Morning Chapel Prayer Playlist
Morning Chapel Prayer Today
Brother John…
Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today online and the faithful cohort here in the chapel.
Trusting God to show up…
So, normally my wife, Jeannie, would be here, but she was a little bit under the weather. I’ve been really kind of saying not to be like super spiritual, but I’m like, “Okay, God, you’re going to show up.”
This is not the first time that I’ve showed up and not really knowing what we’re going to pray about today. But what we can trust in the Holy Spirit is going to help us and guide us. And regardless of whatever I am praying, we can just trust in the fact that God will show you and speak to you and minister to you, whatever you need.
Prayed…
And so we just purpose ourselves right now just to put away the things that are distracting us, put aside any worries or concerns that we have for today. And we just trust you, Holy Spirit, that you’re guiding us and helping us today. Not just in this time of focused prayer now, but through everything that we’re going to be facing today and going forward.
There’s no new thing under the sun…
So what God was putting on my heart for what I wanted to start with and pray about…How many times when we’re going through something, there’s probably somebody else that’s going through whatever. Was it Solomon that said there’s nothing new under the sun? [Ecc 1:9] Meaning the things that we face and the trials and the things that we’re going through, they might look a little bit different than when we read about what was going on in the Bible. But it’s still the same thing today. It just might look different. And so hopefully we can be encouraged by what they were going through to relate that God got them through. And it’s the same for us.
John shares about things he’s been dealing with…
And really a lot of what I want to kind of pray about today is really just things that I’ve also been dealing with. The last month or so have been kind of tough. And I got to say, I’ve allowed all the tough… whatever, and the things happening really affect me. It’s affected my attitude. It’s affected my outlook on life. It’s affected how I see God and how I’m really believing and trusting in God.
But if you are doing awesome and everything is working and your life is just “Right on!”—Congratulations!
We all need encouragement at times…
But you know what? You still need to be encouraged of something. It’s not just us that are dealing with things. Because we’re all dealing with something, and sometimes I can get discouraged thinking, “Are we always going to be fighting something? Are we ever going to have a break and everything is going to be going smoothly?”
God is with us to see us through…
It feels hard to say this, but I don’t think we’ll ever have absolutely everything. However, God also promised that He’s going to be with us to get us through things. It’s not that He’s going to be like, “Yeah, I’m going to sit in your pit with you and we’re just going to sit here, but at least I’m here.” No, His way is to help us get out and get through that.
Book by Brenda Kunneman titled “The Daily Decree”…
I want to start today with a book… Some have probably heard of this. But there’s a book called “The Daily Decree” by Brenda Kunneman. So Brenda and Hank Kunneman have a ministry in Omaha. And there’s been a few people, ironically the last couple weeks that have been talking about this book. And we kind of laugh because they’re like, “Hey, this is a really good book.”
So this morning I was sat down to go over a few things and this book was sitting there. I didn’t even know that we had this. So I thought that was kind of funny. And these are kind of short words of encouragement, decreeing and declaring things. And so I want to start with this. And again, I’m sharing this because I needed this.
Psalm 55, Cast your burden on the Lord…
So the scripture they’re going off is in Psalm 55, where it says, “Cast your burden on the Lord and He will sustain you. He will never allow the righteous to be moved.” Now, when you read that, on the surface, your first reaction might be, “Well, you know what? I’ve been moved a lot. I feel like I’ve been pushed around. I’ve been knocked down. I’ve gotten back up. I’ve been knocked down again, and I’m supposed to be righteous.”
And I know a lot of times things in scripture might seem contradictory, and you read about how Jesus said, “You’re going to have trouble in this world.” No one is immune to trouble. Even Jesus had to deal with trouble and things in His time. We’re no different, even though we really want it differently.
We have to keep encouraging ourselves…
But the thing is that we have to keep encouraging ourselves and each other in that God will bring us through these things. It’s okay to be discouraged. It’s okay to be disappointed. It’s okay to wrestle with these things. And I’m saying this really just to encourage all of us, myself and everyone else that might be listening. We’re always going to need encouragement. Why? Because that’s just how the earth is right now. But allowing that discouragement to sit and fester in our souls and in our minds, that’s our choice.
Barry Bennett from Charis Bible College…
On the way in today, I was listening to Barry Bennett. He’s one of the instructors at Charis Bible College out in Colorado. And he was kind of talking about… similar to what I was kind of thinking about today. But he was talking about the parable of the sower and really his message was about… like when you don’t seem to be getting the results you wanted. And he was speaking in general. But one of the things he was talking about was in Matthew. And it’s referred in other gospels as well, talking about the parable of the sower.
And the one he was talking about is regarding… Matthew13:22, he says, “And the one sown among the thorns.” He’s talking about the parable of the sower and the seed. And he talks about the different seeds. And he says, “The one sown among the thorns, this is the one who hears the message but the anxiety of the age and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the message and it becomes useless.”
How weeds come in and choke the Word…
And where he was going with this, is there’s all these things that are going to be happening in our lives. And he’s talking about, of course, the reason why he talks about weeds and how they come to choke things that have been planted that are good. And he said, “It’s not so much that those things aren’t there, but what can happen is that it can affect how we actually hear the Word and spending time in the Word. And it ends up kind of being a discouragement after a while. Because it’s like, “Well this isn’t working and that’s not working.” And then we start getting discouraged and start thinking, “This is too hard.” It’s like, “I know God’s there, but why does it seem like it’s not working?”
You have to shift and put your focus back on the Word…
And really, I think the overall thing that really hit me is, it’s just that you’ve just lost a little bit of what that word means. Meaning you might have a few scriptures, but then it’s like all that weight and everything can just start to weigh on you. And he said, “You really can’t blame God as much as we want to. Really, you just need to be able to shift and put your focus back on the Word.” Because all you’re doing is you’re just doubting that the Word actually works. It’s like, you know in your mind it works, but in your soul, you’re wrestling with it.
Cast your burden…
And at those times, we really need encouragement. And that was kind of for this devotion that I found here. So again, they were starting with Psalm 55: “Cast your burden on the Lord and he will sustain you. He will never allow the righteous to be moved.” And so I’m going to read this.
Excerpt…
“Moments of temporary discouragement happen to all of us. But it’s what we choose to do with that discouragement that determines the outcome. Discouragement is to be deprived of the hope that something is going to turn out all right. When Jesus’ disciples were in the boat in the storm, in Mark four, they reacted not only in great fear, but they expressed a form of discouragement through the assumption that they were going to die.”
John comments here…
And I want to just inject here… You might think, “Oh, that’s being so extreme.” Now in their situation, of course, they were out in the sea in a boat. But I think sometimes we can even just start convincing ourselves. And by that what I mean, you start giving a lot more weight to what the enemy is trying to do. That maybe I’m not going to die. But maybe I’m just going to be forgotten. These hopes and dreams that God put in my heart, they’re just going to pffft! And you’re just going to end up having such a sour look on life. You keep going, but you really just kind of back off.
So, going on here…
“The disciples couldn’t see that all was going to be fine. Of course not. They were right in the middle of it. When you’re in the middle of something, it could be hard to see that you’re going to get through this. You don’t know how you’re going to get through it, but you sometimes start trying to convince yourself, or you start self-talking. It’s like, ‘I can’t see this changing.’
“However, Jesus responded by asking, ‘How is it that you have no faith? They allowed discouragement to take over their thinking. We have to resist moments of discouragement. If we don’t, those moments will grow until our lives are governed by feeling discouraged.
“Stand up today and decree against any discouragement that has tried to invade your thoughts and know that it’s going to turn out all right.”
When life feels like you’re driving in the ruts…
And I think we’ve all been through things where people have encouraged us or we’ve encouraged ourselves, or we get that moment. But I got to say, sometimes it does feel like when things have been going on for a long time, or an issue has come up again, it feels like if you have a picture of like a dirt road that no one has graded for decades. You start getting those ruts. Just from vehicles driving back and forth and creating that path. And sometimes when you’re in that path so long, even just a slight turn of the wheel goes and you get pushed right back in. And done long enough, you just kind of think, “I’ll just ride in the ruts even though I know this is not very comfortable.”
Sometimes you need to get violent!
And sometimes when you feel like that, it may end up feeling like you need to take a violent, just crank that wheel and it’s going to be bumpy getting out of it. It’ll be uncomfortable. It’ll rattle your teeth. It’ll shake your bones. But once you’re out, you’ll be thinking, “Oh, I’m so glad I’m out of that.”
Prayer…
And so, Holy Spirit, I thank you that you are ministering to people that in anything that they’ve been discouraged in or dealing with, or they were discouraged in something and then they got out of it, but now they’re in something else. Or maybe they’re back in that and it feels like, “How long am I going to keep this cycle up?”
Exhortation…
I just encourage you that you don’t give up on the Holy Spirit. You don’t give up on the Word. Because sometimes when you’re in those places, even reading the Word can seem like it’s so heavy and I’m just not getting anything. I’m sure we’ve all either been this person or been trying to minister to someone who feels so stuck in how they’re thinking. It’s like there’s no encouragement. It feels discouraging to help someone out of their discouragement.
And thank God for the Holy Spirit, because He’s never going to give up on us. He’s always going to be there. He always has something for us. There’s always going to be a way!
