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Wednesday August 12, 2026
What is an Intercessor?
“God in Himself is nothing but love: we humans are created in His image so that the true ground of our being is the God who is love: but, in the misuses of our freedom, we have turned out backs on our true being in Him, and have been caught up in the illusion of independence and self-loving selves: God has regained us for Himself by becoming one of us as Jesus the Christ: Jesus, as God in the flesh and representing the human race who have their being in Him, by the predetermined plan of God, accepted a death at our hands.
This death, in our stead, has removed the inevitability of our ‘death’ (everlasting separation from the God of our being), has cleansed away the guilt of our sin-life (continual breakings of the law of love), and has delivered us from ‘the wrath to come’ (the unavoidable effect of our rebellion against the love-law of the universe). Raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, the resurrection was the evidence that all that had to be done in our stead has been done; therefore, we can regard ourselves in God’s sight as those who are without sin, justified, righteous in Christ’s righteousness.
But also this death, as being we who died on that cross, has cut us off from the Spirit of self-centeredness, that false God which had immersed humanity in his great delusion, for death is separation of a body from its spirit: and this resurrection, it being we who were buried with Him and raised with Him, was the Spirit of self-giving, the Spirit of love, the God who is that Spirit joining Himself to us, removing the hindrance (the false possessor) to our discovering Him as the God of our being.”
Taken from: The Spontaneous You
By Norman Grubb
Pages 37-38
“We all come to the cross for salvation, then we take our place on the cross for our union, and we now can take up our individual cross for the world, if we are willing to. The first two are necessities, the third is voluntary. ‘Take it up, If you wish,’ and this time for others.
The first form intercession takes is commission. The Spirit causes me to know that there is something He will do, and do it by me, specifically. It is not something I sought, but it sought me. I’m simply caught by it and cannot escape. I just find myself immersed in it and obsessed by it. So get this clear: It is not a matter of my running around and trying to find my commission. No, it finds me. It is from the Holy Spirit. Don’t try and find such a commission. That will be the old snare of self-effort. If not conscious of such a specific commission, then I can say to the Lord who is living His life by me, ‘If You give me such a commission, You’ll make me know it. If not, I just tell You I am ready.’
Such a commission is no passing thing. It is not a prayer I can take up and put down. It is not participating in various interests and activities. It is ‘This one thing I do.’ It will be the main drive of my life until it is gained.
Then when conscious of the commission, I respond like Isaiah, ‘Here am I; send me.’ By that I mean my body is wholly available, which of course includes my soul with its emotions, and my concentrated thought-processes. And somewhere along that line is coming travail and death. There will be a price paid equivalent to a death; but there again we do not seek that out or make it up. He brings us into it and through it. We may not even recognize the death process until we are well into it. It may mean literal sacrifice of all that goes with our body living: our time, our faculties, our possessions, our finances, our homes, and usually most costly and common of all, our reputation. Misunderstanding and even opposition may arise in our own family circle, among our friends, our social circle, our church fellowship, or right out to the public. As we go through or have gone through our intercession, we shall well know where we have died.”
Taken from: Yes, I Am
By Norman Grubb
Pages 239-240





