Why a Prayer Room Matters

PRAYER OF CONSECRATION

Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you. 

Jesus, I belong to you.

I lift up my heart to you.
I set my mind on you.
I fix my eyes on you.
I offer my body to you as a living sacrifice.

Jesus, we belong to you. 

Praying in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen. 

John 14:2–4

My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going.”

If ever there were a text where I think we modern-day readers of the Scriptures have missed the point it is this one. Think about when you have most heard this Scripture read. I’d be willing to bet it was at funerals. I know that’s where I have heard it a hundred times, and also read it myself. “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God. Believe also in me.” And in good King James fashion, “In my Father’s house are many mansions. If it were not so I would not have told you so. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.” 

Maybe I am in the minority report on this, but as I read it, Jesus is not here talking to his disciples about going to heaven when they die. Now, before someone picks up something to throw at me, hear me out. I am not raining on the parade of going to heaven when we die. Scripture clearly establishes this truth. It just doesn’t do that in John 14. So if John 14 is not about a mansion in the sky, what is it about? Thanks for asking. 

I am admittedly taking on too difficult a subject in such a short space, so I’ll do my best. The context here is not a funeral but final preparations for a sequence of cataclysmic events—namely Jesus’s death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and sending of the Holy Spirit. Jesus clearly addresses the living not about their death but his death and not about “some sweet morning when this life is over,” but right here and right now. He is talking to them and us about our relationship with himself during his physical absence. 

I am going there to prepare a place for you

This is not a distant future place but a right here and right now place. He is creating a “room,” a meeting place; might I suggest, a prayer room, and in Heaven no less. 

And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back

He is not here referring to his “second coming” but rather to the coming of the Holy Spirit. Hear what he says a few verses later in chapter 14:

And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. (John 14:16–18)

Stay with me. By the Holy Spirit, the presence of Jesus is with us on Earth. This is how he comes to us and is “with us always even to the end of the age.” Now, here’s the part that flies right over our heads:

and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.

Did you catch the operative word, also? Jesus will be with us now on earth. We will also be with Jesus now in Heaven. Jesus makes clear he will be with us here on Earth, despite his physical bodily absence. He makes equally clear that we will also be with him in Heaven, despite our physical bodily absence there.

Paul makes this crystal clear in his letter to the Ephesians:

And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus. (Eph. 2:6)

and again to the Colossians:

Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. (Col. 3:1–3)

Closing the loop now: 

My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? 

Jesus has prepared a place for us in Heaven. When he says, “Go into your room. Close the door, and pray to your Father who is unseen,” might he be instructing us to go into that room he has prepared for us in Heaven and as a means of doing so to prepare our own prayer room for him on Earth? 

And might this room be the very go-between, the vestibule between Heaven and Earth? That’s it! A prayer room is an antechamber between Heaven and Earth; a kind of new room for Heaven to break in on Earth. After all, the core prayer Jesus teaches us to pray, just after sending us to “our room” is, 

Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. 

THE QUESTION

How do you resonate (or not) with this reading of Jesus’s teaching in John 14 and its connection back to Matthew 6:6 (i.e., go into your room, close the door, etc.)? Do you think creating a room for prayer matters? Why or why not? 

THE HYMN

Today we will sing the hymn, “How Firm a Foundation.” It is hymn 46 in our Seedbed hymnal, Our Great Redeemer’s Praise.

For the Awakening,
J. D. Walt
Sower-in-Chief
seedbed.com

P. S. About that Course on Prayer . . .

There was a lot of interest in a course on prayer, so we’re moving ahead with it. For three Mondays (March 18, 25, and April 1) at 6 pm CST we will dive deep into what Jesus teaches and models for us concerning prayer. For anyone who registers in the next week, you’ll get $5 off the total cost of the course. Use the code PRAY5 at checkout. Sign up in our store HERE. As always, though the course will be live, the recordings will be sent to your inbox.

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