Principles for the Courtroom of Heaven

Gavel on sounding blockWhy go to a Heavenly Court:

Have you been praying for years on a matter without seeing circumstances change? Have you been robbed of something and you don’t seem to be experiencing justice? Then maybe it is time you looked into having your case heard in the courtroom of heaven. Below are some initial thoughts and principles for accessing heaven’s court. It is not something to be done lightly, but with due diligence and prayer. I encourage you to look into this further. What is written below is a mere introduction, to ‘wet the appetite’ so to speak.

Who Do We Come Before:

  • Our Father in Heaven has many roles and we approach him differently as to which role He is fulfilling at that particular moment. When God is in court as our judge, we come before Him in awe. The truth is that God judges out of love. He is a God of love.

Petition the Courts of Heaven:

  • The Holy Spirit may specifically invite us to bring a particular matter to the courts of heaven. This may come as an impression or arise out of our realising that we need something settled.
  • We may simply find ourselves brought to the courts of heaven, eg in a vision.
  • Faith is the currency for the court of heaven.
  • Ask the Holy Spirit to show you which matters are to be brought to the courts of heaven, when and with whom. He is our paráklētos, “who intercedes on our behalf as an advocate in court”. We come to seek the intervention of God as our Judge.
  • As a judge, He will determine present circumstances and answers to our prayers under the governmental system of heaven.
  • There is a difference between a prayer and a petition. Prayer covers all aspects of requests. A petition is defined as a formal written request to a court requesting judicial action on a certain matter ie petition in prayer is a legal presentation before the Judge, requesting a verdict from Heaven’s Court.
  • Hebrews 4:13-16, Luke 18:1-8, Ephesians 6:18

Make your petition specific by asking:

  • In what areas are you seeking justice?
  • What results are you specifically seeking?
  • On what basis? Is there legal precedent through God’s word?
  • What adversary is preventing you from receiving justice?
  • Whom are you seeking justice for?

Intercession: (Representing Others in the Courts of Heaven)

  • A high priest is one who is holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens. Hebrews 7:24-26
  • We all have direct access to the Holy Spirit who lives to intercede for us in the courts of heaven.
  • The Holy Spirit seeks those on earth who will stand before God on behalf of others to discern, identify and bring the legal accusations of the enemy under the blood of Christ and invite his rule in their region, nation etc.
  • You are a Lawyer in heaven’s sight. The word “intercessor” is actually another word for this profession. The Holy Spirit is the greatest intercessor ever. He lives in you. He intercedes through you with groanings too deep for words.
  • As a lawyer, you are called to organize your case, and present your case before His Throne. That’s what a lawyer does, at the invitation of the Judge. Further, through the precious blood of Jesus, your vindication has already been secured.

Court Room Etiquette: 

  • Ask the Holy Spirit to show you what to do in the courts of heaven.
  • When we enter a court room on earth, there are certain requirements/etiquette to express honour and maintain atmosphere of respect, order, security and awe. We are responsible to engage protocol.
    • We dress appropriately.
    • We are prepared & ready.
    • We stand in respect when the Judge enters/leaves.
    • We are required to bow to the magistrate or judge.
    • We sit and be silent until we have permission to speak.
    • You address the Judge honourably as ‘Your Honour’.
    • We direct all remarks to the bench not to the opposition.
    • We are uncompromisingly ethical.
    • We ask for a verdict/ruling in our favour.
    • We don’t continue any arguments when the case is over but respect the Judge’s ruling.
  • Like a courtroom on earth, we follow the above requirements/etiquette the same in the courtroom of heaven.
  • Ask Jesus to deal with anything ungodly in you before you enter.
  • We enter God’s court rooms, where He sits in judgement to hear and respond to our prayers. When we step into God’s court room we bow in deep awe and reverence before the holy righteousness of God. We are silent until we have permission to speak.
  • Isaiah 43:26“let us argue the matter together; state the case for your innocence.”
  • Your Judge is the Ancient of Days because many of the “justice issues” we face personally and regionally are generational. They are the by-product of misguided choices from previous generations. As the Ancient of Days, God sees all days and can render judgment to deliver you from the encroachment of generational bondages.
  • God will review your case. When the court sits, the books, or scrolls, are opened. God will review your petition in light of the past, present and future. You can ask Him to review the scroll of your “Book of Life”—including past generations, to annul covenants with death and darkness that have given access to demonic powers holding your bloodline captive.
  • Always be specific and always ask for a verdict in your favour.

Facing the Accuser:

  • When we enter the court room we may have to face the accuser, who does the work of a prosecutor in the heavenly court system. He is at work before God day and night and will seize on anything not covered by the blood of Christ and use it as legal ground for legitimate accusations against us that block our access to the mercy of God.
  • The sin identified by the accuser may be ours or associated with the request we bring. For example there may have been a covenant, oath, bondage made in previous generations of a family that give legitimate access to the enemy. The enemy’s accusations should not lead us to feel unworthy and turn away from God’s mercy. Use the accusation as useful conviction of sin and surrender these matters quickly to Christ.
  • God will not force our will or override legally binding vows, contracts or covenants that we have made, or that have been made on our behalf by previous generations of our family etc.

God’s Rapid Judgement:

  • God is longing to grant mercy so, once legal objections are dealt with, He will rule immediately.
  • There is no need for plea and argument before God in his court room. We simply hand him our need and circumstance, seeking his perspective and ruling. As Jesus said in the parable of Luke 18:8, God will “see that she gets justice, and quickly.”
  • When God has ruled on a matter in the court room we do see rapid outcomes on earth.
  • As in earthly courts, a supplicant subjects themself to the decision of the court. We must abide by God’s decision – even though it may not be what we anticipated.

Leaving the Court Room:

  • Etiquette in an earthly court room requires lawyers to face the judge, bowing as we leave.  Similarly, as we leave the heavenly court room, we seek the face of our God to acknowledge with honour and gratitude our faith in his vindication and blessings.
  • We will not feel the need to pray on the matter anymore – we can now leave this with God.

 Sources for Further Study:

Prophetic Activations / Exercises to incorporate into your week:

The purpose of these exercises is to help us hear God’s voice in a clearer manner. They sharpen our senses to hear and recognise God’s voice and His way of communicating with us. This enables us to grow in our relationship with God and also to impart to others what God tells us for them. Feel free to use as many of these activations each week as you can. The more you practice, the sharper you become at hearing God’s voice. Enjoy!

Remember that whenever you give another person a prophetic word or picture etc, please make sure that it is encouraging, edifying (strengthening) and comforting (1 Corinthians 14:3)

1. Children / Families Activation: Have paper and crayons/pencils/textas handy. Ask everyone to close their eyes and imagine they are at a park with Father God. Get them to ask God which area of the park He wants to take them to and play with them. Get them to ask Father God to tell or show them something that He would like them to know. Explain that when they are ready, they can open their eyes and draw where on the park they were with God. Encourage them to share or write what it was that Father God told or shared with them.

2. Group Activation: Have people pair up. Give everyone a minute to ask God what fancy dress outfit He would love to dress their partner in and why. Just go with the first image that comes to mind. Ask God to explain why that image. After a minute, share with your partner.

3. Beginner Activation: Imagine a plane flying overhead with a banner trailing behind it. Look at the banner – what has God written on it just for you? Why? Look again, what has God written on it for someone else? Why and whom has He written it for?

4. Intermediate Activation: Sometime this week go into a clothing shop, and ask God to highlight an item of clothing. Go up to that item and touch it. Prophesy over that article of clothing and the person who is going to buy it. Speak God into their life and decree and declare favour, goodness, integrity etc over the person who buys this article of clothing.

5. Advanced Activation: Open a newspaper and ask God to highlight a headline to you. Ask God whom the statement in the headline applies to and why? Prophesy/decree it over that person. Then read the newpaper article that the headline applies to. Ask God to show you what He would have you pray re that subject. Decree and declare what God has shown you.

Praying BIG!!

iStock_000018279520MediumOur 12 year old daughter is on an amazing ride this year with opportunities that are opening up for her. Since being awarded the Shire Young Citizen of the Year, she has had the opportunity to speak at least a dozen times, with an exposure to over several thousand people at these events. She has also had afternoon tea with the Prime Minister, Mr Tony Abbott and given him a prophetic picture and prophetic word. During a family devotional time at the beginning of the year where we were asking God some questions and listening to Him speak to us, she felt that God was going to open up opportunities for her to speak to people from all over the world. (Mind you, she doesn’t enjoy speaking and it is amazing to see her speaking in front of people now when 6 years ago she refused to go on stage in the end of year dance concert because she didn’t want people looking at her.) Since she had heard this from God, we then prayed into it and asked God to open up those opportunities and we started declaring this. She has now spoken at three citizenship ceremonies where 400 people from numerous countries have been in attendance. She has been asked to give a ‘TED’ like talk later this month to several hundred senior high school students just prior to a YWAM International Statesman speaking at YWAM GoFest.

What has this got to do with Praying BIG? This was something that started with her hearing from God and we then started praying into it. I would never have thought to pray for her to speak and share her story to so many people and have huge opportunities of speaking in front of some of the world’s influential people. What are the possibilities if we asked God what big prayer should we be praying and declaring for our children and for ourselves this year?

Another big prayer came about on the weekend that I would never have thought to pray but it will have huge consequences. In a passing conversation, a friend said that her son had fallen off his bike and needed emergency surgery. This friend is an amazing prayer warrior and has gifts in healing and prophesy. I said that I gathered she had prayed the ‘spirit of shock and trauma’ off her son’s body and also prayed off the negative effects of anaesthesia. She asked what I meant. I explained that we can be affected by the spirit of shock and trauma when we have an accident or something traumatic occurs to our body. Picture ourself made up of three parts – physical body, soul and spirit. When a car hits our body, it not only injures the physical body, but our total self ie it also injures our soul and our spirit. Once the physical body has been healed, the spirit and soul still need to be healed from that incident. This may be as easy as forgiving anyone for the cause of the accident, maybe even ourself, and then asking God to lift off the spirit of shock and trauma.

Whilst under anaesthetic, our physical body and soul are not in charge of our body. The anaesthetist is. Thus, anything negative that the anaesthetist is into has an opportunity to come through him/her on to ourselves. When both my children have had tonsils out, I have simply prayed this off and asked God to cleanse anything from them during that time when they were under anaesthesia and someone else was in charge of their body.

My friend then shared how her husband is an anaesthetist and how perhaps it could work in the opposite way. If her husband intentionally prayed for folk to encounter God and imparted Godly stuff into them whilst he had then under anaesthesia, then imagine what could happen. Imagine the people who could be impacted for God. We both became very excited about the possibilities.

This friend then shared how years ago, her husband, a friend and her had met weekly as health professionals to pray that God would bring them influential clients, not for the money but for the opportunity to speak into their lives. One of the group was a dentist and this person used the time to ask God what to say to the person who was receiving a dental filling or having teeth out and she would give them godly advice about important decisions they were facing. My friend also shared how one of the group is now invited into the King’s palace regularly and asked for advice. I am sure this is the result from all the prayer times when they faithfully gathered weekly over a number of years.

When I stop to reflect on this, my mind just marvels at what could be. What could happen if we prayed BIG prayers for our children, for ourselves, for our work environment, for the people we meet with? What prayers do you need to start praying this week?

I encourage you to take a few moments, either by yourself or with your family, put on some quiet worship music and just ask God to show or tell you what BIG prayers you could start praying for yourself and your family. Ask God to literally ‘blow you out of the water’ with these prayers that He fills your mind with. Then go ahead, write them down and declare them out aloud.

Prophetic Activations / Exercises to incorporate into your week:

The purpose of these exercises is to help us hear God’s voice in a clearer manner. They sharpen our senses to hear and recognise God’s voice and His way of communicating with us. This enables us to grow in our relationship with God and also to impart to others what God tells us for them. Feel free to use as many of these activations each week as you can. The more you practice, the sharper you become at hearing God’s voice. Enjoy!

Remember that whenever you give another person a prophetic word or picture etc, please make sure that it is encouraging, edifying (strengthening) and comforting (1 Corinthians 14:3)

1. Children / Families Activation: Have paper and crayons/pencils/textas handy. Ask everyone to close their eyes and imagine they are on a farm with Father God. Get them to ask God to take them by the hand and lead them around the farm and explain things to them. Ask everyone to look for which part of the farm they would like to stay awhile in. Get them to ask Father God to tell or show them something that He would like them to know. Explain that when they are ready, they can open their eyes and draw where on the farm they wanted to stay. Encourage them to share or write what it was that Father God told or shared with them.

2. Group Activation: Have people pair up with someone they don’t know very well. Give everyone 3 minutes quiet time to hear from God for something to help their partner with ie something in their partner’s life they are really struggling with or needing to hear from God on. Encourage them to not talk with each other and not to share the area they are struggling in. You can say that most issues fall into identity, family, work, ministry, or finances and that we can prophesy into them. Remind people that if they get something that is negative or a struggle, then they need to share the opposite so that it will be encouraging, edifying/strengthening and comforting. After 3 minutes, get everyone to share with their partner what God showed them.

3. Beginner Activation: Ask God to highlight a song to you and someone for whom this song is for so as to encourage, edify or comfort them. Let this person know what song it is and which words in particular so as to encourage them. Maybe even try singing it to the person.

4. Intermediate Activation: Create space and time for you to be able to phone a person to encourage them. Ask God to highlight a person to you and what He would have you to say. Ask God when He would like you to ring them. Then do it.

5. Advanced Activation: Ask God to highlight an area of injustice or an area that is being debated before the Government eg in Australia this week, there is a bill being tabled in Parliament to change the marriage act. Ask God to show you what and how to pray, what to declare and decree out aloud and for a prophetic act if God would like you to do one. (A prophetic act is something done at God’s directions in the natural (physical) realm that supports God’s workings in the spiritual realm, to bring forth results that would be manifested in the natural realm.) Then do it.