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Transcript
Episode 4: Entering the Throne Room
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Intro: Welcome to the Encounter Jesus podcast, also known as the ‘feel like Jesus is hugging you today’ podcast. I’m Elizabeth Ellynshaw, and today we will be talking about one of my absolute favorite things to imagine when I pray. We’d been talking about what changes in prayer if we imagine that Jesus is sitting on the sofa in the room where we are praying. That’s one way of remembering that we are really entering His presence and having a meeting with God when we pray. But what if, instead of picturing this meeting with God by picturing Jesus in our world, we picture us going up to His world? What if we imagine that we are going up to the glorious throne room of God in heaven and kneeling before His throne when we pray? Because guess what? Even though we can’t see that that’s happening every time we pray, the Bible says that it really is!
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Prayer: Father, I come before Your throne of grace to ask that today’s podcast would be a field trip up to Your heavenly throne room, and that each person listening would experience that and encounter You there in such a way that they never ever stop going back for more. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Content: The whole book of Revelation depicts the throne room of God in heaven as the most interesting place in the universe, it’s this control center where all the events we see on earth happen from, full of saints and angels and heavenly beings worshiping and responding to God’s decrees, hearing what He says from His all-powerful throne and agreeing with it and announcing it and carrying it out. There’s so much activity going on.
And when we pray, our prayers are going to that control center. We are going there with our requests. If we start imagining what is true, there is so much to see!
The first reason to imagine this heavenly control center is that the Bible actually commands me to. Paul said in Col 3:1-2. “If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth.”
Right now Jesus is sitting at His Father’s right hand in the heavenly control center, and we are commanded to set our minds on where He is, not just remember it once or twice, but imagine it and care about it and think about it as much as we possibly can, because Jesus is there.
And someday, we are going to be there. Jesus promised the church in Laodicea,
“To the one who is victorious, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I was victorious and sat down with my Father on his throne.” (Rev 3:21)
But not only will we go there someday, the Bible says we already came there in the unseen realm when we came to Jesus for salvation. Hebrews 12:22-24 says,
“…you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to countless thousands of angels in a joyful gathering. You have come to the assembly of God’s firstborn children, whose names are written in heaven. You have come to God himself, who is the judge over all things. You have come to the spirits of the righteous ones in heaven who have now been made perfect. You have come to Jesus, the one who mediates the new covenant between God and people.”
We came to this incredible heavenly kingdom in the unseen realm, even if we didn’t realize it at the time. So how awesome would it be to start realizing it? Even more exciting, in the same unseen realm where we came when we came to Jesus for salvation, we continue to come before God’s throne every time we pray.
Heb 4:16 “Let us therefore, [because Jesus is our high priest], come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”
And another reason we should be obsessed with God’s presence on His heaven throne is that not only is Jesus there, not only are we going there someday, not only are we already entering it in prayer without even realizing it, but in some mysterious way, we are already located there. Ephesians 2 says that we are so united to Jesus that in some way God has already seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. When He sat down, we sat down, and when He appears, Col 3:4 says, we will appear with Him in glory. So we belong in this heavenly place. If it’s our true home already, we might as well start thinking about it.
But most of all, I love to imagine and remember and believe I’m entering God’s presence and throne room when I pray because entering the throne room transforms prayer. It changes everything.
Firstly, in the throne room, we will worship without trying to. When we imagine coming into the throne room where sinless angels are falling on their faces before the Lord of glory and melting in adoration of Him, where some of the most powerful created beings in the universe are covering their faces with their wings to stay alive and crying out “Holy, holy, holy!” Where millions of angel servants are standing at attention ready to be sent anywhere and do anything, where the strategy meetings of God and His angel captains are happening where He reveals the plan and gives the orders that will determine the destiny of all creation, and where Jesus Himself is praying, sitting at the Father’s right hand with all authority in heaven and earth given to Him, we won’t have to think, “Oh right, wasn’t I supposed to say a few worshippy things before I jump into asking for stuff? I always forget to do that!” We’ll just be on our faces in awe and wonder and loving every minute of it.
Remember I said there’s so much activity going on in the throne room, that it’s the most powerful and exciting place in the universe? When we pray, we get to interact with what’s going on in there and take part in it, we get to go before God in heaven and ask Him to do things on the earth, we get to offer ourselves up to be part of His mission, we get to hear what He’s saying and agree with it and adore Him and worship Him like the saints in heaven and the angels do. We get to start doing now what we will do forever. And when we fix our eyes on what’s really going on in the throne room, we will be filled with courage and assurance that God is winning and that prayer is the most powerful thing we could possibly do.
In the throne room we will also start to listen before we ask. You don’t barge into a king’s throne room and start asking for your request without noticing what’s already going on in the King’s presence and making sure you aren’t interrupting anything. We will enter with worship and fall on our faces and wait and listen to hear what is going on, what is the King doing, what is He saying, what is He commissioning His angels to do, what is Jesus praying about our situation, what is God decreeing, and instead of prayer being about us coming up with what the world needs and persuading God to start caring about it, prayer becomes about hearing and agreeing with what God is already decreeing and doing, and then worshipping and praising Him for it, and speaking out our agreement to release it on the earth. We’ll pray and declare and proclaim things with so much authority when we know we are agreeing with the One on the throne!
And when we ask, we’ll ask bigger. On earth, if you get the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make a request before the most powerful ruler or king, you don’t waste it by asking “uh, can I borrow 5 dollars from you?” That would actually dishonor the king! No, you ask for something that affects the whole kingdom, you ask for something so big that nobody can do it for you except the king! So as I use my imagination to picture and remember and realize that I’m coming before God as the King on the universe’s ultimate throne when I pray, my prayer requests will naturally, effortlessly get bigger. I’ll feel drawn to ask not just something for myself or one or two people I know, but for everyone in the nation, and for all the nations of the earth! I’ll start dispatching angels to the biggest needs I know of in this world. I’ll start asking for every unreached person in every unreached nation of the earth to hear about Jesus and have the opportunity to believe in Him and be saved! I’ll start inviting the invasion of God’s kingdom into every place I see the dominion of darkness has a hold. And I’ll be so excited to see what my agreement with heaven in prayer will do.
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Question: I invite you to read Revelation chapters 4 and 5, where John is taken up to the heavenly throne room and gives us an incredible description of what he sees, what it’s like, and what is going on there. And then I invite you to have a time of prayer where you imagine kneeling before God—and if your body can, I invite you to physically kneel on the floor or lie on your face on the floor, and then imagine entering that throne room as you begin to pray. You can say the unbelievable words, “Father, I come before Your throne today…” and then let the adventure begin!
(Musical Outro)
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