Morning Chapel Prayer Playlist
Morning Chapel Prayer Today
Pastor Ken…
Morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us online and here in the chapel this morning. My name is Mike, and normally my wife, Jeannie, is here with me, but she’s not feeling completely up to it today. But that’s okay, because prayer is going to go on regardless, so she’ll be back next time.
Getting into the flow of prayer…
I was thinking about today, and I felt like the Holy Spirit was saying, “Well, talk about this,” and it’s about prayer. And I’m thinking, “Well, that’s ironic, because everybody here actually believes in prayer,” because you’re here. So some of the things He gave me this morning about what I may want to pray about, maybe talk about, refresh our minds about, so that we get our minds and our bodies kind of into that flow of different people, what they’ve been thinking about prayer.
E.M. Bounds caught onto prayer…
I’ve got a book by E.M. Bounds. And it’s all about prayer. And I’ve only read maybe a few things here and there about it, but it’s so powerful. It’s almost overwhelming, that you’re thinking, “Well, how much can you talk about prayer?” Yet here he’s got like 900 pages on prayer. I’m like, “Okay, well, maybe he caught on to something that we can all learn from.” And so we’re just going to kind of go into that today.
And we’re going to definitely just see where the Spirit wants to go. For sure, because of the season we’re in, I also want to make sure that we’re praying about the elections coming up.
Sometimes we can get in this fervor of praying for the elections, and then after a while we kind of get a little bit weary. And we’re like, “Okay, well, I think I’ve done enough.” And then things happen or don’t happen, and then we’re like, “Okay, well, next time…” It’s like, no, right now is what we have, is right now, and we’re not going to let that go. Because all of these things are important.
Author E.M. Bounds talks about persistence in prayer…
So the part that I wanted to read about is E.M. Bounds talking about the purpose of prayer, and in this part it’s “persistence in prayer.” And one thing that I’m sure most people have experienced is persistence is really difficult at times. It’s like if you’re persistent in something, everybody has probably been persistent in something, and then when you get… And it could be just anything. Persistence in maybe studying for a test, persistence in maybe changing your diet for the better, or maybe doing some form of exercise. It’s never easy. And there’s times when you want to give up. But when you’ve consistently done it, you’re thankful that, “Okay, now I received that result.”
It’s the same thing in prayer…
Where no one, after they’ve accomplished a goal, has ever said, “You know what? I hit that goal. I was elevated. I felt a confidence surge through me.” Never say, “It wasn’t worth it.” I mean, they even give the example in the Bible of like a woman giving birth to a child. There’s a lot of expectancy, but man, right before that baby comes, there’s a lot of discomfort and a lot of pain and a lot of, “Oh my gosh, I can’t…” But the amazing thing is that after the child is born, after that, if you want to call it, the seed is actually brought to manifestation, that all that pain is forgotten in the sense of you don’t carry that pain for years and years and years.
And I believe that that’s the same thing with prayer and that persistence is knowing once they get the answer to that prayer is thinking, “I don’t know if that was really worth it or not,” or it’s like, “I’m not doing that again.” But it’s that persistence, because it’s really hard to be persistent all the time, especially because we are in a world where the enemy is always trying to get you either completely derailed or just distracted enough where you think, “This isn’t working. This isn’t happening. I don’t see it happening. Does God really answer prayer?” And if you’ve never had that, “Does God answer prayer?” you probably have not lived. You’ve probably just sat in your house and done nothing.
Jesus said, “Be of good cheer, I have overcome…”
Everything in this world can be a challenge, but as we know God, everything through God is going to actually have an answer and a manifestation. Even Jesus said, “You are going to face troubles, but be of good cheer for I overcame.” And people can sometimes say, “Well, that’s Jesus,” and yet turn around and say, “Well, He lives in me, but that was Jesus.” It’s like, well, it’s the same thing.
God hears you…
And I needed to be reminded of this on the way in today because I was not feeling spiritual or ready to do this. But I heard a few things on the way in, and I’m like, “Okay, God,” as I’m sitting in traffic, I’m like, “I repent for having a stinky attitude and thinking this thing and that thing isn’t working.” And all it took was someone talking about the reality and the truth of God in prayer. And one of the things he talked about was Daniel, where he prayed and prayed and prayed, and it’s like it took 21 days. But he said, “God actually answered it when you prayed,” just because you didn’t see it right away. And most people are probably thinking, “Oh, I’d love if I only had to wait three weeks to get it.” It’s the principle of the prayer God hears us. God hears you. He hears the cries of your heart. And just because it might take a while to manifest in the natural, that does not mean that He didn’t hear and He does not want to answer.
I’m going to read E.M. Bounds teachings…
“Persistence, it may be repeated, is a condition of prayer. We are to press the matter not with vain repetitions, but with urgent repetitions. We repeat not to count the times, but to gain the prayer. We cannot quit praying because heart and soul are in it. We pray with all perseverance,” and that comes from Ephesians 6:18, where it says, ‘Pray at all times,’ and this is the Amplified. “We pray at all times on every occasion, in every season.” I see a theme there. It says every. “In the Spirit, with all manner of prayer and entreaty.”
And we’re not getting into that. There’s so many types of prayers.
“To that end, keep alert and watch with strong purpose and perseverance, interceding on behalf of all the saints and God’s consecrated people. We pray with that perseverance and that persistence. We hang to our prayers because by them we live. We press our pleas because we must have them or die. Christ gives us two most expressive parables to emphasize the necessity of persistence in praying.
“Perhaps Abraham lost Sodom by failing to press to the utmost his privilege of praying. Perseverance counts much with God as well as with people.
“If Elijah had ceased at his first petition, the heavens would have scarcely yielded their rain to his feeble praying.
“If Jacob had quit praying at bedtime, he would scarcely have survived the next day’s meeting with Esau. I
“If the Syrophoenician woman had allowed her faith to faint by silence, humiliation, repulse, or stop midway during its struggles, her grief-stricken home would never have been brightened by the healing of her daughter.
Prayer and never faint is the model Christ gives us for praying. It is the test of our faith, and the severer the trial, the longer the waiting, the more glorious the results.”
And he goes on to say…
“Jesus, in His teaching and example, illustrated and perfected this principle of Old Testament pleading and waiting. How strange that the only Son of God, who came on a mission direct from His Father, whose only heaven and earth and life were to do His Father’s will in that mission, should be under the law of prayer Himself. That the blessings that came unto Him were impregnated and purchased by prayer. Stranger still, that persistence in prayer was the process by which His wealthiest supplies from God were gained. Had He not prayed with persistence, no transfiguration would have been in His history. No mighty works would have rendered His career divine. His all-night praying was that which filled with compassion and power His all-day work. The persistent praying of His life crowned His death with its triumph. He learned the high lesson of submission to God’s will in the struggles of persistent prayer before He illustrated that submission so sublimely on the cross.”
Keep asking, keep seeking, keep knocking…
And so what I think can be hard for us sometimes to understand is that so many times, we just keep being encouraged and encouraged and encouraged. And going back to Ephesians, “Pray at all times, every occasion, every season,” because He knows that we need to keep with this. And I know in our flesh, we can get tired. And even in Matthew 7:7–8, He said, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.”
I mean, if that’s not something that can hopefully encourage us… I mean, Jesus said that Himself. That wasn’t some other apostle even that was recalling through the Holy Spirit what Jesus said. That was Jesus saying it Himself.
And I actually looked that up a little bit to find out, okay, back in that time, what might that have meant? And so I just did a quick search about what that might look like. And kind of look up like how might… because it’s really interesting to look up like how might Jewish theologians and historians view these words and what was saying and what were they were trying to get across to the Jewish people.
The Hebrew word for ask…
And so the word ask is the Hebrew sha’al. It’s not just asking for a gift. It says, “Used for petitioning an elder or seeking a legal or spiritual ruling.”
Seeking, in a first-century Jewish context specifically means to search the scriptures to inquire after God’s wisdom or will. Like we’re actually looking for it.
Knocking. There are some commentary frequently uses the metaphor of knocking at the gates of prayer or the gates of repentance. Jewish scholars note that these three verbs representing an escalating progression of intentionality. 1) Vocal petition, or asking, 2) active investigation, or seeking, 3) and physical persistence demand at the door.
So Father, we just thank you that you give us so many ways and so many examples of prayer, that we would not grow weary in the well-doing, the praying.
