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 The I-am words of Jesus have an extraordinary place in Jesus’ self-statements about himself. Here he says something essential about himself, and what that means for us. But first he says who he is. He gives the reason why he is able to keep these statements. “I am,” as God imagined Himself in the burning bush of Moses (Exodus 3:14). This is what Jesus refers to here. He uses the same words and says that God himself came to us in his form. In the same way, the Jews understood him at the time, so they wanted to stone him.

(All biblical texts are taken from the King James Version of 1769)

Joh. 6, 35  And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.
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Just as our body needs food again and again so that it can live and stay healthy, so too does our soul need food constantly so that it can live and stay healthy. We find this food only in the Word of the living God who created us and who became man in Jesus Christ and paid our sin (life without God: John 16: 7-13) and guilt Himself. Jesus does not claim here that we will never fail when we come to Him. He says: I am the bread of life. Who “eats” Him, i. Who “eats” Him, i. he who in his Word, the Bible, reads constantly, speaks (prays) with his Lord Jesus Christ, and applies what he understands in his life, whose life will never be boring. He will no longer be tormented by hunger for meaningful life. He no longer has to be content with the superficial, the superficial. He now knows what it is worth living for what he is there for and he has eternal life in communion with God.

 

Jn. 8:12  Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.

Our world is getting darker, the fear of the future is spreading; Will our children still find a planet worth living on, are our politicians still in control of everything or is it slipping into chaos? Such and similar questions are getting louder. We lack the orientation! We have shown the door to him who created this world and has received it to this day. God had made a promise to Noah to make sure that the sun, rain, and wind will always come in the right time so that enough food for man and cattle can grow. The sign was and still is the rainbow. But we are getting further and further away from him, and so it is not surprising that everything gets mixed up. It is not the pollution of air caused by us that disturbs our climate, it is my opinion, but our departure from God the Creator. That’s what God says. When Jesus says that his followers will no longer walk in th

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e dark, but will have the light of life because he himself is the light, that means orientation for our lives with positive consequences not only for us personally but also for our environment. Jesus rearranges our lives so that we can avoid wrong ways and know what is good for us or what harms us and others.

 

Jn 10:9 I am the door; if somebody enters through me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture.
Jesus says, “Behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you” (Luke 17, 21). There is only one door in there: Jesus! Only through him can one come into the kingdom of God. There is no other possibility. The Apostle Paul writes: (1 Timothy 6:16) God dwells in a light to which no one can come. We must first be changed by Jesus: (Ezekiel 36:26) And I will give you a new heart and a new spirit in you and will take the stony heart out of your flesh and give you a fleshly heart. This happens when we hand over control over our lives to Jesus and follow Him. Many people have already walked on this earth claiming to be Christ. They have all failed miserably and been exposed as a charlatan. Jesus, however, still proves to be the victor over hell, death and the devil. Anyone who tries it out seriously can experience that. So there are e.g. in the Muslim realm millions of people who have personally seen him and whose life has completely changed, not because they themselves have changed, they could not, but because Jesus Christ made them new people.

 

Jn 10:11 I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.
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The sheep, that means all people who have entrusted themselves to him, who follow him. As a shepherd watches over his sheep, takes care of them and leads them, Jesus wants to be there for his own. Like a good shepherd who loves his sheep and, if it is necessary, even uses his life to save them, so is Jesus. He has committed his life and surrendered to save us from certain death, because there was no other possibility and we are so immensely valuable to him that there is nothing, neither in heaven nor on earth, that could keep him from us good goal to bring eternal life in God’s glory. Whoever belongs to him experiences security even in the worst storms of his life (which still exists). Now nothing can separate us from him, neither hell nor death nor devil. The only prerequisite: We must want it and entrust our lives to him. Moreover, since Christ’s Ascension, Jesus Christ has been our intercessor with God our Father in heaven. He represents us in all matters. This is an indescribable comfort for our persecuted siblings.

 

Jn 11:25 Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live

This world is a world of death. Everyone is once “tuned”. The reason for this is described on the first pages of the Bibl

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e: People have turned away from their creator and sustainer. But without him we are mortified. That’s why Jesus became human like us. His oversized love drove him to it. He could not watch us getting lost. He defeated death for us. He completely repaid all our debts. For that, he died on the cross, representing us. As confirmation that he has conquered death and Satan and that they no longer have power over him (and all those who belong to him), God raised him from the dead on the third day, as he had predicted (the resurrection of Jesus Incidentally, the best witnessed event in the history of the world and is denied by any historian). He ascended into heaven, whence he came from. Now he sits at the right hand of God and represents us. Anyone who hangs on him will thus also be resurrected and live eternally in God’s indescribable glory. This is of the utmost importance: all this applies only to the one who entrusts Jesus with his life. All others will be pronounced guilty before God’s judgment without Jesus and forever lost !!

 

Jn 14:6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way and the truth and the life; nobody comes to the father because of me.
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Jesus is the way, not a way among many. There is no other. He is the truth in person, he can not lie because he is God. We can rely unconditionally on his word. No one can come to God, our loving Father in heaven, if he does not cling to Jesus Christ, believes and trusts him. But whoever does that, he can be absolutely sure that he will come to God, the Father, there is no mistake! Jesus Christ came from God and he has returned to HIM. He is the only one who knows the way to God the Father. He is the only one who has ever seen the Father in Heaven face to face. He is the side of God revealed to us. Only through him can we know what God is like. In Jesus we look directly into the Father Heart of God. Jesus says (John 14: 9), “He who sees me sees the Father.” Here the saying was: “The way is the goal!”. He who is on the way with Jesus, has already arrived, for he already knows our Father in heaven because Jesus and the Father are one!

 

Jn 15:5 I am the vine, you are the vine. Whoever stays in me and me in him brings much fruit; because without me you can do nothing.
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“The last shirt has no pockets,” says an old folk saying. Nobody can take anything beyond the death line. We are all the same. But stop – not quite! Jesus compares himself here with a vine. The grapevine provides the vines with vigor and vital juice and makes rich fruit grow on them. This is also how Jesus Christ is doing: He supplies his people with his power so that their lives become a blessing for others as well. Those who follow Jesus Christ and serve him, accumulate treasures, which also have him “heaven”, in the world of God and can never be worthless or even lost. Detached from it, we can do many things, but fruit that reaches into eternity, there is not – without him, our bags will be empty.

 

Conclusion

God Himself came to us in Jesus Christ. The Jews did not believe him then. Too great, too unbelievable for them was this claim of Jesus to be the Son of God. That was blasphemy for them, which had to be punished with death. God does not come to earth as a human. They knew him: he was the son of a carpenter from Nazareth in Galilee – a man, not a god! Also, what good can come from Nazareth? That’s how they thought. But what they did not think or perhaps did not know: The human Jesus was a direct descendant of David, to whom God had promised a successor whose kingdom should be an eternal kingdom and whom death could not keep: (Ps. 16:10) For you will not let my soul die, and will not admit that your saint sees the pit (1. Chronicles 17, 11 – 14).

(Ps. 145, 13) Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and your reign lasts for and for.

He was born in Bethlehem, the “city of David,” as Scripture had predicted (Micah 5: 2) and announced by angels. There are hundreds of promises in the Old Testament, the Jewish Bible, concerning Jesus. They are filled in his person – all except for those who refer to his return.

Jesus says, “If you do not believe me, believe the works that I do, that you may know and know that the Father is in me and I in him” (John 10:38).
Jesus, through his descent from David, is not only true man, but at the same time true God: Mary, his mother, was visited by a messenger of God who explained her (Luke 1, 31): “Behold, you will conceive and give birth to a son ‘Thou shalt give it the name of Jesus.’ When asked how this could happen, since she had never slept with a man, the angel said (Luke 1, 35):

 

And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.
At the time of his birth, the shepherds in the fields near Bethlehem appeared angels announcing to them the birth of Jesus, the Savior and Lord of the world.

 

How do you feel about Jesus Christ? Do you believe that he is the Son of God who came into the world to pay our guilt and reconcile us to God, who shows us God and wants to live with us, you and me? If you believe it, invite him to take control of your life and ask him to forgive you. He likes to do it and has been waiting for it for a long time.

 

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