07/01/2021
We desire to praise and worship God, and His Son, the Lamb of God, and yet so often we feel lost as we attempt to do so. We kneel in our prayer closets, and offer up prayers in bowls made of gold, and yet they all seem to fall short. We lift our hands and close our eyes in reverence, but just can’t seem to feel the presence of God. This can be what we experience in places constructed in the world with human hands, but when we come before the eternal throne of God, and Grace, where we prostrate ourselves, then our praise suddenly takes wing, and our worship glows in glory because here we find the Father, and the Lamb of God, prepared to receive us into themselves as we join with all heaven and creation in praise, and worship.
“And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, saying, “To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!””
Revelation 5:13 ESV
We shouldn’t consider our prayer closet to simply be a sanctuary that we retreat into in order to find solitude, or a safe place where we can pray into another world; it should be the place where heaven and earth become one. We should not pray in the silence of our earthly sanctuary, hoping our prayers will reach heavenly heights, but offer our praise and prayers, amidst the symphony of heavenly worship as it is ongoing around us. Our expectation should be that Heaven and earth are as one in our prayer closet. Here we should do more than find God, because wherever He is so is Heaven. Listen to me carefully… our desire shouldn’t be to go to Heaven, but to be in Heaven. Our prayers and praise aren’t being transported to another place where God will hear them, no, they are in his ears the instant we offer them, because He is in us, and we are in Him. Jesus taught us to pray “on earth as it is in heaven”…
“Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”
Matthew 6:10 ESV
And He also told us this…
“In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.
Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, “Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world?” Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.”
John 14:20, 22-23 ESV
So when we convince ourselves that our prayers are simply leaving our lips to begin a long journey to some faraway place, that is called Heaven, where God is, then we are limiting the reality of where God, and heaven, truly are. Our place of prayer is much more than a quiet spot where we can construct an appropriate prayer… it is that place where heaven and earth are one, and we experience this without any distraction from the cacophony of sin that is swirling about us; it is a place where the fallen world is shut out. Let’s enter into our places of prayer today with the full understanding that we are stepping into God Himself… entering into Heaven, whispering into the ear of the divine.
Prayer:
Father, thank you for opening our eyes to who you are, and where you are. Thank you for allowing us a glimpse of Heaven each time we are with you. Thank you for our places of prayer, praise, and worship, where we can be together before your throne without distraction, and let our tears, and laughter surface without the judgement of others, or the self-consciousness brought on by the world outside our closet. Holy, Holy, Holy, are you our God who separates us unto yourself. Praised be your name always, and accept our worship as we prostrate ourselves before your throne, and humbly bury our faces before you. Merciful are you who sent your Son Jesus to redeem us, and to lead us into you, into Heaven, into the Holy Spirit… into the groanings of our prayers. Your grace flows over us Father, and in this way we are cloaked by Christ in the divine robes of Heaven, and prepared to be with Him in your throne as heirs, and joint heirs.
“I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows. And I know that this man was caught up into paradise—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows— and he heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter.”
2 Corinthians 12:2-4 ESV
Rich Forbes