Who Am I?

21 May

One of my favorite contemporary praise songs is called “Who You Say I Am”. It begins with the question “Who am I that the Highest King would welcome me?”

New Testament Christians are not the only ones to be humbled and awed by this question. While preparing to build the Temple in Jerusalem, Solomon asks, “But who is able to build Him a house, seeing the Heaven and Heaven of Heavens cannot contain Him? Who am I, then, that I should build Him a house, save only to burn sacrifice before him?” (2 Chron. 2:6) The Old Testament Jews were constantly reminded of God’s Majesty and man’s unworthiness by the frequently repeated sacrifices they were required to engage in so that they could be considered righteous enough to be reconciled temporarily with El Elyon (Most High God).

These sacrifices originally took place in connection to the Tabernacle constructed in Moses’ time in which the Ark of the Covenant was housed. The Ark of the Covenant was the representation of God’s presence with Israel and it included a “mercy seat” symbolic of the Heavenly place where God is. The Ark had a rough history including its capture by the Philistines in 1 Samuel 4-6. They put it in the temple of their own God with disastrous results, leaving them no choice but to give it back to Israel.

Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection superseded the Old Testament sacrifices with His one-time ultimate sacrifice for sin. If you trust in Jesus Christ as your Savior from the inherent sin of all mankind, then you are made righteous because of Him (1 Cor. 1:30). Even the faith to trust does not come from us, “…it is the gift of God, not of works lest any man should boast” (Eph. 2:8-9). God placed His Holy Spirit in us at the point of salvation as His confirmation of our position in Him. He is the reminder of our unworthiness in the face of God’s Holiness, Majesty, and Justice. But He also reminds us of the mercy and grace God extended to us unworthy souls. It is in worship and praise that we see the magnificence of God’s redemption of our souls, what the Old Testament Jews were routinely reminded of in their physical sacrifices. Where they had a physical “mercy seat” that only the High Priest could approach and only once a year, through the Holy Spirit we individually have anytime prayer access to the real mercy seat in Heaven where Jesus is at God’s right hand (1 Peter 3:22).

Who am I to be a chosen one of God’s children and to speak directly to God? Humbling to think that it makes sense when you read 1 Corinthians 1:27-31: “But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God has chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; and base things of the world and things which are despised has God chosen; indeed, things which are nothing, to bring to nothing things that are, in order that no flesh should glory in his presence. But of Him are you in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption that, according as it is written, He that glories, let him glory in the Lord.”

******************************************************

Here are the lyrics for the entire song “Who You Say I Am” written by Reuben Timothy Morgan and Benjamin David Fielding: