I don’t know about you, but that name gives me chills... I AM. In the Greek, it’s Ego eimi. God the Father referred to himself as I AM several times in scripture, and Jesus (Yahweh) did it too. But one of the most moving and spine chilling times, in my opinion, is in John 8:57-58.

The Jews had been challenging Jesus since the beginning of chapter 8 when He told them “I am the light of the world”. They sneered and scoffed until he told them in verse 47 that the reason they couldn’t hear what the Father was saying through Him was because they were not his children. They were the devil’s children. I think that was the second to the last straw for the Pharisees. They go even further now, and accuse Him of having a demon. They just couldn’t believe Jesus would proclaim to be even greater than Abraham. And finally, Jesus throws down... He proclaims to be the eternal God. The Eternal I AM. And with that, they had nothing else to say. How can you counter that? They pick up stones to kill him, but He’s gone.

With that statement, Jesus proclaimed to be God. He proclaimed to be the creator of the universe. The creator of every single atom in this universe. The beginning and the end, the one who always existed and always will.

Now, there are only two ways to react to that statement. “I AM”. You either believe it or you don’t. We can choose to be like the Pharisees that day and not believe it. We can like Him, and want Him to be our friend. We can ask Him for things and hope that he’ll do all kinds of good things for us. We can even call Him our Lord. But then when He claims His rightful place as Lord of our hearts and lives, we don’t want it. We want to be our own Lord. We want to be king of our own lives.
OR, we can truly believe Him and live our lives knowing and believing that Christ is the I AM. That He’s our King, our Master, our Daddy. We can choose to give Him our undivided devotion when we realize that I AM is Love. The very personification of Love.  The Creator who came down as a man to die a cruel death so that we can live abundantly and eternally. When we truly believe His words when He says...

I AM the bread of life
I AM the Good Shepard
I AM the light of the world
I AM the door
I AM the true vine
I AM the way, the truth and the life
I AM the resurrection and the life

...we are free to obey Him and walk with Him and know that He’s in control. He’s seen it all, past, present and future. And in the end, we win! Like he told them in verse 51, we have everlasting life.

How amazing is it that Jesus, the one who sympathized with us, the one who walked the very ground we walk on and went through every kind of temptation and pain we go through is also the very one who created the ground we walk on with just a whisper of His breath? Yes, it’s sobering. But as His daughters and sons, it’s life and freedom, comfort and hope! I AM.