By confession of my sins I am now prepared to request entrance into the presence of our Holy Father, the Almighty God. As a holy God, He cannot abide the presence of unrepentant evildoers in His sight—save for the express purpose of one making confession (and one or two other possible exceptions which are off-track for this discussion).
I am assured of my forgiveness and have confidence of approaching His Divine Throne Room because of these (and other) Scriptures.
Ephesians 3:11 According to the eternal purpose which he purposed [carried out] in Christ Jesus our Lord:
12 In whom we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of him.
Hebrews 10:19 Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus,
20 By a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh;
21 And having an high priest over the house of God;
22 Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.
1 John 1:7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.
8 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
10 If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.
We now request entrance.
O my heavenly Father, who lives and dwells within me by your Holy Spirit, may I approach your throne of majesty and mercy?
That request, in itself, contains praise and reverence. But if I hear a “no” in my mind, I know immediately that (a) I have conscious knowledge of some sin which I refused to confess (which is a further sin and shame, shame, shame on me! or (b) there is a sin which I have not confessed, but of which sin I am not conscious or aware and perhaps He wishes that I pause and reflect and become aware of it and then immediately make sincere confession of it, or (c) there must be some other reason.
However (c) is much more likely to be a situation where I do not hear “no,” but instead, I just hear no answer at all. That can be because my mind and spirit are restless and I am unable to focus properly on seeking to enter the Divine Throne Room. If that is the case, the cure can be as simple as asking for it. For example,
Father, I did not hear an answer. If I have unconfessed sin, please bring it to my conscience now that I may acknowledge (confess) it. And/or I am feeling restless in my mind, would you kindly give me a spirit of peace that I may commune with you?
Another reason I may hear nothing is because for whatever reason, a thousand possible reasons—perhaps dinner is burning on the stove in the kitchen and I need to take immediate action. Hearing nothing should be and, in my experience, is a very rare occasion.
But given that I hear a welcome to enter in, I immediately offer from my lips praise and worship.
Thank you, Jesus, my great King! Thank you, Father, for allowing me to enter in to your holy presence!
By the way, I have found that actually using my lips to form the words out loud or at least in a whisper is very helpful in staying focused. But oftentimes, either late at night as I am going asleep or just waking up, I am praying silently, and it is a good way to fall asleep…or gradually awaken.
Then immediately upon entering in, or thinking that we have entered in, we must always do this to ascertain that we have indeed “reached the right number” in the spiritual realm. How do we do that? Here is the answer.
1 John 4:1 Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.
But how do we “try the spirits?”
1 John 4:2 Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God:
3 And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God…
Thus, immediately upon entering in, in my mind and spirit I simply ask the spirit to self-identify by asking some variation of the following:
Has/is Jesus the Christ (or the Messiah, or ) who has come in the flesh to save the world?
This is almost always answered by my hearing, “Yes,” or any of numerous variations, such as “Yes, indeed.” (Readers recall that in a previous lesson, I mentioned how He speaks to me in my own dialect, in words and language which I will best understand.)
One time, I was surprised as I heard. “Yes, we have!” Which upon a bit of reflection is simply an acknowledgment of the triune God.
Usually, we humans almost always associate laughter with joy, happiness—good things in general. But there is the rare situation in real life (but we have all certainly seen it dramatized in movies, TV shows, etc.) where we see/hear an evil laughter.
Thus, on another occasion or two I was shocked but then realized in a few seconds that I had “reached a wrong number.” That is, I was connecting to an evil spirit/demon.
This was many years ago when I thought I had entered into His Throne Room and I was asking the Father for my various requests. But I was getting very unusual answers.
I cannot recall specifically what they were, but I was very puzzled, even to the point of being dumfounded by what I thought were answers from El Elyon, the Most High God. Then it occurred to me that I had jumped right into presenting my prayer requests but I had forgot to “try the spirits.”
Then, upon “trying the spirit” with the proof question, I “heard” a very wicked, roaring, mocking-type of laughter. Again, momentarily stunned, because that was not merely unusual, but I had never heard that kind of very mean, angry, mocking and consummately evil response before.
So I started over by requesting entrance again, and immediately after my lips voiced my praise and thanksgiving for being granted entrance, I asked the proof question again. This time, it was a most gracious “Welcome, my son!”
With all the above, you can see why I emphasize the importance of testing the “comm link,” discerning with which spirit/Spirit we have connected. Once we are assured of our connection with the Holy Spirit, we can proceed with presenting our requests to Jesus our King and our heavenly Father.
(To be continued.)
~END~
