Morning Chapel Prayer Playlist
Morning Chapel Prayer Today
Pastor Ken…
Good morning, everybody. Welcome to morning prayer.
Prayed…
Father, we devote ourselves to you. We say we can’t do what needs to be done from here forward without you. We must have more of your presence, more of your way, more of your hand on our lives. Thank you, Lord Jesus.
A resurgence of dependence upon the presence of God…
One of the words that is reverberating in my heart this morning… Maybe it’s just for me, but I have a hunch that it is for the body of Christ. It’s for us as a staff, as a congregation, or our families back at home, or whatever the case is… I sense strongly the Spirit of God declaring there must come a resurgence of dependence upon the power and the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives, at the center of our churches, in the midst of what we set our hands to and the work that we do for Him in our assigned places in life.
Everything starts with Him…
I don’t know about you, but sometimes I overthink things, including my own walk with God and what this is all about, Christianity and church. But I always find the Holy Spirit is so beautiful and kind and gracious and the ever-present divine mentor and He often just resets my consciousness, my thinking to the simplicity of faith, to the simplicity of the fact that He calls us into relationship with Him, into friendship with Him, and into daily devotion and holy consecration to Him. Because everything starts with Him. If you decided to follow Jesus, it’s not just an old song. I hope that’s a daily prayer for us. It is for me.
Then that’s a decision to surrender.
That’s a decision to open up our hearts.
That’s a decision to become more conscious and be aware and be available to Him every single day, moment by moment.
Because He intends to do truly miraculous and unheard of things in our hour, in our church, in our community, in our nation. I mean, even now, I can just sense the fire in my heart of the Holy Spirit and of Jesus Himself, who signed up when He went back into the eternal realm…
To ever live to pray for us
To contend for us
To advocate for us
To be the one on the other side of this realm, standing with us, partnering with us…
That we would not remain in a place where we’ve been
That we would not remain stuck
That we would not perpetually overthink everything and wonder and worry and strive and contend in our own old ways.
Supernatural things can be brought forth because of our dependence…
But remember, the Bible teaches us in one of the letters to the church that we have relegated, we have relinquished the need to measure up to the letter of the law. But now we live under the prompting and the leadership of God the Holy Spirit. And it’s in our surrender to that and in our desire to please Him and follow Him in whatever we’re assigned to do that truly supernatural things can be brought forth because of our dependence.
We’re at the wrapping up of an age…
There must come a resurgence of dependence on the power and the presence of God the Holy Spirit. Yes, right here at Living Word! Right here among our staff. Right here in Minnesota in America. At this point in time, in God’s timetable, I would describe as the wrapping up of the age, the culmination of all things.
Oh, come on now! I’m preaching this morning. I know it’s prayer time, but I just wanted to impart that to you. Maybe it’s just for me. And I’m glad it’s just for me.
But you would be surprised to remember how simple it was for us when we first came to faith and we saw God do things that we never thought possible in our lives, simply by just talking to God and surrendering our hearts to Him. Even though we didn’t know how to pray; yet, we acknowledged Him and we welcomed Him and we invited Him and we wanted to know Him. And as a result, change began to happen. Miracles began to happen, at least in my life anyway. I believe yours too.
Holy fire fell in 1727…
Listen to this. This is a historical account of something that happened in 1727. And I shared yesterday about the Prayer Street Revivals of the mid-19th century and what came out of that because a few people decided to come together to pray. Well, let’s back up another hundred plus years.
This account reads…
“The Spirit of God fell with holy fire on a divided community in Herrnhut Saxony. During a communion service, heaven broke in.”
Oh, come on now! Lord, we invite heaven to break into our meetings today, to break into our prayer gathering today, to break into what we’re doing today. We need that, Lord. We give you freedom and permission and license to interrupt us today, to interrupt what’s going on in our lives and in our church, and in our homes, and in our nation.
We invite you, Holy Spirit. We must have that divine and holy interruption once again, in Jesus’ name… into generations, into households, into hearts. Maybe in this room. Maybe online today. The answer’s not out there. The answer is not in our incessant processing and thinking up of a solution. Our answer is right there on the inside, in connection with the Holy Spirit.
This account goes on to say…
“During a communion service, heaven broke in. Count Zinzendorf wrote, ‘We felt as if we had been reborn. Hearts melted. Unity came and out of that encounter, they made a holy covenant to pray without ceasing.
That chain of 24/7 prayer continued for over a hundred years.”
That’s amazing!
“But they didn’t just pray. Some sold themselves into slavery just to preach Christ. Others sailed to foreign lands knowing they would never return.”
I can’t remember the man, but there was a man 150 plus years ago who basically bought a wooden coffin, packed all his earthly belongings in it and had it shipped to an a foreign country where he was going to do missions work. And he shipped all his belongings into a coffin because he expected to fulfill his assignment there and never return back home. They would bury him on foreign soil.
So these people in this day did just that, thinking they would never return. But they were determined to follow Jesus wherever He led them.
It goes on to say…
“Their cry was simple, that the Lamb who was slain might receive the reward of His suffering as scripture reads. That fire touched a man named John Wesley. [You might’ve heard of him.] He was instrumental in bringing about the first Great Awakening to our shores, to this land. And that fire helped fuel awakenings across continents, including the United States as I said. It began with a communion service. It became a global outpouring.”
Pastor Lynne’s book, “The Master Is Calling”
Now, let me read one other thing to you. I’m going to reference Pastor Lynne’s book, “The Master Is Calling.” I just like how she states so many things in here when it comes to spiritual things that are just so succinct and just every day how she share things. And it helps me just to keep it simple. In addition to that, it helps me to keep the main thing, the main thing. And that’s friendship with Jesus. Amen. Actually, it’s not even in the book, it’s in the preface of the book. It’s actually a prophetic encouragement from the Lord that she writes.
She says…
[The Lord is speaking…] “I said you’d be changed in My presence, saith the Lord. If you have not experienced change in your life, if your old ways are still prevailing, if your old man or old nature is still in evidence, you have not spent the time with Me that I desire. It isn’t a matter of self-control or disciplining your flesh with no help from Me, says the Lord. If you spend time in My presence, you will be changed. Your pattern of life will be changed.”
I like that! Anybody needs some pattern interrupts, as I say, in your thinking, in your processing, in your behaviors, in your habits? The Lord wants to address those, maybe right now this morning.
“Your old man will begin to pass away. Your new man will begin to rise in the image of My Son. Your life will begin to bear much fruit.”
That’s what we desire, right? Fruit that God would get a return on His investment. Somebody once said, your time with the Father cost the Son His life. In other words, God invested dearly, greatly, eternally into the earth and into yours and my life so that we could have time with the Father. How precious is that? That just changed my outlook. Like, wow, okay. This is quite a privilege to come to God, to co-labor with Him.
Pastor Lynne goes on to say…
“The evidence of your walk with Me will change as a result of spending much time in My presence. If you’re having trouble getting rid of an old habit, if you are having trouble in your marriage, if your family relationships aren’t changing, you’re not spending the time with Me that would enable that change to come to pass. Your desire and the motivation of your heart to walk uprightly before Me is a product of becoming so close to Me that you don’t want to bring hurt to Me.”
Commentary…
So, in other words, your will, your perspective, your “want to’s” are an outflow of friendship with the Father. The Bible says He’s able to will in us to do His good pleasure. I’ve had times in my life where like, “Lord, I frankly don’t want to do that. I’m interested in doing more, doing that. But I know you. You know better. You see the future. You understand what’s best for you and for your plan overall.”
So, Lord, I bow my heart and my will to you. Will in me to do your good pleasure and your delight.
That’s what Jesus did in the garden of Gethsemane, right? He prayed that the cup would pass before Him, yet there it was, to go all the way to the cross. And aren’t we glad He did?
She goes on to say…
“Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit in natural relationships, when you love someone, you want to do the right things for them. You don’t want to bring hurt to them. Well, as you spend time with Me, saith God, as you spend time in My presence, we’ll develop a relationship that is closer than any earthly relationship. It will shape the pattern of your living. You’ll want to conform your ways to My Word simply because it’s the desire of your heart. Your life will change, but it will be a product of your spending time with Me.”
The Lord is saying, “There’s more…”
There’s more. There’s more. I just sense that in my heart. There’s more, the Lord is saying. There’s more change. There’s more intentionality. There’s more that He wants to show us individually as well as collectively. But we must not get it mixed up and forget that it all originates with Him.
Paul corrected the early church by saying something to the effect of, Have you begun in the Spirit and now are you trying to be perfected or finish your course in your natural ability and what you’ve learned practically speaking?
He was correcting them and reminding them, it’s time to get back to the fundamentals. It’s time to get back to following Jesus by way of the Holy Spirit. It is time to delight in weakness and us not knowing the future, let’s say. Because in that space and place of weakness and unknown, that just causes me to want to lean into Him all the more. That causes me to call out to Him all the more. That causes me in the middle of my day from my heart to say, “Lord, I don’t know what to do here, but you do. You possess perfect wisdom and knowledge. You carry power wherever you are, and you’re on the inside of Me. So release through me your intentions, your plan, your miracle-working power, your holy fire.”
I’m praying for fire…
So, I don’t know about you, but I’m praying for the fire that we just read about in 1727, that same power, that same fire to be released on the altar of our own hearts. Because it’s not time to kick back and say, “Oh, hum, I guess I’ll just coast and get by.”
No, we’re called to live with fire. We’re called to be displayers and carriers of holy fire. You’ve been sent here on a mission to planet earth not to just get by, to be a staff that don’t just execute, because we’ve learned it this way, or we’ve done it 101 times that way before. We’re here to live as Paul corrected the early church by the help of the Holy Spirit under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
With every step we take, with every utterance we make, with every plan we draft, and every meeting we plan, and every decision and every creative involvement where we are involved creatively, heaven is being poured out in our hour. Now! Right in this moment.
Not so that we can just acknowledge that and say, “Oh, that’s nice.” No! So that we can yield and surrender and be a part of heaven’s flow, not be an impediment to heaven’s flow. But a part and a continuation and an acceleration of heaven’s flow to us and through us. And the work that we do in the services that we hold, in the songs that we sing, there must come a consciousness in us as leaders, as followers of Jesus, as business people, as moms and dads, that this isn’t about just living on the thin veneer of the natural reality that is passing away according to my Bible. But rather to lean in once again, to draw deep.
Draw from the well inside of us…
The Bible implies that a wise person will draw from the well on the inside of him or her, draw up the wisdom, draw up the strategy, draw up through prayer and moments of silence and solitude in the presence of God, the supernatural ways of the Spirit, the new ideas and the solutions that are necessary now as we go forward as a people, as a nation, as a staff, as households, as individuals.
We’re not in a season as usual anymore. We’re in a new season, if you haven’t noticed. We’re in an unprecedented time, as some have said.
