Exodus 3:10-14
Come now therefore, and I will send thee unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth my people the children of Israel out of Egypt.
11And Moses said unto God, Who am I, that I should go unto Pharaoh, and that I should bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt?
12And he said, Certainly I will be with thee; and this shall be a token unto thee, that I have sent thee: When thou hast brought forth the people out of Egypt, ye shall serve God upon this mountain.
13And Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me, What is his name? what shall I say unto them?
14.And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.
Exodus 6:3 and I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by [the name of] God Almighty, but by my name JEHOVAH was I not known to them.
In all of Life God has always been a relational God. At the core of his Agenda when creating Man was relationship. In Gen (1:27) Let us make man in our image, after our likeness...God created Man for one sole purpose: relationship. In the Garden of Eden it is recorded that God habitually visited Adam in the cool of the day just to fellowship with Him. When we don't realize this we fall short of His expectation for our lives. Indisputably God has created us in order to relate with us at a higher level than any other being that He ever created.
The first relational being failed at this but yet we still find God yearning for the same experience and all over Genesis we see him looking for someone that he would establish an intimate relationship with(John 4:23 Yet the time is coming, and is now here, when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth. Indeed, the Father is looking for people like that to worship him.)
In Jehovah’s quest for someone who would meet His need for worship and relationship He stumbles upon Abraham in Ur of the Chaldeans. God tests Abraham at different levels to find out what was in his heart. Abraham passes the test and qualifies to become the prototype of what he would do with the future generation of the nation of Israel and the gentiles who would later become sons of God.
Genesis 22 :1 Sometime later God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!”
“Here I am,” he replied.
2 Then God said, “Take your son, your only son, whom you love—Isaac—and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.”
Genesis 22:15 The angel of the LORD called to Abraham from heaven a second time 16 and said, “I swear by myself, declares the LORD, that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, 17 I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies, 18 and through your offspring[b] all nations on earth will be blessed,[c] because you have obeyed me.”
By Abrahams Offering to give that which he treasured the most without seeking for public opinion. This great deed was only between him and God not even His Wife knew about it. This act earned a place in the heart of God that he became the friend of God and God declared him righteous out of this expression. Our heart has a way of reveling what is in us whether we are after God for his hand or his heart can only be revealed by what is in our hearts and that is why God says that man looks at the outside but He looks at the heart for that is where our greatest secrets and motives are hidden
God created us with the innate abilities to relate with each other so that we may be able to know and understand how to relate with Him. Consequently He has placed in our lives different levels of relationships so that we can learn to relate with him at different levels: He has given us earthly fathers so that we may learn to relate with him as our father, earthly mothers so that we may understand his nurturing capabilities and earthly lovers so that we may learn to relate with Him as our Lover and Friends so that We may Esteem him as the friend who sticks closer than a brother. Undoubtedly our Heavenly father is a Relational God!
In the opening scripture above we encounter the children of Israel who are in bondage are sighing for reason of their taskmaster. The children of Israel while growing up had heard a lot of yarns about the God of their forefathers: Abraham, Isaac and Jacob .Relating it with their present circumstance in Bondage -it did not make sense. The bible says that they kept on crying to Him day and night until their cry reached God and he remembered his covenant. Right around that same time there was a fugitive in the name of Moses who had given up on His youthful dream of liberating the Israelite and had retreated and relegated himself to taking care of his father in law's sheep. He was so engrossed in his new found occupation that God has to distract him with a spectacle to behold- the burning bush that wasn't getting consumed. At the back side of the desert God appears to Him and commissions him to go and deliver the children of Israel from bondage. Of course Moses knowing how the old sages who used to recount the oracles of God were knew what to expect. He knew that these same sages who acted as leaders for nation of Israel would demand to know what kind of God He was referring to that had sent him. At that particular time time the whole world was into idolatry which meant that the existing religion of the time had different kinds of God for different purposes.
