He is!

Today we started a new four week Beth Moore Study. It is a little different than normal. It is a video series that she did and so, there is no homework to go along with it! It is kinda nice to not have homework to do every week, but this weeks video was PACKED and I sort of wish that we were going to dive into it a little more during the week!!! I feel like I need to watch it again just to soak it all in!

It was really good and I thought that I would share some of it with y'all!! Beth has a way of taking scripture and making it so much more real...and she brings the history to life to make it so much more meaningful! Things that I have read for years taking at face value have new breath breathed into them and become so much more...

Anyway...

Beth started out by reading Hebrews 11:6 in the NIV

"And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him. "

Beth posed the question, Is it true that all that we need to do to bring pleasure to God is to believe that He exists? She suggested that there is much more to it than that!

She then reread the same verse in the NKJ (amazing how differently things read from one version to the next)

"But without faith it is impossible to please Him: for he that cometh to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him. "

hmmm...what does that mean ....who is God...this just says to believe that "He is".

Beth used Exodus 3:13-15 as our one stop shop for Who God is. I AM THAT I AM

The Hebrew translation of I AM is Hayah and means; to exist, to become, to come to pass, to be done, to happen, to be finished.

I thought that this was pretty cool. When God was telling them that He is I AM...it encompassed so much more than I would have thought. By calling Himself I Am, He was saying I exist or I am, I have always been or I was, and I will be...Crazy! One simple statement could encompass all of that!

Beth then referenced Revelations 1:8 ' "I am the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End," says the Lord, "who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty." ' ...The I AM :)

The Jews will not pronounce the name of God or Yahweh. They replace it with Adonai...and over the years scholars have begun using Jehovah , which corresponds to "I Am that I Am"

Beth stated that there is a contraction for Jehovah...it is simply Jah...and corresponds to I AM or He is ...because as Beth said...when we say it we don't say I Am, but He is...because We're not! :)

He is....all that we need!

She then gave us a small grammar lesson.
1st person: I am (this is God)
2nd person: You are
3rd person: He is
foolish person: No, I am.

God should be the first person, not us...but we must make sure that we have both a 2nd and 3rd person relationship with Him. We need to have a personal relationship with Him (2nd person) and our lives needs to make the statement "He is" 3rd person. Our lives are most effective to give God the glory when we have a balance of 2nd and 3rd person. Beth stated that some people have only a 2nd person relationship...because well, this is my faith..and it's private...they never share what God is doing in their lives personally. While others have been SO busy showing that "He is" that they have neglected the person relationship with God and are now just using empty words and actions...thus making an act of sharing who God is more about what they are doing for God than about WHO He is.

The rest of the video was based out of Isaiah 26:3-8

She made the point that ...the point is that God uses our lives to show others that "He is."

WOW...I am going to have to sit and ruminate on all of this for a while!!!