SAMPLE READING

Day 7

The Secret Closet

Jim Maxim 

From 21 Days of Breakthrough Prayer The Power of Agreement

​

“Therefore, whether the desire for prayer is on you or not, get to your closet at the set time; shut yourself in with God; wait upon Him; seek His face; realize Him; pray.”[1]

—R. F. Horton

 

“But you, when you pray, go into your inner room [closet], close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.”

—Matthew 6:6 (NASB)

 

I am in Las Vegas at a business convention, and it is 3:20 a.m. God, the Holy Spirit, has stirred me to get out of bed and spend time with Him. The only reason I am giving you a glimpse of my relationship with Him is because of the quote He wants me to share with you today. “Get into your closet at the set time.”

 

What is your closet? Your closet is that place where you can be alone with God to share whatever is on your heart and to listen for His voice speaking through the Bible or in your spirit. The set time is whenever He speaks with you and stirs you to come away with Him into your prayer closet and close the door. Most days, He comes into my room around 5 a.m.—some days earlier—but mostly between 4 and 5 a.m., and He wakes me up because He wants to spend time with me. How can I say “no” to Him? It’s been decades now of this intimacy with God, and most days, I need no alarm clock.

 

At first, I had been ignorant of God’s stirring and just thought I needed to roll over and try my other side to go back to sleep. When He didn’t leave me alone, I realized that my Father was there desiring to spend time with me. Oh, what a blessing! Oh, what a thrill! He really wanted to spend time with me alone in my secret place. Remember Jesus said, “When you pray, go into your inner room, close the door and pray…and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you” (Matthew 6:6 nasb). Each of us has a secret place to meet with God, and it’s there that God unfolds our own hearts to us. God gently draws us closer to Himself.

 

In the end, I am real with God during prayer in the secret closet, and I am in a position to really hear from Him. This intimate prayer is what Jesus longs for us to experience. This prayer brings us into the place where our soul is touching the heart of God.

​

Jeremiah said God longs to show us secret, hidden things: “Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know” (Jeremiah 33:3). Isaiah 45:3 (esv) says, “I will give you the treasures of darkness and the hoards in secret places, that you may know that it is I, the Lord.”

 

Think about this for a few minutes with me: God, the Creator of the entire universe, mankind, the animals, the planets, the millions of light years, and the expanse of the heaven, wants to come to me and fellowship in the inner room, in a secret place that just includes the two of us. He really wants a close communion with me. He wants me to be His friend!

​

God wants you to be His friend, too, and He wants to be your friend! Say this out loud: “God wants me to be His friend, and He wants to be my friend.” Jesus wanted us to be certain of this: “No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you” (John 15:15 ESV).

 

It’s a two-way friendship. God does not want a one-way relationship in which He pursues you and you continue to stiff-arm Him. He wants you to understand that you can have as much of Him as you want! The pursuit of your heavenly Father is initiated by Him, revealed in Jesus, and sustained by His Holy Spirit, but it requires that you participate in this relationship.

​

You need to show up! You need to set apart a time to meet with the Lord daily. Why God wants to spend time with us is something that can be explained only by the unconditional love He shows us in His Word, but He promises that if we spend time in prayer in the secret place, He will reward us openly. That is a promise that will change lives for eternity!

​

Powerful things happen in the secret place. In your conversation with the God who loves you today, lift up your pastor and the leaders of your church, that they would find God’s presence and power in their time alone with Him. Lift up your family members and friends who need the Lord to touch their lives today. Let’s set a time for our own daily appointment with God in the secret place, where hearts are changed forever.

 

Join us now for prayer at www.Pray21Days.com. God hears and answers the prayers of His people!

Listen to the Day 7 in the Recorded Prayers BELOW

​

[1]. R. F. Horton quoted in Tim Clinton and Max Davis, Ignite Your Faith: Get Back in the Fight (Shippensburg, PA: Destiny Image Publishers, 2014).

​

BUY THIS BOOK