Morning Chapel Prayer Playlist
Morning Chapel Prayer Today
Pastor Ken…
Hello everyone. Good morning and Happy New Year. Hope you had a good holiday season and your year’s off to a good start. So here we go, 2026! Ready or not, we’re going to take ground in the spirit for the kingdom, in every way God has or redeemed for us individually and collectively to take ground. This is your year. This is my year. My name is Ken Olson, one of the pastors here at Living Word. It’s so good to be back with you guys on this 5th of January, 2026.
Reflections…
Today, I wanted to start off by sharing a few reflections with you. The first one comes by way of our very own President Trump, who shared something… I don’t know if this was maybe a couple months ago or last fall sometime. It seems to me it had something to do with some of the prayer initiatives for our nation that he was kind of beginning or inaugurating. And so I transcribed this. I thought this was so good and succinct in regard to our nation.
President Trump quote on prayer…
He said, “Jesus wants to be Lord of your life.” That was from the President! Okay. I listened to it several times. Trust me.
“Prayer changes hearts and transforms lives. It uplifts the soul, inspires action, and unites us as one nation under God.”
Can I get an amen? I know it’s early, but I think that deserves an amen.
He goes on to say…
“Our country was founded on prayer. Our communities are sustained by prayer. And our nation will be renewed by hard work, a lot of intelligence, and prayer.”
Jeremiah 29:7…
That was from President Donald Trump. Of course, that inspired me to think of a couple of passages of scripture. First one is found in Jeremiah 29:7, which I think is a good reminder for a new year. It states this: “And work for the peace and prosperity of the city.” You could insert nation. “…where I sent you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it. For its welfare will determine your welfare.”
In other words, how our nation goes in many ways determines how the church will go. I suppose that’s why the Bible in the New Testament admonishes us to pray, first of all, for those in leadership, in authority, for presidents, for potentates, for governors, for those in the local civil arena of leadership… pray first and foremost for them. Before you pray for your family, even. Lift them up. Make mention of them.
The Bible goes on to say…
That it might go well for us, the church, for you and your household. So that being said, we have a stake and an important role to play in what goes on politically. The answer isn’t a particular leader. The answer isn’t in our politics. The answer is in the spirit. The answer is in the church, getting back to her watch post and praying.
The answer is found in the revival that is the result of our persistent praying. And we have a huge part in that.
Jeremiah 29:11–13…
So also, if you jumped down a few more verses in Jeremiah 29:11–13, it says, “For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord. They are good plans. They are for good and not for disaster. To give you a future and a hope in those days when you pray.” So it presupposes we will pray. “I will listen. If you look for Me wholeheartedly, you will find Me.”
Let me just share a few more thoughts that I jotted down…
Number one, it is time to reignite our altars of prayer in our lives. The beginning of a new year is a good time to be prompted to do just that, to re-dig the old wells, so to speak, to reinaugurate those places of solitude and silence and reverence and worship and prayer before the Lord. It’s always been the simplicity of prayer and devotion to the Father that has the greatest results in an individual’s life. But also in a nation.
Rabbi Jonathan Cohn…
I jotted this down too. It was something that I had heard… this isn’t verbatim, but as I heard it from Rabbi Jonathan Cohn, who maybe you’ve heard this. But in recent days on a particular podcast, he shared this. “We are presently in a critical prophetic window that God has given to us for us to take advantage of. The answer isn’t our best manmade strategies or our political leaders. The only answer is revival. That’s what will save our nation. We are in a moment where we must answer or respond to that moment. We have to rise to the moment because it’s only for a time and it may not come back to us again. We must go full blast to carry out the purposes of God in our generation.”
There is a window of grace…
So understand this: you individually and we collectively as a nation and as a church have been provided the luxury of a window because of the prayers that you and others before us have prayed. There’s a window of mercy. There’s a window of grace for us as a nation that we might… what? Sit back on our laurels? coast on spiritual fumes? No! That we might step into this window, that we might stick our necks through it, so to speak and say, “Lord, here am I. Send me.” Here am I, Lord, with my prayers and my devotion, my faith, my intentionality. What would you have me to do today? What would you have me to say or pray or prophesy today?”
We’re not here to get comfortable…
So understand this: In our praying for the church at large, for America, for ourselves, we’re not here to just now get comfortable. We’re not to back off. But, instead, we’re to lean in. And to use a word I’ve used for a couple years now, we are in fact to be accelerated and to be purposeful, to be as the scripture writes, sober minded.
In other words, cognizant and clearheaded in our purpose and why we are here. We’re not here to pass time. We’re not here to get by until our number is called to go up yonder, as the saying goes.
No!
We are here to make a difference. We are here to pray. We are here to shift the trajectory of hearts and lives and even nations. We are here to take advantage of the breath that’s in our lungs and the stride and strength that’s in our step that we might tell the story, preach the Gospel, influence environments, bring heaven into the earth realm so that God can get His way.
There’s a window for you…
So understand there’s a window for you: 2026 is a window of opportunity. It’s a day of God’s profuse favors abounding, so that we might take advantage of them. Not just for ourselves, but take advantage of them and run with them and share them and pray them.
A prayer I often pray…
You know one prayer that I often pray is, “Lord, help me to be more productive in your hand. Help me to be more fruitful, more fruit producing.” Not Ken Olson’s fruit. But God’s fruit that He wants to bring to the branches of my life. Truth be told, most of us probably are only operating at maybe 13 to 30%. Those are kind of random numbers, but 13 to 30% of what we’re capable of. In other words, there’s a 70-plus percent more we’re capable of in producing prayer fruit.
God is after fruit…
The first kind of fruit we should produce is prayer fruit according to my Bible. God is after fruit. He didn’t send Jesus for no reason. He sent Jesus that He might bear fruit. The fruit of sons and daughters called by His name, first of all, but also fruit that produces His plan and brings it into reality in this earth realm.
The fruit of changed lives
The fruit of transformed nations
The fruit of revival
The fruit of awakening
The fruit of His creative intention
…by way of songs, prophetic utterances, sermons, conversations you have with family members that must be had in 2026 if things are going to change for you and yours.
So I pray often, “Lord, get more out of me. Let me not coast or live in a limited way, but may the limits be taken off of me.” And I pray, may the limits be released from you today as you enter into 2026, that there would be a whole other dimensionality to your spirituality, that there would be a whole new level up as it were…
To your praying
To your believing
To your everyday, going around doing what you’re doing life
To another level that God might be seen.
We’re here to be torch bearers.
We’re here to be emissaries.
We’re here in this realm to be the lit-up ones.
We have the answers…
Shining the light and showing the way to a generation that is lost, broken, and stumbling in the dark and looking for answers whether they realize it or not.
We have the answers. So I just thought that was such a relevant word from Rabbi Cahn. We have a window, and that window won’t always be there. It’s open. There’s a portal open, a window of heaven open over the church right now. Open over your life right now. Will you take advantage of it? Will you recognize it to begin with? And begin to cooperate with heaven, cooperate with God the Holy Spirit.
He’s our commander.
He’s our leader.
He’s our guide.
He’s our helper.
He is with us even right now today to help us to pray.
The window won’t always be open…
But that window won’t always be open. In fact, I would just provoke your thinking right now: what windows are open in your life personally, that may not remain open for very long? Windows of opportunity you need to step through. Windows of unction that you need to pray out.
The Bible says you and I have an unction of the holy one, and we know all things. We can’t live a mindless sort of life down here. We must be sober minded, clearheaded, intentional. Following the Father each and every day. Intentional about each day, each moment, each hour… for the time is far spent. There’s still light. There’s still opportunity. The window is open, as I’ve said. But there will come a day as the Bible records when darkness will invade and no man will be able to work any longer because the time or the window has closed. And that may pertain to you personally. A window to pray, a window to respond, a window to obey to the Spirit of God. His mercy is in the window that’s open to you. Will you be flippant about it? Casual about it? Leave it to chance? Or will you be intentional? purposeful? and respond to His voice today?
