Morning Chapel Prayer Playlist
Morning Chapel Prayer Today
Pastor Ken…
Well, good morning. Happy Monday, everyone. Good to see you in the chapel. My name is Ken, along with Miss Annie, we’re going to pray here today. Can we do that?
We need an unprecedented encounter with God…
I was just reflecting a little bit last night and thinking about what is truly available to us as God’s sons and daughters, as His people: how much power there is available, and how much of the power and presence of God needs to be in manifestation in and through our lives in these coming days. As I’ve said before, we live in an unprecedented time that will require an unprecedented encounter with God, not just once upon a time but today.
God desires that we would encounter Him today. That His presence would not be somewhere locked up in the recesses of our soul, our spirit, but brought forward into the presentness of our today, of our decisions, of our praying this morning, of whatever we’re doing. God, through Jesus, paid a high price to release the Spirit of the living God from the Holy of Holies.
That He might be able to traverse the earth.
That He might be able to indwell us… what a beautiful and amazing endowment of God.
That He would place His presence on the inside of us.
That the Spirit of God would live in us.
That we would be a temple or a tabernacle of the very aura and essence and presence of God.
We need to fan into flame the fullness of God…
All through our lives, He’s right there with us. He’s in us. He’s for us. He wants to work through us. And so I just want to, I guess, just highlight that. There are some things we need to do to fan into flame the fullness of God’s presence. There are some things we need to do to bring forward the presence and the ability and the strategy and the wisdom of God the Holy Spirit.
God’s will is that we all walk in His fullness of power…
And one way is through prayer. There’s a classic book entitled “How to Obtain Fullness of Power.” And how many of you know it would be good for us to walk in fullness of power, not just a pastor or a particular prayer leader or a single individual, but God intended all along that we would “all” walk in fullness of power. But there’s some things we are responsible to do that enable, once again, that presence to be brought forward in fullness, for us to be able to access His wisdom and His timing for things to know which direction to go today, to be able to pray from a new level or a new place today.
R.A. Torrey’s book, “How to Obtain Fullness of Power”
And in R.A. Torrey’s book, “How to Obtain Fullness of Power,” he writes, “Prayer has power to bring the Holy Spirit in all His blessed power and manifold works into our hearts and lives. ‘If you then being evil, says Jesus, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him?’ It was after the disciples had continued in prayer and supplication, Acts 1:14 says ‘They were filled with the Holy Ghost.’ On another occasion when they had prayed, the place was shaken where they had been assembled together and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost. It is true that you receive an initial infilling of the Spirit, but there must be many and repeated infillings of the Spirit. And prayer is one really practical way to do that. The Bible says that we charge ourselves up in our most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit.”
He goes on to say…
“When Peter and John came down to Samaria and found a company of converts who had not yet experienced the fullness of the Spirit and its power, ‘they prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Ghost and they received the Holy Ghost.’ It was an answer to prayer that Paul expected the saints in Ephesus to be, ‘to be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man.’”
We’ve got to “flip the switch”
Can anybody use some strength today? Let me just tell you that there is a practical outworking in prayer in our time together. But in our individual time together, when you pray, it does flip a switch on the inside of you, so to speak. It flips the switch of the Holy Spirit’s ministry of revelation, of course. But it also releases His anointing and power in you, in your physicality, in your mindset, in everything you do today will be benefited, will be improved, will be leveled up because you took time to pray.
Somebody once said that the Holy Spirit is the genius of Jesus. In other words, what Jesus possessed you and I have inside of us. But we’ve got to flip the switch. Prayer flips that switch so that we can walk in and step into it and function in the genius of Jesus. Yes, in prayer, but also as we go about our day today.
He goes on to say…
“And that ‘God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory would give them the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him.’”
And you could say in the knowledge of His will for you today for that decision you need to make, for that situation you’re grappling with, God has an answer. That answer is inside of you. Your future is inside of you. The power of God, the power of the resurrection is inside of you. And we draw on that reservoir that knows no limit or no end through prayer. Through time in His Word, of course, but through our prayers and our faith decrees, and our agreement with what God is saying. What I’m saying, which is the Word.
He goes on to say…
“Prayer brings the fullness of the Spirit’s power into our hearts and lives. Many of us have so little of the Holy Spirit’s power in our lives and service. The reason is, is that we spend so little time and thought in prayer. ‘We have not because we ask not.’ Every precious spiritual blessing in our own lives is given by our Heavenly Father in answer to prayer. Prayer promotes our own spiritual growth and our likeness to Christ as almost nothing else can. The more we spend time in real true prayer, the more we will grow in the likeness of the Master.
“One of the Saintliest, most Christ-like men who ever lived was John Welsh, the son-in-law of John Knox, the great Scottish reformer. Welsh said that he had given one third of his time to prayer and often spent a whole night in prayer. He became a type of Christ. It was said of him, he became a type of Christ.”
We all should become a “type of Christ”
In other words, he reflected Jesus so accurately and so closely that he was like a type of Christ. Well, we are to be a type of Christ. We’re in Christ. And there’s something truly profound about prayer that not only does it cause your whole being to begin to vibrate after a while with the power of God, it also brings about a transformation. Because as you pray, you’re looking into the face of God, the face of Jesus. And as you look into His face, you are transformed, as the Bible says. And begin to reflect Him in many and more and more ways.
“Many illustrations could be given of the power of prayer to bring our lives into conformity with Christ. In prayer, we gaze into the face of God, as 2nd Corinthians 3:18 says, ‘beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord are changed into the same image from glory to glory.’”
God has another level of assignment for you!
News Flash! God has another level of glory for you today. Do you believe that? He’s got another level of assignment for us today. He has another level of reflecting Jesus in our lives: our attitudes, our thoughts, our words, our decisions, how we deal with people, what we do today. That glorifies God when we reflect Him and are more like Him. And when you’re in the presence, when you’re at the feet of Jesus, let me tell you, change happens! It’s not just a religious routine that you go through when you pray. Recognize that we have this beautiful responsibility every day, even moment by moment throughout our day…
To connect with Him
To see Him
To acknowledge Him
To worship Him
To pray to Him
And as we do, there is a profound work of God that transpires in that process. Even if it’s for two minutes or just a moment of acknowledging Him. His power is real. His Spirit is on planet earth and living in you if you’ve professed His name. After all, He’s the one who flung the cosmos into existence. Why, of course…
He’s well able to deal with that back problem that you’re struggling with.
He’s well able to solve your deficiency in your budget this month.
He’s well able to give you and grant you another step in the plan of God.
He’s able to inspire you to pray at the right moment the words that come forth from God the Holy Spirit so that the enemy can be dealt with and put on the run, and you step into, or the people you’re praying for, step into breakthrough.
The Church is meant to be a place of generating the power of God…
Come on now. The Church was to be, yes, a family and about preaching the Gospel, but we were also to be a great generating place… A place of generating the power of God. Just like a nuclear power plant burns nuclear fuel to produce electricity, so too your prayer life generates the electricity of the power of God. Not just in the tingly, so that you get goosebumps. But also so that you have wisdom for that decision this week or later this year. So that you have power to get up out of your bed, stop fellowshiping with “sister sheets” and “brother pillow,” and go do the will of God today.
The power of God is tangible. And prayer converts it into what we need to do, what God has called us to do on increasing levels from glory to glory, from victory to victory, from one level and degree of His purpose to the next.
We will see supernatural evil on the rise…
Pastor Jim said this weekend, “There is supernatural evil on the rise, and we will see it in very shocking ways.” At least some will, depending on who’s left behind in the time ahead. But the truth of the matter is God always intended for the church to be supernatural good and representing and displaying and portraying the supernatural-ness of His Spirit in and through our lives. Not just once upon a time when we needed a healing or came to the altar, but daily! Daily we give ourselves to prayer so that daily we might put on display the supernatural ability of the risen Christ Jesus our Lord.
R.A. Torrey goes on to say…
“But prayer has more to offer than the power to mold us spiritually into the likeness of Christ. It also has the power to bring the fullness of God’s power into our work.” Or whatever you set your hand to. You want to know why you can confess everything I set my hand to will prosper and succeed, as the Bible says?
It’s because of the power of God.
It’s because of what rests on you.
It’s because what you have been endowed with.
He said…
“When the apostolic church saw themselves confronted by obstacles that they could not surmount ‘They lifted up their voice to God with one accord.’ Acts 4:24. ‘And when they had prayed the power came that swept all the obstacles before it.’”
The power of God sweeps away obstacles…
In other words, the power of God comes to sweep away obstacles, to remove burdens, to destroy yolks, to make a way for you today where you don’t see a way. That’s why the great Martin Luther in the Middle Ages talked about how he had so much to do today that he needed to pray much. Because prayer is the foremost holiest work. It’s the precursor of all that God wants to do in your life. You sweep away obstacles when you pray. You bulldoze hindrances and blockages and stoppages that you can’t seem to overcome in your mind, in your finances, in any aspect of your life.
Guess what?
They get swept out of the way. Pastor Lynne has taught us through the ears that prayer pushes back darkness. It pushes it out of the way so that you have a free course to move forward in the plan of God today. Whatever that looks like. Whatever He has for you.
He goes on to say…
“Do you desire the power of God in your personal work, in your preaching, or in your training up your children? Pray for it. Hold on to God until you get it.”
In other words, there needs to be a tenacity, a determinedness, “never say die.” I’m going to get this thing if it hair lips the devil. Or whatever. I don’t know.
He says…
“Hold on until you get it. In Luke 18:1, ‘Men ought always to pray and not lose heart, faint, or give up.’ I will never forget the sight I once witnessed as a woman of limited experience in public speaking was called upon to address an audience filling the Tremont Temple in Boston. It was a notable audience made up of a notable people and many in number; many of the leading clergymen and evangelical denominations of the time were there as were many men of prominent philanthropic and political affairs. And as this woman spoke, the audience was hushed, swayed, melted, and molded. Tears coursed down cheeks that were unaccustomed to crying. The impression made on many was not only good, but permanent. It was an address of marvelous power. The secret of her success laid in the fact known only to few. That woman had spent the previous night on her face before God in prayer. She wasn’t an articulate person. She wasn’t trained in great preaching or teaching, but she had the power of God manifest on her. And it flowed through her to impact that audience of notable people.
John Livingstone experienced the effects of prayer…
John Livingstone is said to have spent a full night with several fellow Christians in prayer and discussion of spiritual matters. The next day, he preached in Kirk (?) with such power that 500 souls were saved. A mother came to me in great distress about her boy, one of the most incorrigible children I have ever known. Long story short, his life was changed because of his preaching.”
He goes on to say…
“We can have the power in our work if we will only believe God’s promise regarding prayer. I should say go to Him often with holy boldness that knows He desires to answer in Jesus’ name.”
