. His character was being transformed. God was preparing him for the fulfilment of his destiny. To lead and care for His people. 

Moses came to a mountain. A mountain that has a name that literally means a ‘Desolate Place.’ With God’s presence that mountain later became known as the ‘Mountain of God.’ The holy mountain where Moses encountered God.

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God’s presence changes everything.

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We often find ourselves in a wilderness with no understanding of how we ended up there. But know this one thing, our glorious Father in heaven is always working. Even in the wilderness God is pursuing in love and He is there. 

Let us continue on with Moses in Exodus 3:2 And the Angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire from the midst of a bush. So he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, but the bush was not consumed.

Here we read that God appeared in the middle of a bush in the form of a flame of fire. Yet the fire was not destroying anything. This fire was no ordinary fire. For it was the presence of the Living God who came in a form or appearance that Moses could see and understand. 

A fire that revealed God’s power, passion and purpose. God’s power that is above all principalities and powers and every name that is named. His passion is His unending love and amazing grace. God’s purpose is that we be delivered from evil and inherit all things good in Him. 

There is no need for Moses to fear. This fire is extraordinary and does not destroy what it inhabits.

Moses 40 years of ordinary in an instant is now transformed into 40 years of extraordinary. He is a witness of the extraordinary. He encountered the Living God at a time in history where that was not the ordinary.

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With one close encounter with the Great I Am, everything changes.

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The appearance by God was according to Moses’ immediate need and destiny. Moses needed to see and experience God’s power and passion for people, as he would be sent to the most powerful nation of that time. 

Moses would be sent in God’s power, because of God’s passion with a divine purpose. To deliver God’s people from the bondage of slavery and from the clutches of  the greatest super power of that time. 

The fire to Moses represented God’s power and passion for people, including himself. However the fire of God’s presence to Pharaoh, to whom Moses will be sent is a fire of judgement against the gods of Egypt. For God’s people His presence is deliverance from evil. 

Let us continue. Exodus 3:3 Then Moses said, “I will now turn aside and see this great sight, why the bush does not burn.” 

Here we read that Moses chose to engage with the extraordinary. Giving his attention to this great sight. To try and understand what is going on. Something in Him wanted to see this great sight. He recognised it was extraordinary but tried to reason. Why is this bush not burning?

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The Great I Am breaks through our ordinary in extraordinary ways, to turn our wilderness into fruitfulness. 

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For us today, through the shed blood of Jesus and the outpouring of His Holy Spirit, we have the incredible privilege as God’s children to encounter the Great I AM. He is not bound by a place or time. We can encounter Him anywhere and at anytime. We simply need to stop, look and listen. Stop to rest and come into His presence. Look to Jesus and remember who He is and what He has done. Listen to His word and hear His still small voice. Which His Spirit enables us to hear. Freely drinking His Living Waters. Surrendering to Him, He opens up our spiritual eyes, He brings us the spiritual rest and He gives us spiritual ears to hear His still small voice.

Even when we are in our wilderness, we can encounter Him at any moment. He is with us. He is here. We can experience Him and be transformed by Him. Even if we don’t feel anything, see anything or hear anything, know and understand God is working. Praise His mighty name. 

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To see and experience the extraordinary is to be aware of His presence.

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Let us continue Exodus 3:4 So when the Lord saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.”

God sees Moses and calls him by name. Twice He calls him. 

To those of Hebrew lineage a name means everything. Often it is given as a result of the circumstances surrounding the birth or the perceived destiny of the child. Moses’ name means drawing out or rescued. God not only calls Moses intimately and personally but speaks out his name twice. He reminds Moses of his past and his future. Moses was rescued from the water as a baby. He was hidden there to protect him from the hands of the Egyptian command to kill all Hebrew baby boys. 

Moses’ destiny was to go back to Egypt. This time in the power and authority of God and be part of  the rescue of the Hebrew people from the hands of the Egyptian empire. 

Moses is yet to understand. He responds to God who called his name twice with, ‘Here I am.’ God didn’t ask where he was, as He knows all things. Moses was yet to receive the revelation of the one who called him by name, was and is the Great I Am. 

Today we have the revelation of Jesus and HIs Holy Spirit teaching us and guiding us. To know Him more and engage with Him is our extraordinary daily journey. To come into His presence, surrendering our thoughts, heart’s desires and taking a moment to receive from Him and listen to Him. His Holy Spirit is the fire within, that burns with His passion, His presence and His power. 

To be His witness of who He is, all He has done and all he will do. By letting Him transform us from the inside out, so others can see Jesus in us. We are the carriers of His presence into every relationship. Whether family, workplace, local community, people group or nations, God calls each one of us by name. 

Remember God’s presence changes everything. I once was told by a person of another faith, ‘Christians do not know the power of the One they carry within.’ Such a powerful revelation. We carry the presence of the Great I Am! God calls each individual by name, to be be transformed in His love, truth and power. We are His witnesses of light to a lost and dark world.  

Let us continue journeying with Moses and the Living God. 

Exodus 3:5 Then He said, “Do not draw near this place. Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground.”

Moses was not yet in a place of knowing God intimately and personally. This was the first of many close encounters with the Living God. Remember that at this moment in Moses’ life and to fulfil his destiny, he needs to know God’s power. From this moment and forever more.

Moses will live out of a place of intimacy with the Great I Am. Everywhere Moses goes the Great I Am will be with him. There will never be a moment where they are not together. 

Wherever God’s presence is it is declared Holy, set apart for His purpose, sacred. In eastern culture their is still a custom to take off ones shoes in reverence before entering a sacred place. It is a symbolic act of humility and reverence. To shake of the dirt of this world and come cleansed into a sacred place. 

For us today, when we receive Jesus we have His presence dwelling within us. His precious Holy Spirit. We become that holy ground, set apart for His purpose. His presence is sacred and our bodies are the holy ground. The dwelling place of the Living God. 

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We carry His presence into every situation. 

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 Exodus 3:6 Moreover He said, “I am the God of your father—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look upon God.

God reveals Himself to Moses as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. In an instant Moses knows he was standing in the presence of the Great I Am. The one and only Living God, who created heaven and earth and all things good. Moses was also confronted by his own identity. That of a Hebrew. He would have been reminded that he is part of the covenant God made with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and the Hebrew people.

When we receive Jesus as our Lord and saviour we enter into God’s covenant. This is an eternal bond that can never be broken. He is forever faithful, will never leave or forsake us. We give total allegiance to Him, we have our identity in Him. We live in the fullness of His purposes.

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Our identity is in Him, as He puts His identity in us.

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Continuing on in Exodus 3:7 And the Lord said: “I have surely seen the oppression of My people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows.

Once again God sees and identifies with His people. He hears their cries and intimately is engaged in their every day struggles. He knows their sorrows and in fact came down to be with them and deliver them. To set them free. 

God’s heart never changes. His mission since before the foundation of the world was to bring all things in one in Christ Jesus. To set the captives free. 

Today through Christ Jesus we have the incredible privilege to have a close encounter with the Great I Am anytime, anywhere. To know and experience Him in a greater intimacy through His precious Holy Spirit dwelling within us. We are set apart for a purpose. Each one of us have a part in His deliverance plan. Praise His mighty name!

19:40 Outro music and voice over. 

For more information and free resources visit our website jesuslovestheworld.info Be blessed empowered and transformed in Jesus’ name!