GK Chesterton was asked by The Times newspaper to write on the topic “What’s wrong with the world?”. He simply wrote: “Dear Sirs, I am. Sincerely yours, GK Chesterton”.
It’s easy to identify things that are wrong, or that we don’t like, in others. However, when I accept that maybe “I am” the problem, I get closer to answering that question. You see, despite all my good intentions and best efforts, I have a natural inbuilt tendency to get things wrong, to mess things up.
Jesus spent a lot of the time saying, “I am”. “I am the Bread of Life”, “I am the Good Shepherd”, “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life; nobody comes to the Father except through me”. He got into a lot of trouble for saying “I am”. The religious authorities knew that he was deliberately using the very words that God used to describe himself to Moses and that by saying “I am” he was claiming to be God. So, eventually they killed him. But three days later, he who had also said, “I am the resurrection and the life”, was standing in front of his disciples with his new resurrection body that could eat fish but also appear and disappear at will.
Because of all that Jesus has done, I have a new life and can sing the lyrics from one of my favourite songs: “I am a new creation, no more in condemnation; here in the grace of God I stand”.
Andy Osborne
King’s Lynn Christian Fellowship