I AM WHO GOD SAYS I AM

We are going to read two short scriptures.

Genesis 17:1

¹When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am Almighty God; walk before Me and be blameless. ²And I will make My covenant between Me and you, and will multiply you exceedingly.” ³Then Abram fell on his face, and God talked with him, saying: ⁴“As for me, behold, My covenant is with you, and you shall be a father of many nations. ⁵No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham; for I have made you a father of many nations. ⁶I will make you exceedingly fruitful; and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come from you. ⁷And I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and your descendants after you.

Judges 6:11-16

¹¹Now the Angel of the LORD came and sat under the terebinth tree which was in Ophrah, which belongs to Joash the Abiezrite, while his son Gideon threshed wheat in the winepress, in order to hide it from the Midianites. ¹²And the Angel of the LORD appeared to him, and said to him, “The LORD is with you, you mighty man of valor!” ¹³Gideon said to Him, “O my lord, if the LORD is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all His miracles which our fathers told us about, saying, ‘Did not the LORD bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the LORD has forsaken us and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites.” ¹⁴Then the LORD turned to him and said, “Go in this might of yours, and you shall save Israel from the hands of the Midianites. Have I not sent you?” ¹⁵So he said to him, “O my LORD, how can I save Israel? Indeed my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house.” ¹⁶And the LORD said to him, “Surely I will be with you, and you shall defeat the Midianites as one man.”

PRAYER:

Father, we ask that You would cause Your Word to come alive now. There are hungry people here that they might be fed, and those who do not have any hunger, that You may create a hunger in their hearts, in Jesus Name. Amen!

I am who God says I am; and you are who God says you are. God is the only one who can say and has said, I Am who I say I AM. Nobody else can say that. It is from that that we derived the name, Jehovah, because God revealed Himself to Moses in the burning bush, in Exodus chapter 3. There, God said to Moses, I Am who I Am…and I am sending you to deliver My People from bondage in Egypt. And that name, I am Jehovah, simply means, the Self-existent One. Self-existence is exclusive to God only. All else is created. And if He is Self-existent, then He must be Self-sufficient. And that is why God does not need anything. It is a blasphemy for people to say that God needed fellowship so badly and that is why He made man. The fellowship He had in the trinity which He still has in the trinity is more than sufficient for Him. If God needs anything He ceases to be God. But all created things need someone else or something else to sustain or to maintain your creaturliness [if there is a word like that]. That is why I need maintenance, you do. That’s why your car, because it is made by man, needs to be maintained. Some of us don’t.

A woman bought a new Camry – brand new Camry, and kept driving it. As is the nature of gas-and-go people kept driving it until the engine was gone, and she took it to the mechanic, and the mechanic said, “There is no oil in this car.” And apparently she has not topped it, she has not changed the oil since she bought it. The car needed maintenance, and has been crying for maintenance; but she didn’t maintain the car, and the car gave up, and said, “I am done”.

God is Who He says He is. Whereas He can say I AM Who I say I Am. I can only say, I am who God says I am. And I want you to know that this is all that matters. What is all that matters? That God is who He says He is; and that God says I am who He says that I am. That is what is important. You can say dogmatically, as many times as you would please to say it. “Do you know who I am?” Say it a hundred times. It does not matter who you are. What matters is who God says you are. It does not matter who people say you are, and it does not matter who the devil says you are. What matters is who God says you are.

The devil was given the impression in Job chapter 1 that Job was serving God for selfish reasons. But God said to him, “Shut up! Job is who I say he is.” In Zechariah 3…Joshua the priest…the devil came. And because he was wearing filthy garments which was more or less the life he was living at that time. The filthiness was a reflection of his character. And the devil felt that was an opportunity to say who Joshua was. He felt it was an opportunity for him to define Joshua. Again God said, sit down! Joshua is who I say he is.

If you choose to define yourself, if you choose for people to allow people define you…and some people work so hard to get the definition of who they are from people – so hard to please people. If you choose to allow the devil to define you, one of two things will happen when you depend on these definitions of who you are:

1. You may end up with an inflicted ego of who you are.

And that is what happens when people tell us who we are. They praise you: false impression. And when you have this inflicted ego of who you are because of the definition you have received from those who want to get something from you, you become arrogant, you become self-deceived and you become self-conceited.

1. Or on the other hand, if you allow people to define you or allow the devil to define you or you define yourself, you may come a way with a lack of a sense of self-worth. You may have a poor self-image of yourself, and that may lead to depression, and worst still, you may even become suicidal.

There was a young man in England who felt that what he was was not good enough. He tried to define himself. He felt that his nose was not good enough, and one other feature he had in his body. But this young man, when you saw the picture or when you see the picture, looks fine. There was nothing wrong with him. But because of this definition he became depressed and eventually took his life. And today too, in this society, some young people want to stab themselves to death because they are allowing people to define them. I am who God says I am. And you are who God says you are. And if you believe that you are who God says you are, you will become who God says you are. Abraham or Abram became who God says he was. We read in

Genesis 17:1,2,5

¹When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am Almighty God; walk before Me and be blameless. ²And I will make My covenant between Me and you, and will multiply you exceedingly… ⁵No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be called Abraham; for I have made you a father of many nations.”

Picture Abraham the next day. In a friend’s house, there was a party. You may say, but where is that in the scripture? It is in my thinking cap. Abraham got to the party. Friends were there, and it came time for introduction. When it came to his turn, what do you think Abraham said his name was? He didn’t say I am Abram, the exalted father. Good enough. That is a good name: exalted father. No: he didn’t say that. When it was his turn to introduce himself, he said, I am Abraham, a father of multitudes. Probably they sneaked out because at this point he had no son – no child. Father of multitudes! Because Abraham believed what God said about him, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness. He believed. And because he believed who God said he was, he ultimately became who God said he was. And his children were not just multitudes biologically – but multitudes also spiritually. That is why you read in

Galatians 3:7

⁷Therefore know that only those who are of faith are sons of Abraham

The millions of believer around the world are sons or children of Abraham, and the people called Jews are also sons or children of Abraham.

He ultimately became who God says He was: the father of multitudes.

PRAYER:

Father, we want to thank you so much for your Word today. May it bless the hearts that have heard, and produce new life, new hope, in Jesus Name. Amen!