PRAYER OF CONSECRATION
Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.
Jesus, I belong to you.
I lift up my heart to you.
I set my mind on you.
I fix my eyes on you.
I offer my body to you as a living sacrifice.
Jesus, we belong to you.
Praying in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.
Exodus 3:13–15
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?”
God said to Moses, “I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I am has sent me to you.’”
God also said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites, ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you.’
“This is my name forever,
the name you shall call me
from generation to generation.”
CONSIDER THIS
I am sometimes chided by my word choices in the Wake-Up Call, especially by my dad. I am going to introduce a word today that may put me in hot water with him (and some of you). The word is ontology. Know what it means?
To show that it is not an overly complicated word, I can change the “t” to a “c” and you will know exactly what that word means: oncology.
It’s a matter of practicality. Oncology, of course, is the study of cancer; something far too many of us know far too much about. It has become painfully practical in our lives.
Ontology is a term from the field of metaphysics. More precisely, according to the Oxford Dictionary, ontology is “the philosophical study of the nature of being, becoming, existence, or reality.” It’s all the stuff we assume but never think about because our lives are moving too fast to even consider it. Metaphysics is for a rainy day, but then it rains and we have a leak in the roof that must be fixed. If we had to name a subject for which the Bible is a textbook, it wouldn’t be world religions. It would be ontology.
So why does this word matter today in the middle of what is now a week-long encounter at a bush on fire but not burning up? Moses asks God the ontological question today:
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?”
Don’t you love how Moses warms up to the idea of obeying God with, “Suppose I go . . .”?
Moses wants to know with whom he deals here. Is this the Desert God or the Sun God or the Moon God or the Slave-Delivering God—which divine being is Moses engaging at this unburning bush? And God drops the ontological boom sauce:
God said to Moses, “I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I am has sent me to you.’”
This is the ontological trump card: “I am who I am.”
It means something like, “I am God and there is no other. I am the ground of all being. There is no one like me. There is no equal to the being who precedes all beings.”
God also said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites, ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you.’”
For whatever reason, this God of all gods—a.k.a. “I am who I am”—has chosen to make a covenant with this obscure family-become-nation and favored them above all other peoples, so that they might live as a sign of God’s majestic and merciful glory for the sake of all other peoples.
Now “I Am” is about to rescue them with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm.
So why does ontology matter? Here’s how I see it. There are two modes of life: our existence and our being. There is how we exist in the world and who we are at the core. To the extent the core of our being is grounded in the ontological being of almighty God, who is “I Am,” we will flourish in peace and prosperity irrespective of our circumstances.
To the extent our core being is not grounded in the ontological being of almighty God, we will slavishly strive to maintain our existence, whether we be rich or poor, by any and all means available to us, turning to any and every god we can conjure up who might help us—including “I Am” as part of the pantheon.
God desires and delights to be with us in a comprehensive fashion, not as a peripheral help. He is looking for people who will pray, “Have me!” rather than just plead, “Help me!” He wants us to build our house on the rock rather than the sand because the storms are coming. Is our core-being flourishing in a grounded relationship with the one, true, and living God or are we just scraping out an existence the best we can?
So let me practically serve you as an ontologist today by asking you these questions:
Is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ the core and central reality of your being and reality or do you turn to God only when you need help?
Are you increasingly abiding all the time in relationship with Jesus Christ or is he someone you once trusted for eternal salvation?
Do you depend on the fullness of the Holy Spirit to flourish in your daily life or are you hardly conscious of the Holy Spirit’s presence and activity?
Why do I ask you such probing questions?
“I Am” sent me.
THE PRAYER FOR DELIVERANCE
Lord Jesus, you are my Deliverer.
I hear you saying “exodus” over me, over my family, so many people I love who are struggling right now, my church, my city, my country, even the whole world.
I receive your deliverance from myself as the center of my universe and my need to have you revolve around me. I receive your deliverance into a universe where you are the center of gravity and I revolve around you.
I have so often and for so long turned to you as a transactional God for functional help. I need you when I need you and I don’t when I don’t. I am coming to the place where the center of gravity in my life must shift from me to you. You will be the ground of my being. Your life will become my life. Your love will become my love. Your power will become my power. Thank you, Jesus, for making me a disciple of yours rather than me constantly calling on you to run my errands.
I receive it. And as you decree it, I declare it.
Now let it be as you decree—for my good, for others’ gain, and for your glory.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost.
As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be. World without end, amen! Amen!
THE JOURNAL PROMPTS
Is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ the core and central reality of your being and reality or do you turn to God only when you need help?
Are you increasingly abiding all the time in relationship with Jesus Christ or is he someone you once trusted for eternal salvation?
Do you depend on the fullness of the Holy Spirit to flourish in your daily life or are you hardly conscious of the Holy Spirit’s presence and activity?
THE HYMN
Today we will sing “Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise” (hymn 7) from our Seedbed hymnal, Our Great Redeemer’s Praise. Get your copy here.
For the Awakening,
J. D. Walt
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8 Responses
Amen, what a mighty God we serve. Welcome to Florida, in one of the most beautiful places to be visiting.
Wow! Today’s Wake-up call is really deep, I had to re-read each statement numerous times just to digest the full impact. Thank you JD, for blessing me this morning with some heavy duty mental exercise. This leads me to wonder if the descendants of Abraham at this point had forgotten God’s promises to themselves? If not, why would they have needed to know His name? Maybe we too, need to be reminded occasionally of who we serve, and why.
I wondered the same thing. It occurred to me that after 2000 years, people have come to worship many gods that they call Jesus. We’ve got to figure out the real Jesus from all the other gods.
God said that His name is I AM. I AM is the Almighty, the eternal Creator of all that exists. He is directly communicating with people today and calling us to exit our self-effort and self-focused lifestyle and to continually give our all to Him.
Jesus (Emmanuel–I AM with us) said: “My sheep hear My voice.” To be “led by the Spirit” we must hear and obey the voice (the inner promptings) of “Christ in you, the hope of glory.”
Jesus is the fire that burns within the heart of His surrendered followers and empowers and directs them through the inner flames of His Spirit. Will we “walk in the Spirit” or will we quench the Spirit and live by our human thoughts, feelings, and desires? I AM is calling you. Will you go where He sends you and say what He tells you to?
Bob..I thought the exact same thing! Had The Chosen forgotten in all their sufferings? And what about Moses? He had to ask himself Who was sending him? After all he was raised in Pharoah’s palace..a pagan culture worshipping many gods.
Had he ever been told about The God of his ancestors, I Am? Even if he had, did he even know about the past journeys of Abraham Isaac and Jacob?
Thank you for today’s Wake-Up Call! It was deep, but mind provoking. I am blessed every day by your message, and I will be on the bus wherever you take us. You have enriched my life. May God bless you.
Great message. God’s creation is that we revolve around the Son (Sun) not the other way around! Wake Up! And the Son (sun) WILL shine on you!
Contrasting “I am who I am” with “Who am I?”
Popeye, the Sailor Man, from my childhood, sang “I am what I am.” The word “what” indicates a limited thing, not a being. A cartoon of unattractive characters, each with foibles mirroring many of us in our realities. However God says “I am who I am,” a being that has many dimensions opening to us a relationship with the divine creator. “Who” indicates a living being, multidimensional, and in this case eternal.
Moses asks “Who am I?” Has he lost his identity? He was a helpless child, an orphan of sorts, a prince, a refugee, an honored guest and a shepherd. God is calling him to a new role. One he does not know, but for which he has been prepared throughout his life. He has no clue of the consequence in stepping forward and saying “Here I am.”
I wonder at times, “Who am I?” Then I am reassured by the great “I am.”