What we think about God determines what we think about everything else.
What do you think about God? This is a vital question.
The best questions make a difference. The right answers to the questions change lives.
Consider these question and how to your answers could change your life.
“911 operator. What’s your location?”
“Will you marry me?”
“Who am I in Christ?”
I’ll answer this last question from Scripture. If you belong to God through faith in Christ your answer to “Who am I in Christ?” is:
I am a child of God (John 1:12).
I am complete in Christ (Colossians 2:9–10).
I am God’s workmanship (Ephesians 2:10).
I am blessed (Ephesians 1:3).
I am victorious (1 Corinthians 15:57) and
I am more than a conqueror (Romans 8:37).
“Who Am I in Christ?”
I’d barely understood who I was without Christ (a sinner in desperate need of a Savior) when my high school discipleship group leader taught me who I am in Christ.
In college, ministries passed out “Who am I in Christ?” lists filled with glorious truths about ourselves as Christians. I tucked them into my Bible, slipped them into my bookbag, and tacked them onto my dorm room wall.
Whenever discouragement, trials, or anxiety dragged me down or my self-deprecation climbed to new heights, I whipped out my “Who am I in Christ?” lists.
I declared each affirmation and willed myself to believe these truths. But my faith still buckled under the weight of difficult circumstances.
Then God opened my eyes to another question—an even better question.
A question Moses asked.
Before I share that question, let’s consider Moses’ first question.
Moses’ First Question
The prophet Moses began his epic journey with God in a basket on the Nile River. An Egyptian princess rescued the floating Hebrew baby and raised him as a prince.
But then he murdered an Egyptian slave-master.
Moses’ adopted grandfather—Egypt’s mighty Pharaoh—put a hit out on his grandson. So the outlaw-prince fled into the wilderness, settled in the land of Midian, and adopted the quiet life of a shepherd (Ex. 2:1–22).
Forty years later, God called to Moses from the middle of a burning bush.
God said, “I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt” (Ex. 3:10).
Moses immediately asked a reasonable question. “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?” (Ex. 3:11).
Moses’ question didn’t rise out of aww-shucks humility, but you-cannot-be-serious shock.
God’s assignment demanded unwavering confidence. Moses probably had more confidence in the bush’s ability to confront Pharaoh than in his own ability.
God’s response to Moses’ question wasn’t, “Do not fear! You’ve got this.” God didn’t hand this trembling shepherd a “Who Am I in God?” list.
Instead, God said, “I will be with you.”
Then Moses asked another question. A better question.
Moses’ Better Question
Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them? (Ex. 13:3).
In other words, Moses asked, “Who are You, God?”
God’s answer rocketed off the page of my Bible and infused me with more courage, peace, and joy than all of my “Who am I in Christ?” lists combined.
God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” (Exodus 3:14)
In other words, “I AM everything you will ever need for every moment.”
It’s Not About Who We Are. It’s About Who God Is.
God could’ve caused the burning bush to sprout legs and deliver His message to Pharaoh.
It didn’t matter who Moses was. He didn’t need to believe in himself and in what he could do. He needed to believe in who God is and what He can do.
As Major Ian Thomas (the founder of Torchbearers Bible College) is quoted as saying, “Any old bush will do as long as God is in the bush.”
The Truth that God is the Great I AM—everything Moses would ever need for every moment—strengthened Moses’ faith and transformed his self-doubt into God-confidence.
All Power Belongs to God
Throughout Moses’ forty-plus years of ministry, he never performed a miracle. God did.
The Great I AM changed the Nile River to blood. Moses merely smacked the water with his staff at God’s command (Ex. 7:14–25).
The Great I AM covered Egypt with frogs, locusts, and darkness. Moses only did what God told him to do and said what God told him to say (Ex. 8–10).
The Great I AM saved the firstborn sons of Israel, parted the Red Sea, and brought His people out of slavery and into the Promised Land. Not Moses (Ex. 11–14, Josh. 3).
Moses was God’s chosen mouthpiece, His exalted ambassador, but he wasn’t God.
His power came from the Almighty One who sent him, went with him, and worked through him.
Remind Me Who You Are, God
As Israel followed Moses through the wilderness, they proved to be an unruly (and unbelieving) lot.
The burden of this horde of rebels wore Moses down. But this time he didn’t say to God, “Who am I?”
He said to God, “Show me Your glory!” (Ex. 33:18 NASB). Or as I like to say, “Remind me who You are, God!”
God said to Moses, “I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name ‘The Lord’” (Ex. 33:19).
The name of the Lord encompasses all He is—all His matchless attributes. A true understanding of His character will cast out all our fears and crush all our pride. And it will drop us to our knees in humble worship.
The God who dwelled among Israel in the days of Moses now lives in us today if we believe in His Son. And He has promised never to leave or forsake us.
With such a privilege and promise from our God, why would we waste time fixated on who we are? Any greatness in us isn’t us. It’s God.
“Who Am I in Christ?” Versus “Who Are You, God?”
“Who am I in Christ?” is one of the best questions we can ask, especially when it leads us to examine if we are truly in Christ.
If we’re not in Christ, the answer to “Who are You, God?” will cause us to tremble before Him on Judgment Day like Egypt did when God brought judgment upon them.
Or it will cause us to bow in surrender to Jesus as our Lord and Savior today.
If we are in Christ because we’ve placed our faith in Christ, the question of “Who am I?” is settled.
We can now turn all our attention off ourselves and focus the rest of our lives on the better question—the best question: “Who are You, God?”
The Truth That Gives More Peace, Comfort, and Strength
Consider this: If you’re grieving the loss of a loved one, which truth fills you with more strength to rise out of your anguish? Is it the truth that you’re a child of God? Because you are!
Or is it the truth that God is the all-wise and kind Ruler who orchestrates every event of our lives and makes no mistakes? That He’s the Great I AM—everything you need for every moment?
When trials threaten to crush you, which truth gives you more peace and comfort and strength?
That you’re “more than a conqueror?”
Or that Christ, our victorious and compassionate Savior, is your strength. He is your joy. That out of His glorious riches, He provides all the power you need to be content in any and all circumstances? And that this Great I AM, whom no one can stop, cares for you?
Our Worth Is Not in Who We Are But in Whose We Are and Who He Is
By God’s kind grace, Christians are co-heirs with Christ, but we are not co-God.
Sin tempts us to seek this position. To want what Adam and Eve wanted in the Garden—what Satan promised them: “You will be like God.”
This same old sin tempts us today to twist the glorious declarations of who we are in Christ into a self-focused obsession, an ornament of gold. “I am blessed. I am victorious. I am . . . I am . . . I AM . . .”
Before we know it, we have exalted ourselves as the object of our attention and affection. We’ve created a golden calf out of our Who Am I in Christ? lists that can be destroyed in an instant, worthy of being ground down to powder (Ex. 32:20).
John the Baptist said it well: “He [Jesus] must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30).
The Best Questions Lead Us to God
The next time you (or someone else) questions your ability, or God calls you to an “impossible” task, consider your reaction.
Does your heart sink like Moses’ before the burning bush?
Do you bemoan, “Who am I, Lord?”
Or maybe you stick out your chest and boast “I AM!”
Or do you fix your eyes on the One who is the true I AM and ask the best question? “Lord, will You please remind me of who You are? Will You remind me what I know to be true about You? Who are you, God?
Yes, asking the best question—the right question—makes all the difference. Believing the right answer will change your life because what we think about God determines what we think about everything else.
Who is God?
Let these truths comfort you:
GOD IS
the All-wise
All-loving
All-mighty
All-knowing
and Supreme Creator
He is the Unchanging and Unchangeable
Righteous Judge
The Incomprehensible
Compassionate
Holy One
And He is our
Transcendent
Sovereign
Forgiving
Gracious
Merciful and
Eternal
God
He is The Great I AM
“I AM WHO I AM.”
Exodus 3:14
