Thursday Reading: John 8:54-59
Key Verse: John 8:58
58 Jesus said to them, Truly, truly, I say to you, Before Abraham came into being, I AM!
Devotion:
Jesus had every right to glorify Himself because He knew who He was and He knew that God was His Father – yet He chose to remain as a servant, as a human, so that He could complete His task in its entirety – just for us! As such, Christ had to (and did) depend on God for everything – from the basic necessities through to His own honour and glory – everything was of God. He also knew that that was going to be stripped from Him when He went to the cross carrying all of our sin debt on His own shoulders! And yet He chose to continue on for our sakes, knowing that what He did would count for everything for us!
We can argue between ourselves about God, about His existence, about what is true and what is not because of our differing beliefs about God; but Jesus did not have that option because He knew God. When you get to know someone intimately, you do not have to argue about what they are or do because you know them. When you do not know someone as fully as you could, then you may well find yourself in arguments with others about that person because of your lack of understanding about them. Christ knew God the Father intimately and wherever Jesus went He made sure that others would get to know the truth about God. His mission was to tell people the truth about God so that we could all get a chance to know Him personally.
When Christ said “Before Abraham was, I AM”, He told the world that He was our Creator. This put Abraham as one of the created and Christ as our Creator. The words He used were the same as those that He used when Moses was to bring the children of Israel out of Egypt – I AM – the very name of God that speak for itself! God exists outside of time. He is the one that created time. If He lived within time then He would be limited by time and would not be able to exist forever. God chose to create time for us. He can end time... That is something that we can and always will argue about because we have known nothing else other than living in time; but God is not limited because He was NOT Created. He IS and will ALWAYS BE!
Points to Ponder:
How long will you live?
God alone knows each one of us intimately?
