Fear No Fear

(All scripture from the World English Bible, ebible.org, all rights reserved)

When the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, “It’s a ghost!” and they cried out for fear. But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, “Cheer up! I AM! Don’t be afraid.”
Matthew 14:26-27 (emphasis added)

What a statement. This verse is fast becoming one of my favourite verses in the bible. It is so full of meaning. First of all, Jesus walking on the water was a fulfilment of an Old Testament prophecy/testimony of who God was. Job 9:8 says of who God is “He alone stretches out the heavens, and treads on the waves of the sea.” This is something none of them had seen before. In the midst of a storm in which they believed their lives were in danger they might not have recalled the Book of Job. Many lives had been lost in this water. There were even legends of sea monsters living in its depths (think the Loch Ness Monster or Ogopogo). They had no idea what was happening and had thoroughly embraced fear. Jesus calls to them and announces who He is in the clearest way He could. He refers to Himself by the Special Name of God.

The 4-letter YHWH is the name of God. In English, we translate it directly as I AM. It appears over 300 times in the Bible, usually mentioning an aspect of the Lord. ‘I AM…’ your shield, your exceedingly great reward (Genesis 15:7), God Almighty (Genesis 17:1), the God of Abraham your father (Genesis 26:24), with you (also Genesis 26:24), with you and will keep you wherever you go (Genesis 28:15), the God of Bethel (Genesis 31:13), and I AM WHO/THAT I AM (Exodus 3:14). And so on. That’s the English speaking Bible. In the Hebrew, however, is where the power really flows.

In Hebrew, the name is most often printed as Yahweh. It is in the Old Testament 6,828 times. It is frequently translated to English as Adonai. But the 4-letter YHWH is the true name: yud-hey-vav-hey (the phonetic pronunciation is where the English bible gets the word Jehovah). All consonants with the vowel markings left out so that those who were not true Israelites couldn’t profane the Holy Name (which they did after the Babylonian exile). These four letters form the root meaning ‘to be’. Some translate the name as ‘He-Who-Is’ or ‘He who brings being into being’, both of which are appropriate and confirmed multiple times throughout scripture. With the root ‘to be’ there is also a future tense to it. A ‘He-Who-Will-Be’. Two other translation attempts I have seen are ‘He Who Is Present to Act (usually, but not only) In Salvation’ and ‘I (and no other [god]) AM’. None of these English translations quite capture the full essence of who God is, but I think that I AM serves the best.

God is an objective God. He has a reality completely independent of the human mind. He exists in the realm of sensible experience independent of individual thought and perceptible by all observers. There are millions of ways that He is perceivable to humans, if we will only come toward Him with belief (Hebrews 11:6). God is not subjective. He is not modified or affected by personal views, experience, or background. He is not conditioned by our personal mental characteristics or states. He does not depend on a human mind to be. What we feel or think does not affect what and who He is — or what He requires. We may think God is many things, faces, or names. But God is what He is because HE IS, regardless of human theology or desire for a different religion or path. Religions are of humankind. God is a Living God. Period.

The Lord God Almighty is also a multi-dimensional God. The Trinity is three people in one person. Which is beyond our understanding. Everything we use to explain or understand it is weak and incomplete. They are distinct personalities, able to think their own thoughts unknown to each other. But they are also the same person and united completely and absolutely. To our minds it is completely possible while being totally impossible at the same time. In recent years though, fiction writers have come across the best understanding I have seen thus far. You’ll find it in science fiction and comic books. How often in the last twenty years have we been entertained by the concept of multiple universes crossing into each other? By having four (or more) different versions of the same individual having to work together to save everything? John Smith from this universe is a truck driver, in that one he is an opera singer, in that one he is a student of martial arts, and in that other one he is a linguist of ancient cultures. God is kind of like that. Different facets existing independent of each other, but connect together at the same time — with what happens to one affecting what happens to the other. Granted, that is a weak shadow of the truth, but it is as close to something the human mind can grasp that I have ever come across.

God has many names. Each one embracing a different aspect of Who He Is. Jehovah Rapha (yeh-ho-vaw raw-faw) The Lord that Heals; Jehovah Jireh (yeh-ho-vaw yir-eh) The Lord will Provide; Elohim (el-o-heem) Judge and Creator, etc. While those are aspects or offices of God and not proper names, they show that God is a complex individual. An individual who is three individuals, in fact. But also one. As I said, the human mind is limited here. I look forward to a fully renewed and resurrected body whose mind is more capable of understanding the nature of God as it gets revealed over eternity to us.

And all of these aspects of God, all these offices of the Lord God Almighty that He inhabits as He interacts with His creation are what are wrapped into and around the name I AM. Jesus identifying Himself with this name, while walking on water, in the midst of a storm that was threatening to kill these men, is a powerful image and must have startled these men in ways we can barely comprehend. There is little in our experience like that. Yet, we get to have experiences like that. Holy Spirit lives inside us. Jesus has promised to never leave or forsake us. We get I AM in and around us. Every day. Sure, He isn’t striding across our bath water, but in a more real way we have Him presenting Himself to us. Speaking, teaching, correcting, and abiding. In us and for us and with us. It is a wonderful, awe-inspiring thing that should well up within all of us a reverence that defies description. God. With us.

The Lord God Almighty exists. He never changes. He has everything in Himself and created all things through Himself. Most importantly, we must conform to Him and not Him to us. Always. We don’t have to agree or understand. Righteousness is righteous whether we participate in it or do not. It exists because God is righteous. His standards are His standards because they are the requirement. No judgement. No vicious condemnation. No beating us over the head. It simply is. We can seek to follow Him or not. It is our choice, but our choice won’t change the Truth that His Righteous standards are the standards of existence. We can say we don’t agree. That we don’t feel like that. That we weren’t made according to that. That we think this or that other thing. That all paths lead to God. We can say, think, and believe all of that. We can be wrong. We would be wrong. His Truth doesn’t change as our society changes. His Truth doesn’t change as our feelings change. His Truth doesn’t change as we reap as a species what we have sown as a species. We can get in His yard or we can choose to stay in darkness. We can accept His hand and enter into His kingdom or we can choose to walk away into Hell. It is our choice. Not His. Ours. Not His doing, wanting, or will. Ours. Yours and mine.

The truly great thing is that God is Merciful. He gives us the Grace and Faith for us to believe in Him. He gave us Jesus. So we can BE saved. So we can BE transformed into a new creature. To leave the Kingdom of Ignorance and enter the Kingdom of Knowledge. With Jesus’ Righteous Spirit as our own. He has solved all the problems that we made. Jesus tells us Himself as He walks on the water. Because God can stride on the waters and because of what Jesus declares: I AM!

Never forget it. Jesus IS.

Daily Affirmation of God’s Love: Colossians 2:6-15

Jesus is fully God. He cut off our sins as a circumcision, threw them away, and raised us to life in Him. He made us alive in Him. After removing our sins so that they no longer exist. More than that, so that it is like they never existed in the first place. Past sins AND future sins. SIN is NOT part of our DNA – physical OR spiritual. The cursed is SEPARATE from us. We’re in divorce proceedings, never again to cohabitate. In JESUS we have COMPLETE and TOTAL freedom. He is our ALL. Praise and thank Him today for all that He has done for us and to us out of love for us. What amazing love He has for us!

Your Daily Confession of God’s love to YOU:

Today God loves that I _______.