Beyond The Wilderness With I AM

Exodus 3 (Wed - Aug 31) 
What does this mean; beyond the wilderness?  Moses is on Mt Horeb (Mt. Sinai), the Mountain of God, when he is called by God from the flames of a bush.  He is standing on holy ground.  Is this beyond the wilderness, when one is standing on holy ground in the presence of God? 

If this is beyond being in the wilderness, Moses is surely being called and sent by God back into the wilderness.  God sends him to go and deliver the Israelites from slavery in Egypt.  Somehow he's suppose to convince them to follow him out of Egypt into the wilderness.  One lone person to stand against Pharoah.  That's going to be quite an adventure!  One that Moses doesn't appear to be sure he's the man for the job.  He wants to know God's name.  God tells him, "I AM WHO I AM."  "Thus you shall say to the Israelites, 'I AM has sent me to you.'" The Lord, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you." 

I AM WHO I AM.  I AM WHAT I AM.  God is who he is.  God is God. God will bring the people up out of their misery to a land flowing with milk and honey.  This is the word of the Lord. 

Part of the fun of studying the Holy Bible is all the journeying you can do through the pages as a couple little words like "I AM" send you off looking in other places to see "what does this mean?"  I've been lost in the wilderness for hours by doing that.  If you would turn to the book of John starting at about Chapter 6, you will find a multitude of "I am" sayings by Jesus, who is God.  He tells us:  I am the bread of life, I am the good shepherd, I am the resurrection and the life, I am the way, and the truth, and the life, and much more.  By studying the word in scriptures we find ourselves on holy ground in the presence of the living Word, who is God, we find ourselves beyond the wilderness.

Off to Bible study on the book of John...