Morning Chapel Prayer Playlist
Morning Chapel Prayer Today
Pastor Ken…
Happy Friday! Good morning to you guys in the chapel. Thank you for being here today. My name is Ken and I’m one of the staff here at Living Word, along with Cindy and myself here today and some others in the chapel, we’re excited to come together and pray and just seek God. Can we do that today? Just seek Him and His presence and what He would have us to engage in regard to His purpose and plan for yours and my life and for His kingdom. What He’s doing here in Minnesota. What He’s doing in your nation, your state, your province, your city.
You personally benefit from praying…
One thing I learned long ago when I was in college and I started to get involved in a prayer group when I was a sophomore in college… First of all, I knew it must have been God, because the group I joined met on a Friday night at 7 p.m. in our old building in Brooklyn Park. And I knew there was a move of God going on in my life because as a college kid, I was willing to give up a Friday night and go pray for an hour or two at the church.
But, I didn’t think much of it. I just was hungry. But I no less joined a group that was focused on praying for Israel, which I didn’t really know much about Israel at that time. I knew of Israel, but I didn’t know its significance in scripture or the significance of Israel to us as believers and why we should pray for it. But I learned.
Prayer has the ability to transform you…
And while my focus was to bring my supply to pray for Israel and God’s plan for it in this generation, I learned that I benefited from that prayer group as well. Personally. Selfishly. I began to change. I began to grow. I began to be transformed and blessed in many ways because I was connected to a prayer group. How many of you know when you take up the Lord’s cause, it frees Him up to take up more of your personal causes and to work in your life…
to transform you
to bless you
to position you
to propel you down His ordained and already blessed path for your future when you focus on His purposes.
Prayer makes a difference…
And, of course, one of our great and most high callings is to pray…is to engage in God’s plan. And that plan, firstly, is made possible to become reality because we, His people, pray. And so I just encourage you to stay faithful in your place of prayer, both personally and collectively as well. Because it is making a whole lot of difference. Make no mistake about it.
You have to trust God in prayer…
There are some things that you just can’t judge or you can’t define… How can I put this? There are some things that while the world says success is defined by X, Y, Z. You can’t define success in many ways to some things in our lives regarding God’s plan. You have to trust that God is having His way.
There have been some things in my life where it didn’t look like it was successful. But I had to trust God with it, that it was successful in His mind and heart because I was faithful. And some things we will not see the result of our prayers, maybe even in this lifetime or in this dispensation for that matter. We just have to trust that as we’re faithful, as we follow our hearts, what’s He’s prompting us to do on the inside as far as prayer, connections, relationships, steps of obedience that it’s going to result in the fruit of God’s plan in this life, or the next one to come.
We will pray about what is going on in the Twin Cities…
I was mentioning to Cindy that I definitely want us to pray about what has been going on in our own city here in Minneapolis-St. Paul area, the Twin Cities, which if you’re in another part of the nation or world, you probably have heard some of the upheaval and the craziness going on. Of course, a woman was shot here in Minneapolis and it’s provoked more demonstrations and various kinds of language from our city officials and state leaders, et cetera.
Our fight isn’t with flesh and blood…
I just want to remind us this morning that we fight not against flesh and blood… human beings. So we play into the enemy’s hand as a people or as individuals, or a state, or a nation or a city or whatever when we begin to take sides and we begin to see someone else as the enemy. From a biblical worldview standpoint, our enemy is Satan himself, the kingdom of darkness. And we need to remind ourselves of that when it comes to prayer. We’re not fighting against people. We’re standing against forces of darkness. We as intercessors are stripping the enemy of his power when we pray. We are pushing back darkness when we intercede and pray and make faith decrees.
Our business is to engage in the kingdom business of prayer…
So remember, our business is not the business of repelling people or putting people in their place or justifying our beliefs or our political persuasion or whatever that might be for you. But, instead, to engage in the kingdom business of prayer, which has to do with the spirit realm. Because the root cause of the problems we see is in the realm we can’t see. It emanates…
from the enemy
from the thief
from the liar
from the deceiver
from the one who has come to try to disrupt God’s plan and steal, kill and destroy as the Bible defines the Devil.
Prayer for peace…
And prayer is our ability to stop that. So I just want to remind you of that this morning. So I definitely want us to pray about the events and some of the things that need to unfold in the days ahead. I definitely want us to pray for the peace of our city as well as the peace of Israel and Jerusalem. And we’ll do that here in just a bit.
Pastor Mark Brazee’s book, “Processing the Plan of God Through Prayer.”
But let me just share something with you by way of kind of getting us started. I always like to lay a foundation, whether I preach something or teach something or read something from the Word and from some good scriptural teaching. And, once again from Pastor Mark Brazee’s book, “Processing the Plan of God Through Prayer.” He writes in one chapter about a lifestyle of prayer. And this is a good thing to be reminded of at the outset of a brand new year.
He writes…
“Prayer touches every area of our lives. It’s like throwing a rock into a pond. The ripples go out and reach every shore.”
Prayer creates a wake…
So can you see that? Throwing a pebble into a pond and it creates those waves and ripples and they spread out from the epicenter of the impact of that pebble 360 degrees. They stretch out. They push out across that pond until those waves reach every shore. Well, that’s what prayer does. Prayer creates a wake. It creates a ripple effect that doesn’t seem significant in the moment of the impact of your faith decree. But make no mistake about it, it’s spreading out and it will touch every shore of your life, of your generation, of whatever situation we’re focused on praying about.
So…
“Prayer touches every area of our lives. It’s like throwing a rock into a pond. The ripples go out and reach every shore. Developing our own prayer life is essential. The more we pray, particularly in the Holy Spirit or in other tongues according to 1st Corinthians 14:2, the more sensitive we will become to the will and plan of God. God longs to bring His will or plan to pass in the earth and in us individually. He desires to have communion…” [You could say relationship or fellowship] “and to do business with us, His creation. Developing our own prayer life makes our prayer personal and causes things in our lives to become in order.”
Positive habits produce big results…
Or you could say, fall into place. I’ll just insert, there’s just nothing like giving yourself to prayer, even just a few moments on a daily basis. Remember, it’s often almost seemingly insignificant habits, positive habits like prayer, like study, like worship, like silence and solitude, practiced over time that can produce the biggest results and change in your life individually, but also in those things God’s called you to pray about.
He goes on to say…
“Causes things to fall into order. Jesus said, Pray lest you enter or fall into temptation, Mark 14:38. A prayer life will help our spirit grow stronger than our flesh and help keep us out of many temptations and problems we face in life. The more we walk in the spirit, the more we are able to not “fulfill the lust of our flesh” according to Galatians 5:16. Jesus said by the Holy Spirit, is any among you afflicted,” [Or you could say going through a tough time.] tempted, suffering trials, adversities.” James said if anyone is going through a hard time, let him or let her pray, James 5:13. A strong prayer life will help keep us out of afflictions and show us how to deal with them and come out victoriously.”
I like that! Really simple, but a really good reminder.
He goes on to say…
“I was baptized in the Holy Spirit, but I didn’t know the purpose of praying in other tongues. For some reason, one day I decided I was going to pray in tongues the whole way to school.” I think he was going to Bible school at this time. “and the whole way back. The first thing I found was that praying in tongues sure made the time go faster. So five days a week, I prayed in tongues for an hour a day. Do you know what I noticed? I was no longer trying to get rid of things. Instead things were falling off of me. Grave clothes were coming off. I didn’t try to quit this habit or that habit. Suddenly I no longer had a desire for the things I used to do. A prayer life will change us. That’s why James said ‘Is any among you afflicted? Let him pray.’ Afflicted does not mean sick. James gave instructions in James 5:14 to those who are sick. Afflicted means to be suffering tests, trials, or tribulations. James didn’t say is any among you afflicted let him go to eight hours of counseling. Thank God for counseling if it’s according to the Bible. James didn’t say, if anyone among you is afflicted, let him call the prayer line and have someone else pray for him.
No! James said to pray yourself.
Grace Ryerson Roos…
Okay, so let me just share one other thing with you here this morning that I didn’t get to from prayer letters by Grace Ryerson Roos. And this shifts gears a little bit more toward intercession. And she’s talking about in this one section, how intercession strips the enemy of his power, exposes him. Sometimes I share these things too, because I want you to have pictures in your mind when you go to praying, that you’re not just gutting out some dry, seemingly religious activity. But, instead, we’re engaging in our high calling. We’re engaging in something that’s having a real effect in our tangible world. It’s transforming you and me profoundly on the inside. We may not feel it or see it in the moment, but I guarantee, just like I did back in college, within a few months, a year, I looked back and saw, “Wow, I have really changed for the better.” As an 18, 19, 20-year-old kid. Because I was engaged in prayer.
But Grace Ryerson said this…
“Do you not know this is the day of the intercessor? Without an intercession, the body of Christ will not be perfected or come into an established maturity so that God can trust us with His great powers.”
There is a preparation…
See, this is where we come into play where the plan of God is concerned. Oftentimes, there is a preparation. There’s a change that needs to happen in us, in our behaviors, in our attitudes, in our outlooks, in our perspective. Sometimes God just wants to stretch our thinking and help us see beyond our current little deal.
Yeah, He cares about yours and my little deals. But He wants us to see beyond that… that we are crowned with His favor. That we have been called out of a generation to be a royal priesthood, to be kings and priests. Priests are called to intercede. The Bible says Jesus in His heavenly realm, presently ever lives to intercede. In other words, He is the quarterback of prayer. And He knows prayer is so important that He still Himself considered an intercessor. How much more ought we be intercessors? For this is the hour of the intercessor. And it produces change.
She goes on to say…
“Intercession is going to bring back the king. This great company of earnest pray-ers [that’s us] go into enemy territory as the vanguard or the forefront you could say, the cutting edge, the tip of the spear of the army of the Lord. Their secret prayers cut the bondages, set captives free, heal minds and attitudes, and bring them out of alien lands, into the liberty of the Spirit of God.
And as intercessors, we are called to tread on serpents and scorpions. That’s a reference to the enemy, the Devil. In other words, you’re not to be blocked up and stopped up by enemy tactics and strategies and deceptions by devils and doctrines of the evil one. But, instead, you’re called as intercessors, as followers of Jesus to step over serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy.
God’s plan is for you not to grapple with or cope with traumas and pain and uncertainty and depression and whatever bogs you down or tempts you from day to day. But instead, He’s called us to step over it. Your ability…
to step over evil
to step over your past
to step over what seems impossible
to step into the glorious light
to step into liberty
to step into the newness that God intends for you to experience in 2026.
That ability is found in prayer…
We make our way forward in life and in the plan of God and collectively as a church and as a nation as a body of Christ via prayer, by means of prayer! Prayer is our heaven-sent, God-ordained transportation that takes us from here to there.
“Well, where’s there, Ken?” There is where God is…
calling you to next
calling us as a church
calling us as a nation to next.
The last time I checked, my Bible still states that God’s plan is for us as His sons and daughters…
to rise
to perpetually be promoted
to go from one degree of glory to the next
to go from one degree of liberty and freedom to the next
to be on an upward incline in God’s plan
And prayer is our empowerment to do just that!
The enemy doesn’t want you to pray because he is scared of the fact that prayer restricts him and limits him and prevents him from doing what he wants. Oh, that gets me excited to pray. I don’t know about you. I like to push back darkness. I like to take ground. I like to strip him of his power because the truth is he’s already defeated and prayer is our ability to occupy our role.
What’s our role?
To be the victorious ones, to walk and live and move and have our being in Him. The ever victorious one. The ever triumphant one.
The Bible says He’s able to always cause you and me and us as the church to triumph. Why? Because of the Spirit of the living God within us. Because we take time to express the will of God and the victory of Jesus in the spirit and by the spirit through prayer.
