- “Morning Chapel Prayer Playlist”
Pastor Ken…
Welcome everyone. So good to have you this Tuesday morning. Just soaking up His presence here today.
God has good things in store for us in 2022…
God has good things in store and prepared for us in ’22. 2022 can be the most restorative, renewing, reviving, blessed, abundant, overcoming, joy-filled year you have ever experienced. Because faith gives you the ability and the power to rise above. Faith in Christ, faith in God’s Word is the standard that God raises up that is in you now, the very gift of faith. The Bible says He’s given us each a gift, a measure of the God kind and the God quality of faith. And guess what? That same God kind and God quality of faith still works miracles in this postmodern world, in this COVID world. Nothing the enemy can do can stop you if you will be intentional with engaging your faith, intentional each day to lean in with your words, to lean in with your faith, to lean in with the remembrance of what God has said, that your future is bright.
God will deliver you out of every fiery furnace…
That the Church’s future is bright and glorious and full of the miraculous. That no matter what has come and what has gone, God intends for you to come through … for you to go into the fiery furnace. If that happens to be where you’re at or what you’ve been through and come out without even the smell of smoke on you. And I could preach that this morning because I’ve been through the fiery furnace where it was turned up seven times hotter. But all there was a fourth person in there with me the whole time and I recognized it. And the Lord told me even while I was going in, “Ken, you’re coming out without the smell of smoke on you.”
Your faith can raise up a standard…
So whatever you’re facing, whatever you’re praying about, we as pray-ers must be eternally and purposefully and intentionally a people and a remnant that lean into …forward looking, positive, expectation of God… always keeping in our consciousness that He is good and does only good. That no matter what the enemy hurls at us, no matter what thoughts come today or what’s been said about you or what people did or what happened or what events occurred that was traumatic, that your faith can raise up a standard. Your faith can pull you up and give you a note of victory, give you a song of praise, give you a shout and a declaration that reaches beyond what is around you in the craziness that is occurring and reaches out to the hand of God that is extended to lift you up and over. Amen. To bring you through, to empower you to pray prayers of faith and prayers of victory and prayers of triumph.
Be our own cheerleader like King David…
So as pray-ers, we’ve got to practice this habit of being our own best cheerleaders like King David. He spoke to his own soul. We need to be a people that stir ourselves up in our most holy faith. The New Testament tells us how—praying in the Holy Ghost. Or like Abraham our Father in the faith … growing strong in faith by giving praise to God.
We must be a people who intentionally engage our faith…
And there’s been a little bit of a theme in what I’ve shared over the past few weeks. And one of them, I said in 2022, we need to be a people who intentionally engage our faith. You can’t just coast. We’ve got to inject faith into our prayers. We’ve got to bring our faith intimately into our daily journey and what we’re doing. In fact, I’m convinced I’m going to share some things in a moment that I think cast some light on the time and the season we’re in. If you’re not using your faith, it’s going to be required of us. Whether it’s the economics that are playing out, that could be really interesting that require you to believe God for supernatural provision. But even if it gets difficult economically, even if we have hyperinflation, God in the midst of that, if you will intentionally use your faith will manifest whatever it is that you and yours need and provide for you in the midst of that difficulty in those dark times. I believe that this is going to just strengthen and prepare and propel the Church. No matter what comes, it has the ability to enable us to align with the heart of God and prepare us more for what God has prepared for us.
Second theme: recognizing the move of God’s Spirit…
The second theme that I’ve recognized is that number one, we need to become intentional in engaging our faith in our everyday lives. Number two, we need to become skillful at recognizing the flow and the movement of God’s Spirit. And move with Him. Was it the sons of (?) in the Old Testament that they were considered noble because they recognized the time and the season in which they lived? And fast-forward into the New Testament, Jesus actually rebuked the generation around Him at the time because they failed to recognize the time and the season. And the visitation of God and Himself.
In Romans, Paul writes in that same vein. He says and do this, knowing the time that is now, it is high time to awake out of sleep. For now, our salvation is nearer than we first believed. The night is far spent. The day is at hand. Therefore let us cast off the works of darkness and let us put on the armor of light. Let us walk properly as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness… Or you could say uncontrolled living or just leaving life to chance, in other words. In other words, live purposefully, intentionally, not in lewdness and lust, not in strife and envy, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh.
Make no provision for the flesh…
There’s a strong word for a Tuesday morning. “Make no provision for the flesh.” Let me look at this in the Passion translation and share it with you. It says in Romans 13:11, “To live like this is all the more urgent, for time is running out and you know it is a strategic hour in human history. It is time for us to wake up. Tell yourself, wake up soul, wake up spirit, wake up! It’s time to get ready. It’s time to be alert. The Bible says the culmination of all things is at hand in the New Testament. Therefore be circumspect and alert. Therefore for the practice of prayer… It’s time to recognize the season we live in. We don’t have to be overcome by it. We don’t have to be negative about it. We don’t have to be burdened or dread it at all. We can cheer up because this is our finest hour. Because we’re right in the middle of it. You are smack dab right in the middle of where God wants you to be in this time in this generation. You’ve been called for such a time as this. And in your purpose and in the engagement of your faith and in the recognition of what God is doing and where He’s flowing and where He’s going in your life and in the Church, right in that are your best days. Right in that is your breakthrough, leaning in and going with God, chasing Him each and every day through intimacy and relationship in His Word and in fellowship and in prayer and in community and in stirring yourself up by way of remembrance. In that is victory. In that is your finest hour. You’re not going under. You’re going to go through and you’re going to go up and over.
Restitution will be paid to you…
Your destiny is glory. The address you’re going to is victory and provision and restoration. And as some things have been stolen from you, restitution. In other words, seven times. That’s one of my confession often. I am receiving double, triple, quadruple, and even seven-fold for my trouble because of what I’ve been through. Devil, you’ve got to give it up and pay it back for my Bible says so. In Jesus’ name.
It’s not a magic chant…
Well, Ken, is that a magic chant? “No.” It’s me agreeing with the heart and the mind of God. It’s me getting into the flow with what God has promised and what God has said until I become fully satisfied and assured that what God had promised and what God has said will be so in my life. I don’t try to make it happen. I just look where God is, what He said, what He’s promised, and I go with Him. And I expect it and I celebrate it. And I’m perpetually grateful for it in advance of me even seeing it. My faith is intentionally engaged, in other words. And guess what? I’m seeing it. I have seen it and I will continue to see the goodness of God in this land we call the living. But didn’t David say that? I’m content and I believe that I will see the goodness of God in the land of the living. I will see the goodness of God in my children. I will see the goodness of God in my church. I will see the goodness of God in my nation, the nation in which I reside. For God is on the move. Amen.
We live in a strategic hour…
So to live like this is all the more urgent for the time is running out and you know it is a strategic hour in human history. It is time for us to wake up for our full salvation is nearer than we first believed. Darkness is dissolving away as a new day of destiny dawns. So we must once and for all strip away what is done in the shadows of darkness, removing it like filthy clothes. And once for all, we clothe ourselves with the radius of light as our weapon. We must live honorably surrounded by the light of this new day, not in the darkness of drunkenness and debauchery, not in promiscuity and sensuality, not being argumentative or jealous of others. Instead, fully immerse yourselves. I love that! In other words, fully dunk yourselves, baptize yourself in the Lord Jesus, the anointed One. And don’t waste even a moment’s thought on your former identity. To awaken its selfish desires.
I’m reminded I didn’t get to yesterday, but I love the Word. I think you love the Word. It’s just so rich and life-giving. I was talking to my daughter the other day about this, you know, and I was saying, certainly the world has a certain whatever, the world’s entertainment and music and movies and Internet and all of that, it’s got a certain sparkle to it, if you will. And there may be some entertainment value in some of it, but it doesn’t last long. There’s no real life in it. It just entertains your soul, but it doesn’t go any further than that. It doesn’t reach your spirit. But the Word of God is full of life and light and wisdom and beauty and healing power. So when you engage in spiritual things, when you sow to your spirit, there’s just a depth to it and a resonance to it. It affects you. It changes you. It causes you to become like Jesus. It heals you, it restores you, it lifts you, it emboldens you, it transforms you, it causes you to have ideas and wisdom and creativities that you wouldn’t have had any other way because we’re engaging with and we’re being intimate with the supernatural of God. The life of God, the life force, the river that issues forth from His throne is available to us today. But you have to practice the habits of spiritual disciplines. You’ve got to take the time to be present and engage with the Spirit of God and His precious Word.
What is God doing right now…
Brother Hagin used to say that when people would ask him, “What is God doing right now?” He would tell them, “God is all about building. He’s all about building strong, healthy churches that know the Word and know how to respond to His Spirit.” The greatest thing you could do is to learn how to pray, to become a student of the Word, practice the spiritual habits and disciplines that connect us with the eternal and the unlimited and the all-powerful and the beautiful and the light of heaven. And in the midst of that journey of being connected, everything will change. Maybe not in an instant. Sometimes it does change in an instant. But you will change. You will grow. You will rise and you will flow in the fullness of what He purchased for you in Jesus.
