Morning Chapel Prayer Playlist
Morning Chapel Prayer Today
Pastor Ken…
Good morning, everyone. Good to see you guys. Missed y’all.
It’s 2024! It’s time to go!
I hope you had a blessed holiday season and a happy new year. Ready or not? It’s 2024! It’s time to go. Let’s go! It’s going to be a good year. God is up to some big things and despite what the enemy’s trying to do to attract attention and create havoc and problems in the earth, I believe God’s going to have His way in 2024. And that it will be truly a year for more… more of His glory… more breakthrough. He is already prepared and put in store what you need for ‘24. Amen. That includes breakthroughs, answers, new strategies, fresh opportunities, open doors, grace to get through a particular thing that comes up maybe three months from now.
Nothing surprises God. We may not know exactly what 2024 holds or what will happen or transpire on a given day or month as we go throughout the year ahead of time. But He knows. And He told us when Jesus was on the earth to take courage, to not freak out and become despondent and shut down at the thought of “What will happen to me or how am I going to deal with this? I didn’t realize this was going to happen.” Because He’s already gone ahead and prepared for us a bright future. We don’t have to live based on circumstance. We may have to deal with some circumstances and navigate through some circumstances and speak to and lean into through prayer some circumstances with the promise of God.
An anchoring word for 2024—Intention!
But what circumstances we face today or as we begin to traverse through the year is not the end. We have a distinct choice. In fact, I think a good anchoring word for 2024 would be “intention.” In other words, keep that in the forefront of your thinking—intention or intentionality. We must be intentional as we proceed into the coming days. I didn’t plan to get all, whatever on you this morning here. But I’m sensing that as we proceed in the coming days, we must be intentional to use our faith.
The Lord is actively coaching and mentoring us, His people right now and preparing us for what He’s prepared for us… and preparing us for what may befall upon the earth. He knows. He’s not surprised at what the enemy may try or what may come or what might be reported on the news tomorrow or next week or six months from now. He just needs us to turn over our hearts to Him. He just needs us, as the Bible reads in Romans, to offer up our bodies as a living sacrifice, which is our reasonable or acceptable form of worship. Offer our bodies in prayer. Our mouths in prayer. Offer our attention, our presence to Him. Our focus on Him. Because in doing so, He wants to share some things with us.
What the Lord spoke to me while I was out running…
I was out running. I’m weird. I was out running like from eight to nine last night. And as I was praying in the spirit running, I was reminded of a verse. I looked it up when I got back. It’s found in John chapter 16. And actually, I didn’t really think of the verse. I just heard the phrase, “I still have many things to say to you.” Remember Jesus said that just shortly before He was about to depart and catch a fast train back to the right hand of the throne of God and He was preparing His disciples. You notice that before He left the earth leading up to that point of His ascension back to the Father, after He rose again from the dead, He was preparing His disciples. He was coaching them. He was mentoring them. He was imparting things to them. That’s what He’s doing explicitly right now if we’ll turn our hearts toward Him.
I still have many things to say to you…
The Bible echoes time and time again, turn your heart toward Him. Turn your attention toward Him. It is time to seek the Lord. Because as I heard in my spirit ring out as I was jogging in the dark last night, I heard “I still have many things to say to you.” God’s words come with intention. God’s words come with force and impact and power to do some things in you through you.
His words come with His intention that we would cooperate with Him so that His words prayed out, spoken out, and acted on at His prompting would produce the will of God… would produce breakthroughs… would bring life and restoration and healing to the broken.
Maybe that’s in your household. Maybe that’s somebody that He’s set on your course in 2024. Jesus reminded us and His disciples and us down to this day in John 16… He said to his disciples, “Hey guys…” He’s saying to us today, “It’s important that I go back to My Father, that I ascend back to My Father’s right hand. Because if I’ll do so, then I will send the promised Holy Spirit. And that will be to your profit and your advantage.”
So the Holy Spirit’s in our life for our advantage, as Pastor Jim taught us so well this past weekend. And He’s wanting to coach and say some things to us. One Bible commentator said, “Once upon a time, he said that all the things that Jesus said He wanted to say to His disciples, but that they weren’t able to bear them at that time, He carried with Him back to the throne of God. But then He released them to us.” All those words and things He wanted to say to us through the Holy Spirit.
I want some of your attention…
So just know that the Lord is knocking at the door of your heart, whether you’re online, halfway around the world today or in this chapel somewhere, the Lord is saying, “I want some of your attention. I have many things to say to you at the dawn of a brand-new year that are going to prepare you for what I’ve prepared for you that are going to bring hope to you.” Because God’s words always bring hope. Even though they might be words that bring discipline to our lives, they also bring hope for change and for a better and brighter and more prosperous day ahead in the plan of God and in our finances and in our relationships, and in every other way. Because the Word of God brings the presence of God.
Promotion comes to those who linger in His presence…
Somebody said recently that there is promotion for those who will linger in the presence of God. That’s where promotion… that’s where answers transpire… strategy is downloaded… breakthrough and promotion happen. They happen inside before they show up on the outside. And they’re a result of us turning our attention toward Him, working at to be present or to practice His presence. Amen. Hallelujah.
I jotted this down last night…
As I was praying and preparing for prayer this morning, I jotted down, “Life in this world is often messy, confusing, challenging, and uncertain. We may not see the way forward…” In other words, in our natural perspective… “or know how to resolve the difficult situations we find ourselves in from time to time or find the world in from time to time. However, it’s important to remember that to this day, there is one with a voice crying in the wilderness. Of course, I know in the gospel of Mark, that’s a reference to the one crying in the wilderness to John the Baptist. But I’m going to level that up and say there is one that’s still crying in the wilderness, “Prepare the way of the Lord, make His path straight.” And I would suggest to you that his name is no longer John the Baptist. John the Baptist was a forerunner of Jesus and the Spirit of Jesus. But I would suggest to you that that voice is now the voice of the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, coequal to God the Father and God the Son. And is presently on the earth, orchestrating the plan of God… orchestrating the power of God… orchestrating your comeback… orchestrating your deliverance… orchestrating your steps today if you’ll let Him. So that you are set up for that comeback… so that you are set up for that breakthrough… so that you’re set up to experience an extraordinary amount of favor upon and in your life in 2024.
Favor isn’t just a confession or a nice little thing that you say. Favor starts by us being intentional. There’s that word again. To give our attention to God the Holy Spirit as He orchestrates and postures our hearts and our lives in such a way that we are synchronized with what God has already prepared and decided and recorded in our books of destiny. Because when we are synchronized by the hand of the Holy Spirit, then favor is discharged. Answers show up. We experience open doors. We experience a supernatural grace and almost effortlessness in the execution of the plan and purpose of God in our daily lives and not a constant struggle.
I think the fact that we struggle at times or maybe if we struggle a lot that might be a cue or an indication that we might be doing it wrong or in a contrary way according to the Word of God. That there, as the Bible says, remains a rest for the people of God. That rest is faith. Leaning into Him. Let our striving and our pressing be into Him and into His Word and into lingering in His presence and letting His presence and our time and our journey with Him be the very thing that propels us in our day-to-day lives and what we do.
So I went on to write this…
That it’s important to remember that to this day there is one with a voice crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord, make His path straight. And that, of course, is the Holy Spirit.
He, the Holy Spirit, does this as we yield our voice to Him in prayer. When you pray in other tongues… tongues just means other languages. It literally levels everything that stands in the way of God’s plan for your life. Anything that’s not right, His voice through you begins to correct it.
Can I get an amen this morning? This is good stuff. This is God mentoring us! Amen?
Anything that’s not right, His voice through you, as you worship, as you pray, as you yield yourself to Him by just simply being present, it begins to correct. How? By righting what’s wrong, healing what’s broken, fixing what is messed up, and bringing clarity as well as answers to circumstances that need it.
Praying in the Spirit will take you where God wants you to go in 2024. Praying in the Spirit in particular. It’s your ability to steer your life in circumstances. How? By your tongue. Amen.
Now let me just read something to you…
I don’t know if I’ve read anything from this or not. But it’s a book by the author Dave Roberson, entitled “The Walk of the Spirit, The Walk of Power.” I’ve had it for a long time, and I may have read excerpts myself in my devotional time in years past. But I really picked it up here in the last month and began to dive into it. And honestly, I’ve reread some chapters and portions of it over and over. And every time I do I’m like, “Wow, I didn’t see that before. That’s so good.” There’s just a depth to it and it’s really blessed my heart and just kind of uplifted me in some new ways and imparted some things to me. But let me just read a couple of quick pages to you, because I think it adds to what I’m sharing this morning.
Excerpt from Dave Roberson’s book, “The Walk of the Spirit, the Walk of Power”
Dave Roberson says, “Scripture writes ‘Likewise, the Spirit also help with our infirmities for we know not what we should pray for as we ought, but the spirit itself makes intercession for us with groanings, which cannot be uttered.’ Paul begins with the word “likewise.” In other words, he is saying in this manner. In other words, likewise means in this manner. Or in this manner, the Spirit helps or assists us in our infirmities. This is how the Holy Spirit helps our infirmities or our weaknesses. The word infirmities refers to our inability to produce results.”
Anybody been there? Felt like you just don’t have the ability or the wherewithal to produce the results. Maybe it’s in your work, maybe it’s in your relationships, maybe it’s with your finances, or in prayer for that matter. It means the inability to produce results because of our limitations imposed on us by our flesh. Yes, we do have this thing called flesh that weights us down and seems to get in our way at times and causes us to be slow to respond sometimes and be prone to temptation at times.
He says…
“So the Holy Spirit was sent to help us in our inability to produce results in our own strength. Let me break down the meaning of this verse a little further. Suppose a damnable disease brings normal to a standstill in your life. I can’t get that the disease out of my body, and it’s in the process of killing me. That my friend is an infirmity. Or suppose poverty tracks me down and cancels out anything I’m doing for the Kingdom of God. It brings my forward progress to a standstill. And there doesn’t seem to be anything I can do about it. That too is an infirmity.
You know, as a dad I coach my daughter when it comes to her sport or just my kids in life is I remind them that there are some things you just can’t control. You can’t control other people. You can’t control a lot of circumstances. You can’t control necessarily what life brings tomorrow. But there are things you can control. You can control your response to what happens. What the enemy attempts to do. And that begins with our choice to take a strong stance on the promise of God or what God says about us and what we can do regarding our perspective, our words, and our response of faith to that circumstance of that situation.
