Morning Chapel Prayer Playlist
Pastor Ken…
Good morning. Happy Tuesday everyone. And welcome to everyone who’s joining us online. It’s good to be here with you guys this morning. It’s going to be a good day.
We’re in a time of preparation…
I want to encourage you to let the Holy Spirit have His way in your heart. I’ve heard from a number of different well-known ministers and prophets that we’re in an interesting season, a marked moment of history. This summer that is, that in fact, June, July, and August are to be a time of preparation, introspection, a time where God is wanting to prepare us for what’s next. He wants to position us as a church, as a staff, as individuals for some new things. Amen.
An acceleration to fullness…
In fact, somebody said recently, over the next three months, the seeds of faith planted by God’s people through their decrees will accelerate to fullness. They will produce the fruit of the seeds that were sown, and God’s people will enter into a new time or season.
I like this too. They added regarding our nation… They said prophetically, “God wants to reset America back to her covenant roots. A reset is coming to this nation, and the enemy will not be able to stop it.” Can I get an amen on a Tuesday morning here? Come on now. “It will unfold from September and beyond. My remnant will break through.”
Latch onto those prophetic words when they come…
I was reminded last night about a time of my life where I was going through a challenging and difficult season. It didn’t look like my future was very bright. And I got really desperate to hear from God through His Word in my heart, through others around me that I trusted. And one day I was in morning prayer. I was sitting in the back. I wasn’t leading, I was just minding my own business. And it was Pastor Ray up here leading, and he began to speak prophetically: “You have turned a corner. Things are looking up and going to get better and better as you hide yourself in Me.”
A simple little prophetic word, but I latched hold of that. That was hope to me. And I jotted it down. I put it in my phone, and I began to say it and memorize it, and just said it over and over and declared it, and prayed it, held to it. And, you know, I was reminded last night where Paul taught and told Timothy to fight a good fight, wage a good warfare with the prophecies and the words that have been spoken over you. That our words are God speaking through us to impact and to change things ahead of us so that when we get there, we can just step into the plan and purpose of God.
God created us in His image as “speaking spirits…”
So I was just reflecting on how remarkable that simple word… and there are other scriptures that God had dropped in my heart that I just began to speak and decree and say as a prayer throughout my day, my week, my month. And those words shifted things. Those words made a way where there wasn’t a way. God has created us in His image as “speaking spirits.” And He intends that we would speak His word forth.
And so as we worship and focus on Him this morning, just let Him speak to you. You don’t have to be in a desperate place to hear from Him. In fact, God wants us to practice the habit of presence and being deeply aware of what’s going on, on the inside.
When you open His Book, God opens His mouth…
It’s really easy just to pray in tongues, for example, or worship on autopilot. But God wants us to be aware of what’s happening inside of us, what He’s saying to us, to set our reticular activating system, that part of our brain, our cognitive capabilities that determines what gets noticed to set that, to look for and expect the Word of God to us and for us. And to not slough that off or be casual or flippant about it. But to latch hold of that, whether it’s a scripture off the pages of His Book… Like Pastor Lynne said, when you open His book, God opens His mouth. It starts there.
In a time and season of prayer throughout your day, He is dealing with His people in this hour. These three months, perhaps very intentionally, He’s dealing with us, preparing us, speaking to us, wanting to partner and work with us, that we would grab hold of what He’s saying even as our pastor teaches… Pastor Mac, Pastor Jim. I’m listening to what they’re saying, not only as a staff member and what I might need to do practically to support them, but also spiritually. I jot it down. I write it down so that I can pray it. I can say it. I can align myself.
Let God resurrect things inside you…
God wants to synchronize the church. There’s multiplication of power when we synchronize with the heart of God, as our pastors speak, as the Spirit speaks, as He moves today. You’re making a way with your worship. You’re making a way with the words that He’s dropping into your heart. Perhaps some of us, we need to let the Lord kind of resurrect some things in us… our calling, our purpose, a desire you once had for something you knew and know was from the Lord. And somehow, it’s settled out into a corner somewhere of your life or your soul and the Spirit of God wants to breathe on that. He’s resuscitating things. His will is not linear like our western mentality. His will is circular. In other words, if we missed it, if we failed, if we messed up, God’s grace brings it back around an opportunity to respond to Him. And He is wanting us to just latch hold of what He’s saying over you today… over us, over our church, over your household and say the same thing.
The great “beat down” of the enemy means he is under our feet…
Wage a good warfare not to overcome the enemy because we know the enemy has been defeated. There was a great beat down that occurred, and the enemy was once and for all, and for all time put under our feet. Through Jesus.
Our fight now is to fight the good fight of faith…
So our need is to fight the good fight of faith. Fight the good fight, as our pastor’s been teaching us, of focus. Faith comes by hearing. And God’s speaking something He wants us to hear today. So that we can pray it, say it, grab hold of it, keep it in front of us as a church, as a staff, as individuals.
So I just pray that the Lord would just stir some things up in our consciousness, in our hearts, that He will help us connect with our hearts. First and foremost, we’re to live from our hearts. The deep in us. We can do some things intellectually and because we’ve done life, we’ve done ministry, we’ve done church, we’ve done whatever Christianity for maybe a season, so we know some things. But the last time I checked, my Bible still reads that Paul reprimanded and corrected one of the early churches because they had started out in the spirit, but then they had clicked over and shifted in their mind and in their flesh, and were doing things out of memory rather than out of inspiration from what the Spirit of God was saying and what He was doing in the early church’s hearts.
A great shaking…
The same prophet went on to say, “The prophets have spoken of a great shaking in our time and a great awakening that is this time. The wind of the Holy Spirit is blowing.” Make no mistake about it. I want to just say these timely things in my heart that I sense the Lord saying. This is a history-making moment, and God needs His church to be alert, renewed in hope and expectation for all of this is unfolding at a very rapid pace. Acceleration has begun. We’re in a move of God. It’s not coming. It’s now happening.
Just like me, when I grasped hold of that word, as Pastor Ray was prophesying up here, and he even walked over to me and said, “Ken, you know that was for you.” And I said, “I know.” And I just began to say it, and I said it in the present tense. The Bible says when you pray, believe that you receive and you shall have.
It goes on to write, “And the scripture writes, faith is now. Now faith is the substance of things hoped for. God wants us to operate from that framework, from that place of now. Now faith is!
Hebrews 12:1 was a verse that just kind leapt in my heart last night as I was kind of reflecting and praying from the Passion translation. It says, “As for us, we have all these great witnesses who encircle us like clouds.” In other words, all those that have gone before us, including perhaps some of our relatives and friends and fellow church members that have already received their promotion. They’re cheering us on. We’re in the final leg of the race. Whew! Come on now. The Lord wants to refresh us, not leave us in a grind of some kind. He wants us to live from a place of fullness and freshness and newness. He’s always doing something new. Wasn’t that what the old prophet declared? I’m doing something new. Will you not be aware of it? Will you not perceive it? Will you not be present and see what I’m doing? It’s all brand new.
He’s going to follow through in what He said for you, for us as a church, in your household. Make no mistake about it, Jesus is presently our high priest and intercessor, praying and cheering us on, preaching in the heavenly realm, saying, “This is what I’m going to do” with fire in His eyes. This is what I’m going to do in and through Living Word in the coming days. This is what I’m going to do in your life. This is what I’m going to do in your situation, in those symptoms. He’s in the business of redeeming hopelessness and loss and trauma and converting it to goodness and glory and a bright and shining outpost of His power.
His mind has never changed. His intentionality has not shifted. There’s no shadow of turning or darkness in Him. What He said to you last year, what He said to us in the word 2000 years ago through those who penned His words in His Bible are still true today. And He is working behind the scenes. Angel armies stand in our ranks to help us, to press on to the final leg of the race until we break the finish line and the tape.
So Hebrews writes, once again, there’s this great cloud of witnesses surrounding us, so we must let go of every wound that has pierced us. Whether that be emotional or otherwise. And the sin we so easily fall into, then we will be able to run life’s marathon race with passion and determination. For the path has already been marked before us. We’re to look away from… the Amplified says “all that would distract.” The Passion Translation says “We look away from the natural realm and we focus our attention and expectation onto Jesus, who birthed faith within us, who leads us forward into faith’s perfection.
His example is this: because His heart was focused on the joy of knowing that you would be His, He endured the agony of the cross and conquered its humiliation. And now sits exalted at the right hand of the throne of God. So consider carefully how Jesus faced such intense opposition from sinners who oppose their own souls, so that you won’t become worn down and cave in under life’s pressures.
We’re not simply passing time. Instead, there must be an intentionality about us with how we use our time. We must get rid of every weight (this is me now) an excess baggage that slows us down in our faith journey. June, July, August… This is a period of time. Some have prophesied that we are to prepare, to ready ourselves, to make adjustments, to set our spiritual house in order and be prepared to go at a moment’s notice at the prompting of the Holy Spirit. Through us, God wants to reveal the reality of Jesus’s demonstrated power to this generation.
Understand that everything rises and falls in our lives as well as in the church based on our ability to follow Jesus. To hear His voice like the writer of the New Testament says. Don’t harden your hearts. Don’t be casual, flippant, or too familiar with the voice of the Lord in our lives and His Word and in our hearts and through our pastors and leaders. Don’t harden your voice. Hear His voice today.
Nancy Dufresne…
Let me just read one last thing. I thought it was a great quote by Nancy Dufresne. She said, “Recently, your finish in life, we could say as a church, as leaders, as departments, as family units, your finish in life, or you could say how you do life, will be determined by how well you follow the Holy Spirit. It’s not based on your skill or ability, but how well you follow.” Wasn’t that the mandate of Jesus? Take up your cross and follow Me. “If you follow well, your skills will improve. The better we follow, the better we’ll finish and the better we’ll live. Learn to be obedient to what you’re hearing in your heart, trust that God is leading you.”
And one other thing I sensed in prayer yesterday, God’s saying is that our God is a progressive God. He has prepared new places for you, new steps, new opportunities, open doors that will lead to a bigger expression of His purpose and blessing for our lives as we follow Him.
