Exodus 3:14 God said to Moses, “I am who I am.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I am has sent me to you.’”

Let us not try to create controversy here. There are too many interpretations out there about what God meant when He said this to Moses. A proper understanding here is unlikely.

When God told Moses to tell the people of Israel that “I Am” sent him, there are no existing documents before Moses delivered the Pentateuch that says Israel had any understanding of what “I AM” means. We do not know what they thought.

When I say “I am a Christian” I know what I mean, but that is no guarantee that the hearer understands what that means without my words and actions matching my beliefs. Even then, that does guarantee perfect understanding. Imperfect beings seem to be incapable of perfect understanding.

For me Christianity is a growth process. I am not what I was 30 years ago, nor am I now what I will be in another year. If I am judged for what I said and did 30 years ago, it does not reflect who “I AM” today.

Malachi 3:6 “For I the Lord do not change;”

There is no need to finish that quote, this is enough to understand that the primary quality of the great “I AM” is consistency, even if we do not understand. God is perfect in form and character so there is no need for Him to change.

We need to change because we were not perfect to begin with, but have the potential to be changed if we are willing. Potential is the key to growth.

2 Corinthians 3:18 And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

Christianity is not a mask we wear so that others cannot see what we are in reality. We are told not to mask our Christianity as if it is something to be ashamed of in this life.

Ephesians 2:5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—

Ephesians 2:8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,

Grace is unmerited favor, if I didn’t deserve it, then perhaps they will believe they too can find salvation by faith in Jesus Christ even though they don’t deserve it either.

Genesis 1:1 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

Genesis 2:4 These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.

The difference between these two verses is the inclusion of the title Lord. In Genesis 1:1 God stood alone in creation and asked nothing of His creation. Creation can stand alone without any expectation other than to exist, nature being nature.

The issue in Genesis 2:4 is the generations that follow are answerable to the ruler of heaven and earth, the Lord God. Generations is a term in which God has granted us the ability to give life to this place in time in which He has placed us. In doing so He, the Lord God, takes on the responsibility for the lives that have been created.

That responsibility exists whether we believe it or not. When we create life we are responsible for it, even if we do not know how to take care of it. We cannot escape that responsibility just because we do not know what to do. As Lord God, He knows what to do to care for His creation. This is what love does.

When life begins because  of love we are making a conscious decision. Those seeds of love drive us to take on the responsibility for that life, even if we don’t know what we are doing. This was much more difficult for Adam and Eve because they had no previous generation to teach them by example to show what it means to take responsibility for creating the next generation.

At this present time, so long after the beginning, all those generations have one thing in common, the Lord God has not abdicated His responsibility for any of us. At the core of love is choice. None of us can love without making a conscious decision to take responsibility for the decisions we make, either to love or to abdicate responsibility.

What happens when the previous generation fails to set a loving example of how to make choices that are pleasing to the Lord who reigns? He has not neglected His responsibilities. As Lord He tugs at the heartstrings of every generation to tell us when we have made bad choices. Love is still a choice. Do we seek to discover love even if the examples set before us were absent of love? If it didn’t work with our parents, why should we choose to carry on with what doesn’t work? Seek a better way.

2 Peter 2:21 For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than after knowing it to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them.

The Lord God gave us those holy commandments. His way of communicating love.