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"I Am The Lord"

             I, even I, am the Lord, and apart from me there is no savior. I have revealed and saved and proclaimed— I, and not some foreign god among you. You are my witnesses,” declares the Lord, “that I am God.” (Isaiah 43:11-12)

          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.’” (Exodus 3:14)

          The epistle of John gets some attention because there are seven instances where Jesus says, “I am” and goes on to make a claim to Godhood. The Old Testament has some “I am” statements, too. The most famous, of course, is Exodus 3:14, but today’s passage includes another. Through Isaiah, God tells the Israelites in no uncertain terms that He is the Lord, not a Lord, or their Lord. He acknowledges that there are things called “foreign gods” but the foreign gods are not the Lord.

          This is my problem with the folks who claim that all religions are the same and there is only one God, but He portrays Himself differently to different people – meaning that Odin, the Great Spirit, Zeus, Baal, and God are all the same being. We have here a claim that God is God and they are not. Some would claim that humans wrote what they attribute to God, and it’s just schizogenesis (an us-them perspective). This is not to say that people didn’t adopt the gods of other nations or even merged them, but that it is not safe to assume they did so without clear evidence. It is not safe to assume that they did so.

          But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord. (Joshua 24:15) 

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