Peg led group in worship…
Pastor Ken…
Good morning, everyone. And good morning to those of you who are online with us. Glad to have you join us.
I wanted to share a few passages.
Psalm 16:8, “I have set the Lord always before me; because He is at my right hand I shall not be moved.”
Psalm 91:14, “Because he has set his love upon Me, therefore I will deliver him; I will set him on high, because he has known My name.”
Philippians 3:10, “That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death.”
John 17:3, “And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.”
Excerpt From Book, “The Will of God in Prayer”
I was looking through a book by Kenneth E. Hagin entitled, “The Will of God in Prayer.” It has some really foundational teachings about prayer. I’m gonna read a little segment here where he talks about the essence of what life is all about, the entrance to fruitfulness and effectiveness in prayer.
In many ways, you could say that we owe God fruit. He has made a dear and beyond price investment in us and breathed in His intention and His creativity into our mother’s womb. And woman brought us to this generation, not so that we would just kind of bump around and see what happens in this life and try to get by. But He sent us here to be intentional, to be on mission, to be purposeful, to be fruitful. And the truth of the matter is prayer fruit is one of the most significant things we’re called to accomplish. And brother Hagin said this in this one passage:
“I once read a book by a missionary who spent 32 years in the Holy Land. This is around the turn of the century when customs there were very much like they had been for centuries. In his book, the missionary commented on this passage of scripture in Matthew 7. He said, ‘I thought as most Christians do that when Jesus said ask and it shall be given you, seek and you shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you, He meant if you asked and didn’t receive an immediate answer, to keep on asking. However, after living in the holy land for many years of becoming familiar with the thinking of the Eastern mind, I learned that this was not what Jesus meant at all.’ He says, ‘In those days, if someone came to an outer gate and knocked seeking entrance, the wealthy would send their servant to call out and ask the name of the visitor. If it was someone who was known…’ Catch that—known. “They could enter immediately. If it was someone unknown, the servant would go to the master of the house and ask if he should let the visitor in. The thought here is that when you knock, if you are known, you gain immediate entrance. To him that knocketh, it shall be opened.’ If when we ask, we do not receive… If when we seek, we do not find… If when we knock, it is not open to us… we should ask ourselves if we are known by the Master of the house. If not, we should become acquainted personally and intimately with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We should make Him Lord of our life.’”
Isn’t that good?
That re-centers us and reminds us again of what it’s all about. In fact, in many ways, the more you spend time with Him, the more you seek Him, the more you develop connection with Him. I realized that we have a particular status with God because of the grace of God. We have an identical position and possession with Jesus. But you can gain a certain clout and audience with God. The more you journey with Him, the more you get to know Him.
So as brother Hagin was saying from the perspective of Jesus, God the Father, you are known in heaven and He knows you. So that He responds to you.
I had this one experience years ago when I was in a season of just fellowshiping with the Lord and ministering to Him, talking to Him. Nothing super spiritual, just expressing my heart and love to Him, worshiping and thanking Him. I was sitting at the table one particular day, looking out the window, reflecting on God’s goodness. And down on the inside, I just sensed and I almost really heard it was just His still small voice… It wasn’t an audible voice. I just heard the Lord say, “I enjoy you.” I thought, Wow! Is that what the Spirit of God is saying to me?
He’s deeply affectionate about you. He has a desire to know you and to be in connection with us on a daily basis. There’s a clout we can gain and places we can go and positions we can stand and walk in that enable us to be even more effective and even more influential in the realm of God. Hallelujah.
And so I just want you to kind of reflect on that this morning. I had some other scriptures too, that I think make this point. In the life of Jesus, in Ephesians 5:1, it says that we’re to be imitators of our Father, imitators of Jesus. And if you open up into the gospels and read about Jesus and what He did so that we could be imitators of Him, it says in Mark 1:35, “The next morning, Jesus got up long before daylight, left the house while it was dark and made His way to a secluded place to give Himself to prayer.” And it says, “And when they finally tracked Him down…” that being the disciples, “They told him, Everyone is looking for you.” Jesus replied, “We have to go on to the surrounding villages so that I can share My message with the people there for that as My mission.” In other words, clarity and direction and understanding what His next steps were came out of fellowship. It came out of that time of just getting up and going to secluded place by Himself.
Sometimes it doesn’t get any more spiritual than that. Let’s be honest. Sometimes that’s what spirituality is. A disciple means disciplined after the teachings of a master or a teacher. We’re to be disciplined and order our lives according to the teachings of Jesus, according to His example, according to what He’s taught us and what He’s left us.
In Luke 5:15, it says “After this miracle, the news about Jesus spread even farther. Massive crowds continue to gather to hear Him speak and to be healed from their illnesses. But Jesus often slipped away from them and went into the wilderness to pray.”
I love that because that is so empowering to me. I’m very task oriented, checklist-oriented person. It helps me to have permission in myself to say, “You know what? There’s a lot going on. There’s chaos. There’s lots to be done still, but if Jesus could slip away out of the busyness to be with His Father, then how much more should we at different times do the same.”
In another passage here in Matthew 14:23, it says, “After the crowds dispersed, Jesus went up into the hills to pray and as night fell, He was there praying alone.” You see a pattern here.
In Luke 9:28–29, it says, “Eight days later, Jesus took Peter, Jacob and John, and climbed a high mountain to pray. As He prayed, His face began to glow until the blinding glories stream from Him. A radiant glory illuminated His body. His brightness became so intense that it made His clothing blinding white as multiple flashes of lightning.” Amen. Glory to God.
It’s a reminder that that’s where transformation happens as well. That’s where something of heaven gets on us so that we go into our day and the world around us can be influenced and changed. Thank you, Father.
Prayed…
So, Father, we just thank you for the beautiful examples you left us in scripture as to how we should live and conduct our daily lives.
We just thank you that you are in us, moving through us today. Thank you for your presence.
Peg led group in worship…
Prayed…
We lift you up high over the chaos that may surround us over the unknowns that face us, over the challenges that we grapple with.
We invite you, Lord Jesus, to come and minister to us, to breathe on us.
Flow through us that you would have free course and liberty throughout our whole being
We pray you would help us, Lord, to be conduits and magnets, to draw from that realm and to pull it into this realm
We call on America today. We declare change in the name of Jesus.
We loose angels and send you on assignment today. Ministering spirits, go in Jesus’ name. Be released to facilitate, to accommodate, to perpetuate and propel change in this nation today. We declare change. We declare adjustments. We declare transformation.
We command everything that can be and should be shaken now to be shaken in the name of Jesus. Every doctrine of the enemy raised up to pollute a generation, we come against it. We hold the blood against it.
We bind every doctrine of new age, secular humanism, Satanism, witchcraft, and familiar spirits that are operating in the church or in our city or in our nation. We come against that in Jesus’ name.
We pray, Father, that the Church would be wise to discern and know and understand the times and the seasons. To recognize our visitation, to recognize our role, to understand as the apostle Paul prayed the will of God for us and our role in it and what we’re to be doing day by day
We pray today, Lord, for a coming up of the Church to discern and know her place and the time and the season
To come up now into a higher walk, into a higher journey, into a higher living and doing and breathing and walk of faith.
We call the church here at Living Word up. We call your church wherever you attend and whatever state or nation or city today, we call your church up.
We send in Jesus’ name, divine interruption in what’s going on so they might be aligned and changed and facilitated in such a way that the Spirit of God… the synchronicity of God and the timeliness of God would match up in our churches, in our gatherings, in our hearts with what is in heaven.