The Beloved Benefactor

Can you imagine a man or woman planning to marry someone when the marriage only benefits the other person? The spouse-to-be brings absolutely nothing to the table — no personal attractiveness, moral character, agreeable personality, or thoughtfulness; no talents, financial assets, social status, or education. Nothing. The relationship is entirely one-sided. We would probably ask, “Why would anyone do that?”

I had a conversation with the Lord recently where He explained that this is exactly what He has done for His bride and for each of us individually. Everything we have, He has given to us.

Purity? We had none of that until He forgave us. He provides the spotless wedding gown and adorns His bride with His jewels. He has supernaturally restored to us a pristine virgin status we did not possess. Our radiant beauty comes from the glory He has placed within us by giving us His Spirit and His new nature.

Did He fall in love with us because we pursued Him? No, He says, “You have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you” (John 15:16), and, “We love Him because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19). Was it our impressive talents which attracted Him? Sorry, those are gifts from Him. “What do you have that you did not receive [as a gift]? Now, if you received it , why do you glory as if you had not received it [as a gift]“ (1 Corinthians 4:7).

Maybe it was our vast knowledge or intelligence. Seriously? Compared to the One Who knows everything? Or, maybe our wealth. “Yes! He must have wanted my $$$ for His kingdom!” Nope. The silver and the gold are already His, as well as the cattle on a thousand hills (Haggai 2:8 and Psalm 50:10). Maybe it was because He saw us as influential, charismatic people who could make Him look good. Ick. Sorry again.

… Not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, and … the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty, and base things …, and things which are despised, … and things which are not, to bring to nothing the things which are: so that no flesh is able to glory in His presence. — 1 Corinthians 1:26-29

Sometimes we forget what we were before we yielded to Jesus. We deceive ourselves into secretly thinking God picked us because of some good He saw in us. We also tend to forget that everything we now have is still only ours because it flows from Him, day by day, moment by moment. We’re not hot stuff now any more than we ever were. It’s all from Him.

In Ezekiel 16:1-14, God paints a picture of the one-sided relationship He had with Israel. He likened them to an illegitimate, abandoned newborn, whom He carefully watched over, waited for, and eventually made His bride. He gave her the only clothes she had — fancy ones, with jewels and a crown. He provided the finest food and every luxury for her. That same story applies to us.

The beauty of all of this is, the Lord does not remind us of our lack in order to shame us. Although He points out that we are nothing without Him, we have His approval. We are “accepted in the Beloved” (Ephesians 1:6). He wants us to feel glad about our total dependency, because He is glad. It is His purest pleasure to give us everything, to be our everything. Giving us all that we are and all that we have brings Him exhilarating joy. It is a mystery beyond anything we can fathom, and brings us into a more profound love for Him as we contemplate it.

__________________________________________

 

 

Before Whom We Stand: The Everyman’s Guide to the Nature of God,
by Lee Ann Rubsam

 

 

 

 

The Names of God,
by Lee Ann Rubsam

 

Free Online Intercessor Course

The class is filled.

You can still contact me to be put on a waiting list, in case someone backs out. Waiting list names will given first chance when we do this course again at a later date.

Do you desire to grow in your ministry of intercession?

12-week online Intercession course

Weekly sessions on Saturdays, 10:00 a.m – 12:00 p.m. CST

March 6 through May 22

Our time together will be partly teaching and partly praying together, putting into practice what we learn. You will learn to flow in the leading of the Holy Spirit.

12 spots available

E-mail me at leeann@leeannrubsam.com if you are seriously interested in committing to the 12-week course.

(A couple of additional weeks will be available at the end of the course for anyone interested in starting/leading a prayer group of your own.)

______________________________________________

 

 

The Intercessor Manual,
by Lee Ann Rubsam

 

 

 

 

 

Your Intercession Questions Answered,
by Lee Ann Rubsam

 

 

 

 

 

The Intercessor’s Companion,
by Lee Ann Rubsam

 

 

Waffles — A Dream

Recently, I had a dream which encouraged me, so I want to share it with you. Maybe the message I got from it will bless you, too.

I was in my kitchen with a woman younger than I, and I decided to make waffles for her. I rummaged through my cupboard for waffle mix, which I knew had been in there for a very long time. I wondered if it would still be any good. I found it after quite a bit of looking, and determined it was still in good shape.

I also looked for eggs in the fridge. I discovered a long-forgotten eighteen-egg carton at the opposite end of the fridge from where I usually keep them. (I normally buy eggs by the dozen, not the larger cartons.) I was really concerned about whether the 18-pack was still good.

I began baking the waffles, but I kept getting distracted with other things I was doing around the house, so I wasn’t watching the waffle iron carefully. But the woman took care of them once, and my husband Paul did too, so they didn’t burn.

I had no idea at first what this dream was about, but it didn’t look good on the surface. Was God telling me I was “waffling” on something? I don’t even like waffles! And why was I finding food that had been lying around WAY too long in my fridge — again? You see, I have dreamed multiple times through the years about finding food in my house which has long since gone past its suggested shelf life. I hadn’t understood these dreams — but they always made me feel rather guilty. I often thought, “Maybe God is telling me I’ve wasted opportunities through not paying attention, or neglect, or not stepping out in faith.”

And now I could add to my failure list that I was waffling on some unknown point. Yep! That good old passage in James 1:6-8, about wavering in faith and receiving nothing, because “a double-minded man is unstable in all his ways.” Oh, ouch! I thought I had gotten past fretting about that one! AND, I neglected to watch those waffles, so other people had to rescue me from nearly having a burnt disaster in the waffle iron. Another mess-up. Sigh!

Well, the good news is, when the Lord finally showed me what the dream meant, it wasn’t about my failures at all. It was all good stuff. (This is why it is important to wait on Him for interpretation, because His meanings defy our natural-minded ideas.)

The Lord explained that the food that had been sitting around too long was not spoiled. It was just stored up for use at the right time. It was there when I needed it, waiting to be rediscovered. In my dreams, eggs generally speak of promises, because eggs are things not hatched or birthed yet, but they will be. In fact, the Lord said as part of the interpretation, “The promises of God never expire.”

I hope you will take heart in that word. Maybe you received some promises from the Lord a long time ago, and they haven’t happened yet. Maybe you have either given up on them or forgotten about them.

THE PROMISES OF GOD NEVER EXPIRE.

The carton of eggs I had neglected to use was an 18-pack. For me, eighteen means maturity, because we legally go from being a child to an adult at that age. So, I was finally going to use those long-forgotten promises, because I had now matured enough to come into them. That’s the way God usually works with promises. He waits to fulfill them until we and our circumstances are ready.

Then there was the part about me tending to other stuff and forgetting the waffles. They would have burned if my friend and my husband hadn’t helped me watch them. We often serve the Lord in multiple ways all at the same time. That’s normal. And we don’t have to be a one-man show, doing everything to perfection all by ourselves. We need other believers to assist us. God made us as individual members of His Body, incomplete without the other parts. We are intended to complement each other and work together. None of us does well if we try to go it alone.

What can we take away from this? If you have old promises, take heart. Don’t wallow in guilt, thinking maybe you messed them up in some way so that you no longer qualify. Most of the time, you haven’t ruined your promises, even if you did a few things wrong. God will bring them forth at the right time. They haven’t expired. Pray about them. Ask God to resurrect them when He’s ready.

Don’t think you have to do everything perfectly all by yourself. Let other people help you. Together we do better than what we can possibly achieve all by ourselves.

I’d love to hear your comments, questions, or your stories about how old promises suddenly came to light again.

_______________________________

 

 

The Dream Book: A Practical Guide to Christian Dream Interpretation,
by Lee Ann Rubsam

 

 

 

 

 

Hearing God Through Your Dreams
(audio seminar)
by Lee Ann Rubsam

 

 

 

That You May Know and Believe

Isaiah 43:10 — “You are My witnesses,” says the LORD, “and My servant whom I have chosen: that you may know and believe Me, and understand that I am He….”

This verse caught my eye several months ago, and I began meditating on it then. Little did I know at the time how the Lord would use it to speak to me about prevailing intercession in the face of impossible circumstances.

The Lord has a deep yearning that we would know Him and believe Him — not just believe in Him, but believe Him. If we’re honest, many of us have a hard time doing that.

The believing does not happen without the knowing, so let’s explore what knowing Him means first. It involves understanding His nature, which comes about through intimate prayer and past experience, but especially through seeing His revelation of Himself in His Word. I wrote about this at greater length in a recent post, Prophesy in Sync with God’s Heart (Part 2). The more we know the Lord, the easier it is to believe Him: to believe what He says and have confidence that He won’t go back on His word.

This is the kind of faith Abraham grew into. James 2:23 tells us, “…Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him as righteousness, and he was called the Friend of God.”

Abraham’s wife Sarah also eventually matured into this testimony: “Through faith also Sarah herself received strength to conceive seed and was delivered of a child when she was past age, because she judged Him faithful Who had promised” (Hebrews 11:11).

Knowing God’s nature fueled Abraham’s intercession to save Lot and his family.

And the men [angels] turned their faces from there and went toward Sodom. But Abraham stood yet before the LORD. And Abraham drew near, and said, “Will You also destroy the righteous with the wicked? What if there are fifty righteous within the city? Will You also destroy and not spare the place for the fifty righteous that are therein? That be far from You, to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked, and that the righteous should be as the wicked — that be far from You. Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?” — Genesis 18:22-25

Abraham pleaded his petition on the basis of God’s righteous character.

Knowing God also was the motivation for Moses’ intercession for Israel in Exodus 32:9-14, when God was angry with them for the golden calf. The Lord threatened to destroy them and make Moses’ descendants His nation instead. Many have used this passage to say Moses changed God’s mind. I don’t think so. Moses knew God’s nature and presented his case according to it. He reminded the Lord of the promises He had spoken to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He argued that it was not in His character to renege on those words, for the sake of His own integrity. I submit to you that God knew from the get-go that He could trust Moses to contend with Him for what was right. Moses’ intercession was in oneness with God’s heart, and as a result, he prevailed.

When you know Him — what His character is, how He thinks, what is important to Him — you can stand in the gap in intercession fearlessly, assured of the outcome. 

We are in a time of great crisis in the United States and even across the world right now. Many of us are looking for God’s miraculous intervention on a scale far greater than we have ever seen Him do in our lifetime. We know His nature and His voice. We can’t deny what He has said. Now is the time to believe Him, no matter how convincing the “stuff” around us looks to the contrary. We may not know exactly how He will do it or His timing, but we know that He will.

Let’s continue to intercede relentlessly. Let’s watch with expectation and see what the King will do.

________________________________

 

 

Your Intercessions Questions Answered,
by Lee Ann Rubsam

 

 

 

 

The Intercessor Manual,
by Lee Ann Rubsam

 

 

Prophesy in Sync with God’s Heart (Part 4)

You who are younger, submit yourselves to the elders. Yes, all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility: for God resists the proud, and gives grace to the humble. — 1 Peter 5:5

How much we should apply this familiar verse to the realm of prophecy! If we want to communicate the thoughts of God’s heart to others, there is no getting around cultivating a spirit of humility.

Notice that God gives grace to the humble. When we truly prophesy the word of the Lord, we do so by His enablement, His grace. We are dependent upon Him to give us what to say. By His goodness He is allowing us to move in the flow of His Spirit.

What are some indicators we are prophesying from a position of humility?

We have a heart-posture of submission.

1 Peter 5:5 tells us, “Submit yourselves to the elders. Yes, all of you be subject one to another.” This includes our pastors, prophetic mentors and peers, as well as all of our sisters and brothers in the Body of Christ.

Submission is not a popular concept in Western culture. We tend to think of it as letting people walk all over us. That’s not what we’re after here. True submission means we are willing to listen, take advice and correction, let go of our personal preferences in order to serve others, and be open to learning new things.

If you are unwilling to submit yourself, thinking you are a law unto yourself alone, or if you feel superior to others, in the long run, you will not be able to prophesy well. God will give you space and time to learn this principle, but He does not tolerate pride or rebelliousness forever. If you insist on living in them, your words will not continue to flow from the Lord. Pride acts like a plug on the prophetic fountain.

We avoid competitiveness.

Competing with others for recognition or for the most sensational prophetic word is the opposite of humility.

Who among you is wise and endowed with knowledge among you? Let him by his good conduct show his works with meekness of wisdom.

But if you have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not, and do not lie against the truth. This wisdom does not come from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish. For where envying and strife are, there is confusion and every evil work.

But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle and easily entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy. — James 3:13-17

A competitive attitude is harder for some to overcome than others, but it is something none of us are immune to.

We admit when we have missed it and ask forgiveness.

Most of the time, if we blow it, it will be in our interpretation more than in the actual word or vision. Even big-time prophets get it wrong sometimes. That’s why the Body of Christ is supposed to discern prophecy: “Do not despise prophesying. Prove all things; hold fast that which is good” (1 Thessalonians 5:20, 21).

It’s OK to wait and see if a prophecy works out in a different way than we anticipated, but if what we have said is blatantly off, it’s important to say, “I was wrong,” and then keep learning and make further attempts. Sometimes our humility is tested most in our willingness to try again after we’ve failed.

We are focused on God receiving the glory.

If we look for the adoration of men for ourselves, we will be sadly disappointed. If it materializes at all, it will be fleeting. The desire for personal recognition is a snare, and many have fallen into its trap. Some have started out well, but have not finished that way. It grieves the Lord when we grasp at glory which is only meant for Him.

When we desire God’s glory above all else, we please our Father exceedingly. A peculiar joy wells up in our own hearts in response to His. Do you yearn for a greater prophetic anointing? That increase will naturally come without striving when you develop a habit of heaving all the credit upon the Lord. In Revelation 4: 10, 11, John saw the elders in heaven casting their crowns at Jesus’ feet. May we do the same here on earth whenever we are applauded for moving well in the gifts of the Spirit.

When we live in humility toward God and people, we make ourselves available in ever greater measure to accurately hear and release the word of the Lord.

Part 1 — Prophesying in Love
Part 2 — You Must Know God’s Nature
Part 3 — Wisdom

_____________________________________

 

 

The Dream Book: A Practical Guide to Christian Dream Interpretation

 

 

 

 

The Spirit-Filled Guide to Personal Prophecy