Here are some more thoughts that have impacted me (continually) after reading Francis Chan’s Crazy Love.  I previously shared with you about God in the Sand.  This is the second point that hit me four-square in the head.

Matthew 27:50-51

And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit.  At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook and the rocks split.

Isaiah 6:1-5

¹ In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. ² Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying.³ And they were calling to one another:
“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty;
the whole earth is full of his glory.”⁴ At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.

⁵ “Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty.”

Revelation 4

¹After this I looked, and there before me was a door standing open in heaven. And the voice I had first heard speaking to me like a trumpet said, “Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.” ²At once I was in the Spirit, and there before me was a throne in heaven with someone sitting on it. ³And the one who sat there had the appearance of jasper and carnelian. A rainbow, resembling an emerald, encircled the throne. ⁴Surrounding the throne were twenty-four other thrones, and seated on them were twenty-four elders. They were dressed in white and had crowns of gold on their heads. ⁵From the throne came flashes of lightning, rumblings and peals of thunder. Before the throne, seven lamps were blazing. These are the seven spirits^[a] of God. ⁶Also before the throne there was what looked like a sea of glass, clear as crystal.In the center, around the throne, were four living creatures, and they were covered with eyes, in front and in back. ⁷The first living creature was like a lion, the second was like an ox, the third had a face like a man, the fourth was like a flying eagle. ⁸Each of the four living creatures had six wings and was covered with eyes all around, even under his wings. Day and night they never stop saying: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come.” ⁹Whenever the living creatures give glory, honor and thanks to him who sits on the throne and who lives for ever and ever, ¹⁰the twenty-four elders fall down before him who sits on the throne, and worship him who lives for ever and ever. They lay their crowns before the throne and say:
¹¹“You are worthy, our Lord and God,
to receive glory and honor and power,
for you created all things,
and by your will they were created
and have their being.”

When Christ was crucified on the cross, the curtain in the temple that separated all of us from the Holy of Holies, the place only entered once a year by a special priest, was torn in two.  The Holy of Holies was opened to all of us, to have access to Him.  We can run right to His feet because of what Christ did for us.  That continually amazes me.

Then to read the descriptions of the throne room – almost sounds like the stuff of sci-fi, doesn’t it?  But it is more amazing than the most amazing place man can create.  My God’s throne.

The question Francis Chan asked in Crazy Love is this:  How often do we rush in to the throne room with our mad-dash prayer requests, then rush right back out?  *hand raised*  I’ll answer that for myself.  Lots.  This is the God who created the universe, the stars, the seas, the world, created life, and sits on a throne and in a room so magnificent that Isaiah and John can hardly describe it adequestly and Isaiah feels utterly unclean.

I am not sure I could ever rush into and out of a place like that.   Could you?  Yet I do it all the time.  Francis Chan suggests, shouldn’t we instead reverently walk into that place, in awe, silence, just basking in His presence?  Worship, love…

With that thought, prayer seemed to take on a whole new perspective for me.  I no longer want to rush into His presence, and in fact, almost feel paralyzed by the thought!  He is an amazing God to be sure.

Psalm 46:10

¹⁰ “Be still, and know that I am God;
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth.”

What an amazing, crazy kind of love is that to let us right into His presence to take prayer right to His throne because of His Son Jesus Christ – that curtain between us being torn forever?