The best questions make a difference. The right answers change lives:
"911 operator. What’s your location?"
“Will you marry me?”
“Who am I in Christ?”
The right answers to this good question?
I am a child of God (John 1:12).
I am complete in Christ (Colossians 2:9–10).
I am God’s workmanship (Ephesians 2:10).
I am blessed (Ephesians 1:3).
I am victorious (1 Corinthians 15:57).
I am more than a conqueror (Romans 8:37).
I’d barely grasped who I was without Christ (a sinner in desperate need of a Savior) when my high school discipleship group leader taught me who I am in Christ. In college, ministries passed out “Who am I in Christ?” lists filled with glorious truths about ourselves. I tucked them into my Bible, slipped them into my bookbag, and tacked them onto my dorm room wall.
Whenever discouragement, trials, or anxiety dragged me down or my self-deprecation climbed to new heights, I whipped out my lists. I declared each affirmation and willed myself to believe these truths. But my faith still buckled under the weight of difficult circumstances.
Then God opened my eyes to another question—an even better question. The one Moses asked.
Moses’ First Question
The prophet Moses began his epic journey with God in a basket on the Nile River. An Egyptian princess rescued the floating Hebrew baby and raised him as a prince.
But then he murdered an Egyptian slave-master.
Moses’ adopted grandfather—Egypt’s mighty Pharaoh—put a hit out on his grandson. So the outlaw-prince fled into the wilderness, settled in Midian, and adopted the quiet life of a shepherd (Ex. 2:1–22).
Forty years later, God called to Moses from the middle of a burning bush.
“I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt” (Ex. 3:10).
Moses immediately asked a reasonable question. “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?” (Ex. 3:11).
Moses’ question didn’t rise out of aww-shucks humility, but you-can’t-be-serious shock. God’s assignment demanded unwavering confidence. Moses probably had more confidence in the bush’s ability to confront Pharaoh than in his own.
God’s response to Moses’ question wasn’t, “Do not fear! You’ve got this.” He didn’t hand the trembling shepherd a “Who Am I in Christ?” list. Instead, God said, “I will be with you.”
Then Moses asked another question. A better question.
Moses’ Better Question
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? (Ex. 13:3).
In other words, “Who are You, God?”
God’s answer rocketed off the page of my Bible and infused me with more courage, peace, and joy than all of my “Who am I in Christ?” lists.
God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.”
(Exodus 3:14)
I AM everything you will ever need for every moment.
It’s Not About Who We Are. It’s About Who God Is.
God could’ve caused the burning bush to sprout legs and deliver His message to Pharaoh. It didn’t matter who Moses was. He didn’t need to believe in himself and what he could do. He needed to believe in who God is.
As Major Ian Thomas (founder of Torchbearers Bible College) is quoted as saying, “Any old bush will do as long as God is in the bush.”
The Truth that God is the Great I AM—everything he would ever need for every moment—strengthened Moses’ faith and transformed his self-doubt into God-confidence.
All Power Belongs to God
Throughout Moses’ forty-plus years of ministry, he never performed a miracle. God did.
The Great I AM changed the Nile River to blood. Moses merely smacked the water with his staff at God’s command (Ex. 7:14–25).
The Great I AM covered Egypt with frogs, locusts, and darkness. Moses only did what God told him to do and said what God told him to say (Ex. 8–10).
The Great I AM saved the firstborn sons of Israel, parted the Red Sea, and brought His people out of slavery and into the Promised Land. Not Moses (Ex. 11–14, Josh. 3).
Moses was God’s chosen mouthpiece, His exalted ambassador, but he wasn’t God. His power came from the Almighty One who sent him, went with him, and worked through him.
Remind Me Who You Are, God
As Israel followed Moses through the wilderness, they proved to be an unruly (and unbelieving) lot. The burden of this horde of rebels wore Moses down. But this time he didn’t say to God, “Who am I?” He said, “Show me Your glory!” (Ex. 33:18 NASB).
Remind me who You are, God!
God said to Moses, “I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name ‘The Lord’” (Ex. 33:19).
The name of the Lord encompasses all He is—all His matchless attributes. A true understanding of His character casts out all our fears and crushes all our pride. And it drops us to our knees in humble worship. This God who dwelled among Israel in the days of Moses now lives in us today. And He has promised never to leave or forsake us.
With such a privilege and promise, why would we waste any time fixated on who we are? Any greatness in us isn’t us. It’s God.
“Who Am I in Christ?” Versus “Who Are You, God?”
“Who am I in Christ?” is one of the best questions we can ask, especially when it leads us to examine if we’re truly in Christ.
If we’re not, the answer to “Who are You, God?” will cause us to tremble before Him on Judgment Day like Egypt did when God brought judgment upon them or we’ll bow in surrender to Jesus as Lord.
If we are in Christ because we’ve placed our faith in Jesus, the question of “Who am I?” is settled. We can then turn our attention off ourselves and focus the rest of our lives on the better question—the best question: “Who are You, God?”
If you’re grieving the loss of a loved one, which truth fills you with more strength to rise out of your anguish? That you’re a child of God? Or that God is the all-wise and kind Ruler who orchestrates every event of our lives and makes no mistakes? That He’s the Great I AM—everything you need for every moment?
When trials threaten to crush you, which truth gives you more peace and comfort? That you’re “more than a conqueror?” Or that Christ, our victorious and compassionate Savior, is your strength and your joy. That out of His glorious riches, He provides all the power you need to be content in any and all circumstances? And that this Great I AM, whom no one can stop, cares for you?
Our worth is not in who we are but in whose we are and who He is.
Beware of the Golden Calf
By God’s kind grace, Christians are co-heirs with Christ, but we are not co-God. Sin tempts us to seek this position. To want what Adam and Eve wanted in the Garden—what Satan promised: “You will be like God.”
This same sin nature tempts us to twist the glorious declarations of who we are in Christ into a self-focused obsession, an ornament of gold. “I am blessed. I am victorious. I am . . . I am . . . I AM . . .”
Before we know it, we’ve exalted ourselves as the object of our attention and affection. We’ve created a golden calf that can be destroyed in an instant, worthy of being ground down to powder (Ex. 32:20).
John the Baptist said it well: “He [Jesus] must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30).
The Best Questions Lead Us to God
The next time you (or someone else) questions your ability or God calls you to an “impossible” task, consider your reaction.
Does your heart sink like Moses’ before the burning bush? Do you bemoan, “Who am I?” Or boast “I AM”?
Or do you fix your eyes on the One who is the true I AM and say to Him, “Please, Lord, will You remind me of who You are? Will You remind me of what I know about You?”
Asking the best question—the right question—makes all the difference. Believing the right answer changes your life:
GOD IS
The Great I AM
All-wise
All-loving
All-mighty
All-knowing
The Supreme Creator
Unchanging and Unchangeable
The Righteous Judge
Incomprehensible
Compassionate
The Holy One
Transcendent
Sovereign
Forgiving
Gracious
Merciful
Eternal
God
“I AM WHO I AM.”
Exodus 3:14
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