To be a member of God’s true church, you must be known by the name of Jehovah Shammah: “The Lord is there” (see Ezekiel 48:35). Others must be able to say about you, “It’s clear to me the Lord is with this person. Every time I see them, I sense the presence of Jesus. Their life truly reflects the glory of God.”
If we’re honest, we must admit we don’t sense the Lord’s sweet presence in each other very often. Why? Christians spend their time involved in good religious activities like prayer groups, Bible studies, outreach ministries; and that’s all very commendable, but many of these same Christians spend little if any time at all ministering to the Lord in the secret closet of prayer.
The Lord’s presence simply can’t be faked. This is true whether it applies to an individual’s life or to a church body. When I speak of God’s presence, I’m not talking about some kind of spiritual aura that mystically surrounds a person or that comes down in a church service. Rather, I am talking about the result of a simple but powerful walk of faith as Paul commanded Timothy. “Therefore I remind you to stir up the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind” (2 Timothy 1:6-7, NKJV)
Whether that spirit Paul mentioned is manifested in a Christian’s life or in an entire congregation, it causes people to take note. They tell themselves, “This person has been with Jesus,” or “This congregation truly believes what they preach.”
It takes much more than a righteous pastor to produce a Jehovah Shammah church. It takes a righteous, shut-in people of God. If a stranger comes out of a church service and says, “I felt the presence of Jesus there,” you can be sure it wasn’t just because of the preaching or worship. It was because a righteous congregation had entered God’s house, and the Lord’s glory was abiding in their midst.