Morning Chapel Prayer Playlist
Morning Chapel Prayer Today
Prayer leader Cindy…
Good morning, everybody. So glad to see you here today. It’s the assembling together of the saints in light. I was talking to John, and I said, “You jump in any time you have something,” because we all are assembled here by design of our Father. And each one of us has something to add to the recipe that’s on the menu today. I’m Cindy. I’m one of the prayer leaders here at Living Word.
We are partaking…
Thank you, Father, for the ingredients. We love what you planned today. We love what you have on the menu every day. We’re coming to your table, and we’re sitting down with you in the fellowship, in the communion of the saints. And we are partaking. He said, “Unless you drink My blood and eat My body, you have no part in Me.” But we thank you, Lord, that every day you have a meal for us, a meal that heals and restores and fills us once more with the good nutrients of what your thoughts are for us today.
Prayed…
Today, we declare we are appointed for your glory to shine, to be your image bearers, light bearers, shining your light everywhere we go.
Thank you, Lord, for all of our positions.
Thank you, Lord, for the fullness of Christ, for in that body lives the fullness of God.
Every member alive and operating in the newness of life, for in Christ Jesus, the perfect law of liberty.
No evil shall befall us, no plague come near our dwelling, for you have given your angels a special charge over us, to accompany and defend us in the ways of the Lord.
Our way is the way of the Lord today.
We decide and decree and declare today we walk in the way of the Lord.
And we frame our day, and everything has to fall into line because we say and declare, “This is the day the Lord has made. We’ll rejoice and be glad therein because He’s doing the work, and we’re showing up because we decreed we’re going in the way of the Lord.”
He’s increasing our capacity for compassion…
I had a friend who was listening to Billye Brim’s prayer call two Wednesdays ago. And they had a word that came out, and Jesus was speaking to the church. He says, “I’m increasing your capacity for compassion.”
We just receive that, Lord.
We receive the thing that fueled your tank, the thing that kept you going in the way that you should go.
You walk through a crowd of people to get to one person because compassion compelled you to do it.
Thank you, Lord, that we can live this way… to the compassion that’s compelling us to do.
Compassion in correction…
And even in correction, that’s compassion. We see the Devil trying to eat somebody’s lunch in the way of false evidence appearing real. We come in in compassion and speak a word that turns around the situation, whether that’s a correction in love or just lifting them up and reminding them today of who they are.
We thank you, Father, that the joy of the Lord is our strength. Indications of things to come.
They’re super joyful.
And the Devil’s scratching his head and saying, “Would you please be quiet?”
No!
God sits in the heavens and laughs.
We have a great ending to this great beginning.
What He started, He finishes.
And we expect that faith is the substance of things God hopes for. He expects.
Our expectations line up with your expectations today.
We laugh and enjoy the day you made.
Sing a song unto the Lord, a song of praise unto our God.
Joy in the camp of the God of our salvation.
He saved us to the uttermost. He filled us with His Holy Ghost.
David said, “I’m dancing, and I’m singing, and I’m praising God, and I will be even more undignified in the eyes of the scrutinizing world order.
We come to set free those that are under the fear of death.
Death has no place. Death has no sting. Death has been defeated.
Flowing in the river of the Holy Ghost…
I’m just going to read this little thing. This morning, the way I do it is just… Some people are super planners, and they plan, plan, plan. And then there’s me. And I’ve learned to accept it because that’s the way He made me. So we do what we do is we abide. And I do feel like I’m in a river most of the time. You know, in the river, things are flowing by you so quickly. So all you have to do is just rest and continue in the things that you know to do. And that would be stay in His Word, fellowship with Him and His beautiful saints, because that’s where the joy is.
I think this is from the website of the Ligonier’s. They’re apologetics. But this is talking about the holiness of God. He does a daily devotion.
The holiness of God…
“We see the holiness of Christ not only in His separation from sin, but also in His loving devotion to His Father and His people. Today, Sinclair Ferguson marvels that we are consecrated to enjoy the perfect love of the triune God. He is inviting us into this place.
“The past couple days we’ve been trying to reflect together on the holiness of God. Yesterday, I was quoting a favorite hymn from my youth, Thomas Binney’s hymn, ‘Eternal Light.’ While I’ve always loved singing the words of the second verse, at the same time, I feel there’s something missing. ‘The spirits that surround Thy throne may bear the burning bliss. But that is surely theirs alone, since they have never, never known a fallen world like this.’
“The vision of Isaiah in Isaiah 6 seems to me to suggest that even unfallen, perfectly holy spirits surround the throne actually feel they cannot bear the burning bliss of God’s holiness. Isaiah felt it was unbearable because he was a sinner, but there must be a different reason the seraphs respond the way they do, don’t you think?
“And the vision helps us, I think, to understand that there’s another dimension to God’s holiness. It’s not only separation from something, it’s also consecration to something that gives God’s holiness its deep intensity. I think we get a helpful hint of this in Jesus’ prayer for His disciples in John 17. He prays, ‘Sanctify them. Make them holy.’ Then He goes on to say, ‘For their sakes, I sanctify Myself that they also may be sanctified,’ John 17:19. It’s actually the same verb used three times. The translator of the ESV renders the word of Jesus, ‘For their sake, I consecrate myself,’ perhaps because they wanted to avoid using the word sanctify in case someone misunderstood it as though the Lord Jesus was sinful and needed to be sanctified. That’s perfectly understandable. But when we realize it’s the same word used three times, that brings out a nuance in the idea of holiness that we might otherwise miss. Jesus is not only separating Himself from something, in this case sin, He never did sin. He’s separating Himself for something or actually for someone. It’s not only a negative idea, but a profoundly positive one. Jesus is talking not only about His holiness, but also about the intensity and intense zeal of His loving commitment to His Heavenly Father. He’s thinking too about His loving commitment for us. In a word, the holiness of the Lord Jesus is seen in the totality of His love for and devotion to His Father and also to us. You remember how He calls His Father, Holy Father, earlier in John 17:11 because He knows His Father similarly loves Him and is devoted to Him.
Now I’m just going to read John 17:11…
“And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I’m coming to you, Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one even as we are one.”
“Let’s not forget the title given to the Spirit of God. He is the Holy Spirit. Like the Father and the Son, He’s devoted to the other two persons in the eternal Trinity.
“I wonder if that’s only the reason the seraphs felt they had to veil their faces from the holiness of God. They felt they couldn’t gaze upon or pry into the holy devotion. There’s a point in most wedding services today when the minister says to the groom, ‘You may now kiss your bride.’ Who gets the best view of that kiss? Actually, it’s the minister. He’s three feet away from it. I confess I’ve always looked down at that point. I’ve always felt that’s not a moment for me to be watching. That’s about the devoted self-giving of this man to this woman. I at least metaphorically cover my eyes. Magnify that moment of deep human love, mutual commitment, self-giving devotion. Magnify it to infinity and that magnification will give you only a glimpse of the wonder of the holiness of God. The consecration of the Father to His Son and the Son to His Father, the consecration of both to the Holy Spirit and His consecration to them. I suspected it was something of that order that both the seraphim and Isaiah felt.
“We sometimes mistakenly think that it’s the severity of God’s holiness that we’re not able to behold. But it’s more than that, isn’t it? It’s the sheer intensity of the Father and the Son and the Spirit’s mutual love for one another that makes us feel we lack love, we lack integrity, we are disintegrating, we are undone. It’s the pure love that makes us feel the ugliness of our own self-love, the self-love that pollutes even our very best gifts, which you remember in Isaiah’s case. Since he was a preacher, these gifts that were expressed were through his lips. He needed a burning coal from the altar to sacrifice, to touch his lips, and to bring him cleansing and pardon.
“My friends, how much more can we thank God that we have come to a greater altar, Calvary, and to a greater sacrifice, our Lord Jesus, and experience the work of a greater seraph, the Holy Spirit, as He has applied pardon and salvation to us? Yes, let’s thank God that Thomas Binney was right. There is a way for man to rise to that sublime board. An offering and a sacrifice, a Holy Spirit’s energies, an advocate with God. These prepare us for the sight of holiness from above. ‘The sons of ignorance and night,’ [this is the rest of the song] ‘may dwell in the eternal light through the eternal love.’
“May that be true for us, too.”
