I am Who I am

“I AM WHO I AM.”  God’s famous words to Moses, revealing God’s own Name in Exodus 3:11-14.  His Name alone conveys truth and authenticity!  Just think about it!  As followers of Jesus Christ, we should aim to reflect the same kind of truth and authenticity.  To echo the Apostle Paul’s words “But by the grace of God I am what I am.”  Simply acknowledging that God’s grace alone is what makes a saint out of one who…ain’t. 

I am WHO I am, I am WHAT I am.

1 Corinthians 15:8 And last of all [Christ Jesus] appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.  9 For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10 But by the grace of God I am what I am.

We have a record of only one person who ever saw the Risen Lord after He ascended to heaven.  That person is the Apostle Paul.  This was not just a vision per se or a dream.  It was Jesus, glorified, confronting Paul/Saul and asking, Acts 26:14 ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’ 15 “Then [Saul/Paul] asked, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ “‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,’ the Lord replied. 16 ‘Now get up and stand on your feet. I have appeared to you to appoint you as a servant and as a witness of what you have seen of me and what I will show you. 17 I will rescue you from your own people and from the Gentiles. I am sending you to them 18 to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’

Paul never lost the shock and awe of that moment.  How could he?  He was fully aware of the horrible things he’d done his whole adult life.  He was completely ashamed of having persecuted the Church, and he was fully humbled by the grace of God available to sinners –among whom, Paul considered himself the worst (1 Timothy 1:15).

What does it mean to be Resurrected?  It means God’s grace and Christ’s sacrifice are enough to cover even the worst of what we do and what have done with who we have been: sinners.  Resurrection grace takes repentant sinners, forgives them, and makes them saints.

In the words of television personality and Christian brother Steve Harvey, by God’s redeeming grace, “I am who I am, and I was who I was. I’m cool with both people.”  It means when we walk around in a Resurrection to grace, we have been rescued from sin’s body of condemnation for who and what we were and are set free to be who I am in God’s sight.  Steve Harvey knows it.  Paul knew it.  Do I?  Do you? 

Our series on 1 Corinthians 15 entitled What It Means to Be Resurrected can be accessed fully from the archives beginning April 2017.