Preface
Preface
There is no substitute for Jesus Christ. Only Jesus can save us from our sins and give us the grace we need to live for Him. If you want fullness of life, you have to go to Jesus.
The way we relate to the Lord determines how He will relate to us. “Come near to God and he will come near to you” (James 4:8). Apart from Jesus, we can do nothing (John 15:5). It’s a tragedy for us to have an active life and then at the end discover that nothing we did would last.
No leader, no author, no organization, and no set of religious disciplines can do for us what Jesus alone can do, if we let Him. Even the book you are now reading can merely point the way to Jesus. Divine truth becomes dynamic life only when we yield to Jesus by faith and follow Him. If the founders of the world’s philosophies and religious systems were alive on earth today, they could only say, “I was.” They are dead, and they can’t personally help you. Jesus doesn’t say, “I was.” He is alive and says, “I AM.” He can meet our needs today. He is alive this very moment and offers us a satisfying spiritual life in the present tense. “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Heb. 13:8). Past history, present reality, and future certainty all unite today in Jesus Christ, the great I AM.
The I AM statements recorded in Scripture reveal the depths of the Christian life and how God’s children can go deeper by living with Jesus in the present tense. With Paul we should be able to say, “The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal. 2:20).
Note that phrase: “The life I now live.”
In our memories and imaginations, we try to live in the past or in the future, but this doesn’t produce a balanced or creative Christian life. Someone has said that the “good old days” are a mixture of a bad memory and a good imagination, and I agree. My past may discourage me and my future may frighten me, but “the life I now live” today can be enriching and encouraging because “Christ lives in me” (Gal. 2:20). As we live by faith, a day at a time, Jesus enables us to be faithful and fruitful and content.
God doesn’t want us to ignore the past; the past should be a rudder to guide us, not an anchor to hold us back. Nor does He want us to neglect planning for the future, so long as we say, “If it is the Lord’s will” (James 4:13–17). The better we understand our Lord’s I AM statements and by faith apply them, the more our strength will equal our days (Deut. 33:25) and we will “run and not grow weary [and] … walk and not be faint” (Isa. 40:31). We will abide in Christ and bear fruit for His glory today—now.
That is what this book is about.
Warren W. Wiersbe