Lord, I Want to Know You

BY: Kay Arthur

I AM THAT I AM

God Your Creator

One of the names of God in the Old Testament is Elohim.

This name designates God as God.

Deuteronomy 10:17 says,

“The Lord your God [Elohim] is the God of gods….” El means “mighty” or “strong” and is used for any reference to gods, including Almighty God. 

If God is the Creator of all things, who has given us life? Elohim, of course!

And why were we created? For Him!

You are a unique creation of God, one of a kind, created for His glory.

He “didst form my inward parts.” He “didst weave me in my mother’s womb…. I am fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:13-14).

Have you ever thought of yourself as being fearfully and wonderfully made?

Or do you look at yourself and despise what Elohim has created? 

Remember when “Moses said to the Lord,

‘Please, Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither recently nor in time past, nor since Thou hast spoken to Thy servant; for I am slow of speech and slow of tongue’ ” (Exodus 4:10)? 

What was the Lord’s reply?

“Who has made man’s mouth? Or who makes him dumb or deaf, or seeing or blind?

Is it not I, the Lord?” (Exodus 4:11). 

Oh, Beloved, if you are unhappy with yourself, with your child, or with a loved one, run into the strong tower of the name of your Elohim (Proverbs 18:10).

You may not understand how your situation could ever bring Him glory, but you can trust in the name of your Lord.

Lord, I Want to Know You

According to Isaiah 43, Elohim, the one who made man (male and female, Genesis 1:27) in His image, created you for His glory.

Can you see how awesome it is to know that you have been created for God’s glory?

That you are to live in such a way as to give all of creation a correct estimate of who God is?

What does that mean to you, O child of God, who is called by His name?

Think about it. How would you live if you were to live for His glory? 

O Father, show us Your glory! Proclaim Your name! O Lord, we want to know You…by name. Amen.

Exodus 4:11 KJV

[11] And the LORD said unto him, Who hath made man’s mouth? or who maketh the dumb, or deaf, or the seeing, or the blind? have not I the LORD?

https://bible.com/bible/1/exo.4.11.KJV

Lord, I Want to Know You

God the Self-Existent One

Of all the names of God, Jehovah is the name most frequently used in the Old Testament—6,823 times, in fact!

The name of Jehovah is derived from havah, which means “to be, to become.” Therefore, Jehovah speaks to God’s being or essence. 

Jehovah is the self-existent One—“I AM WHO I AM” (Exodus 3:13-­15).

He is the eternal I AM, the Alpha and the Omega, the same yesterday, today, and forever.

All of life is contained in Him.

Why do we look elsewhere?

And why do we not rest in His unchangeableness?

He has never failed. Would He begin with me or you?

Oh! He cannot.

Lord, I Want to Know You

Certainly, He is Jehovah, the self-existent, covenant-keeping God. 

Although Jehovah was used as early as Genesis 2:4,

it wasn’t until God’s revelation to Moses in Exodus 3 that the Israelites understood that this name went with God’s covenant promise to His people.

Exodus 6:2-4 says, “I am the Lord [Jehovah]; and I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as God Almighty [El Shaddai],

but by My name, Lord [Jehovah], I did not make Myself known to them.

And I also established My covenant with them, to give them the land of Canaan, the land in which they sojourned.” 

Jehovah fulfilled the covenant He had made with Abraham regarding the land of Canaan.

Therefore, the Israelites returned to Canaan after four hundred years of bondage in Egypt (Genesis 15:13-21).

God revealed Himself to His covenant people as the unchanging God who remains faithful throughout many generations. 

When you need assurance that God is there,

that He will keep His promises without changing—even though you have wavered in your promises to Him—run to your Jehovah.

Trust in His name. It can’t change because He can’t change.

He is Jehovah—the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8). 

Lord, I thank you for keeping Your promises to me. Why would I ever look elsewhere for peace? 

Exodus 3:14 KJV

[14] And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.

https://bible.com/bible/1/exo.3.14.KJV

Lord, I Want to Know You

God Our Provider

Yet God is more than Jehovah.

• He is Jehovah- jireh,
• –Jehovah-tsidkenu,
• —Jehovah-nissi,
• —-Jehovah-raah,
• —–Jehovah-rapha,
• ——Jehovah- shalom,
• ——-Jehovah-sabaoth,
• ——-Jehovah-shammah,
• ———-Jehovah-mekoddishkem.

What do these names mean?

Lord, I Want to Know You

By being compounded with Jehovah,

each one of them shows us that the very essence of God’s Being is to love, to give, to be more than self-constrained. 

As the self-existent one, God desires to meet the needs of those He created in His own image.

Thus, He becomes Jehovah our provider, Also, Jehovah our shepherd, And Jehovah that sanctifies us, and so on.

He reaches beyond Himself because it is part of His character to do so.

As you and I take on His character more and more, we will reach out beyond ourselves to manifest to others what He is to us. 

The first of these compound names we will look at is Jehovah-jireh, “the Lord will provide.”

The word for provide, jireh, in the Old Testament literally means “to see.”

But how do Hebrew scholars get “provide” out of it?

Since He is God, when He sees, He foresees.

Our all-knowing, ever-present, eternal Father knows the end from the beginning and,

thus, in His omniscience, He provides.

Not only has Jehovah foreseen your need for salvation and made provision through the death and resurrection of His Son,

but He also sees your day-by-day needs, as we read in Matthew 6:7-8.

O Beloved, Jehovah-jireh is bidding us to come.

We are coming to the One who is for us!

“He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?” (Romans 8:32).

At Calvary, through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, “my God shall supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19). 

He is a God who is for you, not against you.

You can worship Jehovah-jireh in obedience and know that whatever you need, the Lord will provide it. 

Recall a time in your walk with Jehovah-jireh when He met your need because He saw you.

Lord, I Want to Know You

God Our Shepherd

There are times when I think, How can someone like me succeed?

Yet, these thoughts don’t devastate me because I know where success comes from.

It doesn’t matter what I am. It only matters who God is, because He is all I need!

He is my Jehovah-raah, the Lord my Shepherd.

And because the Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want. 

Oh, what a marvelous revelation the Spirit of God gave us as He breathed these words through the pen of David!

It’s much better to cling to the precepts of God than to maxims or positive thinking, because He has magnified His Word above His name (Psalm 138:2). 

What does God think about us?

Many things—and all of them are precious (Psalm 139:17-18).

Yet, His thoughts are based on an honest evaluation of what we are like. 

We are like sheep.

Over and over again God refers to us as sheep:

“All we like sheep have gone astray” (Isaiah 53:6).

“My sheep hear my voice” (John 10:27).

“We are…the sheep of His pasture” (Psalm 100:3).

“I…will both search my sheep, and seek them out” (Ezekiel 34:11).

“Feed my sheep” (John 21:17). 

All the positive thoughts in the world can’t change the fact that sheep are sheep.

Sheep are the dumbest of all animals.

They are helpless, timid, and feeble.

They require constant attention and meticulous care.

Sheep have little means of self-defense. 

What makes the difference in sheep is the shepherd. 

Even though we do dumb things, even though we are not perfect, even though we all stumble in many ways (James 3:2), we can succeed because the Lord is our Shepherd.

Lord, I Want to Know You

God designed us as we are so that we would see our need of Him.

In Him, we find all that we need.

Thus, we can say with total confidence and conviction, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want” (Psalm 23:1). 

As you read through Psalm 23, make a list of all that Jehovah-raah does for His sheep.

Lord, I Want to Know You

God the Lord of Hosts

When there seemed to be no other recourse for deliverance, the children of Israel came to know God as Jehovah-sabaoth, the Lord of hosts.

The name Jehovah-sabaoth is not used until the book of 1 Samuel.

Then, in two of the three instances, it is used by individuals.

Apparently during that time in her history, Israel did not see her need to call upon God as Lord of hosts.

Yet, when we read the prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, Amos, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, we find this name for God used repeatedly.

It appears fifty-two times in Zechariah’s fourteen chapters and eighty-three times in Jeremiah’s fifty-two chapters. 

Why is God referred to so often as the Lord of hosts in Isaiah and Jeremiah but not in Ezekiel?

This name is not for those who have ceased to fight.

In Ezekiel’s day, God’s people were to settle down for seventy years of captivity. 

Instead, this is a name for those who find their resources inadequate in the midst of a struggle.

From our perspective, this is the name of God to run to when there is no other help.

From God’s perspective, it is a name that reminds His people of exactly who He is—not only the One who delivers, but also the One who judges.

Thus, in the book of Malachi we see God reminding His people over and over again of His name Jehovah-sabaoth.

Malachi was written to a people who honored God with their lips but not with their lives.

Once again, we see man’s failures. God wanted them to see Him as Lord of hosts and to bow the knee. 

So often, not until we find ourselves failing and powerless do we realize our need to run to our Jehovah-sabaoth.

This name of God meets failure and offers deliverance.

O Beloved, do not forget it, for it is “a strong tower; the righteous runs into it and is safe” (Proverbs 18:10).

It is a name that keeps you from boasting in chariots and horses (Psalm 20:7)—who needs them when the name of his God is the Lord of hosts?

What current situation are you in where you most need Jehovah-sabaoth, the Lord of hosts? 

Also Read: The Many-Breasted One – Diademng (thediademng.org)

Lord, I Want to Know You