Morning Prayer Summary for Thursday, May 18, 2023


Morning Chapel Prayer Playlist

Pastor Ken…

Good morning, everyone. Great to have you with us here in the chapel.

God has given us the very power to know Him…

This morning I was reminded of the fact that God has given us the power to know Him and as pray-ers, that’s an important reset to have, to remember that God has given us the very power to know Him, to connect, to commune, to be in collaboration with God the Father.

He wants to work with us…

And I was super grateful driving into work and prayer this morning of the years I’ve had of doing just that… knowing Him but also journeying with Him. And I just had this heightened sense on the inside that the Lord just wants to remind us in a loving, gracious way today that He wants to work with us. That He is there in the midst of whatever we face or whatever assignment we’ve been put to. He wants to journey with us. He wants to work with us. Not just in morning prayer or in your particular ministry or assignment spiritually, but He wants to be right there in the midst of the day-to-day. He’s reminding us this morning that “I’m here for you. I’m there for you. I’m in the midst of you.” We’re in Him and He is in us. He came to take up residence on the inside of us.

We need to cultivate a greater sense of awareness of Him…

So I just pray that each of us would cultivate a greater sense of awareness of Him, that He’s there working with us. He’s not going to leave nor forsake us. Whether it’s a surgery like I had to go through that I wasn’t super excited about and just in making space and place and time for Him, not even being all that spiritual on a given night. Yet, when I opened my Bible and began to read, His voice rose from the pages and He spoke to me and comforted me. He said, “Ken, I’m going to be with you in this. Do this. This is what I want you to do.” He’s just there for us. Whether it’s a major life decision, an issue that we’re facing, something that is bogging us down inside in some way emotionally. He wants to be our everything. The Bible declares that He is our all in all. And in in Him, we find completeness. In Him, we find wholeness. In Him, we find the specific targeted resource and sustenance that we need.

We are to consume His Word like we would consume a good meal…

Jesus taught His disciples and by their accounts teache us that we’re to consume His Word in a way like we consume Taco Bell. Maybe that’s not a good example. A really good meal or a healthy meal. We’re to consume His Word. Was it Jeremiah who announced “thy words were found and I did eat them?” “And your words were the joy and rejoicing of mine heart for I’m called by thy name, oh Lord God of hosts.”

Jesus said He had sustenance that the disciples knew not of…

Jesus expressed a secret to His disciples on a given day that He had sustenance that they knew not of. And the sustenance was God’s Word. That He wants to be an elevated and ever-increasing part of our lives. Our everyday mundane, where the rubber meets the road, where we’re making decisions, where we’re guiding our kids and grandkids, where we’re paying the mortgage, where we’re facing maybe a turmoil in some way… He wants to be there. He wants us to be cognizant that He is there and wants to work with us in a higher, more intimate way.

For He’s given us through Jesus the opportunity and the very power to know Him. And one of the verses I was thinking about this morning is found in John 17:3 from the Amplified Classic. It says, “And this is…” Jesus describes eternal life. It means to know, perceive, recognize, and become acquainted with and understand Him, in other words. He says, you the only true and real God. Likewise to know Him, Jesus, as the Christ, the anointed one, the Messiah, whom you have sent.”

He is pursuing you this morning…

So I just want to stir up in your hearts and remembrance today just how truly intimate He is. How loving and gracious and true of a Father He is and wants to be in our lives and in our companies of believers or churches. Jesus went to great lengths to talk about His Father in His earthly ministry. He went to great lengths to describe Him as not only the creator of heaven and earth, but also the one whom He received His direction and was His source and His supply in everything. He even taught that there will come a day and that day is now that the disciples wouldn’t ask Jesus for anything, but that they would ask the Father in Jesus’ name. And that the Father would fulfill that and follow through with that. So there’s something really special about the Father that the Lord wants to remind us of, that He’s there. He wants to work with us. He is loving. He is forgiving. He wants to dote on you. He is pursuing you this morning.

God wants to put His finger on your soul…

You might be thinking you’re just running from problems and trying to keep one step ahead of the enemy or an issue that you’re facing. But the truth is, God wants you to stop, turn around just like He intended for the prodigal son to do so, and realize that the Father is chasing you. And that He has the answer for that problem. And He wants to put His finger on your soul, on your inner life and minister wholeness and what is needed in this moment of your journey. That’s all that’s needed is that we would be like the prodigal son and just stop. Give Him time and space, even a few moments and just say, “Lord, what’s up? Father, what are you saying to me? How do you want to work today? What prayers do you want me to pray?”

The Lord wants us to hide in the secret place…

Moses gave us the example of the secret place, how the Lord wants to hide us in the secret place. And one of the great secrets of being a follower of Jesus, one of the great secrets to effective and powerful prayer, effective and powerful life is living from the secret place. Speaking from that place… not speaking out of who you are in and of yourself… not speaking from your past… not reacting to a particular set of circumstances or what’s going on around you… but speaking and deciding and doing life from that place of intimacy and connection with the Father.

The sons and daughters of God must be forceful now…

There must be a note of victory and certainty in what we declare in prayer. We must truly know who we are in the Father, in Jesus. What we possess in Him, and speak or command from that place of intimacy, that secret place. That’s the place of effectiveness. That’s the place that pushes darkness backwards. That’s the place where the Father can work with us and intervene in the affairs of our lives and in the affairs of our nation. When we will seek Him and pursue Him and give time to letting Him catch us. He wants to catch you. He’s pursuing you, the Bible reveals.

Psalm 139:17

In fact, we’ll see in Psalm 139:17 in the Passion translation. It says this about the Father and His perspective on you and me. It says, “Every single moment you are thinking of me, how precious and wonderful to consider that you cherish me constantly in your every thought.” Think about that! “Oh God, your desires toward me are more than the grains of the sand on every shore. When I awake each morning, you’re still with me.”

Isaiah 49:15–16

Then in Isaiah 49:15–16, it says, “Never can a mother forget her nursing child. Can she feel no love for the child she has born. But even if it were possible.” In other words, for the mother to forget a child. The Father is saying to us, “I would never forget you.” In verse 16, it says, “See, I have written your name on the palms of my hands.” One translation says, “I have tattooed your name on the palm of My hand, and you are ever before Me.” Goodness gracious. No wonder the Word says that there are far more that be with us than be with our enemies.

Let go of the cares and weights…

So just let Him work in your heart this morning. Let go of stresses. Let go of cares and weights and worries and what you’re running from. And just stop in your heart, in your psychology, in your mentality, and just realize that His thoughts toward you are great. The Bible goes on to reveal that His thoughts toward us are good and only good.

He wants to work with us. He wants to work some things out for us. He wants to get to the root of some things. He wants to shift and change some things in our hearts and in our homes, in our churches, and in the body of Christ. He wants to uproot some things that maybe have been there… maybe we’ve just put up with and lived with and coped with in some way. But He’s wanting to renovate things now. He wants to renovate starting at the heart of you and me. Yes, I know we’ve been made into new creatures spiritually speaking, but then there’s this soulish part of us—our mind, our will, our emotions. Things that we carry with us that have happened to us, that He wants to set us free from traumas and abuses and disappointments and failures and mistakes, perhaps. He’s wanting to lighten our load. He’s wanting to set us free at a deeper, wider, more expansive level that we would be a people… that we would be pray-ers freed up to run more swiftly, more consistently with Him in this journey and race of faith.

Some things need to be offloaded…

If you’re going to finish your course, sometimes you got to cast off ballast. If you’re going to run swiftly and break the tape and cross the finish line of faith, that means that there needs to be some things that are offloaded. Some things that He wants to put His finger on to heal and cauterize that maybe has been bleeding on the inside of us. And it’s been an open wound. I sensed that this morning… open wounds and things that have just been kind of bleeding emotionally in our lives, a constant source of issue and it’s been dragging us down in some way. He wants to stop the bleeding. He wants to heal what is hurting.

He wants to snip and prune away…

Some instances, like a really good skillful horticulturalist, He wants to snip and prune. He wants to select the right branches for this season. A horticulturist will go in and remove all the dead wood on a plant. I did that recently. I’m a bit of a rosarian. I love roses. I don’t have many nowadays, but years ago I used to have lots of them. And in Minnesota, of course, growing Flora Bonda hybrid Tea Roses is a lot of work. But one of the biggest things is pruning. You’re constantly pruning. And I did that recently. I tipped up some of my roses because… we’re jealous of those of you who live in warmer climates. You don’t have to cover things or winterize things. But in Minnesota, you pretty much have to bury things for them to make it through the winter. At least certain roses. And so I dug up my roses and planted them and immediately got my shears out and I went to work, pruning out all the deadwood, the diseased wood or branches. But then there were other branches that maybe looked healthy, but they weren’t. They were just too much and they were crossing over other branches and as they grow, they’re not going to grow to what I desire, what I really want, because I have a certain vision in mind for my roses and what they should look like.

God has a vision in mind for you…

That’s a good thing, by the way. You got to know that, right? I mean, for some, I think we think that we don’t want to yield to God because who knows what God’s going to ask me to do, right? But let me just comfort you this morning and remind us that what God has for us, what He is intended for us is really good. It’s actually better than you would ever dream up, right? Ephesians says that He wants to do exceeding above and beyond what you can ask or think. That He has a plan that He loves you so much that before you even were birthed, before you were even conceived, He wrote a book about you of destiny and beauty and intentionality and redemption, and victory and prosperity and blessing. And I know that doesn’t happen overnight. It’s a journey. But you got to know that God has a vision for how He wants your life to look. How He wants you to feel, what fruit He wants you to bear in this life through prayer and other means as well.

But to fulfill the vision God has for you, there needs to be pruning…

And part of you being fully productive and beautiful and that trophy case for His glory there at times has to be some pruning that must take place. And some of that pruning, of course, is to cut out the old and the unproductive and what’s not alive anymore in your life, that may have been alive in a previous season. Don’t get nervous if He wants to prune some things out, prune some people out… that maybe were in a previous season, but in this season for some reason, it’s not going to enable you to go to that next place if you’re going to continue your race and cross the finish line in these days.

We don’t live by seeing…

So sometimes it feels like you’re taking a step back. When I got done with that rosebush, it was like maybe a half of what it was when I first tipped it up from the ground. But I know that the pruning I did was strategic and with a vision in mind of what it’s going to look like at the end of June and the blooms and the size of those blooms, and the fragrance of those blooms and how they look overall. God has something in mind for you. That’s why we don’t live by seeing, instead, by believing, by faith, trusting in Him, including the pruning He wants to do.

Prayer is the one thing that allows the Holy Spirit to come in, in close quarters in your heart and in your mind, and in your life, and He’s able to snip and prune and remove and heal and cauterize and surgically do what only the Counselor can do… God the Holy Spirit, in other words.

And while in the moment it’s uncomfortable and you don’t want to stop because it’s more comfortable to you in your mind to keep running and keep thinking and have exercise, some human control over my situation that may feel good in the moment, but that’s not going to be good in the long term.

So I just believe God’s speaking to us this morning about some things, some decisions that must be made, some things that must be confronted, perhaps some people that might need to be confronted. Maybe there’s an assignment He has you on where He’s saying, “I want you to go talk to so-and-so about this. I want you to go forgive so-and-so.” And that by itself is Him pruning and doing some things to prepare you for a greater season of bloom and fruitfulness.

We can trust the heart of the Father…

Jesus said it’s to your profit that I go back to the Father that might send the Holy Spirit who will come to you. He wants to profit us today in prayer, in our hearts, in our relationships, in our lives.

They must go to the next level…

I jotted this down last night. “Tell the people they must go to the next level. They must get into the secret place and let the atmosphere of heaven…” you can say the atmosphere of the spirit… “permeate their lives and change them… changed in the glory.”

So the Lord has some thoughts. If He’s thinking all these thoughts, He’s got some secrets. He’s got a secret vision and a plan for you and for me and for the church. He wants to show us those thoughts and those secrets. I jotted this down the other day. “The more you yield to Him, the more you will hear from Him. But you have to yield. You have to stop like that prodigal son, and reason with yourself at times.”

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