In Matthew 6:6, Jesus says, “But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.”
Matthew 6:6 contains a powerful secret regarding the where of prayer. Jesus gives us the key when He says, Your Father who is in the secret place. Jesus is saying, Abba Father is already in the secret place. He has gone ahead of us and is waiting for us. The moment WE get to the secret place, we’re in the immediate presence of our Father. Jesus then affirms this truth a second time in Matthew 6:18, where he says, “so that you do not appear to men to be fasting, but to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.”
Jesus said it twice to emphasize with absolute certainty, our Father is in the secret place. Jesus also gave us the key to finding this secret place. To get there, is key number one: shut your door.
That’s all there is to it. Shut the door. There’s no great mystery to accessing the secret place. It couldn’t be any more simple, than as Jesus told us in scripture: “and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place;”
How many times a day, do you ‘shut the door’? When you got into the shower, guess what, without even noticing, you ‘shut the door’. When you climbed into your car, guess what you did? You ‘shut the door’.
When you enter a space and shut your door behind you, without even realizing it, you’re actually in the presence of your Father. Instantly. Your shut door grants you instant intimacy with the Father. Even if you don’t feel that intimacy right away, you can believe Jesus’ assurance that it’s true. You’ve just stepped into the Father’s secret place.
When I first caught this revelation, I was on my way somewhere, so I walked up to the car and realized I was going to climb into my car and intentionally shut the car door behind me, and that I was about to step into the presence of God. So I climbed in and ‘shut the door’, and before I could even start the motor, I had an encounter with Yeshua in my car, and was an absolute blithering train wreck by the time I got where I was headed.
When you know you’re with your Father, amazing things happen. As you ‘shut the door’ and reach for Him in faith, you actually begin to feel His presence. And then your awareness of His presence strengthens with each journey into the secret place.
Jesus painted a picture to help us visualize what’s happening when we build our lives on a secret place relationship with God. We’re getting our foundations in order. He said it’s like building a house on rock, in Matthew 7:24-27: “Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock. But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall.”
Jesus is saying, If you’ll practice what He taught, you’ll lay foundations in your life that will survive the harshest storms.
Listening
When God brought the people of Israel through the Red Sea to Mount Sinai, He came to them in a raging fire on the mountain and spoke with a thunderous voice. The encounter was completely overpowering. Psalms 81:7 described this scene with an interesting phrase: “I answered you in the secret place of thunder”. Mount Sinai was a secret place encounter between God and His people. In that desert, God spoke with them and gave them His commandments. The secret place is a place where God answers and speaks to us, and gives instruction.
Some people call the secret place, their quiet time, and it may be a time of earthly quiet, but this is God’s secret place of thunder. Because thunderous things rumble in the secret place that change the course of lives and generations. So, it’s important to listen intently in the secret place, to hear what Abba Father is saying. When God speaks, universes come into existence.
Everything in the Kingdom of God depends upon hearing His voice:
- Matthew 13:9, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear”
- Psalm 95:7, “Today, if you will hear His voice”
- John 10:27, “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me”
- Romans 10:17, “So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God”
One moment with God can be worth a lifetime of waiting. We need to resolve to make attentive listening a lifelong pursuit. Just one word from God and doors open, decisions land, fears vanish, and seasons change. So, an important key to the secret place is to HEAR Him!
Time
The secret place can also be the point of great frustration and attack in our personal walk, because the secret place holds the keys to overcoming life, so the enemy focuses his strongest assaults on this area of our lives. Our enemy will do anything to get us to curtail the amount of time we devote to God. When we devote ourselves to knowing God, all hell seemingly rises up to distract us.
To find the potential of the secret place requires another pivotal key: time. And lots of it. The more exclusive time we give Abba Father, the more meaningful the relationship. The principle of 2 Corinthians 9:6 applies here, “He who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.”
So another secret to the Secret place is to sow more time, and then enjoy the corresponding bounty.
So, keys to the secret place with God are to make time, find a space and shut the door and realize that the moment you shut the door, you ARE in the presence of Abba Father, then pray, meditate, read your bible, as Hearing comes by the word of God, and listen intently to what he has to say.
