Accessing God’s Presence

Do you long to experience God’s presence more than you now do? If you are a believer — one who has accepted Jesus’ atonement on your behalf and who has yielded your life to His Lordship — you don’t have to jump through hoops to get there. You don’t have to follow a ritual, say a certain set of words, or ask God’s permission to enter into His presence. He invites you to perpetually live there.

Let’s see what the Bible has to say about this:

Psalm 91:1 — “He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.” This first verse of this beloved psalm is the gateway into all the other promises it contains. God desires for us to constantly live in His presence.

John 15:7 — “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you shall ask what you will, and it shall be done for you.” John 15 starts out with Jesus telling us He is the vine, and we are the branches. If the branch is not attached to its source, the vine, it withers and dies. The implication, once again, is that we are meant to stay attached to Him continuously (and thereby also to His presence). We are not meant to come and go.

Under the Old Covenant of the Law, there was a specific form which had to be followed exactly in order to enter the presence of God.

The progression for getting into the Lord’s presence started with the outer court of the tabernacle/temple, where sacrifices were brought to be burned on the altar by the priests. Past the outer court was the Holy Place, where the golden lampstand, the table of showbread, and the incense altar were. Only the priests were allowed in the Holy Place. Finally, there was the Holy of Holies, where God’s presence rested upon the mercy seat of the Ark of the Covenant. The high priest was the only one who ever got there, and then only once a year. If he did it wrong, he died.

That was all before Jesus’ atonement on the cross.

But what happened when Jesus said, “It is finished”? The curtain which divided the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies in the temple ripped, from the top down. God had torn the veil between Himself and the common man. He made the way of access to Himself available for every believer, and it all came about through Jesus’ once-and-for-all sacrifice of Himself. His blood forever speaks for us on the mercy seat in heaven.

Too frequently, we hear Christian leaders inviting us to perform certain steps to “get into the presence” of God. It sometimes involves a sequence of actions they want us to take, much like passing from the outer court, where we spend time reflecting on and repenting of wrongs we have done. Some teachers talk about making a “sacrifice” of some sort, in order to enter an intermediate “holy place,” where we praise and worship for a period of time. After the leader feels we have praised and worshiped sufficiently, he might invite everyone into a process of saying certain ritualistic words, such as asking God for permission to enter into His courts. Then, after we have done all the right stuff, we can confidently come before the Lord with our requests.

Ugh! It’s not right. The apostle Paul exhorts us to “rightly divide the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15), and this ritualistic attempt to gain favor with the Lord so we can enter His presence is not discerning the divide between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant in Christ. It is coming back under the Law, but not with animal sacrifices like the Old Testament saints did. Now it’s got a new spin — still with ritual attached. In the process, we have forgotten the veil is already rent, so that we now have the privilege of dwelling in God’s presence.

I love both private and corporate worship, and yes, I understand that spending time adoring the Lord makes us feel nearer to Him — rightly so. With all the distractions we experience on an hourly basis, we tend to forget to stay in our dwelling place in Him. Worshiping the Lord helps us draw near again. It lifts us out of our everyday distractions. Really, it is not that we have stopped being in God’s presence; it is that we have become unaware of His nearness.

In the prayer gatherings my husband and I lead, worship is our first priority. Before we head into intercession, we spend time worshiping God with the help of music which lends itself well to that goal. It helps us all to lay aside the busyness of the day, to settle in, and focus on the Lord. As we all get our attention fully centered on Jesus, His presence does seem to be more tangible to us as a group. But mostly, we worship Him because He is worthy, not so we can experience the goosebumps of feeling His nearness, and certainly not to butter Him up so we get our prayers answered!

The Lord wants us, heart and soul. He wants our attention. And, He wants us to come to the place of recognizing that we have constant access to Him — not through steps and forms, but because He has thrown open the way through His Son. He wants us to see ourselves as living continually in His presence, not coming and going on visits to His throne room.

We have the Holy Spirit living, breathing, and burning in our hearts at all times, always wanting to remind us that not only do we live in His presence, but He has brought His presence right into our hearts. He is always there inside. You don’t have to go through rituals to be catapulted into His audience. You might not always “feel” Him, but He’s still there. Believe His promise, and make it your goal to grow in your awareness of your constant union with Him.

 Seeing then that we have a great high priest, who has passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession.

For we do not have a high priest Who cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but one Who was in all points tempted like we are, yet without sin.

Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need. — Hebrews 4:14-16

Come boldly, because Jesus has already made the way, and your Father has invited you to live in His presence. Come boldly, because the Holy Spirit’s dwelling place is now inside of you. Live in His fire, His counsel, His love, and His peace. Because He said you can.
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Yes and Amen
God’s Promises from Genesis Through Revelation

(Choose from King James Version or Modernized King James Version)

Before Whom We Stand

A Word from the Word

Photo by Na Inho on Unsplash

Sometimes, when the Lord gives me a simple word, He just wants me to savor it for an extended period of time. As I do that, the word becomes precious, something I won’t easily forget. He builds more understanding of its meaning into my heart as I continue thinking about it. That’s the way it has been for a couple of months with Hebrews 12:2, “Looking to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith….” It’s about keeping our eyes fixed steadfastly on Him, no matter what’s going on around us.

For a few weeks now, I have been in quite an intense time of intercession over a particular matter. I’m glad the Lord highlighted this part of Hebrews 12:2 before the crisis that I’m lifting heavenward began to unfold. As many of you know, when we are in the middle of serious intercession we can get weighed down in our emotions. That’s when “looking to Jesus” / “fixing our eyes on Jesus” is most critical.

Shortly after first hearing the message of Hebrews 12:2, the Lord also highlighted Psalm 109:4 to me: “For my love they are my adversaries: but I give myself to prayer.” (Some translations say “but I am in prayer.”). This goes hand in hand with fixing our eyes on Him. The best solution to a problem is to set aside our own thoughts, arguments, or fix-it plans and just go to prayer about it. We deliberately take it to the Lord and expect in faith that He will work it out as we persevere in interceding.

There’s one more thing we should do to keep our hearts peaceful in the middle of troubling situations or heavy prayer assignments. Psalm 119:78 reveals it: “Let the proud be ashamed; for they dealt perversely with me without a cause: but I will meditate in Your precepts.” We keep God’s Word before our mind’s eye — what it speaks of His nature; verses promising answers to prayer; His principles of purity, truth, goodness; His promise of a glorious future with Him forever.

If you don’t know where to start, try reading, listening to, and thinking on particularly uplifting sections of the Bible, such as the Psalms, the Beatitudes in Matthew 5, and some of the smaller New Testament epistles.

If we tie these three concepts together and consciously practice them

• Keeping our gaze upon Jesus,
• Staying in an attitude of prayer,
• Continually reminding ourselves of what His Word says,

we will live in a place of joy and peace we could not possibly maintain otherwise. We will think the thoughts of God. And, our intercessory prayers will be powerful without making a wreck of us in the process.

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Encouragement from God’s Word

All-Surpassing Peace in a Shaking World

The Table Is Set

Image by Jordan Stimpson from Pixabay

Some years ago, the Lord said to me, “My halls are ready. My table is set.” I was startled, as I had not been thinking about anything like that at the time. But I immediately knew He was speaking of the Lord’s imminent return for His bride and the marriage supper of the Lamb.

It does not take much imagination, as we look around us, to know that we are in the last of the last days. Unthinkable wickedness abounds at greater levels than we ever imagined. We see that geologically, the earth is shuddering and convulsing at an accelerated rate. The climate appears to have gone bonkers. Mankind, hard as we try, has been unable to solve pollution, new diseases, insect populations gone wild, technology developments which have escaped our grasp, and on and on it goes. In fact, we, in our humanistic attempts to better ourselves, have caused many of the problems.

Even though it’s been a while since I heard, “My halls are ready; My table is set,” the lapse of time does not dismay me, for I know what 2 Peter 3:8 says: “But, beloved, do not be ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” Our Father in heaven does all things perfectly. He will send our Lord Jesus to receive us at the very best moment.

Peter gives us a reason why He still waits: “The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some men count slackness, but is long-suffering toward us, not willing for any to perish, but that all would come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). He delays because of His great mercy.

How should we respond to the seemingly long wait until Jesus appears for us? First of all, we are to occupy until He comes (Luke 19:13). We serve the Lord in whatever ways He directs us to, using our time well, especially in sharing the good news of Jesus in every way we can.

You no doubt are familiar with the story of the five wise and five foolish virgins, found in Matthew 25:1-13. We must keep our “lamps” full of oil, having reserve oil stored up within ourselves, in case He takes a while yet before He comes. How do we do that? By making sure our lives stay filled up with the Holy Spirit through prayer, the Scriptures, worship, and fellowship with other fervent believers.

We are to “love His appearing” (2 Timothy 4:8). Hebrews 9:28 tells us “…To them who look for Him He shall appear the second time, without sin, unto salvation.”  Jesus exhorted His disciples time and again to be watching for Him, to be ready for His return, because we do not know the day or hour when He will come. (See Luke 12:35-44; Matthew 24:36-44; Mark 13:32-37; Luke 21:36; Matthew 25:13.)

I truly shudder when I hear Christians say Jesus will not come back for a long time yet. They haven’t heard that from the Spirit of God, for it contradicts what Jesus Himself said and what His apostles reiterated throughout their epistles.

Whether your end-times belief is pre-Trib, mid-Trib, or post-Trib makes no difference to me. While my understanding of the Scriptures causes me to lean toward a pre-Trib catching away (Rapture) of the saints, the Lord once explained to me that no one’s eschatology is completely right on all points. I can live with that. I think we all have to live with that until it unfolds. Then, how events play out will make perfect sense.

In the meantime, we need to be diligent to be ready, setting right the areas where we are not living purely, waiting expectantly, knowing that He could come at any moment, just because He said He could.

Occupy until He comes. Make sure your “lamp” is continually filled with the oil of the Spirit. Be ready at all times. And love His appearing.
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Yes and Amen: God’s Promises from Genesis Through Revelation
(KJV or Modernized KJV editions)

All-Surpassing Peace in a Shaking World

Heading into 2023

First of all, I want to wish each of you a Christ-filled, blessed Christmas this year! Thank you for reading my blog posts — many of you for years now. Every time someone takes the time to comment or e-mail me to say you were touched or that a particular post was just what you needed, I am blessed.

As we wind down on 2022, I thought I’d share what I am sensing God is saying for 2023:

Get your running shoes on, and fine tune your headset to God’s frequency. We need to be ready to run with Him, and to do that well, we must clearly hear His voice.

I know, I know. It’s short, and maybe not earth-shattering. But whatever we do for Jesus can have a far-reaching impact, if we just make ourselves available to Him, be prepared to go, and then do it when He calls our name.

My prayer is, “Lord, clear out the static from our minds. Help us to hear You clearly, and to respond quickly to Your promptings. Our day of increased activity for You is on the horizon.”

“I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, ‘Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?’ Then said I, ‘Here am I; send me.'” — Isaiah 6:8
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Lord willing, I will be doing a free online 5-week course on Christian dream interpretation fairly early in 2023. If there is a lot of demand, I will do it twice, as I want to limit attendance to about twelve per class. In a couple of weeks, I will have more details for you.
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AND, for those of you who need a last minute gift, here’s an inexpensive idea which could change someone’s eternity! (How about that?)

Do you have a loved one who is not a believer, but is seeking? How about one who is new to being a Christian or is shaky in knowing what they believe? Before Whom We Stand: The Everyman’s Guide to the Nature of God (affiliate link) may be just what they need! (This is the Amazon link, because they can still get it to you or your loved one before Christmas, while I can’t guarantee to do that.)

Before Whom We Stand
(affiliate link)

Until next year! And God bless you! ~Lee Ann

 

Moving on with God

It was a sad time in our lives, nearly twenty years ago. Our beloved church of nineteen years went through a horrendous upheaval, changing us all forever. We had experienced the deep, abiding presence of God (in every service!) during a mighty, sovereign move of God which lasted nearly nine years. I frequently said to the Lord in my heart, “I will never go back to anything less than this.”

Then, the unthinkable happened.  Our dear pastor fell apart emotionally and resigned. People were understandably wounded by the sudden loss and resulting change. Many blamed the pastor, each other, and even the revival we had experienced and loved for so long. The division between us was heartbreaking. God’s presence could no longer be felt in our services.

The day came when a new pastor was hired, and the reaction of some went beyond relief to an idea which shocked me. I heard several people gleefully saying, “Isn’t it great? Now we can go back to the days of ‘Pastor Jones'” (a previous pastor from before the time of the revival). And I thought, “They can go back if they want to, but I can never go back.”

Now, I had very much enjoyed the ministry of “Pastor Jones” myself, back in the day. He was a wonderful person and one of the most accurate Bible teachers I have ever heard speak. But God’s presence was not mightily, tangibly felt among us then, except on rare occasions when the Spirit moved. It was not what I had since tasted and was unwilling to ever step away from again. Our family moved on.

While I couldn’t agree with them, I did understand why people wanted to go back to what they had known a decade before. They wanted to forget the deep pain by reverting back to an era remembered for its stability and comfortableness. Our human nature loves those things. The unknown makes us nervous! 

The Israelites reacted the same way, once Moses led them out of Egypt. When they were challenged by their journey through the wilderness, even though God was taking care of them all along the way, they became uncomfortable, complained, and reminisced about how great it had been in Egypt — totally forgetting that they had been abominably oppressed in slavery there!

They were willing to live without the demonstration of God’s power, as long as they knew what was coming next.

While our natural tendency is to cling to the comfort of the familiar, God wants much more for us. He is always moving forward, and He loves to take His people on new adventures. However, we often prefer to camp in what appears to be a safe spot. We need to realize He is not a stay-in-your-comfort-zone kind of God. As C. S. Lewis put it in The Chronicles of Narnia series, Aslan (depicting Jesus) is not a tame lion, and neither is He safe.

You know, while God is not “safe,” He always keeps us safe when we move ahead into new territory with Him. (His “new” always stays within the boundaries of Scripture, so, as a caution, if we’re into something new which is not in keeping with His Word, it’s not really the Lord leading it.) But He does want to expose us to new things, planned in detail by Him.

It will often look scary in the moment. We might question Him, “Why is this happening?” “How are we going to get out of this place?” “Do You see what’s going on? And aren’t You going to do something about it???!!!”

He might explain things to us, or He might simply say, “I know what I’m doing. You’re just going to have to trust Me and know that I’ve got this.”

Every one of us, if we are going to experience all the Lord has for us, must make a conscious choice. We can be like the Israelites, who desired to go back to Egypt and the life they had known there, or we can swallow hard, take Jesus’ hand, and agree to let Him lead us into unfamiliar, seemingly unsafe territory, keeping in mind that we are always safe with Him.

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The Intercessor Manual

The Dream Book: A Practical Guide to Christian Dream Interpretation

A Nail in a Sure Place

I love the names of God, especially because He is so intentional in revealing His nature to us through them. In His names, He invites us to know Him intimately — how He thinks, what He feels, how He acts.

One of my favorite names is “a nail in a sure place.” It is a hidden reference to Jesus, the coming Messiah, found in Isaiah 22:23.

The backstory starts in Isaiah 22:15, where God sends Isaiah to inform Shebna, the proud, self-serving treasurer under King Hezekiah, that he is about to be replaced by another man, Eliakim. God says,

And I will clothe him with your robe, and strengthen him with your sash [indicating official authority], and I will commit your government into his hand. And he shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and to the house of Judah.

And the key of the house of David will I lay upon his shoulder: so he shall open, and no one shall shut; and he shall shut, and no one shall open.

And I will fasten him as a nail in a sure place, and he shall be for a glorious throne to his father’s house.

And they shall hang upon him all the glory of his father’s house….
— Isaiah 22:21-24

Eliakim appears as a foreshadowing of the coming Messiah, Jesus, Who is our “nail in a sure place.”

In earlier times, people didn’t have cupboards and closets. So they hung their clothing, pans, and other possessions on pegs or nails, which were firmly secured in the wall. Jesus is like such a nail. He is firmly, unshakably anchored, so that we can hang all our hope and trust on Him.

How do we know the nail in a sure place is talking about Jesus? Because in Revelation 3:7, Jesus specifically applies the previous verse in Isaiah 22 to Himself. He references verse 22 (“And the key of the house of David will I lay upon his shoulder: so he shall open, and no one shall shut; and he shall shut, and no one shall open.”) in telling the Philadelphia Church, “These things says He Who is holy, He Who is true, He Who has the key of David, He Who opens and no man shuts; and shuts, and no man opens.”

In these troubled times, we see institutions and ways of life we have always taken for granted becoming unsteady, crumbling, or even disappearing. Many of us may also be going through personal trials which threaten to shake us to the core. In the midst of it all, we can trust in Jesus, Who is that “nail in a sure place.” He will keep us steady.

He is also the One with supreme authority to open doors of His choosing before us and to close doors which would only mean harm to us. He opened the door of the ark to Noah’s family, but closed it to the wicked when the time of repentance had passed. He opened the Red Sea to the Israelites, but closed it upon the Egyptians.

So, when life is shaky, remember that Jesus is your “nail in a sure place.” He is available — and eager — to take care of you.

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The Names of God
An alphabetical list of over 650 names and titles of God in the Bible

He Calls You Beloved
An alphabetical list of the names God gives to us in the Bible

  

 

 

What Is the Gospel of the Kingdom? (Part 4)

I love the watchcry of the sentries in David and Karen Mains’ allegorical trilogy, Tales of the Kingdom (Amazon affiliate link):

“How goes the world?”
“The world goes not well, but the Kingdom comes!”

We are members of a very real kingdom which is now, but not yet. In Romans 16:20, Paul says, “And the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly” — not yet, but soon.

Hebrews 2:7-9, quoting Psalm 8, says of mankind, “You made him a little lower than the angels. You crowned him with glory and honor, and set him over the works of Your hands. You have put all things in subjection under his feet.” But it then comments, “For in putting all in subjection under him, He left nothing that is not put under him. But now we do not yet see all things put under him. But we see Jesus, Who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor….” Jesus is crowned with glory and honor, but we have not yet come into that glory.

In the meantime, we are to do the works of Jesus. I truly believe we will see the Church moving in great supernatural power in the near future. We look for a worldwide great awakening, with multitudes of people coming into God’s family. As glorious as all that will be, it should not be our end-all focus. It is merely preparation for what comes next.

The Rapture (meaning the catching away) is yet ahead of us. 2 Thessalonians 2:1 calls it “our gathering together unto Him.”  We will be caught up in the air to meet Jesus, and we are promised that “so shall we ever be with the Lord.” This will be resurrection time for those who have died trusting in Christ, and it will also be the time when believers who are still living will be “changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye.” We will all receive our glorified bodies together.

In our day, many who profess to be Christians openly scoff at the literal catching away of the Church. They spiritualize it away, and ridicule those of us who still believe in it, calling us ignorant or even heretics. It is time to reread 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 and 1 Corinthians 15:49-54, and to again take these passages at face value for what they say.

Also coming is the marriage supper of the Lamb. Again, this is not some mystical experience to be minimized or explained away. It is a real, tangible event yet to come. If the ending chapters of Revelation are in chronological order (I believe they are), this marriage event takes place in heaven before Jesus returns to physically rule on earth (Revelation 19:7-21). The apostles believed in a literal marriage supper of the Lamb, Jesus taught about it in the gospels, and we should believe in it, too.

Revelation 20 tells us that Jesus will physically reign on earth for one thousand years. The Old Testament prophets speak at length on what this time of “the restoration of all things” (Acts 3:21) will look like. We will be with Jesus then, for He has promised that we will always be wherever He is (1 Thessalonians 4:17; John 14:3).

Finally, after Satan’s last rebellion, we will see a new heaven and earth, with the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven. We are given glimpses of this era of the kingdom in Revelation 21 and 22, but we really cannot fully comprehend what it will be like. John put the end-time events this way: “Beloved, now we are the sons of God, and it does not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is” (1 John 3:2). God has wonderful surprises awaiting us.

No matter how much we study the Bible on the end times, no one has the complete picture of how it will all play out. I lean toward a pre-Tribulation catching away of the Church. Others feel it will happen mid-Tribulation, post-Tribulation, or somewhere in between. We shouldn’t get into unkind arguments about the details. When everything is complete, we will all see some elements of our theology which we didn’t get quite right, but it will all make sense in the end, down to the last detail.

The important thing is to look for King Jesus and for His glorious Kingdom to come — His way. He will be “the desire of all nations” (Haggai 2:7) in that day. We live in expectation of a perfect future together, where “the Lamb is the light” (Revelation 21:23). It will be far more wonderful than we can imagine, for “eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him” (1 Corinthians 2:9). 

May His kingdom come and His will be done. “Even so, come Lord Jesus.”

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

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

River Life: Entering into the Character of Jesus,
by Lee Ann Rubsam

The Fear of the Lord

Last week, my husband and I were at a worship gathering where the focus of the evening was the fear of the Lord. The fear of the Lord encompasses many things. The most obvious is that when we fear Him, we hold Him in unutterable awe and reverence. The Bible speaks of trembling before Him: “Do you not fear Me?” says the LORD. “Will you not tremble at my presence…?” (Jeremiah 5:22).

The Bible also gives us a word picture in Revelation 1:9-18, where John, the beloved disciple who had rested upon Jesus’ breast during His earthly ministry, sees Christ in His glory and falls at His feet like a dead man.

Besides the awe and trembling aspect, we know that “the fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom” (Proverbs 9:10).

But as I pondered the fear of the Lord in that worship setting, what gripped me big-time is that when we fear the Lord we trust in Him and take Him at His Word. This is probably a major area where most of us fall short in reverencing Him. It wounds His heart when we harbor unbelief over things He has clearly promised in the Scriptures and in personal promises He has given us. When we don’t trust and believe Him, we insult the very core of His nature.

I know, I know. Circumstances sometimes scream loudly in opposition to what the Bible promises say. We’ve seen too many people that the Word “didn’t work out for.” I don’t have any answers for those things, except that we don’t always have the complete information and we don’t fully understand the timelessness of God’s plans. I struggle with the seeming failures as much as you do. But I felt the Lord was impressing me with the idea that it is time to forge ahead in trust — and in unswerving belief — no matter what it looks like. That is challenging, and yet it is what He is calling us to do.

Part of our struggle with fearing the Lord by persevering in trust and belief is our desire for independence. We want to think we can fix our own problems. It’s hard to stop ourselves from frantically searching for answers generated by our own ingenuity. This is why self help books have become so popular. Fearing the Lord involves humbling our hearts before Him and admitting to God (and ourselves), “I can’t do this. I need You. I lay myself at Your feet, utterly dependent upon You.” Personally, I find it more than a bit scary to not be in control of things. Maybe that’s you, too.

So, what can we do about our lack of trust and belief? About our low level of the fear of the Lord? Of course, we’ll need to continually renew our mind with Bible passages which assure us that God is trustworthy, good, willing to help, and an absolute promise keeper. The more we read and meditate on His nature, the more we are able to place greater confidence in Him. Recalling God’s past faithfulness to us, and then thanking Him for what He has already done, can also be a faith lifter. We can ask Him to show us quickly when we are starting to fall into the old patterns of unbelieving thought and action, so that we can correct course.

But I think the main step is to admit our shortcoming and cry out to Him to bring a supernatural change within us. Just like we often can’t fix whatever problems we are facing, we can’t make our lack of trust and belief go away just by determining to do better. If our fear of the Lord is woefully small, the Holy Spirit is the only One Who can truly rectify that. He just wants us to ask and keep asking.

I pray for our nation to experience a sovereign work of the fear of the Lord, so that believers and nonbelievers alike know the Lord’s majesty and tremble before Him. I pray for myself and for those of you who are diligently seeking Him that we would experience the fear of the Lord in a far greater measure than we already know it. May we get to that place of awe-filled utter dependence on Him that is unshakable. May He do it by His grace and power.

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River Life: Entering into the Character of Jesus,
by Lee Ann Rubsam

The Intercessor Manual,
by Lee Ann Rubsam

Broken, Repaired, Valued

“New Kintsugi” by Kate at Flickr.com. Creative Commons License 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0). Image modification applied: blurred background.

Kintsugi (golden joinery) is the ancient Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with a glue mixed with gold dust. The thinking behind it is, what has been broken and put back together again is beautiful. The vessel is appreciated for both its original appeal and how it has been artistically restored. The imperfections are there for all to see, but now have become part of the object’s charm. The piece has not only survived, but is now lovelier and stronger than it was before.

I was reminded of this intriguing art form and the concept behind it when I saw it in a vision as I meditated on Romans 8:28: “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.”

No matter what happens to us in this life, God always turns it to our good. He will not allow anything less, as we put our hope and trust in Him. Not one life-shattering episode is wasted or ignored by Him. He is committed to using every bad thing which comes our way, whether it’s something beyond our control or a consequence we bring on by our own foolishness. And He deliberately transforms us so that we possess greater beauty than we had before all that pain and loss devastated us.

In fact, Jesus’ body was broken in the Atonement so that we could be put back together again. He still bears the nail prints, but they are glorified. I wonder just a little if that’s the way it will be for us in the resurrection — if the emotional scars will still show, but somehow they will be glorified, making us even more indescribably beautiful.

We tend to have a throw-away mindset in Western culture. It’s hard for us to understand someone valuing a shattered vase enough to painstakingly put it back together again. And yet, that is what God wants to do for each of us. Perhaps that is why, according to Isaiah 61:3, Jesus came “to appoint to those that mourn in Zion, to give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, so that He might be glorified.” 

If you have been broken, bruised, or chipped by life, know that it isn’t over. God offers you a powerful promise in His Word, in Hosea 13:9 — even if the reason you are broken is because of destructive things you have done to yourself: “…You have destroyed yourself; but in Me is your help.” Your heavenly Father is waiting for you to cry out to Him to fix or reverse the damage, no matter how severe it is. He is able, willing, and eager to restore you. He will lovingly pick up your pieces and put them back together.

He loves you and values you just as you are right now — but He won’t leave you there. He’ll fashion you into a new and better work of art.

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All-Surpassing Peace in a Shaking World,
by Lee Ann Rubsam

How to Pray and Read the Bible,
by Lee Ann Rubsam

The Names of God Updated Edition

Many of you have purchased my booklet, The Names of God, through the years. It is an alphabetical list of God’s names and titles as found in the King James Version, along with their Bible references.

I am pleased to announce that The Names of God is now available in standard paperback at Amazon (affiliate link) and other online book retailers for the first time. (I also carry the new edition at my website.) The e-book version has been updated, too. Both editions now include about 30 more names in the main list (now more than 660 names), as well as additions to the Hebrew names and the “Who” names / characteristics chapter.

I have also added a chapter at the beginning called “Knowing His Name.” In it, I share insights the Lord has given me on why knowing His name is important — to us and to Him!

I hope you will enjoy this updated, expanded version of The Names of God.

There is also a free listing of the names at my website for you to enjoy. It does not have as many names the book does, since I quit updating the web page some time ago. It does not include the Bible references, either. Still, it’s a good place to start, and I hope you will be blessed by it.

You may also like my page, He Calls You Beloved. It is a list of endearing terms God uses for His people in His Word (KJV), done in the same style as the names page.

~ Lee Ann