Pastor Ken…
- “Morning Chapel Prayer Playlist”
Pastor Ken…
Good morning, everyone. Welcome.
God if our Waymaker…
Today I wanted to share a starting point for reflection to get us started in prayer. I wanted to read a couple things to you.
I just thought of something I wrote down last night. I just heard this and jotted it down. Maybe it’s just a little encouragement for someone here. “You don’t always know what God is up to. It’s the hand of God that thrusts you into places you can’t get to on your own, that makes ways where perhaps there is no way.” So if you need a way made this day, know that He is still the Waymaker, right? We sing about that. He is the one who makes a way where there doesn’t appear to be a way.
I’m so glad that we can live not by feeling or by what we’ve seen in the past, but we can live by believing. And we can believe that God is ultimately the one who makes a way for us—in our finances, relationships, families, children, ministries, businesses, our callings. Whatever the situation, God is in the business of making a way for you today. There is hope. There is a way. God has a plan. He hasn’t abandoned His throne or given up on us. He’s not done with you or me. In fact, He never sleeps nor slumbers. He is ever at work on our behalf. He cares about us so much. Just think about the fact that He created and assigned angels to our course and our lives.
And as we talked about yesterday, our prayers can invoke or invite angelic intervention into our lives if necessary. So that whatever needs to happen supernaturally to shift or change a situation, to open the eyes of someone that you’re praying for, to alter a problem that you’re facing and cause it to turn in a right direction for the glory of God, He can do that. He wants to do that. We’re called to live by faith and not by sight.
I know this is all fundamental… as Pastor Lynne would say “bottom line Christianity.” But we’ve got to store these things up in our hearts. We’ve got to be our own best cheer leader. We’ve got a coach ourselves with the remembrance of God’s Word and His promises and who He is and who we are in Him and who the Holy Spirit is to us. He’s the one saying, “I am your waymaker today. I have a way where you have not seen a way. Follow Me. Trust Me. Lean into Me. Have confidence in Me. I will take you from where you are to where I’ve called you to be. I’ll take you to the next level, the next step, the next place, to what could be and should be for your life.
Our job is to remind ourselves that He is faithful…
Our job is to simply stir our remembrance with the understanding and the reminder that He is faithful. And that He’s there. I’ve learned, and the Bible reveals, He will carry you through tough times. He will supernaturally lead you, subconsciously influence you. That’s why it’s so important that we not, whether it’s in prayer or in our personal spiritual journey, get caught up in trying to analyze everything. Yes, use your mind. You have it for a reason. But when it comes to certain situations, if you find yourself analyzing and processing and trying to work it all out in your intellect, but you’re not getting anywhere, and instead it ends up being kind of a spiral downward into frustration, fear, anxiety, and dread, then guess what? That’s a sign to “stop.” And let’s turn that situation over to the Lord. His arms are open to receive from us what we are not designed or created to carry. His arms are open to embrace us and hug us, so to speak spiritually, and strengthen us and cause us to be strong in Him and not on our own inability or our own weakness. We don’t have to work things out in our intellect. God has already worked out the way for you to go, the problem that you face. Glory to God.
We must learn to be patient…
And oftentimes prayer in a personal relationship with the Father is learning how to rest and to trust and to be patient in the meantime. It may not shift today or tomorrow or next week, but your situation is in God’s mind. And He’s already gone ahead of us to make a way once again. But we need to learn to be patient and trust His timing and the reality that you don’t have to figure everything out. But you can trust a good heavenly Father… gracious, good, loving, forgiving, always faithful heavenly Father, that He has worked it out.
We must choose to co-labor with Him…
And as we choose to co-labor and to partner with Him in prayer and worship, that He is freed up to take off of our plate what we’re not called to handle or figure out. That He is freed up to work behind the scenes… angelically, supernaturally in people’s hearts and lives to open up favor to us, to cause answers to rise up in our spirits— answers and direction and wisdom for whatever you face to rise up to percolate up in your spirit like a bubbling brook bubbling up in your spirit right down in here.
You might be doing the most mundane everyday thing in your life, washing dishes, putting gas in the car, taking a shower or whatever the case is. And suddenly you have the thought, “Hey, maybe I should call so-and-so,” or “Hmm. I wonder if I should check on that. I wonder if I should put in my application for that or call that person up or look into that further.”
And it’s in those moments that the supernatural providence of God is transmitted to us by the Holy Spirit. We said yesterday that the Holy Spirit comes to reveal, transmit, and disclose what is in the Father’s hands that He wants us to have. And oftentimes it’s just a thought because we are attentive to Him. We turn our attention to Him daily. As we read yesterday about Katherine Kuhlman, we just seek to have conversation and walk with God and live for Him and just be aware of Him.
We must “act on those steps”!
One definition of revival that I’ve heard down through the years is just simply being more cognizant and aware of God, that He’s there with you. He’s speaking to you. He’s guiding us. And very often it’s in the most mundane moments where He is transmitting something, imparting something… sometimes subconsciously … sometimes it’s just a thought that rises up in you. And it might be just the thought of a person that He wants you to pray about. Act on those steps! The Holy Spirit is once again, our coach, not only to coach us what to pray for because He already knows what God has said yes to, but coach us in steps of obedience as well. Steps of progress. Steps that may seem really simple and there’s not much to them, but I’ve experienced in my life… I’ve heard Pastor Mac and others share this: what turned out to be some of the most profound change in their lives, some of the most significant steps of promotion, breakthroughs, and answers to prayer were precipitated out of an almost mundane, every day prompting or sense or thought to step out and do something, say something, pray something, believe God for something, follow up on something.
So let’s not overlook that in our everyday lives that the Holy Spirit is there coaching us, cheering us on in prayer, in our hearts toward victory, toward success, as He defines it for us. Toward influence and making a difference in making history in our generation and in our everyday world.
You have the most powerful force in the universe on your side…
But this thing I wrote down last night, says “You don’t always know what God is up to. It’s the hand of God that thrusts you into places you can’t get to on your own that makes ways where there is no way. What you’re up against… any problems you’re facing may look bigger, stronger, more powerful than you, but it’s no match for God. Stay in peace. You have the most powerful force in the universe on your side.”
That blessed me and I just had to write it down and share it with you this morning. So stay at peace. Stay at rest. Stay patient. Stay calm in His presence and in your relationship with Him. God’s got this.
Yes, there’s an urgency to pray. And, yes, there’s steps we must take. And, yes, we’re called to walk with God. But all along the way, we can still patiently be calm and wait on Him because He’s already factored in what the enemy is going to do or attempt to do. He’s already factored into our journey and the Church’s journey that the enemy would form weapons and take his best shot.
And guess what? In the mind and plan of God, that all backfires in our favor. It all becomes a leverage point. Every adversity, every bit of persecution, even the threat of people’s lives in the first century in the early Church who were threatened and many of them did give their lives as martyrs, became a springboard. It became a fertile ground. The blood of the martyrs as it’s been said in the first century and all through the centuries, for that matter… to this day, people are still giving their lives for Jesus… can become fertile ground. God intends and we’ll get something out of that to His glory. And it will become and as it did in the first century fertile ground for the Church rising and thriving to new levels and new dimensions that it never dreamed possible.
God has gone before us…
Make no mistake about it, we are more than conquerors in Jesus Christ. That includes us collectively as the Church, as the family of God in the earth, in this generation. We’re not destined to go down. We’re destined to go up. You’re not destined for defeat. Oh, some things can be difficult and you can be doing the right things and still wrong things happen in this life because we live in a corrupt world. We live in a broken system, but God has already gone before us. He has traveled into each of our futures. He has made a way. He’s put His provision in place. He’s made answers available for future challenges and issues that you haven’t even faced yet. And He is going to have His way. Our call and the invitation in our spirits by the Spirit of God each day is to simply agree with Him, to flow with Him, to run with Him, to say the same thing that He said in His Word.
You can have what you say…
It’s so tempting, I know, to say what we see. But Jesus said, you can have what you say. Because we believe that what we say is inspired by the Word of God or inspired in your heart by a rhema word, a specific, timely, personal word for your journey and your life and your situation that will rise up in your spirit and prompt you to not say, “Well, I guess this isn’t going to work out for me.” Or “I guess I’m just never going to rise above this standard financially in my journey.” Or “I guess I’m going to just deal with this ailment or disease for the rest of my days.” There’ll be something and there is something I promise you right now this morning, rising up inside of each and every one of us collectively, even as a Church that says “No,” to what the enemy is saying. That says, “No, I will not relent to the status quo. I will not stay stuck in this spiritual or natural rut.” “I will not remain quiet and go peacefully into darkness, so to speak. No, I will not just kind of muddle through life.”
But something in us is rising up in the Church saying “no” to that and “yes,” to God. Yes, to His glory. Yes, Lord, I will follow you all the days of my life. Yes, Lord, I will believe your promise that you are My healer and the great physician and no to sickness and disease.
Something in us saying, “Yes, I am strong in the Lord.” The Bible says let the weak say I am strong. It doesn’t take much understanding to just go with that and say that. Again, I remember what Charles Capp said. The Lord spoke up in his spirit and said, “I’ve told My Church, they can have what they say. Instead they have chosen to say what they have or what they see.” We’re designed, we have been set on this earth for this specific time and in this generation for the explicit purpose to alter, to reroute, to change, to make history. One day at a time in our lives, one life at a time, one situation at a time.
Joshua and Caleb had exemplary faith…
Even just kind of recalling the story of Caleb and Joshua; the Bible says they had another kind of faith. They had a standout exemplary kind of faith that when they heard the word of God, they didn’t cower in fear and say, “Oh, that’s great, God, but have you seen the giants in the land? Have you seen the fortified cities? Have you heard of their accomplishments and how thick the walls are and the people that they have slain down through the years?”
No. There was something about Caleb and Joshua, not just as young men but as old men, even in their eighties and older, that caused them to rise up, that caused something in their strong spirits to rise up and say, “If the Lord said it, let’s rise up at once and take the land for we are well able.”
There was something about them that caused them to be passionate and fixated and focused on what God said far more than what they saw. And they saw something that was truly remarkable. They saw eight to 10 foot tall giants who build very strong fortified cities. They had reason to fear if they wanted to. There was temptation in other words. But there was something in them that kept percolating up that chose to believe their God, that He was still one who would make a way, that He was one that had gone before them. And if necessary would send angel armies to confuse those giants, to confuse the armies of Israel so much so and so profoundly and supernaturally that the people of God would not even have to raise one sword. But those angels army in an invisible realm would completely bring to nothing. In one instance, the enemies of Israel to defeat themselves. Isn’t that a good word this morning?
God is able to cause your enemy to defeat itself…
God is able to cause your enemy, your situation to defeat itself, to confuse and defeat it and run it off. Just through your praying in the spirit. Just through your worship and your praise and your proclamation of what God has said. Whatever word is in your spirit right now for your situation. If you don’t have a word, ask God for a word. Open up His Book.
Pastor Lynne once said that if you want to hear God’s voice, then you need to open up His Book. You open His Book, He opens His voice to you. That’s where it starts. And as you do so, there is a profound effect. I’m convinced that that there is a frequency, there’s a vibration, there is a sound that emanates in the spiritual realm when we pray in the spirit, when we worship, when we sing songs of praise and gratitude, when we declare the Word, it sends shutters and shockwaves through the realm of spirits and it confuses the enemy. He does not know what to do. He does not know what to do or how to deal with it. He has no other plan to defeat, to harass or create more problems for a believer who will speak faith. Who will worship God, especially in the midst of darkness, in the midst of the trial. It confuses him just like it did in the narrative of the Old Testament, when God sent angel armies to confuse and thwart and cause Israel’s enemies to kill themselves. All they did was trust God and say what God said and worship Him. Isn’t that what happened in the account of Jericho when they marched around those walls and declared and worshiped and praised and sang… it sent a shockwave that brought those walls down and opened up the land for God’s people.
There is a sound and a percolation rising up in your spirit. If you don’t know this morning, now you know it because Ken told you there is a sound, there’s a percolation, there’s a rising up in your heart today. No matter what you’re facing, no matter what you’re going through, no matter if you haven’t seen change in that situation you’ve been praying about. There is something, a strength, a fortitude, a stalwartness, a determination in you rising up that is of God, that’s saying you can do this. That’s saying you can be calm in the midst of this. That’s saying you can go another day. That’s saying you are more than a conqueror through Him who loves. That’s saying your lot in life is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.
