The I Am’s of John
“BREAD”

Freedom Fighter blogger, Chris Hughes is sharing a 7 part series starting today:

“So Jesus said to them, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He, and that I do nothing on My own authority, but speak just as the Father taught Me. And He who sent Me is with Me. He has not left Me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to Him.” John 8:28-29 (ESV)

“Ehyeh-Asher-Ehyeh” This may not be the absolute correct of saying it in Hebrew but in the book of Exodus God says this to Moses. “I AM WHO I AM.” Fast forward down that Deuteronomical road I like to take and we arrive at the Gospel of John. This Gospel is the only Gospel that recorded the “Great I Am’s” of Jesus. There are seven that are attached to a metaphor. There are eight places where Jesus simply states “Ego Eimi” (I AM). None the matter to what language He used, anytime He declared “I AM” the Pharisees gathered their stones together and sought to kill Him. After all He was basically saying “I AM JEHOVAH” and that was just a no-no in those days.

Over my next few Freedom Fighters I would like to cover those moments where Jesus says “I AM”. I’ll cover the seven metaphorical ones before I get to the eight times where Jesus refers to He being “I AM” as we would read in Exodus 3:14. Not only do I think it would be cool to take a look at them but since Elohim revealed them to me the way He did, it would be fitting to share them with all of you in obedience to Him. AMEN? So without further ado….

The first occurrence is in John 6:35 where Jesus declares “I am the bread of life.”  Just to re-cap the story leading to one of the hardest public discourses in the life of Jesus we have Jesus feeding 5,000 men (not counting the wives and children traveling with them), then we have Jesus walking on the water. Both of these events are tests of faith for the disciples of Jesus but what happens starting in John 6:22 is awesome. People are seeking Jesus out…probably for more of bread to eat than the “manna” that Jesus represents.

Now the manna (What’s this?) that was given to the Nation of Israel was given only to Israel, was great to sustain physical life, was temporary and was a gift of God through the mediation of Moses. By Jesus acknowledging that He IS THE bread of life we need to keep in mind that His bread is given to the whole world, is great to sustain spiritual life forever, is given to us continuously and is a gift of God given directly by God. And where manna only had one flavor, Jesus comes as the bread of everlasting life, the bread of satisfying life, the bread of resurrected life and the bread of indwelling life.

Gotta love that variety when you are coming outta the wilderness of a darken life, huh? The cool thing to note here is that whether these people knew it or they would, by seeking out Jesus the day after he feed all those five thousand men, represent an object lesson to what it looks like when the Father draws us to Christ. And of course with our freewill we can choose to trust Christ as Lord and Savior and enjoy the steps we’ll take to get to be raised up with Him or we can choose not to and continue to walk around stumbling over breadcrumbs. Perhaps it would be better to follow the breadcrumb trail that has been left behind by those who are already following Him? – Chris Hughes is a graduate of the Colony of Mercy and a regular blogger on Freedom Fighter 

Team YOU: Isaiah 1-2; Proverbs 17; 2 Corinthians 10

Motivations: “Christ is enough. To have Him and nothing else is to be rich beyond conceiving. To have all else and have not Christ is to be a cosmic pauper, cut off forever from all that will matter at last.”—A.W. Tozer

Practice to Remember: Level 1:Philippians 4:8; Level 2: Philippians 4:25-23

Powered Up:  See that you do not use the trick of prayer to cover up what you know you need to do. Oswald Chambers