Morning Chapel Prayer Playlist
Morning Chapel Prayer Today
Pastor Ken…
Good morning, everyone. Happy Monday. Good to see you all in the chapel. I hope you’re doing well. It’s yet another Monday. Are we ready? Ready or not. Well, my name is Ken. I’m one of the pastors here at Living Word.
I want to instill in you a new passion to pray…
I wanted to start this morning by sharing with you a devotional I heard recently. Actually, a couple scriptures first, but then a devotional that I pray will remind us and instill in us a new passion to pray. You’ve heard me say it often that without a doubt it is clear in His Word and it’s clear in the kingdom of God that God has decided that He’s going to work through us or in partnership or in concert with us. Or as I often quote the great John Wesley, when he said, “It seems that God can do nothing for humanity unless someone asks Him.” And it is true, God has chosen to work through human agency, through our willingness to exercise the spiritual authority that’s been delegated to us through our Lord Jesus Christ, through our willingness to bind and to loose, to intercede, to supplicate, to simply ask for.
God is searching the earth looking for people who will yield to Him…
And so God is searching the whole earth this morning, traversing the whole earthly realm to see if He can find even one person (I believe there’s many more though) whose hearts are fully turned toward Him, that He might show Himself strong on our behalf and through our human agency, through our will and our willingness to yield to Him.
And so I wanted to share this with you this morning because it’s a good reminder and I pray that it will stir up in you a greater intensity, a greater determination to yield your life to Him, to see yourself not here endeavoring to be comfortably numb, but rather here in this life and in this calling and in this pursuit to know the Father as a vessel through which God can pour forth change. Through which He can bring about His reality in the earth realm, in your life, in mine, and all those that we come in contact with, and beyond that.
Ephesians 6:19 says…
“And pray for me,” Paul writes, “that utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the Gospel for which I am an ambassador in bonds. That therein I may speak boldly as I ought to speak.”
There’s a connection between prayer and the ability to preach boldly…
So your ability, your pastor’s ability, yours and my ability to do what God’s called us to do in proclaiming the Gospel has something to do with prayer. In other words, prayer permits there to be a release of boldness, permits there to be a delegation and a release of the appropriate well-timed words to preach, to say, to pray, whatever the case might be. There’s a connection there.
2nd Corinthians 3:1–2 says…
“Finally, brethren, pray for us that the word of the Lord may have free course and be glorified, even as it is with you, and that we may be delivered from unreasonable and wicked men for all men have not faith.”
1st Thessalonians 5:25 says…
“Brethren, pray for us.”
Quote by Dutch Sheets on Friday’s broadcast…
Now, let me just read what Dutch Sheets shared on Friday. He says, “Paul, the apostle, often requested prayer for his ministry, asking for effectiveness, courage, and the advance of the Gospel and more. He knew the prayers of the church would provide him with boldness, courage, clarity, and deliverance from spiritual adversity. His desire was that God would open doors for his message to make his ministry fruitful. Paul understood that the preaching, teaching, writing, and church building were not merely the result of his skill or strategy. They depended on divine anointing and provision. So he asked others to pray for him to this end. He also knew prayer would enable people to hear clearly and understand the truth he was proclaiming and respond appropriately. He wasn’t so much interested in ease and personal convenience through the prayers as he was in serving his mission and calling. Paul wanted God to protect him and remove barriers so he could continue his work and fulfill the ministry entrusted to him.”
God has entrusted us with ministry and it starts with prayer…
You and I have a ministry entrusted to us. Do you know what that is? I bet it starts with prayer. I guarantee it starts with prayer. And the ministry of those around you, including your pastor. Pastor Mac, Pastor Lynne, Pastor Jim. Their ability to fulfill it has a lot to do with our willingness to pray for them, to lift them up. To pray that they would have bold, unfettered utterance, or the ability to articulate and communicate that they would have wisdom, a spirit of wisdom, in fact, in the knowledge of God’s plans for Living Word and for beyond.
He goes on to say…
“This apostle also asked for prayer regarding opposition. He was aware that Satan and his demonic forces would foster hostility, misunderstandings, opposition from religious leaders or civic authorities, and resistance from those who disagreed. He recognized that the battle for success in his ministry was not fought only on a human level through arguments, politics, and other religions, but on the level where spiritual forces opposed the Gospel.
So too for Paul, prayer involved resistance to spiritual forces and opposition. [In other words, spiritual warfare.] And finally, Paul’s prayer request reflected humility and partnership. Although he was incredibly strong apostle, Paul knew he needed support. He also understood God’s intentions regarding the body of Christ partnering together. Therefore, he invited the church to share in his labors and participate in God’s mission by praying for him. It has always amazed me that almighty God limited Himself in many ways to His family partnering with Him in prayer.”
And he quotes the great E.M. Bounds who said in prayer…
“The more praying there is in this world, the better the world will be and the mightier the forces against evil everywhere. God shapes the world by prayer. The prayers of God’s saints are the capital stock in heaven by which Christ carries on his work upon the earth. Earth is changed, revolutionized. Angels move on with more powerful, more rapid wing, and God’s policy is shaped as the prayers are more numerous, more efficient. When God’s house on earth is a house of prayer, then God’s house in heaven is busy and all-potent in its plans and movements. Then His earthly armies are clothed with triumphs and spoils of victory and His enemies defeated on every hand.”
Don’t forget that:
Prayer produces results.
Prayer produces victories.
Prayer positions us to receive victories.
Victories come with the spoils of war…
And those victories have a great impact on nations, on churches, on neighborhoods, on hearts and lives, on yours and mine as well. But that victory comes with spoils that are just blessings to us. Not that we seek just to be more comfortable and more blessed, but in route to accomplishing the mission, in route to fulfilling what God has placed in our hands and put in our hearts…
There will come increase.
There will come unexpected favor.
There will come opportunities and open doors that will produce great blessing when you pray.
You become a participant. You become a direct partner with churches, with individuals, with God Himself in the accomplishment of heaven’s purpose and plan. And, therefore, reap the rewards of it as well, simply by opening your mouth to intercede, to pray, to declare a thing so that it might be established and that the Father might garner more fame.
Dutch goes on to say…
“God conditions the very life and prosperity of His cause on prayer.”
That’s good. Think about that.
He goes on to say…
“I remind you today that your pastor will be a better leader, communicator because you pray for him. Missionaries will be more effective in their support and their efforts to evangelize and plant churches, and be more protected as they do so, because of your prayers. And not only will leaders be blessed, but family members will be saved. The Gospel will advance. Soldiers will be protected. Businesses will prosper. Bodies will be healed all because you prayed.
“And let’s remember that God placed great emphasis on praying for those in government. ‘I exhort you therefore that first of all supplications, prayers, and the giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and for all that are in authority, that we might lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.” 1st Timothy 2:1–2.
“The word exhort in that verse could be translated to ‘urge or even beg.’ How strong is that? I wish I could convince every pastor in America that God begged His people to faithfully pray for government. What would happen if every church in America took 5, 10, or 15 minutes even every time they gathered to pray for nations and their governmental leaders? I dare say that very quickly wars would end. Revivals would break out. Lives would be saved and suffering would end, and God’s purposes would be accomplished. And please forgive the sarcasm, I suppose there isn’t enough time.”
We welcome the sarcasm here this morning in that sense.
“In many respects, God’s people remain sheep all of their lives rather than growing up into lions. (Proverbs 28:1) Eagles grow up into eagles, oaks of righteousness, and ambassadors for King Jesus. Church services are all about sheep, their needs, their comfort, teaching them to be healthy and prosperous. They should also be training centers for the church for the ecclesia, God’s governmental nation discipling representatives of His kingdom on earth, and they should be houses of prayer.”
The body of Christ was meant to be a “house of prayer”
Houses of prayer. Hallelujah. I just stir you up by way of remembrance. These are probably familiar things to us, but I just stir it up in you this morning.
The truth of the matter is we have way more authority, as I’ve often reminded you, way more opportunity to just be a steady and consistent flow of prayer in our lives. As you’re watching TV and something catches your attention, let that be a prompt to pray. If you hear about a family that’s going through difficulty, lift them up. Let’s pray for our president. Let’s pray for our nation. Let’s pray for our soldiers. There’s way more influence and power that is deployed and set in motion to effect positive God-ordained change than we realize. It has nothing to do with what you see in the mirror or what you did yesterday where you feel like you missed the mark or failed in some way.
Once again, as we approach the Father, we can come boldly, as Scripture records, to His throne of obtaining because that’s what God has in mind. He has in mind that you and I would obtain. He has in mind that you and I would dispatch, release, set in motion, bring about transformations not because of us or where we failed or our best efforts, but all because of Him.
The driving force in us is Jesus…
Remember the great driving force, the great supply, the great ability in us is Jesus. It’s the resurrecting power of our Lord. And that same power that raised Christ from the dead as we see in Scripture is able to quicken us to pray, is able to propel us forward in the plan of God today, individually, as a church, as a nation. Oh, my goodness, there’s so much more potential and resource and supply available to us that God wants to come through us if we would just yield to Him.
