Morning Chapel Prayer Playlist
Morning Chapel Prayer Today
Pastor Ken…
Well, hello everyone. Happy Monday! We are back once again for morning prayer. Good to be with you all. My name is Ken, and we are going to pray today. Can we do that?
Excerpt from Pastor Nancy Dufresne’s book, “The Supernatural Prayer Life”
I thought I would start off this morning by sharing an excerpt from Pastor Nancy Dufresne’s book entitled, “The Supernatural Prayer Life,” from chapter four entitled “Living Full of the Spirit.” Thought I would start there because it’s something I’ve been thinking about. And, truthfully, one of the things I’ve learned is that experiencing the presence of God, living from the presence of God, and living full of the presence of God is not a matter of our earning it, but rather our turning to Him. It’s in our turning to Him…
That we receive His fullness
That we receive His wisdom
That we receive His assistance in our lives
That we receive His presence in our lives
And so in many ways, that’s what morning prayer is about, right? It’s about turning to Him. The Bible says that we’re to turn away from all that would distract, and turn to Him—the author, continuer, and finisher of our faith.
Pastor Nancy writes this in chapter four…
“Living full of the Spirit is the only way to accomplish living in its highest sense. In other words, living full of the Spirit is how we realize our fullest potential. When we don’t live full of the Spirit, we’re living below our potential. We’re living below what God intends for us. And in many ways, we encounter problems. We struggle.”
And this is no condemnation, because I’m preaching to myself this morning. Because living full of the Spirit is a full-time job. It’s something that we have to course-correct, time and time again. Living full of Him, living full of His Word, living full of His presence.
But she goes on to say…
“It is the only way to be the supply” (living full of the Spirit of God) “God intended us to be. To live and minister in the power of the Spirit is the only kind of life and ministry that will finish its course.” Anybody here want to finish your course? Whether that’s decades out or whatever. It all is found in living full or in the fullness of the Spirit.
“The life of Smith Wigglesworth was earmarked by the fullness of the Spirit and the flow of the supernatural. Following are some quotes that give us some insight into the life of the Spirit. Wigglesworth once said, ‘Only one thing will meet the needs of the people, and that is for you and me to be immersed in the life of God.’
Life comes from Him…
In other words, in and of ourselves, we have nothing to offer. There’s no life inherent in us at all. The life comes from Him. Jesus said, “Out of your belly would flow rivers of living water.” Would flow…
Rivers of life
Rivers of wisdom
Rivers of healing
What the world needs is more of Him…
What our families need, what those in our workplaces need, what the world needs is not more of us, it’s more of Him. And so God wants to manifest, He wants to be enlarged inside of us and flowing through us on a day-to-day basis. Smith Wigglesworth also said, “If you find me on the street or anywhere else, if I’m alone, I will be talking to God. I make it my business to talk to God all the time. If I wake up in the night, I make it my business to pray. I believe that’s the reason God keeps me right, always right, always ready.”
Wigglesworth said once…
“I have revival everywhere I go because I live full of the Spirit. Nothing is impossible to a man filled with the Holy Spirit.”
He also once said…
“Being filled with the Spirit is worthwhile no matter what it costs.”
And finally, Wigglesworth said…
“I see anything not done in the Spirit as a failure.”
Ephesians 3:19…
Ephesians tells us how every child of God is to live. This is the Amplified Classic rendering of Ephesians 3:19. It says…
“So that you may be filled through all your being unto the fullness of God, may have the richest measure of the divine presence and become a body wholly filled and flooded with God Himself.” I mean, Jesus came to address our past condition of sin and separation from Him…
So that we could find a new connection
So that we could be a body
So that we could be a vessel wholly filled and flooded with God Himself
It’s the fullness of His Spirit that gets the job done…
When it comes to making our way forward in life, when it comes to anything God has called us to do, it is the fullness of His Spirit that gets the job done. It’s the fullness of the Spirit that moves us forward in life.
People struggle. We all struggle from time to time perhaps because of a lack of fullness. We encounter problems we shouldn’t have to encounter sometimes because we’ve left a void. We have not sought Him as we should. We have not turned to Him as we should. And that can be simply acknowledging Him as you go throughout the day. And of course, as we’ll see here in a little bit, it also includes praying in the Spirit. Because the Bible tells us and commands us to… it’s in the continuous present sense in Ephesians 5, “be being filled speaking.”
Speaking in psalms
Speaking in tongues
Speaking in spiritual sayings
But she goes on to say…
“Anything less than full is to have a lesser measure of God than He offers. To be filled with the Holy Spirit is to move into another dimension of God.” Anybody here want to take another step? Anybody here feel stuck and in a rut in some ways, and you know God’s got another step? This is how we move forward. Not by striving and struggling and trying to earn it. Jesus earned it all for us. The life of a Christian is a life of receiving. It’s a life of posturing ourselves before Him, before His Word, before His presence in prayer and worship. So that we might receive.
The Throne of Obtaining…
I suppose that’s why the Bible double-dog dares us or commands us, you could say, to come boldly to the throne of grace. I’ve dubbed the throne of grace “the throne of obtaining.” It’s the place where we receive. And it’s in our receiving of Him, it’s in our receiving of the ministry of the Holy Spirit, receiving of His Word that we let the rivers of heaven, the rivers of living water flow. Not just in us, but through us. And they also move us from where we are to where God’s calling us to be next—as a church, but also as individuals.
It’s in our filling that we get moving…
Our great focus in life, our great vocation is that of turning, perpetually turning ourselves to Him. Orienting our lives before Him, in His presence, in His Word, that we might be filled. Because it’s in our filling that we get moving, and we take steps in the plan of God. We take steps in the blessing of God.
She goes on to say…
I just love this. I can’t get off this. “To be filled with the Spirit is to move into another dimension of God.” If you say you want the supernatural, but don’t take time to be in His presence, to be in His Word, then you’re just fooling yourself. When we are full, when we live endeavoring to be saturated in and immersed in Him, then the supernatural will be a natural result. And we will move forward. And the plan of God will move forward.
No condemnation, just friendly reminders to me and to you on this Monday.
She goes on to say…
“After Jesus had been raised from the dead, He appeared to His disciples and instructed them that they were to go to Jerusalem and wait there until they received the gift of the Holy Spirit. Once the divine person was sent to the earth to dwell in man, mankind would become spiritual supermen and superwomen. They would be able to accomplish works of power that would mark them as co-laborers with God.”
Just close your eyes for a minute and just envision yourself as a co-laborer, shoulder to shoulder with Jesus, walking out the plan of God, doing His works, the works of Jesus. And Jesus said, “Even greater works you will do.”
She says…
“With this great infilling of the Holy Spirit, every region of the earth would feel the impact as they cooperated with the Mighty One. We see in Jesus’ earthly ministry that no sermons were preached, no miracles were worked, no healings occurred until the person of the Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus in the form of a dove at His baptism. As we see in Luke 3:21 and 22.
Luke 4:1 tells us…
“And Jesus being full of the Holy Spirit, returned from Jordan and was led by the Spirit.” We see that because Jesus was full, He was also led. There is a connection between being full of the Spirit and being led of the Spirit.”
Being filled with His presence leads to being led by Him…
So I just want to challenge you if you feel like you’re striving to hear from God in some way, maybe it’s not a matter of trying to hear from Him. Let me suggest to you, it’s a matter of being filled with Him, filled with His presence, filled with His Word that will result in you being led. Consciously sometimes; unconsciously at other times. But you will be led.
Excerpt cont…
“A full person is easily led. A full man lives yielded to God. It’s the full man who more readily knows and perceives the leading of God. A man who isn’t full stumbles around in difficulty, wondering which way to go, making false steps all along the way. Many Christians who haven’t taken the time to live full of the Spirit endeavor to follow their spirits but get lost because they aren’t full.”
Can I get an amen? Or an “Oh me!”
“Opposition in life becomes a problem when living less than full.” Ooh, that’s good. I know this is like really basic stuff, but really good reminders, right?
Let me say that again…
“Opposition…” or you could say challenges, adversity “…in life becomes a problem when living less than full. It is the full-time occupation of the believer to live full of the Word and full of the Spirit. Anything less will mean unnecessary hardships. Living full of the Word and the Spirit is the only way to live ready. Many don’t move forward in God because they’re not ready when opportunities come. But if we live full of the Spirit, the Spirit will always keep us ready for what’s ahead of us.”
Praying into the future…
Ooh, I like that. I heard Pastor Lynne once say that she’s aware that she’s praying out… When she prays and just walks with God daily, she’s being prepared for things that are two years in the future. I don’t know how she knows that, but she just has a real strong sense that oftentimes when she’s praying, she’s praying out maybe two years into the future for her life and her calling.
So God keeps us ready when we pray. God keeps us ready and prepares us when we endeavor to live full, when we check ourselves and say, “Gosh, I’ve been focused on lots of other things. Maybe today I need to turn my attention toward Him and spend some time with Him.”
God’s ways are higher than our ways…
It’s in the waiting that God is in the business of working. In fact, there’s a passage in Scripture that actually says that when we wait, He works. There’s far more profound and powerful things that God is doing in us when we just simply wait on Him. Don’t misinterpret waiting on God and time in prayer and time in worship as not as important as other things. Because, God’s ways are higher than man’s ways.
We are to labor to enter into rest…
They’re counterintuitive, in fact, God’s ways to the world’s ways. The world says strive, strike out on your own, labor, work harder. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing inherently, but God invites us to labor to enter into rest and trust and fullness. And when you feel like you’re not doing anything, God’s just beginning to do something.
Yeah, there are steps we must take. There’s obedience in steps and what God wants us to put our hands to. But put first things first. And the first thing is Him. Seek first the kingdom of God, as the Gospel says. And then all these natural things will be added to you as a matter of course. Effortlessly, I like to say, and organically when you put Him first.
