I AM

"Unless you believe that I AM, you will die in your sins.” (John 8:24).

These precious words of our Lord Jesus are a fact, not a threat.

"I AM”.

Only the Lord Jesus IS.

All else ARE NOT.

Only the Lord Jesus IS life.

All else die.

Sin is turning away from the Lord Jesus, who alone IS, to all things that ARE NOT.

The sinner turns away from the Lord Jesus, who alone IS life, and dies.

"ALL FLESH IS LIKE GRASS,
AND ALL ITS GLORY LIKE THE FLOWER OF GRASS.
THE GRASS WITHERS,
AND THE FLOWER FALLS OFF,
BUT THE WORD OF THE LORD ENDURES FOREVER.” (1 Peter 1:24-25, NASB)

Man’s sin breaks our Heavenly Father’s heart.

God is Love!

"I don't want you to die, says the Sovereign LORD” (Ezekiel 18:32, NLT)

"For I know the plans I have for you," says the LORD. "They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.” (Jeremiah 29:11, NLT)

Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ says to everyone, "Come to Me that you may have life and have it in all its fullness.” (John 5:40, 10:10)

"For you shall go out with joy,
And be led out with peace;
The mountains and the hills
Shall break forth into singing before you,
And all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.
Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress tree,
And instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree;
And it shall be to the LORD for a name,
For an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.” (Isaiah 55:12,13 NKJV)

(To be continued)

Thank you, tuc. Agree!

The sum of God’s word is truth, is Christ. (Psalm 119:160; John 17:17, 14:6, 1:1).

We are born of the Word of God and to grow by the Word till Christ is formed in us. (1 Peter 1:23, 2:2; Gal. 4:19)

By the Spirit and the Word, I am, in Christ alone. (John 16:13-15).

I am a Christian, by the Spirit and the Word, yes, I am, in Christ alone.
I am made new, by the Spirit and the Word, yes, I am, in Christ alone.
I am a son, by the Spirit and the Word, yes, I am, in Christ alone.
…………
I am, yes, I am, by the Spirit and the Word, in Christ alone.

I am saying the same thing as you, just saying it a little differently.

If the Lord says, and we believe, that is enough for it is according to our faith that it is given to us. (Matt. 9:29)

The Spirit is in the Word (John 6:63) and works mightily behind the scenes.

Then Moses said to God, "Behold, I am going to the sons of Israel, and I will say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you.' Now they may say to me, 'What is His name?' What shall I say to them?" God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM"; and He said, "Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, 'I AM has sent me to you.'" (Exodus 3:13-14 NASB)

Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am." (John 8:58 NASB)

I AM

- the Alpha and the Omega, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty

- Life eternal

- Love that surpasses knowledge

- Peace which surpasses all comprehension

- Power

- Great in lovingkindness

- Wisdom and Righteousness

- Provision for all needs

- Healer

- Rest from all toil

- All comfort

- Fullness of joy and pleasures forever
.
.
.
.
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The list is beyond enumeration.

The riches of Christ are unfathomable! (Eph. 3:8)

In Him all the fullness of God dwell. (Col. 1:19)

"Great is the LORD, and highly to be praised,
And His greatness is unsearchable.” (Psalms 145:3)

"… Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Heb. 12:2 NASB)

The Lord’s joy is that He may be in us.

He prayed to His Father as the time for His crucifixion approached:

"Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory which You have given Me, for You loved Me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, although the world has not known You, yet I have known You; and these have known that You sent Me; and I have made Your name known to them, and will make it known, so that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.” (John 17:24-26 NASB)

And His joy is to be our joy.

"Abide in Me, and I in you…… that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full.” (John 15:4,11 NASB).

We are to have the exceedingly great joy of Christ in us and being filled with all the riches and glory of His Name. This is the Lord’s desire and this must be our desire too.

We are a house for His Name.
(2 Sam.7:12-13; 2 Cor. 6:16; Eph. 2:22)

"O how marvellous! O how wonderful! Is my Savior’s love for me!”

"Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus.” (Phil.3:12 NASB)

What has Christ Jesus laid hold of me for?

To be a house for His Name!

What am I to lay hold of?

To be His house filled with all the riches of His Name!

"For God so loved …… He gave His only begotten Son……” (John 3:16)

"…… because of His great love with which He loved us, …… He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” (Eph. 2:4-7)

"…… to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.” (Eph. 3:19 NASB)

God’s love is like the physical heart which every moment, unceasingly, beats to pump out blood that carries nutrients to every cell in the body to keep them nourished, healthy and alive.

God’s great love works every moment, unceasingly, to give Christ to us by the Spirit, through our faith.

The physical heart eventually fails but God’s love is an everlasting love (Jer. 31:3). It is a great love that will never cease, never diminish, never grow weary, never die.

Our riches in Christ are certain. Guaranteed by God’s great love.

God’s Great Love is God’s Great Heart of which the physical heart is a small picture.

"For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.” (Rom. 1:20)

God’s Great Love may fill us with immense joy and happiness.

But God’s Great Love is also a mighty working and living power.

"Lord, You have been our dwelling place in all generations.” (Psalm 90:1)

God is Love! The Lord Jesus and His Father are One and One in love. And we too are to be in God, in His love. (John 17:21, 23, 26; 1 John 4:16)

God’s Great Love is our secure and eternal dwelling place.

I am already there. God has already put me in Christ. (1 Cor. 1:30)

I believe!

According to my faith it has already been done for me. (Matthew 9:29; Rom. 5:2, 5)

Now I must not wander away because apart from Him I can do nothing. (John 15:5)

"Remain in me,” the Lord says, "and I will remain in you.” (John 15:4 NLT)

Just by remaining in my Savior, in His Great Love, I will surely bear much fruit. (John 15:5; 1 John 4:16)).

In God’s Great Love and by God’s Great Love, the riches of Christ will surely fill me as I believe. (Eph. 3:17-19)

"May not a single moment of my life be spent outside the light, love and joy of God’s presence.” - Andrew Murray

The human heart finds it incredibly hard to simply believe God.

"Can God furnish a table in the wilderness?” (Psalms 78:19 KJV)

Listen! God says:

"Is anything too hard for the LORD?” (Gen. 18:14)

Excerpts from Andrew Murray’s book "The True Vine”:

I am the true vine. (John 15:1)

"All earthly things are the shadows of heavenly realities””the expression, in created, visible forms, of the invisible glory of God. The Life and the Truth are in Heaven; on earth we have figures and shadows of the heavenly truths. When Jesus says: "I am the true Vine,” He tells us that all the vines of earth are pictures and emblems of Himself. He is the divine reality, of which they are the created expression. They all point to Him, and preach Him, and reveal Him. If you would know Jesus, study the vine.”

"He speaks””oh, listen, not to His words only, but to Himself, as He whispers secretly day by day: "I am the true Vine! All that the Vine can ever be to its branch, ‘I will be to you.’”

(Andrew Murray (1828”“1917) was a pastor and writer from the towns and villages of South Africa. His writings have richly blessed countless Christians through the years.)

Excerpts from Andrew Murray’s book "The True Vine”:

"… and my Father is the husbandman.” (John 15:1 KJV)

("Husbandman” has also been translated as "keeper of vineyard” (BSB).)

"Christ ever lived in the spirit of what He once said: ‘The Son can do nothing of himself.’ As dependent as a vine is on a husbandman for the place where it is to grow, for its fencing in and watering and pruning, Christ felt Himself entirely dependent on the Father every day for the wisdom and the strength to do the Father’s will.”

"This absolute dependence had as its blessed counterpart the most blessed confidence that He had nothing to fear: the Father could not disappoint Him. With such a Husbandman as His Father, He could enter death and the grave. He could trust God to raise Him up. All that Christ is and has, He has, not in Himself, but from the Father.”

"Before He ever uses the word, or speaks at all of abiding in Him or bearing fruit, He turns their eyes heavenward to the Father watching over them, and working all in them. At the very root of all Christian life lies the thought that God is to do all, that our work is to give and leave ourselves in His hands, in the confession of utter helplessness and dependence, in the assured confidence that He gives all we need. The great lack of the Christian life is that, even where we trust Christ, we leave God out of the count. Christ came to bring us to God. Christ lived the life of a man exactly as we have to live it. Christ the Vine points to God the Husbandman. As He trusted God, let us trust God, that everything we ought to be and have, as those who belong to the Vine, will be given us from above.”

"As surely as the Husbandman made the Vine what it was to be, will He make each branch what it is to be. Our Father is our Husbandman, the Surety for our growth and fruit.”

Excerpts from Andrew Murray’s book "The True Vine”:

I am the vine, you are the branches. (John 15:5)

"A branch is simply a bit of wood, brought forth by the vine for the one purpose of serving it in bearing its fruit. It is of the very same nature as the vine, and has one life and one spirit with it. Just think a moment of the lessons this suggests.”

"The branch has but one object for which it exists, one purpose to which it is entirely given up. That is, to bear the fruit the vine wishes to bring forth. And so the believer has but one reason for his being a branch””but one reason for his existence on earth ””that the heavenly Vine may through him bring forth His fruit.”

"The branch is exactly like the vine in every aspect””the same nature, the same life, the same place, the same work. In all this they are inseparably one. And so the believer needs to know that he is partaker of the divine nature, and has the very nature and spirit of Christ in him, and that his one calling is to yield himself to a perfect conformity to Christ. The branch is a perfect likeness of the vine; the only difference is, the one is great and strong, and the source of strength, the other little and feeble, ever needing and receiving strength. Even so the believer is, and is to be, the perfect likeness of Christ.”

"The vine has its stores of life and sap and strength, not for itself, but for the branches. The branches are and have nothing but what the vine provides and imparts. The believer is called to, and it is his highest blessedness to enter upon, a life of entire and unceasing dependence upon Christ. Day and night, every moment, Christ is to work in him all he needs.”

"The branch has no cure; the vine provides all; it has but to yield itself and receive. It is the sight of this truth that leads to the blessed rest of faith, the true secret of growth and strength: ‘I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.’”

"You have but one thing to do: Only be a branch””nothing more, nothing less! Just be a branch; Christ will be the Vine that gives all. And the Husbandman, the mighty God, who made the Vine what it is, will as surely make the branch what it ought to be.”

Excerpts from Andrew Murray’s book "The True Vine”:

"… and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it, that it may bear more fruit.” (John 15:2 NASB)

"The vine is the glory of the husbandman; the branch is the glory of the vine; the fruit is the glory of the branch;”

"The branches, sometimes eight and ten feet long, are cut down close to the stem, and nothing is left but just one or two inches of wood, enough to bear the grapes. It is when everything that is not needful for fruit-bearing has been relentlessly cut down, and just as little of the branches as possible has been left, that full, rich fruit may be expected.”

"God has to bring us to the end of ourselves, to the consciousness of the helplessness and the danger of all that is of man, to feel that we are nothing. All that is to be left of us is just enough to receive the power of the life-giving sap of the Holy Spirit. What is of man must be reduced to its very lowest measure.”

"This is the true circumcision of the heart, the circumcision of Christ. This is the true crucifixion with Christ, bearing about the dying of the Lord Jesus in the body.”

Excerpts from Andrew Murray’s book "The True Vine”:

Abide in me, and I in you. (John 15:4)

"The graft shoots its little roots and fibers down into the stem, and the stem grows up into the graft, and what has been called the structural union is effected. The graft abides and becomes one with the vine, and even though the vine were to die, would still be one wood with it. Then there is the second process, in which the sap of the vine enters the new structure, and uses it as a passage through which sap can flow up to show itself in young shoots and leaves and fruit. Here is the vital union. Into the graft which abides in the stock, the stock enters with sap to abide in it.”

"We have to trust and obey, to detach ourselves from all else, to reach out after Him and cling to Him, to sink ourselves into Him. As we do this, through the grace He gives, a character is formed, and a heart prepared for the fuller experience: ‘I in you,’ God strengthens us with might by the Spirit in the inner man, and Christ dwells in the heart by faith.”

"The work enjoined on us: ‘Abide in me,’ will prepare us for the work undertaken by Him: ‘I in you.’”

Excerpts from Andrew Murray’s book "The True Vine”:

"Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me.” (John 15:4 NASB)

"There is but one way for the branch to bear fruit, there is no other possibility, it must abide in unbroken communion with the vine. Not of itself, but only of the vine, does the fruit come. Christ had already said: ‘Abide in me’; in nature the branch teaches us the lesson so clearly;”

"Our blessed Lord desires to call us away from ourselves and our own strength, to Himself and His strength.”

"Abiding in the Vine then comes to be nothing more nor less than the restful surrender of the soul to let Christ have all and work all, as completely as in nature the branch knows and seeks nothing but the vine.”

Excerpts from Andrew Murray’s book "The True Vine”:

I am the vine, you are the branches (John 15:5)

"study this holy mystery until you see Christ as the true Vine, bearing, strengthening, supplying, inspiring all His branches, being and doing in each branch all it needs, and the abiding will come of itself.”

"How much weary labor there has been in striving to understand what abiding is, how much fruitless effort in trying to attain it! Why was this? Because the attention was turned to the abiding as a work we have to do, instead of the living Christ, in whom we were to be kept abiding, who Himself was to hold and keep us. we thought of abiding as a continual strain and effort””we forget that it means rest from effort to one who has found the place of his abode.”

"Abide in Me, rest in Me, and let Me do My work”.

"I am the Vine, only consent and yield thy all to Me, I will do all in thee.”

"Come out of every other place, and every other trust and occupation, come out of self with its reasonings and efforts, come and rest in what I shall do. Live out of thyself; abide in Me. Know that thou art in Me; thou needest no more; remain there in Me.”

"Let each day, in our quiet time, in the inner chamber with Him and His Word, our chief thought and aim be to get the heart fixed on Him, in the assurance: all that a vine ever can do for its branches, my Lord Jesus will do, is doing, for me. Give Him time, give Him your ear, that He may whisper and explain the divine secret: ‘I am the vine.’”

"Above all, remember, Christ is the Vine of God’s planting, and you are a branch of God’s grafting. Ever stand before God, in Christ; ever wait for all grace from God, in Christ; ever yield yourself to bear the more fruit the Husbandman asks, in Christ. And pray much for the revelation of the mystery that all the love and power of God that rested on Christ is working in you too. ‘I am God’s Vine,’ Jesus says; ‘all I am I have from Him; all I am is for you; God will work it in you.’

"I am the Vine. Blessed Lord, speak Thou that word into my soul. Then shall I know that all Thy fullness is for me. And that I can count upon Thee to stream it into me, and that my abiding is so easy and so sure when I forget and lose myself in the adoring faith that the Vine holds the branch and supplies its every need.”

"A branch, nothing in myself, and yet resting and rejoicing in the faith that knows that He will provide for all. Yes, by His grace, I will be nothing less than a branch, and all He means it to be, that through me, He may bring forth His fruit.”

"You need be nothing more. You need not for one single moment of the day take upon you the responsibility of the Vine.”

"Your life and strength and fruit depend upon what your Lord Jesus is! Therefore worship and trust Him; let Him be your one desire and the one occupation of your heart.”

"The Vine reveals itself within the branch; thence comes the growth and fruit, Christ dwells and works within His branch; only be a branch, waiting on Him to do all.”

Excerpts from Andrew Murray’s book "The True Vine”:

Apart from me you can do nothing (John 15:5)

"As little as I can give it myself, can I maintain or increase it: every motion is the work of God through Christ and His Spirit. It is as a man believes this, that he will take up that position of entire and continual dependence which is the very essence of the life of faith. With the spiritual eye he sees Christ every moment supplying grace for every breathing and every deepening of the spiritual life. His whole heart says Amen to the word: You can do nothing. And just because he does so, he can also say: "I can do all things in Christ who strengtheneth me.” The sense of helplessness, and the abiding to which it compels, leads to true fruitfulness and diligence in good works.”

"all that is self must be brought low, that our confidence may be in Christ alone.”