We need to Know, Obey, Worship and Experience God as Jehovah, the Great I Am

As believers in Christ, we need to know, obey, worship, and experience God as Jehovah, the great I Am.

All those who returned to the good land from captivity in Babylon were commanded to know, obey, and worship Jehovah; Our God is not only powerful and self-existing but also Jehovah, the I AM, the One who draws near to man and fulfils His promises to man. Hallelujah!

This week we are looking at the crucial aspects of living in the good land after returning from captivity in Babylon, as seen in 1 and 2 Chronicles.

Some may ask, What does the history of Israel have to do with us, the believers in Christ in the New Testament?

The Lord in His sovereignty wrote the Old Testament to mirror the New Testament, for in the Old Testament we have many types, prophecies, figures, symbols, and pictures, while in the New Testament, we have the fulfilment and the reality.

What we see in type and figure in the Old Testament is fulfilled in reality in the New Testament.

In the Old Testament, we see many types and figures, and the greatest type of these is the history of the people of Israel.

God chose one man, Abraham, and one nation, the people of Israel, to carry out His purpose in the Old Testament.

The history of the people of Israel, however, is a type; according to 1 Cor. 10:11, they typify the New Testament believers and therefore they typify the church.

We need to have the Lord’s light on this matter to realize that we are no better than the children of Israel; rather, as we read their history, we see many things that they did toward God as being what we also did.

Thank the Lord for the teaching and the fellowship of the apostles which opens up the word of God and properly interprets the Old Testament in the light of the New Testament for us to see God’s economy and its fulfilment.

What we see outwardly in type in the Old Testament in history, figures, pictures, and types, we see in spiritual reality in the New Testament.

The books of 1 and 2 Chronicles were written to the children of Israel that already returned from the captivity in Babylon; now the author of these books wants to communicate not only the history of the kings of Israel and Judah but also many of the aspects of living in the good land after returning from captivity.

As believers in Christ who have been brought by the Lord from division and captivity and into the proper church life in the Lord’s recovery, we need to see some of these crucial lessons and aspects.

First of all, we need to be faithful to God.

We are not faithful in ourselves and we cannot be faithful, but the faithful One lives in us.

We need to know, experience, enjoy, and partake of God, allowing Him to work Himself into us in His faithfulness, and we will be made faithful to God.

Hallelujah, God is faithful in His word and to His promise to not only care for us but even more to bring us into the enjoyment of the all-inclusive Christ.

He is faithful to remove anything that replaces God in our life and to bring us further in the enjoyment of Christ so that He becomes all in all to us.

Today we want to see another crucial aspect of living in the good land, that of knowing, obeying, and worshipping Jehovah; in particular, we want to see who is Jehovah and how can we enjoy and experience Him.

We need to Know, Obey, and Worship Jehovah, for He is God who is Intimate with Us

In 1 Chron 16:8-14, we see that all those who returned to the good land from captivity in Babylon were commanded to know, obey, and worship Jehovah.

We need to give thanks to Jehovah, call upon His name, make His deeds upon the people, and glory in His holy name.

All those who seek Jehovah should have a rejoicing heart, and be strengthened in the Lord.

May we seek His face continually, for He is Jehovah, our God, and His judgments are in all the earth.

Who is Jehovah and what does it mean for us to know, obey, and worship Jehovah?

God implies God’s power and His relationship with creatures; Jehovah, however, denotes God having a relationship with man.

This relationship is tender, precious, and delightful.

As God, He created everything, the whole universe; however, as Jehovah, He is related to us in a very personal way.

Jehovah God is not only the One who is powerful but also the One who draws near to man (Gen. 2:4, 8, 15-16, 18-19, 21-22).

Jehovah is the name of intimacy; God refers to His power, while Jehovah refers to His love.

God is not only the all-powerful and creating One but also the One who is intimate with us, seeking to fellowship with us and have a relationship with us.

In Exo. 3:14 Jehovah appeared to Moses and introduced Himself as, “I am who I am”; this indicates that Jehovah is the self-existing and ever-existing eternal One.

He is the One who was in the past, who is in the present, and who will be in the future (Rev. 1:4).

We may try to understand God as the self-existing and ever-existing one, but our human mind may be quite limited in this, for we cannot comprehend how someone can exist without depending on anything or anyone else.

He is beyond space and time. He is beyond our capacity to understand.

God simply is. We are here today but gone tomorrow, yet God still is.

Jehovah is the only One who is, and when we come to know Him by drawing close to Him, we must believe that He is (Heb. 11:6).

He is the Only One who is self-existing and ever-existing.

This unique One who has being is the great “to be”; the verb “to be” can be applied only to God and not to us.

God is the universal To Be, the genuine being; only God is I Am.

Only God has being. Jehovah is God’s name for existence and fulfilment (Gen. 17:1; 28:3; 35:11; Exo. 3:14; 6:6-8).

He made certain promises to Abraham as God, and He came to fulfil them four hundred years later as Jehovah, the I am.

He not only exists in and by Himself; He also fulfils His promises to His people.

Because Jehovah exists eternally and because He is the reality of the verb to be, He will fulfil whatever He has spoken (John 8:28-29).

We need to know God, enjoy God, and experience God as Jehovah, the One who will fulfil what He has promised.

He wants to be intimate with man, to know man personally, even to be inside of man; He promises to us and He fulfils it, and only He can fulfil what He promises because He is.

Approximately four thousand years ago God promised something to Abraham concerning his descendants and concerning the good land.

Abraham died without seeing the fulfilment of God’s promise, but God came four hundred years later to bring His people out of Egypt and into the good land.

Whatever God promises and says, will come to pass.

On one hand, He is El-Shaddai who bountifully supplies us with whatever we need to live a life for the fulfilment of God’s eternal purpose.

On the other hand, He is self-existing and ever-existing, the reality of the verb to be.

Still, He is Jehovah, the One who seeks to be one with man, promises man and fulfils His promise, and is in a relationship with man for man to be one with God. Hallelujah!

We need to know Jehovah, worship Jehovah, and obey Jehovah, having a personal and intimate relationship with Him and being one with Him.

Lord Jesus, we want to enjoy You, experience You, and worship You as Jehovah, the One who is self-existing and ever-existing, the One who is intimate with man. Thank You, Lord, for not only creating us in Your image and according to Your likeness but for also coming to us to have a personal relationship with us. We love You and we worship You. Thank You for all Your promises in the word of God. We believe Your word and we claim these promises. Hallelujah, God is, He has the reality of being, and He as Jehovah fulfils the promises that He makes. We come to You, Lord, and we worship You, we obey You, and we want to know You as Jehovah God, the One who fulfils His promises and has a personal relationship with us!

In the Stage of Fulfillment today We experience God as Jehovah, the Great I Am

Today we are not in the stage of promises but in the stage of fulfilment. God promised many things and everything He promised is in His word; today we are in the stage of the fulfilment of God’s promises.

In the Lord’s recovery today, we are in the sage of fulfilment, and we can experience God as Jehovah, the great I Am (Exo. 3:14-16; John 8:2, 28).

When the Lord Jesus came, He was God incarnated to be a man; He was God manifested in the flesh, God incarnate for man to see.

His name was Jesus, which means, Jehovah our Savior.

He was the I Am living in the flesh, manifesting God in the flesh, and expressing God.

In the gospel of John in particular we see that the Lord several times said that He is; even before Abraham was, Christ is the I am.

When they came to arrest Him and take Him to be crucified, the Lord asked them who are they seeking and, upon hearing their response, He said, I am.

Jesus Christ is the I Am; this is why on the cross, as Psa. 22 prophesied, He said, My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?

This refers to the Spirit of God economically leaving Christ on the cross while He was made sin by God and was judged on our behalf.

If we would know God by the name of Jehovah, we must have a real experience of the I am.

We need to experience God as Jehovah, the great I am.

In our experience, He is. We cannot prove that He is, but He is; He simply has the reality of being.

As the I am, He is interceding on our behalf until all that He has promised in His word is fulfilled in us.

As the I am, He is leading us all the way into glory and is applying to our being and experiencing all that He has covenanted to us in His word.

One of the major promises the Lord Jesus made is, I will build My church (Matt. 16:18).

This word is being fulfilled among us today.

He is faithful to His word to bring us into the church life in the Lord’s recovery, and He will keep us here until He returns or until we go to be with the Lord.

We have a journey ahead of us, and many trials and tests await us.

However, in all these tests, trials, and tribulations, we can experience God as the I Am; we can experience God as Jehovah, the great I am.

The trials and tests are here today but they will be over soon; God, however, remains forever, and He will fulfil His promises to us.

We need to know, obey, and worship Jehovah as we live the church life enjoying Christ as the reality of the good land.

In our daily experience, we need to experience God as Jehovah, the I Am, the One who has the reality of being and who fulfils His promises.

As we live in the age of grace, the age of the fulfilment of God’s promises, we need to come to the word of God and take God at His word, asking God in faith to fulfil His promises to us.

He is Jehovah our God, and He will fulfil what He has promised.

Our God is the I am. Our Savior is the I Am.

He is our God, and He is everything to us. He is here to meet every need that we will ever have. He is here to care for us.

When we begin to know and experience God as Jehovah, the great I am, we will come to obey Him and worship Him.

We shouldn’t know God only as Elohim, the great Creator, but go on and experience God as Jehovah, the great I am who fulfils His promises to us.

He has given us a signed blank check; we simply need to write down on the check what we need, and He will be that to us.

He speaks our language, He knows our case, He is intimately concerned with our situation, and He cares for our true condition.

We can open to Him and enjoy Him day by day, and we can truly experience God as Jehovah in our daily life.

Lord Jesus, we want to know and experience God as Jehovah, the great I am. Praise the Lord, our Savior is the I am, and He is everything to us in our daily life. Amen, Lord, keep us coming to You with all our needs and problems, asking You to be the reality of all that we need. Thank You for giving Yourself to us to meet all our needs. Lord, You are. You are and we are not. You are everything to us. You are our peace, our joy, and our righteousness. You are our enjoyment. Even though we may go through trials and tests, we believe that You are and that You will fulfil Your promises toward us. Hallelujah, today we can experience God as Jehovah, the great I am!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration for this article/sharing comes from the Word of God, the enjoyment in the ministry, a sharing by brother Ron Kangas in the message, and portions from, Life-study of Exodus, msgs. 5 and 14 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-study of 1 and 2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther (2022 winter training), week 2, entitled, Crucial Aspects of Living in the Good Land after Returning from Captivity in Babylon.
• Further reading on this topic:
  – The “I AM” – a portion from, The Fulfillment of the Tabernacle and the Offerings in the Writings of John, Chapter 24, by Witness Lee.
  – The saints’ deeper experience of God in the identification with Christ, a portion from, Life-Study of Psalms, Chapter 35, by Witness Lee.
  – Calling on the name of the Lord, booklet via, Living Stream Ministry.
  – Ministry quotes and enjoyment from the ministry via, Living to Him.
  – The revelation and Experience of Jehovah – our Savior God – as seen in His names, article by Ed Marks in, Affirmation and Critique.
  – 70 aspects of Christ as everything for our appreciation, experience, and enjoyment, via, Holding to Truth.
  – God’s need and God’s goal, book review via, Conversant Faith.
• Hymns on this topic:
  – O Lord, Thy being is of old, / Before th’ eternal past began! / For Thou th’ eternal Father art, / The uncreated, great I AM! /Although a man with men become, / Yet Thou with God eternal art! / The same completeness Thou dost share, / And infinite as God Thou art! (Hymns #81 stanzas 1-2)
  – Gracious Lord, Thy name “I AM” is, / Precious name, how rich and full ‘tis, / All-inclusive, faithful too ‘tis- / All we need, Thou art! … / What Thou art-eternal, boundless, / Full and perfect, rich, exhaustless- / Meets our need to utter fullness / And from us o’erflows. (Hymns #78 stanzas 1 and 14)
  – O Lord, as we consider Thee, / We worship Thee for all Thou art; / Thou art so rich, so wonderful, / So dear and precious to our heart. / What Thou art meets our every need! / Our hearts o’erflow with praise to Thee! / All our desires Thou dost exceed / And satisfy continually. (Hymns #190 stanza 1 and chorus)