Morning Chapel Prayer Playlist
Morning Chapel Prayer Today
Worship leader Kathy…
Good morning, everybody. Welcome. We’re grateful that you’re here with us. I’m Kathy, just in case any of you are wondering, some people might not know.
Announcements…
Just a couple announcements before we get started. Next week, prayer will not be in person. They’ll be doing replays because they’re taking the week off for the 4th of July here in America.
This weekend, make sure you come in person or watch online because Dr. James Tan is here and that is going to be a blessing. He’s such a blessing to the body of Christ. He has such a gift of talking about the anointing and the Holy Spirit. So make sure you don’t miss those.
Psalms 103 in the Passion…
This morning, I was led to Psalm 103 and I’m going to read the first couple verses in the Passion. It says, “With my whole heart and my whole life with my inner most being, I bow and wonder and love before you, the Holy God. Yahweh, you are my soul’s celebration. How could I ever forget the miracles of kindness you’ve done for me?”
And for those of you who know Psalm 103, it then goes on to list so many blessings. Forgiveness. Healing. He rescues us. He redeems us. He restores. His faithfulness. There are so many blessings listed in Psalm 103. And because of who He is and because of all He’s done, we love Him, right? And we should tell Him that. Just like your spouse wants to hear that you love them, God wants to hear it too. And I know not everybody’s a music person. So it’s not that you have to sing your love. I mean, I know that’s a popular way to do it, but that’s not what matters. What matters is that you tell Him and then you live in a way that shows that you love Him. And He
has done so many amazing things for us.
Prayer of expression of love and thanksgiving…
So, Jesus, we just want to come this morning and say thank you and that we love you. You’ve done so many things for us. Just your death on the cross and your resurrection is more than enough for us to say thank you and that we love you.
Pastor Heather…
When I was 18, shortly after I had become born again, I started coming to this church. I was coming to the youth group and that was a very popular song at that time. And I remember singing that song and such a passion and an excitement and a wonder about who this Jesus is and why would He love me and why should I love Him and who is He? And just learning so many things about Him. And we would sing that song quite a bit and it would always get me up to the altar and just my heart to want to love Him so much knowing that He loves me and knowing that He’s so beautiful.
Pastor Heather’s personal testimony…
And they would always do a call for people that felt called to fivefold ministry. And I remember every time they would do this call, “If you feel you’re called to ministry, come to the altar.” And I would just sit. I would sit in the bleachers and just cry. Because I wanted to go up so badly. But I didn’t think I was worthy. I didn’t know what would qualify me to be called. I didn’t know. I was just such a new Christian, but I just knew that passion to serve Him with my life.
And one day I finally went up to the youth pastor, which was Steve Munz at that time, and I said, “Every time you say that, I want to go up, but I don’t think that I’m worthy. How do I know if He’s calling me?” And I just remember him saying, “Honey, if you have a passion in your heart to serve Him, then He’s calling you. You’re qualified.” And so I would go up.
But we would always sing that song about how beautiful He was. It just always brings me back to that point in my life. And then you fast forward, oh gosh, 30-some-odd years later and I have the honor of doing that… of standing in the ministry, in that office. And it’s just a reminder of His goodness. And it hasn’t always been easy, but He’s always been there.
Sometimes we forget the wonder of Him…
But what I was seeing as Kathy was worshiping is sometimes we forget that wonder, that part of that excitement and that wonder. And as we get older, little kids are like, they’re ready to imagine. They’re ready to play. They’re ready to do pretend. They’re ready to believe anything. And it says we’re supposed to come before Him like little children, where our hearts are just so tender and pure and ready to see Him; however, He wants to show Himself to us.
And so as we were singing, I felt the Lord… I was like, “Help me articulate that. I really don’t know how to articulate that.” But just that we would have a time of going back into worship, whatever you have on your heart. But I want you to activate your imagination, your wonder… that little thing that you had as a kid, where you can see His face, you can picture Him, you can smell the aloe in His robe.
The power of our imagination…
Something I found out through time, and you know even psychologists will say this, is that your body doesn’t know the difference if you’re remembering something, imagining something, or if you’re actually going through it. That’s the bad part of that. But what’s the good part of that? Our body doesn’t know the difference if we’re imagining that we’re sitting under a tree with Jesus, doesn’t know the difference if we’re imagining that or if it’s really happening.
And as I’m sitting there worshiping, that’s what I pictured. And you do whatever you feel led. What place do you go to? A safe place for me growing up was my grandma’s house. And so for whatever reason, whenever we’re in worship, I’m back there again. I’m a little kid and I’m walking on paths with Jesus, or I’m sitting under a tree with Him or I’m swinging. You have a place that’s special in your heart.
So let’s take a moment as we go into worship and I want you… He’s given you your imagination. It’s a holy thing. That’s really what faith is, right? Faith is believing something that we can’t physically see yet. That’s our imagination. But how can we sanctify that? How can we make that holy? By surrendering it to Him. So using our imagination now to go to a place with Him. And I want to remind everybody for my hardcore pray-ers…
Prayer is communion.
Prayer is fellowship.
Prayer is spending time with Him.
It’s not always just speaking out words. Like in any relationship, you have time where you just sit together. You just love each other. You hold each other. And so as we go back into worship, find a place with Him. And I want you to really see Him. See Jesus. Whatever you’re doing, walking on a path holding hands, fishing, sitting under a tree. See yourself laying your head on His shoulder. See Him embracing you. Smell the aloe in His robe. And just allow yourself to just experience that. And you’ll see how even just the tension leaves your body. Because that’s the goodness of God. That’s His presence. And we’re activating our most holy imagination for Him.
Instead of using it to fear something in the future, instead of using it to think of something that’s a truth outside of Him, we’re using our imagination to be in His presence, to worship Him fully. We can’t see Him in flesh and blood right now, so we have to use that part of our imagination to be with Him while we worship.
And so let’s do that. Let’s go back into worship. Like Kathy was saying, just really see Jesus and whatever that is for you, you have a special place with Jesus. You have a special way that you commune with Him, that you relate with Him, and just allow Him to just fill your senses with that as we go into His presence and worship.
Philippians 4:4 in the Passion translation says…
“Be cheerful with joyful celebration in every season of life. Let your joy overflow and let gentleness be seen in every relationship for our Lord is ever near. Don’t be pulled in different directions or worried about a thing. Be saturated in prayer throughout each day, offering your faith-filled requests before God with overflowing gratitude. Tell Him every detail of your life. Then God’s wonderful peace that transcends human understanding will guard your heart and mind through Jesus Christ. Keep your thoughts continually fixed on all that is authentic and real, honorable, admirable, beautiful, and respectful, pure and holy, merciful and kind and fasten your thoughts on every glorious work of God praising Him always.”
And that’s what we just did…
We just took our thoughts, and we focused on what’s beautiful, what’s honorable, what’s pure. It says that as we’re praying that His peace, it guards our heart and our mind. And how many of you know in this day and time, we need our heart and our mind guarded. We need a guard. There’s so much happening that can try to get in there and cause us to be anxious, cause us to worry, cause us to have fear. But when we are doing this, when we’re praying, when we’re telling Him every detail of our life, when we’re focusing our thoughts on what’s beautiful and pure, Jesus guards our heart and our mind with His peace. Just think that. Just picture that. Your heart and your mind is guarded by His peace.
And that’s such a beautiful picture …
We are walking through this world where there are fiery darts and the enemy is trying to get us off track. But we have a guard. We have a prince of peace. We don’t have to worry. And so, I would just encourage you to take time to activate those thoughts. I think so many of us, we use our thoughts the wrong way. I’m guilty of doing that. I might think of, “Oh no, are we going to have enough money to do that? What happens if this would happen? What would happen if this happened? What’s going to happen with that diagnosis? What’s going to…” in your mind. That is the opposite of faith. You are drawing pictures of a future that is outside of what God’s Word says is truth.
Imagine what God’s Word says…
So if God’s Word says I’m healed, that’s what I need to see. If God’s Word says that He’s always going to provide for me, that’s what I need to see. If God’s Word says He always loves me, that’s what I need to see. So anytime we use our mind outside of that, we’re using our faith. It’s a warped form of worship, really. We’re putting an idol up there of these pictures and these things that we’re spending time meditating on.
Quote from Bill Johnson…
Bill Johnson, pastor of Bethel, says, “Has anybody ever worried about something?” And, of course, everybody raises their hands. He says, “Well, good, then you know how to meditate.” And so using our minds to meditate, but to meditate on God’s Word, His truth. And so when those thoughts try to come in and bombard and are trying to make you see a future outside of what the Word says is true, you bring it back and you picture things that are beautiful, holy, pure.
Example of wrong and right meditation…
I was just talking with a friend about Covid the other day and when all that first hit. I remember it was a scary time for a lot of us because we didn’t know what that was. We didn’t know what that looked like. There was so much confusion, even in the media and politics and even had people in church arguing about things. The body of Christ… I mean the body in Christ as a whole, about like, “We shouldn’t be gathering, we’re spreading the disease.” “We should be gathering. It’s God’s…” You know. It was just strife and division and confusion everywhere.
“I just want to be normal…“
I said to my husband, “Let’s just go to Target. I just want to shop.” As my little mini escape. Forgive me if you’re not a Target person. But I just wanted to just go and be normal, feel normal, have a normal routine. And I’ll never forget it. We walked into Target, and I looked at the shelves and they were empty. There was like one can of green beans and like… I was like, this is the end of the world! What is happening? If you remember that time it was very scary. People were clinging to their groceries, for crying out loud.
“Fear tried to grip me…“
But I remember sitting there and feeling so much fear, tried to grip me of like, “Oh my goodness, we’re not going to have groceries. I can’t feed my kids. I can’t…” Those thoughts started to come. And I’ll never forget the next morning, I was in my devotions. And I’m still just my body… You know what fear feels like. Everybody might be a little different. A tightness in the chest or a knot in your stomach. And I remember I just felt like that. I was like, “Lord, I don’t want to be like this. I don’t want to feel this. I know this isn’t right. What do I do?”
God spoke and said “Be anxious for nothing…“
And this is the scripture He gave me. “Be worried and anxious about nothing, but in everything… pray. Give it to Me. Cast your cares. And then think on things that are lovely, pure, holy, beautiful, all of those things of a good report.”
And so I remember every time that thought would try to creep in of… is the church going to be able to stay open? We can’t have church right now. That’s my source of supply. No. He’s my source of supply. Every time that would come, I’d be like, “Nope. I just think on you, Lord. Beautiful things. You are going to take care of me. If the whole world is shaking and the mountains are crumbling, He’s still going to take care of me.”
And I had to get to that solid place in my heart that I believed that without a shadow of a doubt, not that it would be easy, but He would take care of me.
The fear was gone, it was literally gone!
And there was something there that it was like this… the fear was gone. It was literally gone. And I just said, “I trust you, Lord. I trust you.” And so I just want to encourage you, you know, with all the things happening in the world right now, when that fear tries to creep on you, when that anxiety or that whatever, there’s just so many things happening in the world that are trying to get on us. We have to shake it off. We have to get our eyes back on Him and use our thoughts, our imaginations, to think on these things. Because you’d be surprised how… it can be subtle too. It can creep in sometimes.
Experiment for your mind…
I read a magazine. I was reading something about just your thoughts, right? And it was a secular study. But they did this thing where you close your eyes. I want you to see a lemon on a plate. Now you just picture that lemon. It’s beautiful. It’s yellow. And now you’re going to cut into that lemon. Now you can see the juice is dripping out all over the plate. Now you’re going to cut another wedge and you’re going to bring it up to your mouth and you’re going to bite into that lemon and you’re going to taste that bitterness. And for a lot of you, if you are picturing this, your mouth is watering right now. Right? That’s how powerful our thoughts are. That your body is like, “We are eating a lemon right now,” just by your thoughts.
And I thought, “How profound is that, that God made us that intricate, that our thoughts, our bodies respond to what we’re thinking on.” So the same way it would be if your body’s going to respond to how you’re thinking of something fearful, you’re going to feel that tightness in your chest. You’re going to feel that knot in your stomach, right? But if your thoughts are focused on Him, you can let that go. You can feel peace that surpasses understanding.
