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#248 When Prayer Opens Heaven · The OneCry Podcast

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  Our greatest experiences in prayer are most like Heaven, where Earth begins to recede
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  and Heaven begins to open to us, and we are allowed into the throne room of the King,
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  and everything is changed.
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  Welcome to the OneCry Podcast, a nationwide call for spiritual awakening.
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  The goal, accelerating the movement of God through sharing revival truth, stories, and
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  reports.
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  Well, welcome to the OneCry Podcast.
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  I'm Kyle Reno with my partner in crime, Bill Eliff.
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  How you doing over, buddy?
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  I am fine.
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  And you know, this crime business you keep talking about, I mean, I've had a traffic
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  ticket or two, but that's about it.
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  But anyway, I am your partner.
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  You are my partner.
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  Maybe I handled the crime part pre-Christ on our behalf, so.
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  Yeah, yeah.
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  You were on a road to more crime than I ever was, I'm afraid.
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  But anyway, it's great to see you and it's great to have our guest with us.
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  Yeah, man, I know it's a privilege to be able to do this each week and to just take a moment
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  and Lord willing, help each and every one of us to think more deeply about what it means
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  to follow Christ, but also to be positioned for a move of God personally and in your church.
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  And it's all things that we know that we want to do.
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  But if we're honest, Bill, we often don't do the things that we know we need to do.
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  And so I got a story for you.
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  You ready, Bill?
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  Raising a bunch of kids and you know all about this.
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  And my twins specifically, you know, seven years old, they can shower and bathe, you
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  know, on their own, do those kind of things.
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  And hey, we help them get stuff laid out.
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  But I was just evaluating the rags one day that for shower time it happened and I felt
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  like, man, I don't feel like there's any soap on that, like involved in this and maybe we
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  need to go back and just re-evaluate our bathing processes here.
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  And so I was having a conversation with one of their twins, not to be named Lincoln, and
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  I asked him, I said, hey man, the rags wet, but I don't feel like there's any soap on
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  this.
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  And it was like, he's like, forgot that part.
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  And I was like, how long have we been not doing the very thing that's needed?
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  So I felt like an apology needed to go out to all of his classmates and everybody that's
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  been around him.
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  So it was sometimes we need to be reminded, don't we, Bill, about the things that we need
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  to be doing.
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  Yeah.
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  And, you know, one of the greatest areas and of course an area that we are really passionate
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  about on our OneCry initiative and the OneCry podcast is just this whole area of prayer.
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  I mean, you know, it's amazing.
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  I don't know, Kyle, if we could do a poll of all of our listeners, of any congregation
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  at any moment and ask them, how many of you are really satisfied with your prayer life?
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  It'd be nobody.
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  I don't know, even great men and women of prayer are not satisfied, probably they're
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  least satisfied.
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  And I've thought about that because, you know, you've heard forever this quote, I tried to
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  trace who it's attributed to, but that our greatest failures are always related to our
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  failure in prayer.
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  And you think about that, there's a real truth to that because prayer is what brings
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  God into the equation.
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  But I think people do what they want to do.
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  If I want to go to a ball game, I go to a ball game.
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  If I want to watch a television show, I watch a television show.
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  People do what's valuable to them.
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  And if that's true, why don't we pray?
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  You have to just say, well, we don't see the value of it.
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  I mean, does that make sense?
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  We just don't think it's valuable.
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  And I think that part of that, Kyle, is that people see prayer, and the devil has constantly
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  whispered this to us, that prayer is this duty that we've got to do.
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  Prayer is, it's not really effective, he says, you know, he just whispers all these
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  lies into us.
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  You tried that and it didn't work.
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  You prayed for your son and he still got sick, you know, and on and on and on till prayer
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  is just really minimized in our minds and hearts, and so it's not valuable.
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  And so, you know, Donald Whitney, in his great little book on praying the scripture,
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  says that one of the reasons people don't pray is they just get bored in prayer, praying
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  the same old thing about the same old thing.
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  And they don't know how to pray.
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  They don't know how to have substance in their praying, but we don't realize what it is.
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  And today, in an extraordinary passage of scripture that people have probably never
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  viewed in this light, we're going to see how prayer is so valuable.
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  I want us to look at Luke chapter 9.
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  In Luke 9, three times it says Jesus went aside and he was praying.
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  He went aside and he was praying.
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  He drew away and he was praying.
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  And one of those is found in Luke 9, beginning in verse 28, and it says that Jesus took Peter,
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  John, and James, and he went up on the mountain to pray.
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  And as he was praying, the appearance of his face changed and his clothes became dazzling
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  white.
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  Suddenly, two men were talking with him, Moses and Elijah.
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  They appeared in glory, and they were speaking of his departure, which he was about to accomplish
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  in Jerusalem.
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  And Peter and those with him were in a deep sleep, and when they became fully awake, they
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  saw his glory and the two men who were standing with him.
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  And as the two men were departing, Peter said to Jesus, Master, it is good for us to be
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  here.
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  I mean, this is a good day.
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  This is an extraordinary moment.
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  And let's set up three shelters, one for you, one for Moses, one for Elijah, not knowing
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  what he was saying.
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  I mean, there's no way he could have identified Moses and Elijah, but the Holy Spirit just
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  inspired him to say that.
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  Now here's the deal.
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  What was that moment?
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  How do we describe that moment?
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  What was going on in that moment?
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  And let me tell you what it was.
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  It was prayer.
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  Jesus was praying.
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  And it's intended, I believe, to show us the nature of what real prayer really is.
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  Prayer's not this duty that we have to perform, this thing we have to check off.
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  It's really more.
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  Our greatest experiences in prayer are most like heaven, where earth begins to recede
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  and heaven begins to open to us, and we are allowed into the throne room of the King,
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  and everything has changed.
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  Now if you don't believe that that's a possibility, read Jesus speaking in Matthew 6 about how
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  to pray.
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  And he says, go into a quiet room and shut the door and pray to your Father.
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  Go into your secret place, it would be.
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  And what Jesus is saying is we get to literally open the door, step into the foyer of heaven,
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  and turn and address our Father.
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  And Romans 5, 1 and 2 tell us that we have peace facing God.
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  We have the privilege when we face God to have absolute peace in His presence, and we
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  have the ability to be there because of what God has done for us in Christ.
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  So we have this access into the throne room of heaven, and we have the ability.
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  So we see the transfiguration, and we see Jesus, and He's just going up to pray just
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  like any other time.
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  The guys are so disinterested in it, Peter, James, and Jonathan, they fall asleep.
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  But Jesus starts praying, now listen to this, as He's praying more and more, He's entering
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  into heaven and the throne room of God, and suddenly the distance between heaven and earth
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  is just gone.
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  The distinction, the line between the physical and the metaphysical, the spiritual, it just
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  evaporates, and suddenly we see Jesus, and He's there with Moses, with Elijah, His face
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  is radiant, His clothes become white.
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  What is that?
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  It's the ultimate moment in prayer.
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  Now we have a few more illustrations of that in Scripture, we have Isaiah who saw the Lord
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  high and lifted up, He entered in, and He saw that.
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  We have Stephen as he's being stoned, he looked up into heaven, and he saw all the way to
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  the right hand of God, to Jesus at the right hand of God.
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  We have John who had the great revelation as heaven was opened up to him, and he saw
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  things that no man could see so that he could record them and he could write them down.
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  What was this?
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  This was prayer, and in this moment in the transfiguration, this was the perfect prayer
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  who is Jesus, who obviously prayed without ceasing all the time, constant communication
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  with His Father, and in one rare moment, we see this ultimate moment when He has really
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  experienced the ultimate in prayer in the presence of God in heaven and the presence
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  of some of the great saints that had gone before.
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  Now what's the purpose of that?
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  Well what's the purpose of prayer?
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  It's to have communion with God, it's for God to lift us up into His presence, and He
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  changes our perspective, He expands our thinking, we realize the great agenda of everything.
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  And even more than that, now listen, when they asked Jesus how to pray, He said pray
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  like this, our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, and thy will
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  be done on earth as it is being done in heaven.
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  In other words, what He's saying is, Lord, when we really enter into Your presence in
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  prayer, we get this privilege of setting our minds above and talking to You and experiencing
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  You, and we look around in heaven as it were, and we see what You're doing in heaven, and
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  we want heaven to come on earth.
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  We see Your will that's good and acceptable and perfect, Paul says in Romans 12, 2, and
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  we want Your will to come and Your kingdom to come on earth as it's being done in heaven.
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  And this is the great agenda of God.
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  This is the great purpose of prayer.
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  It's this walking with God in the heavenlies, and what an unbelievable privilege this is.
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  So just, and then being His agent to bring heaven down, to bring heaven to earth.
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  And you just think about this, tomorrow morning when the Lord wakes you up, maybe before your
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  alarm goes off, and He prompts you to get up and meet with Him in His Word and in prayer.
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  And you think, oh, man, I'm so tired.
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  I just want a little more sleep.
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  And you love sleep more than you love prayer.
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  You choose sleep, just a few hours of rest.
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  What is that?
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  Right?
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  I mean, sleep is wonderful, but it's highly overrated in terms of priorities of things.
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  And you choose that over the privilege of entering into His presence, seeing His great
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  agenda, seeing what He's initiated, and the Spirit helping you in prayer, praying, as
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  Ephesians 6.18 says, in the Spirit.
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  And I think what that means is by the Spirit's aid, with the Spirit's help, with His initiating
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  thoughts and ideas in prayer, we miss all of that.
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  And we miss bringing heaven down, bringing the will of God into our homes, into our churches,
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  into our cities, into our nation, into our schools.
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  Why is that so?
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  It's because there's some things that God plans to do through prayer He doesn't plan
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  to do any other way.
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  I mean, don't you realize that He said, you don't have because you don't ask.
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  There are things I'm trying to do in this world that are only going to be accomplished
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  by prayer.
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  And you, Christian, you are my agent.
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  You are my representative.
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  And I have provided a way through the blood of Christ for your sins to be forgiven, for
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  you to have an introduction by faith into this grace in which you now stand before the
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  throne of God, and for you to be able to see and hear from me, and then to bring heaven
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  down.
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  I wrote a little blog on this a few days ago.
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  I just want to read the last paragraph, Kyle, to us, and we can talk about it, and then
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  we're going to pray.
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  And I said this, why does God reveal this account of prayer?
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  Perhaps it's to lift our petty weak view of intercession, help us to see that prayer is
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  more, that prayer erases the physical bonds that tie us down and create low expectations.
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  It's to help us long for deeper experiences of intimacy and fellowship with the one our
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  hearts long for.
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  It's to help us realize we can enter by faith into the throne of heaven, shut the door,
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  and talk to our Father in heaven.
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  It is to fill our soul with the glorious vision of what is and what can be, and what
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  one day will be ours in glorious reality, and it is, now listen to this, it is right
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  now to arm us with world-changing, devil-destroying, specific, Spirit-initiated intercessions for
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  the souls of men and the kingdom of God, for our battle is not flesh and blood.
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  This is our privilege, and we can say with humble and tearful eyes, our birthright as
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  His blood-bought family, why would we settle for less?
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  It's just so much more.
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  Even as you're walking through these passages of Scripture, one, I hope we didn't miss this,
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  and I encourage our listeners, you referenced in that Luke 9 passage, it says, He went to
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  the mountain to pray, and as He was praying, this transfiguration, so He went to a place,
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  and then once He got there, He started praying, and as He's praying, the glory of God descends
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  on the Son of God in such a way that's tangible, manifest.
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  We read that, and we think, good for Jesus, and I think what God's saying is, no, that's
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  here for you.
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  It's here for you to find yourself in the presence of God in such a way that it transforms
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  you, that it changes your likeness.
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  I remember I read an article years ago, Bill, by Tim Keller, in heaven now, probably one
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  of the great minds and theologians of recent years, and he wrote this article about radiant
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  faces, and the whole article was about what happens when men and women are in the presence
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  of God, and that it changes our likeness.
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  He said, you keep, and he shows all these places in Scripture that where people would
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  recognize God on someone, you know, and the whole point of the article was, which was
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  just awesome, is that, hey, if you spend enough time with anybody, it changes you.
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  You start looking like them.
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  Yeah.
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  You start looking like them, talking like them, all those things, and he was saying,
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  the point of it was, spend time in the presence of God, and people will sense God in your
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  presence.
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  You know, and what you said there, Kyle, about these little words, he went up to the mountain
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  to pray, and as he was praying, as he was praying, guess who was with him?
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  Guess who he took with him, hoping that they would enjoy that experience too, Peter, James,
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  and John, and guess what they chose to do?
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  They chose to sleep, and they could, you just think about it, Jesus brought them in to this
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  moment so that they could experience that also, and they had just said, Lord, teach
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  us to pray.
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  They just asked him, and it recorded Luke 9, so he tells them how, and then he takes
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  them up to have this prayer experience, and to show them that prayer is more than mouthing
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  some words.
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  Prayer is entering into heaven, and yet they just, they chose to sleep, and I'm telling
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  you, it's a rebuke to us because Jesus wants to take us there, and yet we choose to sleep,
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  and to do a thousand other things that are absolutely meaningless.
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  Well, there's so much here, I just, we could spend hours talking about this, and I had
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  never, I'll tell you something interesting, Kyle, a few mornings ago when I began to see
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  this, I had never really thought that much about the transfiguration.
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  You know, I could recite it to you, I could tell you the details of it, but I had never
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  really seen this as just one of these ultimate moments in prayer, and what that teaches us
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  about prayer, and what we can experience in prayer, and so as I was, it was in my normal
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  reading, and I just said, I said to the Lord in prayer, Lord, would you show me what the
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  transfiguration means, before I start reading, I said, I don't understand this, just show
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  me something, show me what that means, and all of a sudden, my mind began to be opened
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  up to all of this, so it was just a direct answer to prayer, in that moment, about prayer,
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  it's just so beautiful.
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  It works.
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  Let me tell you something that's interesting, Bill, there's another blog post here for you
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  that you could articulate, because that doesn't end there, it comes right out of that, and
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  it says the next subsection there, on the next day, when they had come down from the
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  mountain, okay, so transfiguration, he's prayed, and he comes to this account, or short version,
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  and I was reading, as you were articulating, I got caught up in this thought, here is a
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  man whose child was being tormented by a demon, and he comes to Jesus, as Jesus has
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  just come down from the place of prayer, and he says, hey, I have begged your disciples,
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  begged them, to help my child, but they can't, and then Jesus was like, Jesus's response
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  to that was like, you faithless generation, and then the Lord sets the kid free, and I
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  think, man, you know what's missing here, is that the disciples had not been experiencing
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  what Jesus had just experienced, and so they were not ready, to bring heaven down, but
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  to bring heaven to earth, he was, he was, and so he came down in authority, sets the
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  child free, but his disciples, and he thought, man, how sad is it, here's a man begging the
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  disciples of Jesus, begging, in one sense, praying to them, saying, can you not help
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  me, help my kid, or get my, help my kid find freedom, yet the disciples didn't know how
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  to beg God on behalf of this child, but Jesus did, because he's been with it, you know,
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  he comes down in the authority of Christ, just amazing.
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  Well, so much to learn. I would just challenge our listeners, pick up your Bibles, and ask
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  the Lord to open your mind, and study this passage, and just study the transfiguration,
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  ask the Lord to show you what it says to you, about your praying, right, and about your
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  prayer life. You want sleep, or you want to step into heaven, and experience the glory
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  of God. You want to be equipped to bring heaven down, into the lives of dads, and their sons,
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  who are in turmoil, or do you want to just be asleep, and walk down into the world, and
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  you're unequipped, you're ill-equipped to be able to do all that. So, Kyle, let's pray
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  for this, and why don't you just pray for our listeners, and all of us, that this would
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  be a reality in our lives. Yep, let's do it.
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  Lord, I thank you that you live this, Jesus, that we have passages of Scripture, that we
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  can lean over, and see through the Scripture, how you made this a priority, Jesus, that
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  you paved a way for us to pray, that you literally paid the price, and then showed us perfectly
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  how to find a place, and really commune with the Father, and that in that, we might be
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  transformed. And so, God, I pray for every listener, I pray for Bill and I, Lord, I pray
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  you'd help us to believe this rightly, to rightly believe, and then appropriate, Lord,
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  live into that truth, that time with you in prayer transforms us, changes us, makes us
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  ready for everyday ministry, makes us ready for when people that are hurting need hope,
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  need help, Lord. So, I just, in the name of Jesus, would you bless the prayer life of
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  every listener in fresh ways, fresh ways, and I pray you'd give them some mountaintop
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  moments, moments where they're just with you in a profound way, that shapes them, marks
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  them, and I pray in Jesus' name, amen. Amen, Bill, thank you for leaning over and
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  praying, about you praying, because it was a help, this is awesome truth. I'd encourage
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  our listeners, don't just hear it, do something with it, make some decisions right now about
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  how you're going to so position yourself tomorrow morning, to experience the presence of God
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  in prayer, and then if this was helpful to you, share it with somebody, man, help spread
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  the word, because it will help more and more people experience the presence of God.
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  Honored to be on the journey with you guys. We look forward
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  to being back with you next week. We're praying for you. Have a great week.