Morning Chapel Prayer Playlist
Morning Chapel Prayer Today
Pastor Ken…
Happy day, everyone, on this Thursday, the 13th of March 2025! Good to have you guys with us. My name is Ken and I’m one of the pastors here at Living Word.
Psalms 135 from the Passion translation…
I want to share a couple of things. Firstly, an excerpt from Psalms 135. I’m just going to read, beginning with verse one and down through a couple of verses here. And I’m going to read from the Passion translation.
It says…
“Lord, you know everything there is to know about me. You perceive every moment of my heart and soul. And you understand my every thought before it even enters my mind.”
Wow! Think about that. Talk about the foreknowledge of God.
“You are so intimately aware of me, Lord, you read my heart like an open book and you know all my words I’m about to speak before I even start a sentence. You know every step I will take before my journey even begins. You’ve gone into my future to prepare the way.”
Somebody can say, “thank you, Lord!” He’s gone into our future to prepare the way. You might ask the question just to insert a commentary here. How can I say this? It is true that we have free will and we get to choose. But it’s also true God has mapped out a plan for my life and yours and for the church. Both are true. But the reality is even though God has a plan, as we see in Psalm 139, and He has a book of destiny recorded and written about all the days of each of our lives and the intentions of the Father’s heart to do in our lives and through our lives as we live on the earth. That is true as well. He has already planned something for us. But we must choose it.
So both are true. God has a plan, but we must choose His plan. God is willing that none should perish, instead that everybody would come to the knowledge of Jesus and His forgiveness and His grace and His salvation. But not everybody’s going to choose that. Or want that or welcome that.
It’s a process of saying, “Lord, work in me…”
So, prayer begins by adjusting our will, bending our will. And it doesn’t happen overnight or in a day. It’s really a lifelong process of saying, “Lord, work in me.” More than anything else, prayer changes us. It doesn’t change the intention or the nature of God. He doesn’t change. But prayer does change us. It does allow for the activity of the Holy Spirit within us to do what the Bible says. He’s able to will in us or give us the “want to.” Oftentimes that is the greatest answer to prayer, is that we come away from a time of being in His presence and we have different desires and we have different “want to’s.” And we have different inclinations.
His plan for us is beyond what we could ask or think…
And so don’t overlook the power of change that is accomplished in us in times of study and meditation and silence and just waiting on God in prayer. He’s able to will in us to do His good pleasure. That’s a beautiful thing. Because His plan is already blessed. So often we get caught up in asking God to bless this and to bless that and bless my plans. But He’s reminding us today, I believe, through His Word, that His plan is already blessed. He’s already got a plan that is above and beyond what we can ask or think.
We don’t have to carry the pain we’ve been dragging around with us…
He is reminding us today as well that we don’t have to carry the pain that we’ve been dragging around with us from day to day, from our past, from something recent, whether it’s physical or emotional or relational in nature, trauma that we’ve been through, challenges that we’ve come through. God wants to do something exceedingly above and beyond what we can ask or think today. He wants to change us on the inside so that our perspective is different, so that our desires are different.
I want what He wants for my life…
I don’t know about you, but I want what He wants. And that’s a deeper understanding of what it means to follow Jesus. But it’s a powerful and a freeing and a beautiful place to be when you want what He wants. When you’re willing to lay aside your agenda, when you’re willing to not just push your thing forward, but just to back off and say, “Lord, I’m here. I’m here for you. I’m here for what you want.” I mean, Jesus, after all, His prayer was, “Lord, not My will, but yours be done.”
“I must decrease so that He might increase.”
Was it John the Baptist that says, “I want to decrease, that He might increase.” That’s a beautiful place to be where you become wholly filled with God. The things of this world have a very short shelf life. They pale in comparison. Even the most shiny object you can think of, that you want in your life. And I’m not saying God won’t bless you with that. I’m just saying if that’s your desire and that’s what you set your sights on, that’s what you pursue, well guess what? You’ll be disappointed because of things of this age and this world no matter how new or revolutionary they may be, they don’t satisfy the longing of a human’s heart, of your heart and mine.
The deep in us is calling for the deep in God…
There’s a deep in us now that is calling out for the deep things in God. And God is wanting to make a connection. I mean, there’s just something so satisfying, so completing, so rich it makes you fat in your soul in a good way. About connecting to the purpose of God.
I pray today that God will get ahold of your soul, get a hold of you in your interior, your heart, and shift your perspective. Yes? And help you to step into the next place and in a more accurate journey in His will for you, in His plan for you.
He has gone before us into our future…
Because it is true that He has gone before us into our future, it says here in Psalm 139:5, “You have gone into my future to prepare the way. And in your kindness, you follow behind me to spare me from the harm of my past. You have laid your hand on me.” Glory to God.
As they went, they were made whole…
I pray right now this morning that if you have a past… We all do, right? If you’ve got some pain and some hurt and some things hanging on, clinging to you cleverly, as one Bible verse says in the Amplified, that the Lord would dislodge that pain and that there would be a supernatural work to remove that pain from your life in Jesus’ name. You don’t have to carry around that trauma and that pain and that perpetual upset. You do have to continue and refuse to give up because sometimes the process of healing and freedom and the outworking of God’s plan, even for you personally. It is as the Bible reads, when Jesus ministered to many people in His day, it says “as they went, they were made whole.” In other words, they had to continue in their journey. And they may have gotten up the next day and felt symptoms, but the Bible says as they went, praising God, as they went, endeavoring to pursue Him and know Him, they were made completely whole. So let that be a word to us today.
Maybe you’re not where you want to be in the promise of God, in the will of God. But I would suggest to you, you’re probably not where you used to be. But you’re on your way to where God has called you to be.
Expect that God is lightening your load…
So as we pray today, just have an expectancy that God is lightening your load. He’s setting you free. The anointing of the Spirit is at work. Expect that! Celebrate that! Give Him thanks for that. The last time I checked, Jesus Himself said that when you pray, believe that you receive. And believing you receive can just be simply driving down the road saying, “Lord, thank you. I believe I receive the answer to my prayer. I believe your Word is so that you’re watching over it right now to perform healing in my soul, healing in my body, restoration in my home, freedom in my outlook… that you are reshaping my insides so that they align with what you intend and what you’ve designed, and what you have for me and mine in the days ahead.”
It feels so good just to walk with Him…
There’s just something so fulfilling and so blessed when we don’t necessarily get the shiny object or God just meets every need, which He will. But when you simply walk with God in a more accurate, synchronized fashion and you just feel, “ugh.” It feels so good just to walk with Him. It feels so good just to follow Him. To deliver what He wants to deliver through you, whether it’s prayer or a message, or a kind word, or an act of generosity, or whatever it might be. There’s nothing more outstanding in my mind than, “Okay, I did what God called me to do today.” Oh my gosh! That’s so satisfying. It’s so joy giving. It’s so completing.
Psalm 139 goes on to say…
I’m going to read verse five again. “You’ve gone into my future to prepare the way and in kindness you follow behind me. You spare me from the harm of my past. You have laid your hand on me. This is just too wonderful, deep and incomprehensible. Your understanding of me brings me wonder and strength.”
Oh, isn’t that good to know? He understands you. He gets you and me. Amen. He sees what’s going on and He’s right there with you in the midst of that, even when you feel weak and incapable and something doesn’t seem to be changing, He’s right there cheering you on, saying, “I’ve got this. Let’s keep going. Just keep swimming.”
Psalm 139:7 says…
“Where could I go from your spirit?” Or you could see His presence. “Where could I run or hide from your face?” Or again, His presence? “If I go to heaven, you’re there. If I go down to the realm of the dead, you’re there too. If I fly with wings into the shining dawn, you’re there. If I fly into the radiant sunset, you’re waiting there.” Glory to God! This is our Heavenly Father. He’s there! You arrive at a challenge or an impossibility, you arrive at some tribulation tomorrow, some unknowns, some unmet needs… guess what?
He’s there!
He’s there to remind you that He’s Jehovah-Jireh. He’s your Jehovah Rapha. He’s your Jehovah Nissi. He’s your Jehovah Tsikenu. He’s your “all in all.” He is the one who holds us by our hands and leads us through the darkest night. He’s our teacher, the one who imparts strength. He’s the spirit of prayer. Glory to God. Hallelujah.
He’s saying, “I’m there, My son, My daughter. I’m already there. And guess what? It’s going to be all right. You’re going to win even through this difficulty and adversity.”
It goes on to say…
“Wherever I go, your hand will guide me. Your strength will empower me. It’s impossible to disappear from you or to ask the darkness to hide me, for your presence is everywhere bringing light into my night. There is no such thing as darkness with you. The night to you is as bright as day.”
In other words, if He’s in the midst of that dark night of the soul or that place where you don’t know what you’re going to do or where you’re going to go, just be reminded that He is there. His Word is there. His Spirit is there. He is light, and He brings brightness to the darkness. Dispels darkness.
“You form my innermost being, shaping my delicate inside and my intricate outside and wove them all together in my mother’s womb. I thank you, God, for making me so mysteriously complex. Everything you do is marvelously breathtaking. It simply amazes me to think about it. How thoroughly you know me, Lord, you even formed every bone in my body when you created me in the secret place. Carefully, skillfully, you shaped me from nothing to something.”
He can transform nothingness into somethingness…
Oh! So He’s a God that can transform nothingness into somethingness. Excuse my English. He can! Hallelujah! He’s the God who’s looked into the void of the blackness of night and the cosmos and called order out of disorder, called creation out of nothingness.
Of course, He can call you out of obscurity and into nobility of being a part of His family, crowned with His favor and called by His name.
Of course, He can speak through you to the impossibility and bring about the reality of His will and the goodness of His plan.
Every day we continue with Him is an opportunity to shape or reshape what our reality is. The change, in fact, that He brings about in our lives, makes it possible for us to bring change into our world and into situations that we encounter every day.”
So it says here in verse 16…
“You saw who you created me to be before I became me.” That’s why we want to just surrender ourselves to Him in prayer and invite His Holy Spirit activity in us. Not so that we can cajole or manipulate God into doing something for us. Because He’s already decided to do something for us. But because prayer changes us more than anything. And God has already seen who He’s called you and me to be. And it’s far greater than you ever imagined. He’s already seen you performing signs and wonders and miracles. He’s already seen you walking in the fullness of His substance, both spiritually and practically. He’s already seen you every bit whole from head to toe, physically and emotionally, mentally and relationally, and in every regard. He’s already seen you and has called you His son, His daughter.
Prayed…
And so we pray, Lord, help us to see what you see, to view things going forward as you view them, to realize the opportunity for this hour and this time and this season. We are surrounded by opportunity… nothing but opportunity. Despite what the calendar on your timetable says, Lord, we choose to see today nothing but opportunity surrounding us, our lives, our nation, the church. Glory to God.
