Pastor Ken…
Good morning. Happy Wednesday, everyone. Great to see you. Welcome to those of you who are joining us digitally from across Minnesota, America, perhaps around the world. We know we’ve got many friends that join us from Europe and Asia and all sorts of points on the compass. So good to have you with us.
Prayer and Presence Conference coming up…
Just a reminder our registrations for our Prayer and Presence Conference coming up in March 24th through the 26th is filling up fast. So if you’re interested in attending, whether it be in-person or online, it’s free. Once again, hosted by our very own Pastors Mac and Lynne Hammond, with special guests Leif Hetland, Heidi Baker, Pastor Joseph Harris. It’s free. All you need to do is go to lwcc.org and register. So if you plan on attending whether it’s in-person or online, please do that. We’d love to have you be a part of it.
Prayer schedule change…
And then I wanted to give you a heads up of an addendum to our morning prayer schedule. Starting next week, we are going to change our schedule up a little bit. Our 24-hour prayer initiative produced good things… lives and people’s hearts were changed, situations impacted by that season of 10 plus days of 24 hours of prayer just focusing on Him, worshiping, turning our hearts toward Him. All of the lives of people that participated in whatever way they could… there was some really good fruitfulness.
Our Pastor shared on a weekend here a couple weeks ago that the Lord impressed upon him that if we would give him February, He would give us the rest of the year. So already good things are being birthed from that 24-hour period of prayer for 10 days, giving the rest of February to Him.
So with that said, we’ve been processing and thinking about what do we do going forward. Pastor Mac has shared and some things that we think is sustainable; a 24-hour prayer maybe isn’t so sustainable, especially for our worship teams. God bless them, kudos to them. They carried so much of that prayer time leading worship. And I know that it was spiritually and physically and emotionally a real step of faith for them. So that’s not sustainable ad infinitum.
Pastor Mac shared that he wants us to expand our prayer time. So beginning next week, morning prayer will start the same time, 8:30, but we’re going to pray until 10 a.m. Four days a week. We’re going to pray Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, 8:30 to 10, or however long you can be a part of it. If you have to leave at 9:30, because you have work, that’s cool. But we’re going to pray an hour and 90 minutes, those four days. And then on Tuesdays, we’re still going to pray 8:30 to 9:30, primarily because Maranatha has their chapel in here at 9:30. And who knows, we may just kind of all meld together. Maranatha students may come in here and we might still be here as well, and we’ll just go together in prayer and in worship.
Pastor Jim leading Tuesdays…
Also, Pastor Jim is going to start leading Tuesday mornings, 8:30 to 9:30. There may be some weeks throughout the year where he’s not able to so there’ll be another pastor here leading on that Tuesday. I will be leading Mondays. I’ll be leading probably Wednesdays. Possibly Thursdays. We’ll see. But for sure, Mondays and Wednesdays. Pastor Jim’s going to lead Tuesdays.
Also on Tuesdays, we’re asking our Living Word staff to be here. MCA staff won’t be able to come cause they’re in classes teaching. It’s still opened to everybody. Nothing’s changed. Pastor Mac wanted to launch it next week.
Prayed…
Lord, we know you have a plan for us… for your people, for your church.
Father, you’ve made a way where there doesn’t appear to be a way.
We pray and agree that your voice would be amplified in our hearts, that we would hear you.
The most needful thing is to wait on Him…
I think one of the most needful things for us in this hour is to wait on Him. Be still and know that He is God, as the psalmist of old wrote. It means to cease in our strivings and efforts and struggles. And just focus on one thing, and that is to rest, trust, and lean into Him. And it’s in that moment where heaven meets us, where the Holy Spirit meets us. And helps us to see as He sees.
Live the reality of another world…
Someone once said that God wants us to live from the reality of another world. And being in His presence allows us to do that. To live from the reality of another world… the reality of His grace… the reality of His love… the reality that He has already gone before us and made a way where we might not see a way. He’s made a way. The reality that He’s whispering to each of us this morning, “I’ve got you. I’ve got this. I’m going to take you where you belong next, where you can’t go on your own. But I’ll take you there. I’ll show you the way. You’ll hear My voice.”
We’re strong in the Lord, not in ourselves…
In fact, time in His presence and waiting on Him and gaining and receiving and tuning into the reality of another world, the world of heaven, the world of the Spirit enables us to become so in union with Him that when you go about your day and your week, it’s not so much you anymore. It’s Him. Because the Bible says in Him, we’re to live and move and have our being. We’re strong in the Lord. Not in ourselves. And it’s this patient waiting and trusting and just simply turning your heart and your thoughts and disciplining on Him, that allows us to be absorbed by His presence, to become united with Him, to be so in union with Him, that when we proceed from that place of rest, that place of presence, and to some degree perhaps as we grow, never really leaving it ever, but especially as we devote times of worship and attention and affection and focus on Him, we become so intertwined with Him.
Being intertwined with Him to navigate supernaturally…
That was the Old Testament kind of word picture talked about in Ezekiel, how we’re are to become really tangled up in God, intertwined with Him so that you can’t tell where God stops and we begin and we stop and He begins. We’re just one. We’re so in union with Him that we are equipped to do the supernatural. We’re equipped to navigate supernaturally. We’re equipped to make decisions with divine inside information. That’s what covenant means. It means you give all of you to Him, and in exchange, He’s given already of Himself through Jesus to us. And it’s union. It’s worship. It’s attention. It’s becoming intertwined with God the Father, through the Holy Spirit. That enables us to fully be equipped and endowed and prepared to do life on another level.
It’s in our job description to have dominion…
Even from the book of Beginnings, Genesis 1:26, it talks about how we’re called, in fact, I just looked it up. It says, “Then God said, let us make man in our image according to our likeness.” Let them… That’s you. That’s me. “Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” In other words, He left no stone unturned. He put it in our job description to bring change.
But first we must be changed…
And it’s in His presence, it’s in prayer, it’s in worship, it’s in the stillness and quietness of being before Him that we’re fully equipped to operate in dominion, to exercise authority. To live on a level that God has called us to, to be able to fully walk out the dream that He’s dropped in your heart. The purpose that He’s prepared for you, the plan that He’s already intends for you to fulfill. All of that is only possible through times of being absorbed in His presence.
The Father making a demand through you…
In fact, when you study what Jesus taught about prayer from the New Testament narrative, you’ll find that in some accounts and even in the original language, it implies that when we ask, it’s almost like we’re demanding. But maybe not so much demanding as much as… the more you become intertwined with your Heavenly Father and dwell in His presence and pursue this place with Him, it’s more and more Him asking and demanding than even you.
We’re one with Him…
Because we’re one with Him. Glory to God. So He’s got you. He’s got this today. He’s in the process of taking you from where you are to where He’s assigned for you next. And that may be just wholeness and soundness in your body. Completeness and peace and comfort in your soul. Increase maybe in your finances, your business, your ministry. Restoration in some way in your life. Whatever the case is, you’re on the way. He’s taking us somewhere. He’s taking you somewhere.
Prayer…
And so, Father, we just thank you this morning. We just decrease in ourselves and we say, Lord, increase in us. Let us be absorbed fully, taken over by God the Holy Spirit. We pray, Lord, that that would be more and more the case in the church in this hour. Take us where you are calling us to next, individually and collectively. We want to go where you’re standing, where you’re leading. We pray for a greater tuning into the voice of the Holy Spirit.
