Morning Prayer Notes for Friday, January 28, 2022

  1. “Morning Chapel Prayer Playlist

Pastor Dustin…

Well, thank you for joining us this morning.

The other day, I had the honor of praying with Pastor Kent Otey. He’s the missions pastor here at this church and he was part of one of the first prayer groups that the church had. He prayed with Pastor Lynne and people like that at the beginning of the church. I don’t know how many years ago that would have been, you know, a couple of decades at least. And he started sharing some things about prayer that really stirred me up. Pastor Kent was sharing about how early on before he worked in the missions department, he was talking about how he come to pray early in the morning. And he said, he got to the point where as soon as his knees would hit the floor, it was like the Lord would take him to all of these places.

There was a time where as he was praying, it was like… the Bible talks about how we have spiritual senses. He said that when his knees would hit the floor, he’d close his eyes and would see… for a while it was the same place over and over again. He said he was on top of this building. He saw this like city plaza. He could hear these sounds and smell these smells. And as he was praying, he was seeing and comprehending all of these things. And he said he kept seeing that same place over and over and over again for like seven years.

And finally he got a postcard from some people who used to attend this church and they went to plant a church in another country. The postcard was from Peru. He realized when he saw the postcard, this is the exact same place that he had been praying about. And so he said, “I believe we need to do a missions trip to this place.” This was before he was the missions pastor. And so he gets it together and the team goes to Peru. The hotel they had planned to arrive at… and this is before Trivago and Expedia. You couldn’t just Google these different places. The hotel they were staying at, he realized this is the place he’d seen in prayer for years and years and years.

And when you go on a missions trip, everybody has different ideas of things… We should go to hospitals… we should go to orphanages… And that’s all good. But he felt like the Lord was directing him to stay in this Plaza because he felt he’d been there for a years in prayer. And so the team stayed in that Plaza, and in the 10 days they were there, they prayed with over 10,000 people to receive the Lord. And he said, “I’ve never seen anything like it, even to this day.” He said, “The best way I could describe it was the way Pastor Nick described it,” our evangelism pastor here. He said it was like feeding chickens. And what he meant by that was… I had chickens for a little bit and it was a horrible experience. Don’t ask me about it. The Lord is still doing a healing in my heart. I thought it was going to be this romantic, beautiful thing. Like I have this nice farm and it’s not. It’s hard work. So we had these chickens, and you’d walk in to feed them and they would almost like attack you. And maybe that’s just my experience of chickens, but they would almost attack you. And you start throwing food and they would just run all over the place.

And what Pastor Kent meant was that would go out into the Plaza and people would just flock to them. They weren’t advertising it. They weren’t posting on Twitter here: “Hey, we’re here in this Plaza.” None of that. It was just the Lord. They just got to the Plaza and people just flocked to them. They prayed with groups of people, individuals to receive the Lord. Pastor Nick said that as he was praying with people, people would start forming a line behind the people he was praying with, just waiting for someone to pray with them. And they saw incredible miracles and signs and wonders.

Pastor Kent said, “The miracles I saw there was just so effortless.” It was like you would say something and God would just do it. He said, “I know all of that started with the prayer that we prayed for years and years and years. It wasn’t we just decided we’re going to go somewhere and they just show up and they’re like, ‘okay, God, now do something.’” He said, it was a totally different way of doing it. As he was faithful to spend time in prayer, the Lord began to reveal things to him.

Sometimes if I pray for three and a half minutes and it’s not done, I feel like, “Come on, God, we got stuff going on.” For seven years he was faithful to pray and pray and pray. And I’m sure other people were too but he stepped out in faith.

One thing that Pastor Kent said that really amazed him about it was the experience that he had when he would pray, he felt like he was there. He said, “How could I see a place and know what it looks like and know what it sounds like and know what it smells like and I’ve never been there before?”

Realizing the importance of prayer…

From what he’s told me over the years, it was like this opened his eyes about prayer. Because he realized prayer can be a lot more than just going through a list in your mind of all of the things that you need God to do today, or else it’s all gonna fall apart. He realized there is a very supernatural side to prayer, and we serve a supernatural God who’s limitless. He’s powerful. And as we yield ourselves over to prayer, He can help us accomplish things that are just far beyond our understanding. We can pray about things years in advance before they ever happen. He can show us things years in advance before they ever happen. And I love the accuracy of that. I love that when Pastor Kent found himself in Peru, he knew exactly what they were supposed to do. He wasn’t just guessing. He wasn’t taking polls. “Okay, we’re gonna have everybody on the team vote. What do you guys think we should do?” Nothing wrong with those things, I guess. But he had this accuracy and we know the results that he had because of it. He knew what he was called to do. He knew what he was supposed to do. And then the supernatural results followed.

Phillip in Acts 8…

And so I want to read a verse to you really quickly out of Acts 8. This is the story of Phillip. Philip is walking and the Spirit of God directs him to go up and talk to somebody. And it says in verse 34, the eunuch, the person the Lord was directing Phillip to speak to said to Phillip, “I beg of you, tell me about whom does the prophet say this is.” So the eunuch is reading about the Messiah, but he doesn’t know who the Messiah is. Phillip catches up to him in the eunuch asks, “Who is this person that I’m reading about?”

In verse 35, it says then Philip opened his mouth and beginning with this portion of scripture, he announced to him the Gospel of Jesus. And he told him it was about Him. And as they continued along the way, they came to some water and the eunuch exclaimed “See here is water. What is to hinder me from being baptized?” And so if you read the next couple verses, Phillip says, “Nothing. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.” And they got out of the chariot, Philip goes into the water with the Eunuch and baptizes him.

Philip is translated…

And in verse 39, it says “And when they came out of the water, the spirit of the Lord suddenly caught away Philip and the eunuch saw him no more.” And you read that and it’s like… what? Suddenly the Spirit of the Lord just caught Philip up and he was gone. And so I thought, I want to see what the scholars have to say about this. I started going through my commentaries and all those things and all of the commentary stop at verse 37. And they don’t have anything to say about all 38, 39 and 40. In the next verse it says, “but Philip was found…” Right after that, it says he looked up, he saw him no more. And then the eunuch saw him no more. And he went on his way rejoicing. In verse 40, “But Phillip was found after that at Azotus and passing on, he preached the Gospel to all the towns until he reached Caesarea.” So Phillip is in the water baptizing a man. He pulls him up out of the water. Suddenly Phillip is gone. Now he’s in this other part of the world and he’s preaching the Gospel all over the place.

Take the limitations off of God…

And it just got me stirred up. It’s helping to take the limitations off of what I can expect God to do in my life. And so this morning, I want to spend some time worshiping and praying. But I would encourage you as we’re praying, let’s really allow the Spirit of God to lead us.

We’re not trying to make something happen, but from this place of prayer, we’re listening to what the Spirit of God is speaking to our hearts. We’re yielding to Him and responding to Him by opening our mouths and allowing Him to direct us in our prayer language. And then just pay attention to what’s happening. Pay attention to how He’s leading you, how He’s directing you, that the images you see in your mind while you pray … and be faithful to pray out and declare whatever the Lord gives you this morning.

Group entered into worship…

Prayer …

In prayer, take your focus off of the natural…

So look up, look up, look up … take your focus off of all of the things around you… off of all of the things in the natural that you can … see with your natural eyes and look up… aim higher… even in prayer… even though prayer is a supernatural thing, we can become so accustomed to dealing with things in the natural, we can almost take the same approach with prayer… where you’re just responding to what’s happened to you with a prayer…You understand that God is real and you understand that He’s supernatural, but even in the way that you pray, sometimes something natural happens then you just respond to that in the way that you think that it needs to be handled with prayer, asking God to handle it within the limitations of this natural world and within the limitations of what you can understand.

In prayer, God is calling us up higher…

But He’s calling us up, higher… He’s calling us to Himself. And as we fix our eyes and our focus on Him, as we begin to understand the authority and the position that we have in Christ, as we begin to … take our place, seated with Him in heavenly places… As we begin to look through that perspective, it changes the way that we live and respond in this natural world. And it changes the way that we pray… maybe there’s this thing that you’ve been up against and it seems like you can’t get the breakthrough. It seems like you can’t get the Word from God, the revelation… you feel like you’re just up against a wall at a dead end … enter into His presence. Give your mind to Him, give your thoughts to Him… and in those places, revelation comes easily… answers come quickly … in those places, just a word changes everything. And it brings you further than you thought you could go. It brings you to a higher place than you could …then you could get by yourself.

Colossians 3:1

“If then you have been raised with Christ to a new life thus sharing His resurrection from the dead, aim at and seek the rich eternal treasures that are above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. And set your minds and keep them on what is above the higher things.” The higher things, not on the things that are on this earth.

In prayer, stay in that place in the spirit…

We are in this world, but we are not of this world. Greater is He that is on the inside of you than he that is in this world… stop evaluating your circumstances and allowing that to determine how you’re going to respond. Instead, set your mind on the things above… stay in that place in the spirit and allow Him to lead you … respond to the way He’s directing you to respond …do what He’s directing you to do, because what He’s directing you to do could look like it has nothing to do with the things that you need help with… But if you’ll stay in that place and walk with accuracy by the Spirit… that’s what it means when it says His ways are higher than our ways. His thoughts are higher than our thoughts. He’s the one who has the plan. He’s the one that set everything in motion. He’s the one who created time but sits outside of time and works within it… so He’ll give you directions… unctions… words that might look different, that might sound different than what you think needs to be said and done in these situations … but if you’ll just respond… if you’ll just… stay in that place and be quick to listen and quick to obey, He’ll take you pass that. He’ll take you higher, to another level… He’ll take you to another dimension.

Suddenlies will take place in your life…

He’ll take you to a… you’ll begin to see the suddenlies take place in your life… you know what I’m talking about? Where you have this and you can’t get past it. And it feels like a block. It feels like a wall. It feels like a … it seems like something you just can’t get over or get past and as you spend time in the secret place, worshiping Him in the spirit, it looks like nothing is changing and then suddenly it’s over … suddenly you’re past it … way past it … suddenly there’s a breakthrough… what took seven years in seven seconds, it’s over and done and you’re beyond it. And you’re experiencing the exceeding riches of His glory… you’re understanding Ephesians 3:20, where it says He’ll do far above all that you could dare ask or think … He takes you from Step one to step 30… He just picks you up and takes you to the next place…

Set your focus on what is higher…

so set your focus, thoughts on what is higher … on what is higher … when you’re in prayer, get in the spirit … that place … get in that place … and listen and respond and pray and declare the words that He gives you and… and you’re going to find that you’re praying from a higher place… where you’re no longer waiting for the news to tell you what to pray about… you’re praying out ahead of things… you’re praying out in advance… you’re cutting things off before they ever manifest … you’re stopping things before they ever start… you’re opening doors that you don’t even know need to be opened yet… and through the Spirit of God… because you’re not praying in a way that’s limited to your understanding and your knowledge… you’re praying in agreement with the mind of God, with the Spirit of God who knows everything… The people around you will think you’re a genius… they’ll think you’re strategic. They’ll say, “Wow, look at this. Look at this.”

Joseph’s testimony…

I’m reminded of Joseph. He had a dream… that solved the problem of a nation that they don’t even know they’re gonna experience yet… That’s what I’m talking about… That kind of stuff… he has dreams, divine interpretations… so when the king has a dream … when the person in the position of authority has a problem, you’re not just responding out of your own intellect or understanding. You’re speaking words from heaven with divine inspiration… you remember the story… He says you’re going to have years of plenty and you’re going to have years of famine. So we need to prepare now for what’s to come … he was given divine favor… as he stepped over and yielded to the Spirit of God, the voice of God, the unction … as he declared the things that he was supposed to declare he was given favor… he was given resources… authority… and it positioned him and the nation … for the things that were to come… it positioned them…

What does God want to position you for?

What does God want to position you for? It was a suddenly in Joseph’s life in prison and then one day everything changed … one day everything changed … after years of seeming like it was going the wrong direction. After years of seeming like he was getting further away from the dream that God gave him in his youth… people estimate 14 to 17 years of time passed from the time God gave him the dream to the time he stepped into what God had called him to do… And it was 14 years that looked like he was going in the wrong direction. It looked like it was getting more hopeless. It looked like he was getting further away. But all of those things we read in the Bible were necessary. They were ordained by God to position him for the place that God had called him to be because God had a plan. He had a plan … Egypt became a place of safety and refuge for God’s chosen people… we know that changed over time, but Egypt became a place of safety and refuge for God’s people. The group of people that the Messiah would come through …

God in heaven orchestrates things for you on the earth…

you see how God is in heaven orchestrating things, working things together so that His plan and purposes can be accomplished. And He’s working through human vessels… through a man… through a boy… through people … speaking words to them, giving dreams to them to position them and to position others so that His plan and purpose can be accomplished in this earth…. He’s doing the same thing through you. He wants to… give you dreams… visions. He’s going to speak to your heart … as you yield to the Spirit of God … as you lift your eyes and set them higher… the Spirit of God is going to give you wisdom, understanding, insight, and discernment that’s far above what can be comprehended in the natural, that’s far above what can be understood … by the experts and by the people around you…

Others won’t have the capacity to receive the vision God has given you…

Joseph’s brothers didn’t have the capacity to receive the vision that God gave him. But that was okay because it wasn’t for them. It was for Joseph… there are things that God has shown you, that other people around you, maybe even family, they don’t have the capacity to comprehend it in its fullness in the… they don’t have the capacity to receive it by faith … but God didn’t give it to them … He gave it to you… and it doesn’t mean that they won’t experience the benefits of it like Joseph’s brothers, the ones who threw him in a pit because of his vision… as the story goes on… they’re hungry and desperate. And it was the vision that came to pass that Joseph told them about … it was that vision that ended up being a source of blessing to them that ended up saving them… So they didn’t have to understand it to be blessed by it… They didn’t have to believe it to be blessed by it…

If two of us agree…

The Bible says if two of us… it doesn’t take everyone that doesn’t believe it… if two of us will agree, it will be done. And if my calculations are correct, you plus the Lord equals two, right? You plus the Lord equals two. If He tells you and you agree, I think that’s enough for it to come to pass in your life. If you can agree with it… if you can receive it by faith … there isn’t a devil that can stop it… it doesn’t matter how people treat you… it affects you for sure, but it can’t stop you… it can’t stop God’s plan and purpose from being accomplished in this earth…

I’m not sure anybody in Joseph’s life agreed with what God had spoken with him, but it didn’t stop God and it didn’t stop him. Everything that needed to be done was done. Everything that needed to be accomplished was accomplished… so look up… allow the Spirit of God to work through you in unique ways… take the limits off… take the ceiling off… respond … we have to remember that we serve a supernatural God… who can send Philip to the eunuch, direct his steps, get him where he needs to be, and then catch him away by the Spirit and put him someplace else where he needs to be.

We serve a supernatural God…

I heard somebody say if you tear out all the miraculous things out of the Bible, all you’re left with is the maps… meaning we serve a supernatural God… everything He does is supernatural… let’s begin to expect it in our lives… let’s begin to see it in our lives.

God, I see this situation, these circumstances and in the natural, there’s no way out of it. There’s no way that change could come. But thankfully I have you…

Being translated to places in our dreams…

I feel encouraged to stir some people up this morning in this. I said take the limitations off. I was thinking of a time… years ago when I was interning in the missions department, I had such a desire to preach the Gospel that I was doing street evangelism all the time. And I wanted to go on missions trips. And it’s a lot of work traveling out of the country, maybe a little bit more now… And, I was talking with Pastor Ken. I said, “Pastor Kent, I had a dream last night.” And he’s like, “What was your dream about?” I said, “I usually don’t dream. I usually go to sleep and I’m just out. I wake up eight hours later with drool and my hair messed up and I don’t remember anything.” I said, “Last night I went to bed and it was like… I don’t know where it was, but I felt like I was in Africa someplace. And I was with a group of people in my dream. And I was going around from place to place with a group of people. And we were preaching the Gospel.”

Usually when you dream, you dream about people you know. And I wasn’t with people that I knew in this dream. I wasn’t with my friends. I wasn’t with people from this ministry. I was with this group of people that I didn’t recognize. And we were going from place to place and preaching with people and doing all of these things, laying hands on the sick. And then after that, I had another dream. And I was in a country somewhere in Asia and we were hiding and waiting for these police to go by. And after we did, we got out and were praying with people.”

Pastor Kent was like, “Wow, that’s pretty cool.” Somebody made the comment about going to North Korea after that. And Pastor Kent has this little smirk on his face and he goes, “It sounds like Dustin might’ve already been there.” And he kind of giggled, and we just laughed about it.

Three years later…

Three years later, I went to Uganda on a missions trip. And we were in this village that was almost all Muslim. Everybody there was either a witch doctor or Muslim. And the Gospel really hadn’t been preached there that we had known of. And so we drove out there and started walking around from place to place, home to home, praying with people. And as we’re walking down the street, these two ladies ran up to me. And I had an interpreter with me. Through the interpreter, I started talking with them and told them why we were there and told them what Jesus had done for them. And they said, “We’ll receive anything that you have to say, because you’ve prayed with us.” I asked the interpreter, Mike, “Am I catching this right.” And he said, “Yes.” I said, “Tell them this is the first time I’ve ever seen them. I’ve never been here before.” And so he told them, and then he said to me, “They said that you’ve been here and you’ve prayed with them.” And I said, “I’ve never been here before. Tell them that it must’ve been some other American or something like that.” And so he talked with them and the woman was just adamant. She was like, “No, you were here. I was sick in my bed. I was bedridden. I couldn’t get out. And you came into my room and laid hands on me and prayed for me. And I was healed. I remember it. It was years ago.”

I told the translator said, “Tell her she’s wrong. It wasn’t me. I’ve never been here before.” And so he told her and she was just like … agree to disagree. She was like, “You were here. You prayed for me. And I was made well. I’ll never forget your face.” And she said, “We will receive whatever you have to say to us.” And so we said, okay.

So we prayed with her and we walked away and I was just like, that was weird. And all of a sudden, it just hit me. I wonder if in that dream that I had that night, when I was going around praying for people, preaching the Gospel. I wonder if I actually did pray with her. She was convinced… absolutely convinced. She was like mad at me. She was like yelling at me. “No. You prayed for me.”

The apostle Paul in the third heaven…

And it reminded me of the apostle Paul in Second Corinthians chapter 12. He says, “I must go on boasting. Although there is nothing to be gained. I will go on to visions and revelations from the Lord. I know a man in Christ who 14 years ago was caught up in the third heaven, whether it was in the body or out of the body, I do not know. God knows. And I know that this man, whether in the body or apart from the body, I do not know, but God knows.”

The apostle Paul is saying in essence, listen, I know what I saw. I know what I experienced, whether I was there physically or I was in the spirit. I don’t know. God knows. That’s not what’s important. The important thing is God’s plan and purpose is being accomplished in this earth, but I know what I saw and I know what I experienced.

Let’s not limit God with our low expectations…

I’m sharing this story because I believe He wants us to look up. He wants us to set our eyes, our focus, our attention on higher things, higher ways. I did think it was funny if I was translated, I don’t know for sure. But if I was, I think it’s funny that it would have been while I was asleep, because then I can’t take credit for it in any way. Like I was like after three days of fasting and six hours of prayer, I finally reached the level of spiritual maturity where I could be trusted for such… I don’t even remember. And I was asleep.

My point is, there’s so much that God has prepared for each one of us. There are so many things that God has prepared for you. Let’s not limit Him with our understanding. Let’s not limit Him with low expectations. Let’s seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. Let’s give Him our time and our attention and our focus. Let’s set aside time where we’re quiet like this and we’re just in His presence. He’s speaking to our hearts. We’re allowing Him to lead us and guide us and direct us. We aren’t quick just to go through the prayer list. The prayer list is good. That’s okay. But we aren’t just rattling off our morning list of demands for God.

The Bible says, make your request known. I’m not bashing that. But there’s a higher way… that place in the spirit where we understand the communion and relationship that we have with Him… we’re confident in the love that He has for us. We’re in a place of rest and peace because we know that the battle is not ours. It belongs to the Lord. We know that He’ll fight it for us. We’re confident. And we trust that He’s working things together for our good, that He’s perfecting that which concerns us. So we can just relax and rest. We can just be at ease in His presence. And from that place of stillness in our minds and our hearts, we can really listen to what He has to say to us. And we can respond by faith and pray out and declare the things that He gives us. We can respond and do the natural earthly things that He directs us to do, understanding that the results aren’t our job or our responsibility.

Like Jesus said our responsibility is to say what we hear Him say and do what He tells us to do and trust in the process that He’s going to take care of everything that He needs to. And I believe that when you’re in that place, you begin to see the breakthroughs and walk with wisdom and peace. The suddenlies began to take place in your life … favor that you couldn’t imagine … resources coming in whether that’s money, help, support.

So let’s spend the last couple of minutes quiet like this and allow Him to speak to us, orienting our thoughts in His direction. Maybe He’ll show you something in your imagination. You can write it down and take note of it. Maybe He’ll speak to your heart or direct you to a Bible verse and it’s just a word from Him. Maybe He’ll give you something to declare and speak out, but let’s just take the last couple of minutes and just really focus on Him and do what the Bible says and set our minds on the things above …

Prayer for Christians all over the world…

Father, I pray that Christians all over the world would look up, set their minds… I thank you for the strength, the encouragement, the function by your Spirit to look up, reminding them to set their eyes, their focus on you. Keep it on you.

I pray, Father, that deep would cry out to deep and they would know on the deepest part of their heart, they would know that there’s more…

And I pray that idea, that thought, that word would just echo inside of them, that there is more… there’s more to life than what we know. There’s more on the inside of us that we’ve yet to realize and tap into. There’s more that you have prepared for us. There’s more that you want to do in this earth. There are deeper dimensions in you that we can experience and taste and see

I pray, Father, that that longing would resonate in the heart of every believer that there is more…

I thank you for the strength and the grace for every person joining us today. I pray that great grace rest richly upon them all like in the book of Acts … great grace rests racially upon them all … that supernatural endowment of strength and ability, that supernatural favor, that undeserved favor from God.

Cindy shared…

A song came up in my heart. It’s a hymn and it’s “I’m pressing on the upward way.” It kept resonating in my heart. Lord, lift us up and let us stand by faith on heaven’s table land, a higher plane than I have found, Lord, plant my feet on higher ground.”

So we’re lifting our eyes up when we know in Psalm 1:39, that there is no place that we can go where He is not. But His ways are high.

And it says in 1:39, the author says, “they’re so wonderful, I can’t attain them.” But whenever I read that, I said, “No, I can attain them because God has given us His Spirit, that we would know His mind, that we would feel His feelings and we would know His ways.”

So I see us lifting our eyes just to say, “Lord, I’m lifting my eyes from the world’s ways to your ways.” But when we lift our eyes, it took me to the blessing in Numbers where it says the Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make His face to shine up on you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up His continence upon you and give you peace.

There’s a peace that comes from knowing who we are in His eyes. So when we look up… I’ve heard people say this because, it says that He will make His face to look up on us. So you see the Father taking you as you’re looking up like a child and He lifts you up above Him. And He looks up on you and His continence shines on you. And it gives you peace because you realize at that moment who you are. You’re the beloved… you’re His child and yet the Father’s love is shining up on you and it takes you to a higher ground, knowing who you are. So not only does He lift you up, He puts your feet… He plants your feet on a higher level of understanding and knowing … heaven’s table land. I just wanted to share that. Thank you.

If you’d like to hear Billye Brim’s daughter, Shellie, sing the hymn, click here:

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