Morning Chapel Prayer Playlist
Morning Chapel Prayer Today
Pastor Ken…
Happy Monday, everyone. Welcome to those who are joining us online as well on Facebook, on YouTube, on our online church channel. Good to have you with us. My name is Ken.
Our prayers are making a difference…
I thought I’d share a few points of reflection before we go any further. I was thinking about the importance of being mindful of the fact that we are in a co-laboring relationship with our Heavenly Father and what God is doing in the earth right now, what God is doing in your life and in my life and in the church and around the world. And we can’t lose sight of that.
And we can’t lose sight of the fact that our prayers are making a difference. There’s a tangible cause and effect between earth and heaven, heaven and earth right now. And each and every day, there is an unfolding of God’s plan. Each and every day, there is an unfolding of Bible prophecy. Today there will be decisions made in our nation and nations around the world for the plan of God or not for the plan of God. And oftentimes, the direction and God’s intention is determined by whether or not the church will pray.
And so I thought I’d just share a couple of reminders. I want to stir up your consciousness. Stir up your heart to take hold of God as you enter into a new week. Take hold together with Him in some assignments that He has for you…
That will affect you personally
That will affect the church
That will affect your city and the nation again
James 5:15…
And I was thinking of James 5:16, which is one of my favorite passages on prayer. And I’m going to read it from the Amplified Classic. It says this: “Confess to one another, therefore, your faults, your slips, your steps, your offenses, your sins. And pray also for one another that you may be healed and restored to a spiritual tone of mind and heart. The earnest, heartfelt, continued prayer…”
Somebody say, “Continued.”
We’re going to continue in prayer this week. Aren’t we? “…continued prayer of a righteous man (or woman) makes tremendous power available, dynamic in its working.”
Let’s go on to verse 17…
“Elijah was a human being with a nature such as we have with feelings and affections and a constitution like ours.” In other words, weak. In other words, one that gets tired at times and wants to just lay down and take a nap. And sometimes that’s okay, right? “But he was fraught with weakness just like we are. Yet he prayed earnestly for it not to rain and no rain fell on the earth for three years and six months.”
Imagine that. Wow!
It goes on to say in verse 18…
“And then he prayed again, and the heavens supplied rain and the land produced its crops as usual.”
Now, this is a real-life example of what happened in the weather patterns of the day, his day. But this is also a picture, a prophetic intention in a picture of how God wants to work in and through the church; that if we will pray and continue to pray, heaven’s going to supply some revival rains. Heaven is going to supply what is needed to rend the heavens, for God to come down and awaken the nations to the knowledge of Him and His free gift of salvation.
Because He wants a big harvest
Because He wants an ever-increasing family
Because He never created mankind to be resigned to hell
Hell wasn’t created for humans…
That was a place created for the enemy, right? The Devil and his minions. Not for human beings. He wants every child, every human being to know Him. That was His creative intention. And it’s our prayers that enable heaven to reign on earth so that the crop that God planted in and through humanity might be harvest and brought into the storehouse of His kingdom. So be mindful of that.
Second Chronicle 7:14…
And then let me just remind you of a couple verses here. Second Chronicle 7:14. “If My people…” So here we see again a cause and effect between our willingness and continuance in prayer and what heaven will do in response to earth’s call or invitation. “If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and will heal their land.”
Luke 18:1 says…
“Then Jesus told His disciples a parable to show them that they ought always to pray and not give up.” Your prayers are working. Our prayers are going to work today to make a way where there wasn’t a way yesterday, a way for God’s creative intention to become reality. A way for breakthrough to show up in that situation you’ve been seeking change for. Make no mistake about it, prayer is having an impact in your life, in your family, in your city, in your nation, and even around the world.
Ephesians 6: 17 says…
“And pray in the spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayer and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.”
1st Thessalonians 5: 16 says…
“Be joyful always, pray continually without ceasing. Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”
Matthew 16:19 says…
Jesus says, “I will give you the keys of the kingdom. Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven. And whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven in the heavenly realm.” In other words, so it can be made available in the earth realm.
Wow, what authority we’ve been granted, right? Seriously.
Dutch Sheets wrote…
Dutch Sheets wrote on March 24th just a few days ago. He said, “America’s founders believed so much in the power of prayer, that they commissioned a flag to fly throughout the nation during the War of Independence as a reminder. And they believe that God answered their prayers, giving them victory. The great preacher Charles Spurgeon is credited as saying ‘Prayer moves the hand that moves the world.’
“Does the sovereign all-powerful God need our involvement to accomplish His will in the earth? Is prayer really necessary? Most of America, including pastors, do not believe it’s necessary in order for God to accomplish His purposes on the earth. One need only go to a typical church service to know this. If pastors believe prayer impacted nations and shaped history, they would make time in their services more than just praying over the offering, the messages, and the dismissal of the saints. No sincere and caring person, which I believe most pastors are, would refuse to do something they believe could change nations and make the world a safer, better, and more peaceful place. They don’t give time in their services to prayer because they don’t actually believe it accomplishes anything other than connecting God’s people to God devotionally. Which people can do at home. Contrary to Christ’s wishes, the vast majority of churches are anything but houses of prayer.”
Sadly.
He says…
“My purpose today, however, is not to convince you that prayer causes the hand of God to move. You most likely believe that or you wouldn’t be reading this post. It simply is to remind you of this and to encourage you that your prayers are making a difference. Nations are being impacted. Lives are changing. Eternal destinies are being shaped because you are praying.”
Can I get an amen there? That would be a good place to say “amen.”
“Our appeals to heaven bring revival, release healing, produce breakthroughs. Strongholds come down when we pray. I agree with E.M. Bounds. I call him the “professor of prayer.” He once said, ‘God shapes the world by prayer. The more praying there is in the world, the better the world will be, the mightier the forces against evil. The prayers of God’s saints are the capital stock of heaven by which God carries out His great work upon the earth. God conditions the very life and prosperity of His cause on prayer.’ Though God is sovereign and all powerful, scripture clearly tells us that He has limited Himself concerning the affairs of earth to the working through human beings. Is this not the story woven through scriptures?”
Now listen to this…
“God and humans, for better or worse, doing it together. God needing faithful men and women. God needing a nation through whom He would bring the Messiah into the world. God needing prophets. God needing judges. God needing a human messiah. God needing human hands to heal. Human voices to speak and human feet to go. Clearly, God has chosen to work in concert or in relationship with humanity. Yes, He’s all powerful. Yes, He’s all knowing. Yes, He is the God of all human spirits. But He’s chosen to work through human agency.”
That’s us.
So I hope that you will see today differently as you go into your day, into your week, into the remainder of this month. And then April, we have an opportunity to be the change. We have the opportunity to give God leeway to bring transformation and awakening.
He goes on to say…
“Doesn’t He need us to ask and decree for His kingdom to come? Jesus taught us that right? His will be done. Surely He wouldn’t want us to waste our time asking for something that was going to happen anyway, would He? Didn’t He tell us to ask for our daily bread and yet He knows our needs before we ask them. Didn’t He tell us to ask for laborers to be sent into the harvest? But doesn’t the Lord of the harvest want that more than we do? Didn’t Paul say ‘Pray for us that the Word of the Lord may spread rapidly and be glorified?’ Wasn’t God already planning to do this? Are not these things God’s will? Why then are we supposed to ask Him for something He already wants to do?
“In 606 BC, Israel had been taken captive by another nation because of its sin. Jeremiah had prophesied the timing and duration of this. Years later in Daniel 9, we’re told that while reading the prophet Jeremiah, Daniel realized it was time for Israel’s captivity to end.
“Jeremiah had not only prophesied the captivity of which Daniel was a part, but also its duration, which was 70 years. At this point, Daniel did something very different from what most of us would do. When we receive a promise of revival, deliverance, healing, restoration, et cetera, we tend to passively wait for its fulfillment. But not Daniel. He knew better. Somehow, he knew God needed his involvement, as he said, ‘So I gave myself my attention to the Lord God to seek Him by prayer and supplications with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes.’ God heard his prayers and the restoration occurred.”
Prompting…
So let me just prompt you here at this moment. What have you been passively waiting for? That God is prompting you on this Monday morning to pick up once again as an assignment to pray.
