April 17


But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door… Matthew 6:6


This is one of the Lord’s central teachings on prayer.  He affirms to us here that we have an ‘inner room’.  He is not simply referring to a building and a door of wood.  He is referring to our inner life, to our heart, and to the door by which we can close out the clamouring worries of this life, and turn our gaze on Him.  We have an inner room – we are not mere matter, we have an eternal spirit.  It is this faculty that defines us as being in the image of God.  By this inner consciousness we can know God, we can identify with Him, we can feel what He feels and think what He is thinking.  The place of prayer is the conscious awareness of Him; it is the great promise that, “they shall all know Me” – Jeremiah 31:34.  There may be days when clouds cover His face, but never think that this is your perpetual inheritance.  Christ died to give us access to a room called the ‘holiest of all’, and we are not to be robbed of the knowledge of that holy place, and that holy Presence.  It is your inheritance – claim it and enter in!