Morning Chapel Prayer Playlist
Morning Chapel Prayer Today
Pastor Ken…
Well, hello everyone. Good to be back for Friday Prayer here. Welcome.
Smith Wigglesworth: Seven Keys to Winning…
I want to share a couple of things with you this morning. I thought I’d just share some keys or secrets to winning the battle, winning the challenges that we face in our lives. And this comes straight from the “one and only” and great Smith Wigglesworth, who was known for his faith and for his tenacity in the things of God in the spirit. And he gave seven keys, or seven essentials, for winning spiritual battles before they’re manifested, before they come into reality.
First Key: Rule your thought life…
“Victories are secured long before the opposition appeared.” One way that we win those battles ahead of time is, he said, “I ruled my thought life ruthlessly. Battles are lost…” And I would add won! “…first in the mind.”
So as a pray-er, that should be a focus of your day-to-day life, is to make sure that you’re practicing… I call it “practicing the habit of good thinking.” And that starts with the Word of God. It starts with time, just letting your heart and your thoughts be marinated in the Scriptures. And we now know from research and scientific evidence that the truth of God’s Word, when we feed on it consistently, has a profound and even psychological measurable effect…
To improve your psychological state
To improve your emotions
To improve your ability to stay calm under pressure and to feel peace and contentment and joy even though circumstances may not have changed for you
God’s Word affects your central nervous system…
God’s Word, we’re finding, is not just spiritual. It’s actually biological. Meaning, it affects your central nervous system in a powerful and positive way. Especially when you spend time in the Word, even just a matter of minutes. They say consistently four or more times a week. I don’t know why four days a week is significant. But they found that if you spend time in the Word maybe once or twice a week, it doesn’t have a lot of measurable benefit, at least from a science standpoint. It’s still, of course, a lot better than nothing. But they found that once you hit that four-day-a-week mark, you start to see noticeable returns and benefits on being in the Word of God, feeding on the scriptures. I don’t have that research in front of me, but I remember reading that not too long ago.
Second Key: Speak only God’s Word…
Number two, I refuse to speak anything that opposed God’s Word. Remember, you’ve heard me say that faith simply is agreeing with God’s Word, agreeing with what He said about you and your situation. Not blocking up and stopping up His power from flowing in your life by saying things that are opposite of His Words. Say what God has said about you.
Third Key: Stay filled with the Holy Spirit…
“Stay filled with the Holy Spirit daily. Fullness prevents vulnerability.”
That’s so good. I would add fullness of the Spirit as we see in Ephesians also enables you or puts you in a position to understand what God wants you to do, His will for your life. It says in Ephesians that we’re to know what the will of God is for our lives. And in the next paragraph, it says, “Be being filled with the Spirit, speaking in psalms and hymns and spiritual sayings, making melody in your heart to the Lord.” So stay filled with the Holy Spirit.
Fourth Key: Don’t wait for trouble to pray…
He said, “I never waited for trouble to pray. Prayer is preparation—not reaction.” That’s good. Prayer is preparation. Not reaction.
Fifth Key: Act on the Word…
The fifth way that we win spiritual battles, “I acted on the Word even when nothing was visible. Faith is an act.” Smith Wigglesworth was known for that epic message where he got up and he just said over and over again, “Faith is an act.” You have to find a way to put legs, put steps to your faith. Because it’s those steps of faith that elicit the power of God, and it begins to flow to transform your life and your circumstances.
Sixth Key: Refuse self-pity or discouragement…
“I refuse to enter self-pity or discouragement. The Bible says we’re to submit ourselves, therefore, to God, resist the Devil and he will flee from us. These states weaken spiritual authority.” The Devil doesn’t usually show up in a red suit, horns, and a pitchfork. But he will show up in the form of a tantalizing temptation to feel down and to stay there. He’ll show up with the invitation to be self-pitiful and to pick yourself apart and say look at all that you’ve done wrong, and how you were treated, and what didn’t work out for you. You have to resist that. Say, “No, Mr. Devil, you’re not gaining entrance into my house or into my life today. I say no to self-pity, no to discouragement, no to melancholy feelings. I’m not going to surrender to that or give into that. I resist that and I choose to rejoice.”
Seventh Key: Declare victory as a settled fact…
“I declared victory as a settled fact. Satan flees from settled conviction; battles ended before they began because faith never surrendered ground.”
Stand your ground…
So I encourage you today: stand your ground. Refuse to be moved off the mark of His promise and His Word to you. You got this because God has got you.
The good fight of faith is good because we have the victory…
The Bible says we fight a good fight of faith. It’s not a bad fight. It’s a good fight. Why? Because we’re promised victory. Because Jesus has already demonstrated victory and won for us on our behalf. But this victory isn’t a matter of self-will; us standing in victory and receiving the answer to our prayers is not a matter of mental mind games or gymnastics. But faith and receiving and walking in victory is a matter of resting and trusting and letting God’s Word work in you because you give it time and place in your day-to-day life.
Take time to pray…
Taking time to rest in Him, in His presence. There’s far more benefits and supply in the spirit. I’m talking about when you’re alone by yourself in your home, when you’re in your car, when you’re in your prayer closet. The Bible says you should go to a place when you pray. You should have a place to pray. And you should tune out all the distractions, according to Matthew 6. Jesus taught us a great method of prayer.
Tune out the distractions.
Leave your phone somewhere else.
Close the door.
Put a Do-Not-Disturb sign out or whatever.
And just be with your Heavenly Father. He longs to be with us.
Allow the Holy Spirit to replenish you…
And the beautiful thing is it’s in that secret place in fellowship with Him, in His Word, but also in His presence through prayer and silence and meditation that allows the Holy Spirit to replenish us. Some of us, maybe today. It’s not that we need a new heavy revelation about something. We just need to be replenished. There is a sustaining supply of God the Holy Spirit that’s available to us because the fight of faith sometimes is longer than we anticipated. That’s okay. The victory is still sure. God is still on His throne. He’s still pronouncing that you have the answer and that you will be victorious at the end in that situation.
But in the meantime, it’s incumbent, it’s important for us to take advantage of His sustaining supply of the Spirit. It’s important for us to spend that time in His Word and that time in His presence so His presence can surround our hearts and minister hope and fresh perspective and strength and sustenance and replenishment that we need to continue our race.
Demonstrate to the enemy that you will outlast his tactics…
The enemy’s maybe watching and seeing, “I wonder if they’re going to be a flash-in-the-pan Christian. And they’re going to give up here shortly.” No, you need to demonstrate that you’re willing to outlast your enemy. And that’s sometimes how you gain certain victories.
You just stand.
You just stay there.
You stay in the fight.
Our fight is a fight to rest…
But remember, our fight isn’t a hand-to-hand combat with the enemy. Our fight is a fight to rest. Labor, therefore, to enter into the rest of God. Why can we rest? Because our fight is a good fight. Our fight is a fight that’s already been settled at the cross and in the resurrection and even in the ascension—especially in the ascension of Jesus— back to the right hand of the throne of His Father, the throne of authority.
So stand today.
Go with God today.
Be assured you have the victory.
You can take His Word to the bank…
If His Word states it and promises it, then you can take it to the bank. You’ve got it. Whether it’s healing, provision, hope, peace that God is right there near you in a difficult season where you feel alone and isolated, the Father is right there with you. It’s going to be all right. You may have made mistakes. God’s already factored in that we’re going to make mistakes. And guess what? His Word still promises. It’s going to work out the way He intends for it to work out.
Lean into Him…
So just let your soul, your heart, your life absorb His graceful replenishing presence today. Somebody, you just need to say, “Lord, carry me today. I can’t do it. I need you to carry me.” Well lean into Him. Talk to Him. Spend that time praying in your heavenly prayer language. It will make a whole lot of difference, more difference than you realize it is making when you pray in the Spirit, enabling God to do in your life what you can’t do on your own.
One great man of prayer many years ago said that “When we work, like in our natural sense, we work. But when we pray and when we seek His face, God works.” There’s another passage of scripture that says, “When we wait, God works.” That’s counterintuitive to our intellect, but from a spiritual standpoint, that’s a reality. That’s a law.
It’s going to be all right—God’s got you…
Let me read something else to you here before we pray. That’s just kind of a little encouragement for you this morning. “It’s going to be all right. God’s got you.” The hope that He first sends and He proclaimed in His Word to you still stands today. You’re going to have everything God intends for you to have. You’re going to see everything you’ve been seeing in your heart as you’ve been praying. You’re going to see it. It’s going to unfold in your future.
Don’t relent.
Refuse to give up.
Stand your ground.
Stay on your mark in prayer.
Stay tenacious.
You’re going to see all of it, all that you’ve been praying for, believing for, standing for. We’re going to see it as a nation. We’re going to see it as a church. Everything God intends for us. If there’s anything contrary to God’s Word that’s been trying to distract you or worm its way into your psychology or into your heart, you can say and you should ought to say “No!” to that. That’s one of the great keys to practicing the habit of good thinking and keeping your soul sharp is to root out and run out anything that is contrary to the Word of God… in your thinking, in your imagination, in your speaking.
You must be the gardener of your soul…
You have a personal responsibility, each and every one of us, to be the horticulturalist, the gardener of our souls, our mind, our wills, and our emotions to watch over them. The Scripture records in Proverbs, “Above all that you guard and watch over and tend to, watch guard over your heart. For out of your heart flow the issues of the forces that create the reality of your future.”
The Bible illuminates what’s on the inside of you…
So watch over your thoughts today. Keep an eye on them. The best way to do it is to be a student of the Word. Because the Bible is the only book that, as you start to read it, you come to the conclusion and realization that it is reading you. And it’s illuminating you on the inside. The Word of God as we feed on it consistently shines light on our imagination, on our thoughts, on our wills, on our attitudes, to expose and reveal and give us grace to bring them into alignment with what God had in mind all along, which is an attitude of faith and a heart at rest, encapsulated with peace.
There’s far more that goes on that transpires when we pray and when we are students of the Word of God on a daily basis… far more than just what we think maybe is spiritual. It has a where “the rubber meets the road” effect on our attitudes, our mindsets, our level of hope, of course, our level of faith, but also our central nervous system, our level of peace and strength and outlook on our future. It shapes it.
The Word and His presence are able to impregnate you with divine DNA…
Prayer and the Word shape our outlook and create in us the reality of Jesus. In Him we live and move and have our being. We are the offspring of God. Well, the Word of God and the presence of God are able to impregnate you with the divine DNA of heaven. The divine DNA of His promises so that your life can go through a great exchange, where you exchange your weakness for His strength, where you exchange your will for His, where your old stinking, griping negative-Nelly attitude can be transformed into an attitude of faith and boldness and assurance that your Heavenly Father will come through for you again and again and again.
