Morning Chapel Prayer Playlist
Morning Chapel Prayer Today
Pastor Ken…
Well, good morning, everyone. Happy Monday. Good to see you all. I missed you. If you didn’t notice, I’ve been gone for a couple weeks. I was down at the Fort Worth Believers Convention. I was asked to go help represent our table there. Pastor Mac spoke on one of the days. Did an outstanding job.
Discerning the voice and leadership of the Holy Spirit…
There was so much rich teaching by so many great ministers; the thing that seemed to be the common thread through all the teachings was the importance right now of discerning the voice and the leadership of the Holy Spirit and responding to Him. It seemed like every minister from Evangelist Jonathan Shuttlesworth to Pastor Bill Johnson, Nancy Dufresne, Brother Copeland that seemed to emerge as a theme in everything that was taught.
So I took notice and took notes…
And so, I just wanted to point that out to you as well. Perhaps that’s what the Spirit of God is saying to you. The importance of recognizing and responding to the leadership of the Holy Spirit—that’s going to be an all-essential thing at the center of what God is doing in this hour and how we move forward in this hour. So, I thought I’d share that with you.
Did I mention my name is Ken Olson? I’m one of the pastors on staff here at Living Word.
One of our sacred callings is to give ourselves to prayer…
Well, this morning I thought I would share a couple of things with you to get started. I think some of it, I guess, has been stirred in me by just some things I’ve heard in recent days. And, of course, we pray because of the prompting and the leadership of the Holy Spirit, because it’s clear in the Word that one of our sacred callings is to give ourselves to prayer.
Oh my! Iman prayed New Yorkers would convert or become unalived!
But also, I think, we can look around in society and be moved by what we’re seeing too sometimes, and that’s not a bad thing. Such as what I heard the other day about the mayor of New York who was in a prayer gathering, not our kind of a prayer gathering, but with an imam present who was praying over the city of New York and praying in particular that God would give them full control of New York and that all the people would either convert or be unalived, as they say nowadays, essentially. And the mayor wasn’t praying that, but he was complicit to that prayer because he was there standing with them.
Muslims in Chicago praying to take over Chicago!
Then I saw something yesterday of a well-known national evangelist who was in Chicago. And he was doing just a quick story on Instagram about how they were going to do a prayer march and a prayer gathering in the city of Chicago. And they went to this one particular park, and when they got there, there was a whole gathering of Muslims in full garb and tents and flags praying for the takedown of Chicago and that they would be able to take it over in time fully. And then we don’t need to talk about Dearborn, Michigan, right? On what’s going on there.
The enemy is attempting to do the same in Europe…
So clearly, the enemy is out in the open and very clear and public about what he is endeavoring to do, not just in America, but around the world. America is really just in the entry-level stages of what the enemy’s trying to do, in some ways. But it’s much more advanced in other places such as Europe, certain countries in Europe in particular, such as the recent report that it was 80,000 Muslim soldiers, if you will, in the UK, and supposedly they’re shipping arms there and storing them in mosques throughout the UK and are just waiting for the word to be activated in the UK.
So it’s really alarming, shocking, but we are not to fear…
We’ve seen it, we’ve heard about it for some time, but it’s almost like a whole nother level right now. And that’s not for us to fear or to be anxious about or to shift into emergency tongues necessarily. But it’s a good reminder that, hey, we’re playing for keeps right now, and our first step and our great calling is to pray. And it’s our prayers to the real and living God that avail much. And can turn the tide of what the enemy’s endeavoring to do.
It’s time for the church to wake up…
In fact, there’s also a story the other day about how there are many Muslims coming to faith in Christ right here in the United States of America. So when you serve the one and only and true God with the Holy Spirit, who is God present on earth in our hearts on a day-to-day basis, we have the upper hand. It just requires that the church wake up. It’s time for the church to wake up. It’s time for each of us to stir ourselves up. Yes, on a Monday morning. Not saying you haven’t been faithful or obedient up until now, but today’s another day. This is the day the Lord hath made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it, and be mindful of the fact that we have been sent to this generation as individuals, as a collective, the body of Christ, to be on mission.
We’re on a higher assignment now…
Of course, there are things we have to do individually to take care of our families and our mortgages and what we do on a daily basis or whatever, but ultimately, we’re here on a higher assignment and Jesus delegated authority from heaven to earth into our hearts, onto our lips, into our agency, our lives. Not just so that we can overcome what we’ve been dealing with in our personal situation. Yes, so you can overcome, but not just so you can overcome, so that we can step into that higher calling. So that we can step into that assignment that He has for us…
To wield the Word.
To wield it as a weapon.
To speak forth the mighty works of God.
To change and to shift atmospheres.
To prepare the way for the coming of the King.
To reverse the tide of evil.
To bring down altars of false gods.
To set the stage for a no-holds barred, full-on awakening in America and beyond into the uttermost parts of the earth.
George Whitefield quote…
That’s our assignment! And I’m reminded that Ephesians 5:14 says, “Awake, O sleeper, rise up from the dead, and Christ will give you light.” George Whitefield, I believe this was in 1739, said, “The Christian world is in deep sleep. Nothing but a loud voice can awaken them out of it. It’s time to wake up our churches to the need for revival and spiritual awakening. It’s time to answer the Holy Spirit’s wake-up call.”
Quote from devotional about revival…
Now let me read this to you. It talks a little bit about revival. It’s just a little devotional. It says, “Think about the potential of a fully awakened church. There were just 120 members of the original church in Acts chapter 1, but these believers were calling out to God for His Spirit in a 10-day nonstop prayer service.”
Anybody up for a 10-day nonstop prayer service? Come on now! Your flesh may not be, but your spirit, I believe, is willing like Jesus said.
The question is: Does He have us?
“God answered their prayers in Acts 2. The Spirit came and their little church exploded from 120 to well over 3,000 in attendance in an instant. And unlike the early church in Acts 1, we don’t have to pray to receive the Holy Spirit. We already have Him. The question is, does He have us? Are we yielding ourselves to Him in full surrender? If we were, our churches would be exploding with new disciples.
“The indwelling of the Holy Spirit is calling us and giving us a wake-up call. Will we answer that call? There are five truths a church must wake up to so that revival can happen.”
I’ll just read maybe one or two.
First: The power of prayer…
“Firstly, wake up to the power of prayer. First Timothy 2:1–4 states, ‘I urge then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgiving be made for all people, for kings and for all those in authority, that we may live a peaceable and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. This is good and pleases God, our Savior, who wants all people to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.’
“When prayer becomes the engine, not the caboose, our ministry efforts and then our churches become an unstoppable train that advance the Gospel in unimaginable ways. To experience this, we must learn how to pray with passion, focus, and faith. We must pray for the lost. We must pray for each other. We must pray for this nation. We must pray for this world. We must pray that God intervenes to break up the hard soil of unregenerate hearts and send forth seed chuckers who will spread this message everywhere and to everyone.
Second: Wake up to the need for holiness…
“Secondly, we must wake up for the need for holiness. Second Timothy 2:19–21 says, ‘Everyone who confesses the name of the Lord must turn away from their wickedness. In a large house, there are articles not only of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay. Some are for special purposes and some for common use. Those who cleanse themselves from the latter will be instruments for special purposes, made holy, useful to the master, and prepared to do any good work.’
“God only serves revival on clean plates, so we must purify our hearts. If there is sin in the camp, we need to address it. If there is sin in our lives, we need to confess it. We need to have people in our lives that keep us accountable in every area so that together we can walk in purity. As James 5:16 reminds us, ‘Therefore, confess your sins to each other and pray for each other that you may be healed.’ The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.”
Finally, this article says…
“As my old youth professor [or youth leader or pastor] used to say, quote, ‘We confess to God to be forgiven. We confess to each other to get healed.’ May we have churches that encourage this kind of relational reality checks so that we get beyond the surface of ‘Everything’s fine,’ to the raw struggle underneath that all of us have. As we do, we can live in an increasingly holy life that leverages the power of our prayers with heaven. Again, as James reminds us, ‘The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.’”
E.M. Bounds book, “The Best of E.M. Bounds on Prayer”
Let me read you one other thing too. It’s a book entitled “The Best of E.M. Bounds on Prayer.” And I call E.M. Bounds the professor of prayer. He lived many years ago, and so some of his writings are maybe in a little bit older English, but still the truths that he writes and points us to are as relevant, if not more relevant today than ever. And this one chapter entitled The Purpose of Prayer, and I’ll just read a little excerpt here of it to you.
He writes this…
“The more praying there is in the world, the better the world will be. The mightier the forces against evil everywhere.” Remember, we don’t war against flesh and blood. We love Arab people. We love all people, right? That doesn’t mean we have to accept or love false ideologies that send people to hell and enchain people in darkness. Of course not. We’re called to be light. We’re called to be emissaries and torchbearers for love and grace and freedom and the saving work of Jesus.
But we’re able to do that only as we pray, only as we enter into relationship with our Father through Jesus, through the facilitation of the Holy Spirit. That’s why there was a theme through the Southwest Believers’ Convention of discernment of the Holy Spirit and responsiveness to the Holy Spirit. Because what got us to where we are at this point in our lives, in our ministries, in our families, in our businesses is not going to get us where we need to go next.
Evil is truly on the rise. Jesus prophesied that in the last days we would see tumults and challenges and even the upheaval of the earth itself in many ways. But that we did not have to fear or tremble or be afraid but know that He’s gone before us and made a way. And…
We enter into that way.
We enter into His purposes.
We enter into His power.
We enter into the works of the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is the ultimate game-changer, the Lord of the breakthrough…
…when we first, on a daily and individual basis, as well as collectively, discern, recognize, and follow the leadership of the Holy Spirit. He is the ultimate game-changer. He is the way-maker. He is the Lord of the breakthrough. The Bible says He is the Lord of the breakthrough. The Holy Spirit is your breakthrough today. It’s not out there somewhere. It’s not necessarily in a natural thing. It’s in Him. In Him, we live and move and are to have our being. He’s able to get you to the right place at the right time.
