The God Who Is

Hello friends,

What is the point of a faith in God?

Is it something from past days, something we have educated, advanced or invented our way out of?

Is it something reserved for the future, like an insurance policy, just in case I need it as I face the end of my life?

Or is it a very present reality?

After a busy couple of weeks with work and a full Easter season at church, I’m finally able to post again. Even though I didn’t get to share this during Easter week, the message remains just as relevant now.

What I want to reflect on is this: we have a living God, and He is the God of the living.

Let’s begin in Exodus 3. Moses has fled Egypt and is tending his flock when he sees something utterly unexpected. Exodus 3 tells us:

“The angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. He looked, and behold, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed.”
“I will turn aside to see this great sight,” Moses says, “why the bush is not burned.”

A quick note: Scripture sometimes speaks of “an angel of the Lord” and other times “the angel of the Lord.”

• An angel typically refers to a created angelic messenger.
• The angel of the Lord is different—a theophany, an appearance of God Himself, even a pre‑incarnate appearance of Christ.

When Moses approaches, God tells him to remove his sandals, and then declares:

“I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.”

Moses hides his face because he knows—this is no mere messenger. This is God Himself.

Later, when God commissions Moses to confront Pharaoh, Moses asks what he should say when Israel asks for God’s name. God replies:

“I AM WHO I AM… Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’”
“This is my name forever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations.”

God names Himself I AM.

Notice what He does not say. He does not say, “I was.”
So often we treat faith as something belonging to the past—something for previous generations, something tied to “the good old days.” Even churches can feel like monuments to what God used to do.

Do we act as if God is doing something here and now?

Others treat faith as something for the future—something they’ll need “someday,” perhaps near death.

I believe God is very deliberate in this phrase I Am
Yes, He is the God of the past. This is the same God who called Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The same God who made promises in the past and is reminding us that He is still working to keep those promises in every generation.

God says I AM.

He is the God of the past—Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
He is the God of the future—our hope beyond death.
But He is also the God of the present, the God who is at work right now, keeping His promises in every generation.

Israel often asked, “Where is the God who brought us out of Egypt?” And God’s answer was essentially: I am doing something now. You may not see it yet. You may not understand it. You may not even like it. But I AM.

Faith is not merely a memory or a future insurance policy. Faith is a present reality grounded in a present God.

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The God of the Living

In Matthew 22, the religious leaders question Jesus about the resurrection. They pose a hypothetical about a woman who was widowed and remarried multiple times—whose wife will she be in the resurrection?

Jesus tells them they misunderstand the nature of the resurrection life. Then He quotes Exodus 3:

“I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.”
“He is not the God of the dead, but of the living.”

In other words, our relationship with God does not end at death.
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are alive to God.
And so will all who belong to Him.

That is the relationship that matters, the one with the covenant God.

There is far more here than a short article can unpack, but this much is clear:
God is real, God is present, and God is near.

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When God Feels Absent

There are times when we wonder, Is God here? Where is He? What is He doing?
Scripture never mocks that question. God is not angered by honest wrestling. The Psalms, the prophets, and the history of Israel are full of people crying out:

“God, where are You? We’ve heard the stories of old—but what about now?”

And yet, as they seek Him, they come to see:
God was there.
God is there.
Even when they didn’t see it.
Even when they didn’t understand.
Even when they were angry.

Jesus while on the cross quoted Psalm 22
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning?

² O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer, and by night, but I find no rest.

³ Yet you are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel.

⁴ In you our fathers trusted; they trusted, and you delivered them.

⁵ To you they cried and were rescued; in you they trusted and were not put to shame. ^[1]

The whole Psalm is him describing the pain, even feeling forsaken by God. But finding hope in the fact that God is the I Am. The God who is there even in the pain.

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Do Not Wait

I want to encourage you: do not wait for some crisis or life‑and‑death moment to seek God. We do not know when those moments will come. God’s name is I AM, not “I was” or “I might be.”

Many saints never saw the full fulfillment of God’s promises in their lifetime. But the name I AM assures us that God will keep every promise—in His time, in His way. That’s not a cliché. It’s a reminder that God works on a timeline we cannot see, and He is present in every moment with covenant faithfulness.

One writer put it beautifully:

Confidence in God’s character—His unwavering covenant love—becomes our only hope for spiritual resurrection now and physical resurrection in the future.

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The God of Resurrection Hope

Both God calls Himself, and Jesus call Him “the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” That reminds us that we are eternal beings, and that for those in covenant with Him, our relationship with God is eternal as well.

Jesus resurrection proclaims this loudly.
In raising Jesus from the dead, God revealed Himself as the God of life and salvation. Because He is our God, our lives have meaning and direction toward a glorious end. To walk with Him now and life with Him in eternity

The phrase “God of the living” anchors our hope not in wishful thinking but in the unchanging character of the God who never abandons His people and never breaks His word.

He is a very present God—right here, right now, never ending, never changing.

This truth is so central that Jesus uses the phrase “I AM” seven times in the Gospel of John. I hope to write more reflections on those soon.

And there is one final promise—an eighth, if you will:

I AM is coming back.

All Bible References are from the English Standard Version (2025). Crossway Bibles.