~Open in prayer~

Icebreakers
● Share a high/ win from this week?
● Share one low from this week so we know how to be praying for one another.
● Share one food you like to eat that makes you happy.

MESSAGE REVIEW
There are two parts to your prayer life, and they are both necessary. There’s a relational and legal side. On the relational side, you enter God’s gates with thanksgiving and enter His courts with praise. Start your prayer with a thankful heart and love on God. Praise Him for all the good that is taking place in your life. Then there’s the legal side, this is when you make a petition, “make your petitions known with thanksgiving” (Phil. 4:6) When you make your petitions known, you are petitioning the courts of Heaven. God is a judge, Jesus is a lawyer, and Satan is an accuser. Everyone that has gone on before us and has died in Christ are the angels, a great cloud of witnesses. There’s a general assembly, a registry in Heaven. When you pray and start petitioning God about certain things, you have moved out of the relational aspect and into the legal aspect. You make requests but are not going through the legal process. Let’s dive deeper into the courtroom of Heaven.

Let’s dig in and found out more.

LET’S TALK ABOUT IT!

Read Luke 18:1-8 NKJV
1“Then He spoke a parable to them, that men always ought to pray and not lose heart,” 2 “saying: “There was in a certain city a judge who did not fear God nor regard man.” 3“Now there was a widow in that city; and she came to him, saying, ‘Get justice for me from my adversary.” 4“And he would not for a while; but afterward he said within himself, ‘Though I do not fear God nor regard man,”5 “yet because this widow troubles me I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me.”6 “Then the Lord said, “Hear what the unjust judge said.” 7 “And shall God not avenge His own elect who cry out day and night to Him, though He bears long with them?” 8 “I tell you that He will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth?”

We are not battling for victory; we’re battling from victory. They are two different postures because our battle is not to win but to occupy. Jesus already won and before He went back to Heaven, He ordered us to occupy until He comes back. In Jesus’ absence, it is our job is to occupy every promise and everything He has provided for us on the cross of Calvary. We are to occupy that, and our resistance is occupational. It is not to win but to occupy everything that was purchased by Jesus’ blood like being chosen, healed, loved, blessed, etc.

Jesus came to bring a KINGDOM. When we look at Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John in the Bible, it always states that Jesus was Kingdom and the church is only mentioned one time. But all we know is church and many of us do not know the Kingdom concept. In the Bible it says that the Kingdom is the message that has to be preached for Jesus to come back. Jesus is waiting for the gospel of the Kingdom to be preached to the whole earth before he comes back and the end comes. The whole earth has not yet heard about the Kingdom and neither has most of the church. We still have a great amount of work to do here.

We are citizens of the Kingdom by being born into a heavenly country and citizenship. That makes you a citizen in Heaven. We are all ambassadors on earth and that means we have to flip the posture of the way we live. That’s why we have to stay in our word and in the presence of the Lord through prayer. In order to properly represent God and the Kingdom.
Share a time where you represented God well. (Ex. You treated someone that was rude to you with kindness instead of being hurtful back.)

Read Hebrews 12:22-24 NKJV
22 “But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels,” 23 “to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect,” 24 “to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel.”

We are registered in Heaven which means we have access to the courtroom of Heaven. Job is one the of the oldest books in the Bible and in chapter one, we see God call Satan into accountability. God asked where he has been and he responds, “roaming to and fro back and forth in the earth.” That means Satan has been traveling and gathering information on you. From here we have petitioned the courts, while Satan has been on the hunt to find every flaw in our character and everything that we have done wrong and he brings that to the courtroom. He calls out your sins in front of the judge (God) and accuses us and explains why we do not deserve to have our prayers answered. Until our defendant Jesus stands up and says I need to call the blood that He shed to go testify and take the stand! When the judge rules in your favor, Heavenly things can come into the earth. Let’s continue to step into all that God has provided for us in Heaven and on Earth.
How does this concept of a courtroom change your perspective on prayer?

PRAYER FOCUS & REQUESTS
Support one another in sharing prayer requests and celebrate praise reports.
Share prayers in which you are “standing in the gap” for someone or something to happen.