Seeking God’s Face As King – Wheaton

            How do we pray from heaven and not just to heaven? Often our prayers are simply to heaven: we are struggling with a reality on earth and heave a couple of prayers toward heaven, hoping that something would stick. However the model of prayer that I see in Scripture is a prayer from heaven — from a position seated with authority in the heavenlies. What would it look like when we pray from heaven and not just to heaven? Psalm 110, the most quoted Psalm in the New Testament, shows how the LORD’s anointed must sit in our authority in the heavenlies and walkin purity so that we might standand fight the battle before us. This is what Jesus Christ, the Anointed King, has done for us, and this how each of us, as a child of God, must do as well.

            First, we must sit in our authority(Psalm 110:1–3). The LORD tells the Lord, the anointed Messiah and king, “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool” (110:1). The authority of this king will not be demonstrated by his own personal ability, but this authority will be demonstrated by God’s own power, as detailed in vv. 1–2. Similarly we are seated with Christ in the heavenly places (Eph 1:20; Col 3:1), and we must understand that heavenly authority that we already carry.

            This heavenly authority enables us to walk in purity (Ps 110:4). This verse spells out the priestly role of this king, serving as a priest in the order of Melchizedek. Melchizedek is the rare king who is also a priest, who walks not only in power but also purity. And Jesus as our high priest purifies us so that we can walk not only in power but ado purity.

            And as we walk in purity, we can stand and fight the battle(Ps 110:5–7). The focus here shifts from the LORD to the Lord, God’s anointed king. And as God’s anointed ones learn to sit in their authority and walk in purity, they have power to stand and fight the battle (110:6–7). Similarly we can only fight the spiritual battles that are before us as we first learn to sit in our authority and walk in purity. But on the basis of that authority and through that purity, we will be able to stand and fight the battle before us.

            So what? May we live and pray from heaven and not to heaven. May we sit in our authority and walk in purity so that we might stand and fight the battles before us.