- “Morning Chapel Prayer Playlist”
Pastor Ken…
Good morning, everyone. Great to have you with us.
This morning, all I can say is there’s just a lot stirring in the realm of the spirit right now. There’s a lot going on in the earth, in the realm of the spirit without a doubt. And, I guess I just feel like we should just sing in the spirit a little bit. You might wonder, “How does Ken know what direction to go in prayer or what to share?” Well, the truth is I don’t always know. I often don’t know until I get up here and just try to sense the mood of the Spirit. As I’ve said before, He’s always coaching us and worship truly is adoration and acknowledgement and lifting Him up. But it’s also an opportunity for our souls to settle down, our minds, our emotions, the distractions to settle down and for us to drop from here [pointing to head] into our hearts down here and just listen.
Jesus taught His disciples to watch and pray…
Jesus taught His disciples as it’s recorded in the narrative of the Gospels, to watch and pray. To be observant, to be alert, to be active, to have your radar up and operating each day. So to speak pinging your internal radar screen. I call it pinging back and forth, asking yourself, “God, what are you saying? What are you wanting to do?” And sometimes nothing. He just wants us to be watchful up on the walls of the outpouring, watching for His movement and leadership and direction and command and inspiration and the prayer that He will grant at one point. I think that’s a really good and I think the Lord gives us permission and reminds us at times just to not be always active. Active in the sense of “doing” something. But instead be restful watchful.
Learn to rest and trust Him…
Sometimes God’s not saying anything. He’s just saying… or by the fact that He’s not saying something, just keep doing what you’re doing. Just keep being watchful, just keep resting. That’s a spiritual habit that we all need to go deeper in is just learning to just rest and trust and be okay with the fact that God holds you in His hand. And that in His timing and His way, and at the right moment, He will grant the prayer. He will speak to you. You He’ll prompt you. Amen.
Somebody once said, “If God’s not saying anything, what do I do?” Just keep doing the last thing He told you. Just keep doing His Word. Just keep resting. Faith is rest, resting in the promises, resting in His full provision of grace. Even if there is a lot going on in the world and there is chaos maybe around you in your circumstances. God has granted us an eternal and permanent and all-encompassing and beautiful and full and complete rest.
We are to labor to enter into the rest of God…
Scripture actually declares that we’re to labor to enter into the rest of God. And it warns us: “Don’t be like the children of Israel who missed out on the rest.” Instead they chose to keep striving and struggling and figuring things out on their own and wanting to make their own way.
But Jesus has made a way. He’s our eternal way maker. So whatever you’re facing, whatever we see in the world even what’s going on with Russia in the Ukraine, with COVID, with circumstances maybe in your particular nation or city or neighborhood or personal life, there is a rest the Spirit of God cries out to us this morning. He’s reminding us of it and inviting us into a New Testament, grace-filled, all-encompassing rest. Regardless of the struggle or adversity or unknowns or what you’ve been through. There is rest in the middle of messiness. There is rest in the middle of an unknown situation or unprecedented circumstances. We can exhale and draw a fresh breath in His presence and find rest… rest for our souls! Rest for our weariness! Rest from our obsessive striving intellectually to figure it out.
You don’t have to have it all figured out…
Faith also means that you don’t have to have it all figured out. You can rest wherever you are. You don’t have to fear the valley that has shadows that appear like the death of you. Yes, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death. I will fear no evil. That’s for you personally. Those of you online this morning, searching for answers, the Bible commands us to fear no evil. Jesus said over and over, let not your heart be troubled. Yes, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for your Word and your Spirit, they comfort me. Your Word and your Spirit give me rest. There is rest for the house of God this morning. There is rest in Zion. There is rest for us.
So I think a really good thing for us to do more and more in this hour is learn to enter into rest. Just trust in Him. Just whisper His name. Just yield in your heart over… let go of that fear. You don’t have to have it all figured out. You don’t even know how to pray when you come up here.
He’s the God who grants prayer…
When you enter your time of prayer, you don’t have to know how to pray. He’s the God who grants prayer. He’s the God who grants answers. He’s the God who has answers and solutions that are going to just organically and in many instances… in most instances… rise in up in your heart effortlessly. Solutions and answers and breakthroughs and blessings and next steps.
You have to walk “through” the valley…
Oh, you’ll have to keep going. Yes though I walk “through” the valley. Don’t stop. Don’t camp out and just come to and draw back and yield to that spirit of fear. That’s why we join together online and in-person every day so that we keep going. We’re keep journeying. We keep walking with God. Today may not be perfect. It still may be messy and it may be messy tomorrow, but oh thank God that we can journey by faith and not by sight. We can live by believing and not by seeing. We can lean into His promises with our intellect in our hearts and know that His Word always will trump your present reality. That His Word, that truth, if you will lean into it and saturate your mind with it and pray it and celebrate it will attack the facts of your present situation and transform it as you journey, as you navigate, as you go forward. Amen.
Be the prophet of your own life…
That’s why I’ve often said “Speak over your day. Each and every day. Be the prophet of your own life. Speak over your day.” Declare today, things are going to get better. In fact, things are turning. God is turning things. I am in a turn. If you’re in a difficult situation, if you’re not where you want to be, if you need to come out of the valley, if you need to come out of a situation, just begin to declare “I’m in a turn! I have turned a corner. God is working in the invisible realm, His angels and the very hosts of heaven cheering me on and working on my behalf to turn my situation, to turn my children, to turn my nation, to turn our church, to turn this thing whatever it is.” And begin to declare, “I have turned, I am in a turn and I am turning the corner. Things are looking up and getting better and better because I hide myself in Him.”
The Bible from Old Testament to New Testament admonishes us, instructs us, appeals to us in many different ways to come into the secret place of the most high God. To hide ourselves, as the Psalm says, under the shadow of His wing, in the secret place of the most high. A place of rest. The place of replenishment.
Put your oxygen mask on first…
First and foremost, God cares about you and cares about me. He sees and knows. He is even touched with the feeling of what you go through. And He beckons us. Yes, you may be an amazing pray-er and He’s got assignments for you, but He needs you to put on your oxygen mask first. I think I touched on that analogy recently, right? When you get on a commercial plane, they instruct you in case of a sudden loss of altitude or cabin pressure or oxygen levels… the oxygen masks will automatically fall from the cabin ceiling. And you’re not to put it on your children or somebody to your right or to your left. You’re to put it on yourself first so that you can breathe and then you can help others. So that’s a really good reminder this morning and know that we’ve got this religious mentality that we need to do and we need to strive and we need to suck it up and we need to whatever, pray that out. And if it’s going to change, we got to pray… and I get that, yes. But Jesus is not nervous at any moment or at any time. The angels aren’t running around, ringing their hands, freaking out, wondering “what are we going to do now with this situation and with what’s going on in America?” No! God and Jesus jointly with Him is still on His throne. Restful. Smiling. Overflowing with a fiery, passionate love for you and me.
And every day, I believe that His first invitation is to know Him and to come to Him boldly. The Bible says come to the throne of grace, enter into the place of God, that secret place under the shadow of His loving gentle wings. Jesus articulated on that notable day in His earthly ministry, as He looked out from a bluff over Jerusalem, how He longed to gather those in Jerusalem, His people under His wing, like a mother hen wants to gather her chicks under her wing. Because it’s not what we can do for Him that is most important. It’s what He has done and wants to continue to do for us. We are simply vessels as pray-ers, as believers, as followers of Jesus. No matter what century or season in the world it is, our greatest need is to come to Him and be filled… be being filled. Be filled with Him. And the prayers that we pray and the work that we do and the leadership that we perform and the decisions we make and the relationships we engage in and the ideas that flow for from our hearts and what we create and sing and do for Him is supposed to be a natural byproduct of being filled with God.
Joseph Prince quote…
He is most passionate about ministering to you. In fact, I remember Joseph Prince saying that God is in fact energized when He gets to minister to you. He ever lives to be our high priest and ever lives to be the one who wants to serve you. Whoa, what? Yeah! He laid down His life for you. He poured out blood and water for you. He lived obediently for you. He sacrificed, He took stripes upon His back time and time again for you. Just for you! He is our all in all. And He’s calling for the Church to come to Him and receive. Not do another thing.
Oh yes. We’ll pray. And we’ll do some things for Him. But before that, He’s not saying do another thing. He’s saying, hear My voice… My gentle prompting, loving, encouraging, invitational voice. Come to Me. Receive from Me. Learn from Me. Take upon My yoke and learn My ways of unforced rhythms and grace.
We’re not to be full of cares or worries…
It says I’ll put no heavy burden in the Message translation. I’ll put no heavy burden on you. The burdens we carry around are the ones we put on ourselves. He wants us to offload those. The Bible teaches that we’re not to be full of care or worry. In fact, the Bible says worry is a sin. Instead we’re to cast every regret… offload… hurl it from you. Get it off of you like a hot potato. Every care, every worry, every weight, every fear, everything that would burden or weigh you down in any way. Even just the touch of oppression.
Cares fade away when you draw closer to Him…
The Bible says that our lot in life or what we are to experience is that oppression would be far from us, fear and panic and dread and concern and upset and tumult should be far from us. It gets far from us as you get closer to Him and draw yourself, bring yourself right up into His very presence.
“Well, where’s that Ken”
It’s wherever you are. Jesus prophesied to the woman at the well, there will come a day when men and women will not have to navigate up to the temple in Jerusalem. But instead they will worship Him in spirit and in truth. They’ll fellowship and commune and connect with the holy risen One and only God, wherever they are. You are the temple of the most high God. Called and created to be ever filled with Him, overflowing with Him.
And there’s a spiritual principle in that when you are filled and when you are cultivating connection and intimacy with the Father that it does fill you, and it does flush out those fears. And it flushes out and takes care of so many things that we struggle with. And they’re like pebbles in our shoe, always they’re aggravating us and bothering us…emotionally, mentally. But just seemed to just be flushed out organically when you practice the holy habit of being with Him. Whether that’s walking and you’re downstairs praying in the spirit at 12 midnight. Waiting patiently in a comfortable chair in your home, looking out the window, just watching and just yielding in your heart. Whether it’s meditating the Word or singing a song or journaling, you would be amazed at what God will speak to you prophetically. What He’ll show you… what He’ll grant you as far as ideas and solutions.
Make no mistake about it. God wants to bring supernatural breakthrough and answers and ideas and concepts that are worth so much personally and perhaps monetarily to you and through you. He wants to bring them to you and through you. After all the Holy Spirit is the one who comes to reveal, transmit, and disclose. There’s no limitation. There’s no boundary to Him. He is unlimited and all knowing and all powerful and ever able and always willing. The Holy Spirit is always willing.
He is always willing…
“Well, Ken, what does God want to do?” He is always willing. “Will He heal me?” He is always willing. “Does He have an answer for me?? He is always willing.
It’s not even a matter of does He have an answer or does He have a provision or does He have the help that you need. No, that’s already settled. Jesus paid the price, so much so that some Bible scholars called grace an overpayment, far reaching and above and more than you can ask and think, Ephesians says.
Where most pray-ers struggle is “will God do that for me?” Yes! Emphatically punctuated time and time again. Yes. He wants to do that for you. He is the God of Yes. He has stamped yes on His promises. He has stepped yes on your breakthrough. He has stamped yes for revival in America. He has stamped yes for your healing. Yes for your children coming back and serving the Lord. Yes, to that situation at the office that seems to be always an issue. Yes to peace. Yes to hope. Yes to love. Yes to deliver and set you free in your soul and in your heart, even from issues from your upbringing. He says yes to freedom. He’s saying yes to breakthrough today. He’s saying yes to promotion. He’s saying yes to influence. He’s saying yes, yes, yes, My Church. Yes! I am willing. And yes I am fully capable and able.
Jesus is not some quiet church mouse…
You better know that Jesus is not some quiet church mouse sitting in the corner trying not to draw attention to Himself. In the heavenly dimension, our Lord is full of fire. His eyes are full of passion and fire… to topple every demonic kingdom and overcome every strategy of darkness and every ounce of the enemy’s work in our lives and in the Church. He is passionate and preaching and declaring and granting prayers of victory and success and breakthrough and overcoming and declaring over you that you will do all of the will of God. That’s the whole message and work of grace that every blockage and every stoppage and every regret and every sin and any and everything that you’ve been through or the enemies tried to attach to you or your soul or your emotions or your life or body in some way, that was meant to stop you. Jesus came to be the once and for all antidote and way maker to remove all of that out of the way so that we could freely serve and worship God and follow Him all the days of our life.
Decide to live out the full length of your days…
Like the Bible prophesies that you would live out the full length of your days, that you would live and not die. Living on the full length of your days, doing all of the will of God and even more. If you want to be satisfied with more years, it’s up to you. Much of this journey of prayer and faith is really just that. It’s us aligning ourselves and understanding who the one and true and only God is really… that He would truly stand up in our lives. And we would recognize that He’s not what we were taught maybe in a Bible class long ago—a religiously bound deity, a cosmic power trip. But instead He’s a loving, doting, beautiful, grace giving, passionate, overflowing, defined by love Heavenly Father. If He was looking over the balconies of heaven, that’s what He would be saying this morning.
“Whoa, Ken, that’s a little bold.”
Well get used to it. Jesus is bold. Jesus is aspiring. His spirit is bold. He is the fire. He is love. He is healing. He is light. He is faith. He is and only knows truth and positivity and faith. His Word isn’t a suggestion. His word is truth. We still take His Word as a kind… Well here’s a suggestion for you. Maybe God doesn’t want you to be absolutely defeated and die a horrible death and mess up and screw up all the days of your life. Maybe God’s Word is true that the future of the righteous is to grow brighter and brighter until the dawning of a new day… that as for me and my house, we shall serve the Lord… that no weapon formed against me will prosper that everything instead I put my hands to for God will prosper and promote and grows… that His will is that I would increase me and my children more and more with no end… that He is the way maker, that He is the restorer, that He is the one that requires the thief to pay back seven fold… that He is the one who heals us of all our diseases… that He sent His Word to heal us. Amen.
Abraham was fully persuaded—be like Abraham…
God wants us to be over in this place like Abraham who it is written, our Father in the faith, that he grew stronger and stronger in faith until he became fully satisfied and assured. That what God had promised He was able also to perform. Whatever that is for you, whatever that is we need to pray about this morning, He wants us to get into a place where we are fully satisfied and assured, confident. No shadow of turning in us. Like Him we’re called to follow in His footsteps. We’re called to be like Jesus, not just in spirit. You are like Him in spirit when you called upon His name, but in every aspect of your life. He wants you to be a fiery preacher of faith. He wants you to lay hands on the sick. He wants you to cast out devils. He wants you to speak in new tongues. He wants you to rise up out of that place of drudgery, out of that place of being stuck. And take hold of what He’s saying in His Word, what He’s saying to your heart and go with Him…
Faith is saying the same thing God is saying…
I said yesterday that faith is as simple as finding out what God is saying and saying the same thing. Let me say it again: faith is as simple as finding out what God is saying in His Word and in your heart and saying the same thing. And keep saying the same thing. That aligns you. That causes you to begin to vibrate on the same frequency of His heart. And He connects you to the power flow. It connects you to healing.
We’re not called to look and lift up a particular minister and just say, “Oh, they’re going to do the work of God.” You’re called to do the work of God, the work of the ministry. As we’re filled with God, as we say what He’s saying, as we yield and consecrate our lives on a daily basis.
God gets really fun…
And I found that when you get all in with God, when you give yourself to Him, He gets really fun. It becomes a really amazing event. You start seeing the colorfulness of God on display, like the profoundness and like, “Whoa, I didn’t know that was even possible” kind of way. Where you could get caught up in the spirit where you begin to feel your hands burning with healing power. You have to lay your hands on somebody and see them come up off that hospital bed … where creative ideas flow in the boardroom… where wisdom is on tap at all times. And you’re like taken aback by what you said in the meeting. “Well, that was a good answer. I didn’t even think about that.” That’s because you didn’t. You’re syncing up with the mind of God. The Bible says let this mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus. Let His mind be in you. How? Let His Word be in you. Yield to Him. Sow to your spirit. Resist the flesh. Don’t make no provision for the flesh.
Group sings in the spirit…
Prayed…
Lord, we invite you to possess our souls. We abandon everything that has no life, that we struggle with, that weighs us down, sets us back … We just abandon it. We hurl it to you, Lord. And we just yield to the still quiet, beautiful, loving presence of who you are. Have your way in this, Lord, flow through us right now.
Lord, we just pray for your presence just to flow, to flush out, to heal, to deliver … flush out all the weight, the oppression, the anxiety, the unknowns, the striving, the struggling the past, the hurts
Lord, let your Spirit flow and minister to our hearts in a fresh way.
Hopeless situations, what seems like hopeless struggles and problems… we just lift those up to you right now.
Lord, we just lift them up to you and we just surrender them to you…
Heavenly Father, we declare you’re the way maker. You’re the deliver. You’re the one who has answers and solutions.
We declare breakthrough. We declare hope. We declare grace to every mountain and every impossibility and every symptom and every struggle and every internal, emotional hurt or broken place…
We declare God reigns over our households and families and finances and ministries and churches and small groups
We declare God will have His way and that no weapon, no work of darkness, no issue, no strategy of the enemy, no lie or ounce of deception will prosper. No, no, no, no. We say “no” to the devil.
We say “no” to sin, sickness and symptoms today
We say “no” to lack and insufficiency… to division and breakup… to dissolution and devastation
We say “no” in Jesus’ name to the enemy in this nation today in our city…
We stand up… we rise up in the spirit and we stand up and say, “no, you may not. No, no, no, no. Not another step. Not on our watch. Not another day. No, no, no, no! in Jesus’ name.”
And we pray for a release of the hand of God, and the glory and the fire and the solutions of God to be released into these personal situations, into church situations, into business situations, into family situations…
We stand in alignment and on the truth of your Word and on your plan and on your purpose today, Father…
We declare our God reigns. We declare breakthrough. We declare grace to all of it in the mighty name of Jesus.
