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| When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” |
| —John 8:12 |
No two words in our English language have more power than the simple phrase: “I am!” We first find an introduction to this powerful phrase in the story of Moses found in Exodus 3:1-15:
Now Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian, and he led his flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. He looked, and behold, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed. And Moses said, “I will turn aside to see this great sight, why the bush is not burned.”
When the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!”
And he [Moses] said, “Here I am.”
Then he [God] said, “Do not come near; take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” 6 And he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.
Then the Lord said, “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites.
“And now, behold, the cry of the people of Israel has come to me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them. Come, I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.”
But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?”
He said, “But I will be with you, and this shall be the sign for you, that I have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.”
Then Moses said to God, “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?”
God said to Moses, “I am who I am.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I am has sent me to you.’” God also said to Moses, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘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, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations…”
Thus, the words from the Scripture verse at the beginning of this blog post carry with them the same power as the words spoken by God in the passage from Exodus 3. The very words of Jesus declare the power of God when He says, “I am the light of the world.” Jesus, the one and only Son of God, is the illumination that shines brightly into every dark corner of our sinful world. His light reveals every hidden thing. His light illuminates the pathway of our lives. His light penetrates into our sin-sick hearts and minds and reveals the salvation that He has provided through the shedding of His precious blood on the cruel cross at Calvary.
May we bask in the glow of His eternal Light. May His light grant us the ability to see clearly the pathway that God has laid out before us. And, may we be very quick to share with others who cross the pathway of our lives how wonderful it is to belong to the One who provides the powerful Light of the Great I Am.
