Morning Chapel Prayer Playlist
Morning Chapel Prayer Today
Brother John…
Good morning, everyone. Thank you for coming. I’m so thankful that we can have these opportunities to come and pray corporately together, whether right here in person or through streaming.
The big deal is that God is always here for us…
Hopefully most of us spend time daily, praying to God or even throughout the day, little thoughts coming through your mind about God. And sometimes we say things because we’re in a bad situation. Sometimes we celebrate and thank God when things are good. But the one thing that we can always count on is that regardless of what we’re going through, we can always thank God. Because He’s always here. He’s always present whether we’re consciously aware of Him or not. But that’s not the big deal. The big deal is that God is here always. He always has an open ear for us.
Prayed…
And so, Father, I thank you as we purpose our day and time to start this morning as we come to focus here and just pray to you that you work in us so that our ears can hear what you’re trying to tell us. Just maybe not necessarily just maybe things that I’m going to go over or scripture, but that we can really learn to hear your voice. That even though somebody might be saying something, Holy Spirit, we trust you today that you are always speaking.
Focus in on His voice…
And it’s like if you’re in this large room and there’s 10 different radios playing 10 different stations and they’re all playing at the same time. And if you stand in the middle of the room, you might hear a piece from here or a piece from there but as you move closer to one radio, you start hearing more what that one is saying and you start hearing less and less of what the other ones are saying.
I believe that’s how the Holy Spirit is. He’s not always going to be the loudest one. He might not be saying the most revelation thing that you’ve ever heard in your life, but He’s always there and all He wants is for us to draw closer to what He’s saying, knowing that there’s so many things vying for our attention. Some good, some bad, some might just be indifferent. Some can encourage us. Some actually might want to drag our time down and pull our minds away from the important things. But if there’s always something going on that we could be distracted by or even be drawn to.
Prayed…
And so, Father, right now, I thank you that as we continue to purpose in our hearts to come to you today, that your graciousness and your love that you have for us helps us to hear your voice more clearly, that we would learn what it is that you have for us this day and that we can draw closer to that source that brings us life. It brings us encouragement. It brings us wisdom. It teaches us all things.
The Holy Spirit will teach you all things…
That’s one of the things that Jesus said: “I’m going to go, but I’m going to ask My Father to send the Holy Spirit in My place and He’s going to remind you of the things I said. He’s going to teach you all things. He’s going to be there for your comfort.”
God knew that we were going to be living in this time and with all the distractions and things going on in this world, but that will never—can never—change how much He loves us and how much He has for us. And how maybe you could say it’s more important that of all the voices that we hear and can be drawn to in whatever manner that yours is the loudest and the most clear at least in our spirits. Because it might not always be in our ears.
So, Father, we bless your name and we thank you for your goodness. Even when circumstances might not seem good. We thank you that you bring a comforter when we’re feeling uncomfortable. We thank you that as we are walking through this world in all the things that are coming against us, that you are still our shield. You are still our provider. You still protect us and that of all the voices that are wanting to get our attention, you made it possible for us to live through everything we’re facing and still be able to hear your voice.
Oh, Father, I know every generation has probably said this, but I thank you that we have you in these times that we’re facing, in all the situations we’re facing, all the things in the world that are going on. We shouldn’t be surprised because Jesus said… and He said this a couple thousand years ago. He said there’s going to be trouble in this world. He wasn’t ignorant. He wasn’t trying to say, just shut your eyes, shut your ears, lock yourself in a room and it’ll all go away. Well, it’s not. It’s not going away until He comes.
He didn’t leave us as orphans…
However, He didn’t leave us alone. He said, “I’m not leaving you as orphans.” An orphan is someone who was rejected by his parents or he has no parents. That guiding force, that influence in its life was removed for whatever reason. But He said, “I will never leave you as orphans.”
And I think it was not a mistake that He used that terminology. He didn’t say, “I’m not going to leave you by yourself.” He said, “I’m not going to leave you as orphans.” Because, sometimes orphans have no idea who their parents are. Or maybe whatever the situation was. But He said, “I will never leave you.” And I know that such a struggle can be, is really trusting that He really will not leave us.
Gloria Copeland’s book, “Your Promise of Protection”
When I was here a couple weeks ago, I had been reading a little bit and getting some inspiration from this book by Gloria Copeland about “your promise of protection.” And she was talking about praying the 91st psalm, and it was really good and was very encouraging. And I’m going to go through a few of those things today and just let Holy Spirit guide each and every one of us to hear anything that He wants to speak to us. Again, either corporately or personally for your family, for whatever you’re facing.
But as I was going through this, I started looking at some of the other psalms. And I don’t necessarily think that the psalms were necessarily written like a novel in the sense of you finish this chapter and that leads into the next chapter, and then you read that and that leads in. These are all kind of separate. But what’s amazing is as you really start to read and sometimes listening to these can be really inspiring just how much of the Psalms that is really inspired by God. But a lot of them were just the writer expressing his heart. And, if you’re familiar with these, obviously some are more familiar like Psalm 91. But even 92, 93 and 94 are all so powerful.
The psalms can be applied to us today…
And what’s really amazing is that when we’re reading these things and meditating on them, we realize thousands of years ago, they’re saying these words, but they could absolutely be applied to today, here in 2024. Meaning the cries of people’s heart… That doesn’t change. And I believe that people who either don’t know you exist or are agnostic or maybe go to church and know a few things about God or know some stories, there’s something inside our hearts that God placed there that when they see things that aren’t going right, it grieves them. They get angry. They get frustrated. But I’m so thankful that we have somewhere to turn. And there’s probably been times when I’ve been praying and been either maybe frustrated about something or a situation, and you start praying and talking with God, and you’re probably letting your heart out and you’re just letting your emotions spill out. And then you think, “Oh, why did I say that? That just sounds so disrespectful.” But man, when you read the Psalms. They were a lot of times the writer… obviously a lot of these were from David. But they’re just pouring out their heart of emotion. They weren’t necessarily being theological about this. They weren’t being religious about it. They were simply being… if you want to say human on one aspect… a child of God trying to learn and get through this life and what God has for us.
And so I’m going to go through some of this. You can call it reading through the Psalms, but I am taking it as, I’m going to be praying these things out today and allow the Holy Spirit to speak to us. So that we can learn, we can be comforted, but also so that we can be strengthened in our own souls.
“Soul, praise the Lord”
I’m not sure which Psalm it was, but when David said he was actually talking to his soul and he said, “Soul, praise the Lord.” When things are going really well, we don’t say “Soul, praise the Lord.” It just spews right out of us. We can’t help it. We’re so thankful for what God has done or is doing. But when we’re in those hard places, it’s almost as if you have to tell yourself “You need to praise the Lord,” even if you don’t feel like it.
Gloria Copeland quote…
So in this book by Gloria called “Your Promise of Protection,” I want to read a couple things she said. And in this book, what’s really good is she’s taken Psalm 91 and she’s pretty much going verse by verse, or maybe one, two or three verses at a time it’s kind of like a chapter. And then she maybe talks a little bit about it and gives her thoughts on that and what God is showing her about these things.
And so one part here she says “The truth that is alive in your hearts is the truth you act on every day. It doesn’t come from simply reading a scripture once shouting, hallelujah, and going on. It comes from knowing the words so well that it comes to your thinking instantly in a crisis situation. Truth comes alive in you. When you think about it, meditate on it, and apply it to your life.”
Even just in that, it reminds me of in James when he said, don’t just be a hearer of the Word, but be a doer. Hearing it is easier than actually doing it and stepping out in faith. That’s the hardest part. But that’s where God also promises as we do that, He’s going to show up just like that.
And she goes on…
“At the very moment of danger, the Word of God is your first thought.” And for me that’s definitely or I’m hoping it brings me back to Romans when as we meditate on the Word, we actually change our thinking, we change our worldview. Because it’s not easy. It’s kind of like so many analogies, if it’s not labeled, you don’t know what’s in a teabag until you actually stick it in hot water.
Gloria says…
“Abiding under the shadow of the Almighty is the result of spending so much time in the Word of God and in His presence that His truth governs your actions without even a conscious thought. If you want to be an abider, you can’t afford to simply get into the Word for a while and then quit. You need to be consistent. Stay in the Word day after day.”
She says…
“Take Psalm 91 into yourself daily until it becomes engrafted in your heart.” And really it could be almost any scripture that encourages you or shows you a way how to do things.
I remember a couple decades ago, I was listening to a teacher… And this has stuck with me ever since when I was thinking about this. You kind of hear about the story of the church that was looking for a new pastor and they had someone come in and he preached a message on John 3:16, as they were kind of testing out new pastors. And they liked him and they brought him in. His first Sunday, he teaches on John 3:16 and like, “Okay, well that was good. You kind of said that before.” He comes back the next week and preaches on John 3:16 again. And some of the people are thinking, “Well, did he forget that he preached that last week? This is a little bit odd.” And for the next couple weeks, he kept preaching on it. And finally one of the elders came up and said, “Hey, you’ve preached about the same message every single week. Is that the only thing you know?” And he said, “Well, until people start living this and believing it, I’m going to keep preaching on it.”
Keep feeding on the Word…
And that reminded me of a speaker I heard at a conference and he was talking about how sometimes in giving messages and things like that, it can be real easy to say, “We’re going to talk about this for two or three weeks or for a couple months, and then we’re going to go on to something else.” And it’s almost like every day is a smorgasbord, or every week can be that. And there’s nothing wrong with that. But the speaker was saying, this year I just want to study and meditate on His love for me. Meaning, it feels as if sometimes… I was thinking about this on the way in that, “Well, I got to know everything about everything in the Bible because then I’m going to be so full and complete.” And honestly, sometimes I can just get in the habit of treating it like a fast-food meal. It’s like, that was good, but then a few days later, it’s not sustaining me anymore. If I eat it every single day… Maybe food’s not like that, but the Word definitely is… where we can keep feeding on something with God’s Word. What’s so amazing is that it just keeps getting in and keeps getting in and it keeps getting in.
Keep watering your heart…
And sometimes, we’ve allowed our hearts to get hard in certain areas, but if we just keep watering and we keep planting, pretty soon, that ground’s going to soften. That seed’s going to germinate and we’re going to get that harvest.
So I’m just encouraging all of us to not be too quick to say, “Well, this week I’m going to study healing. And this week I’m going to try to understand forgiveness.” And it’s always back and forth. It’s like allow the Holy Spirit to bring verses to you or a passage of scripture or a chapter, maybe it’s a whole book, that we can really meditate on that throughout the year, along with everything else, so that it’s becomes so true that, as Gloria said, at the very moment of danger or whatever it is, maybe it’s not danger, maybe it’s just a situation. The Word of God is your first thought.
She said…
“Remember this. It’s the Word you act on today that will get you delivered. It’s not what you heard last year. It isn’t even what you know. It’s what you do. Keep yourself full of God’s Word and you will do it.”
