Morning Chapel Prayer Playlist
Morning Chapel Prayer Today
Pastor Ken…
Good morning. My name is Ken Olson. I’m one of the pastors here at Living Word.
Announcements…
I wanted to mention a couple of things before we get started. Just a heads up, this Thursday our offices are closed. It’s Juneteenth, so we won’t have any live prayer here in the chapel this Thursday. However, you can join us online by way of YouTube and our online church channel where we’ll be streaming one of our “best of” morning prayers.
Also, just a heads up, two or three weeks out, the first week of July, there’ll be no live prayer in the chapel. Pretty much every year we don’t do the first week, so the 30th of June through the 4th of July, there will not be live prayer hosted here in the chapel. Once again, we’ll be streaming some “best of” morning prayers on YouTube and our online church channel. So you can join there.
And then lastly, July 23rd, I’m going to lead the Wednesday night service. And it’s going to be focused around some prayer teaching and prayer. So whether you can join us online or in person, mark your calendar for that. I’m going to try to start doing those maybe once a quarter, like every three months or so from our sanctuary on Wednesday nights. So just a heads up on that.
Joshua 1:9…
Well, I wanted to share a couple of quick things with you this morning. Firstly, a passage found in Joshua 1:9. It states this from the Passion translation: “I repeat, be strong and brave. Do not yield to fear, nor be discouraged for I am Yahweh, your God, and I will be with you wherever you go.”
Don’t let your heart be troubled…
So despite the fact that it seems like somebody flipped a switch and all chaos broke out on another level, it seemed like over the weekend, here in Minnesota and in the Middle East with Israel and Iran and other things there and just throughout our own nation, perhaps your nation, wherever you’re joined with us from, the Lord, I sense, is reminding us, “Don’t let your heart be troubled. Neither be afraid or fearful.”
You were appointed for such a time as this…
He is with us wherever we go, even to the end of the age. You were appointed for this time. It wasn’t a coincidence that you showed up on planet earth in this generation, in this time. God appointed you. He saw fit. It was in His divine providence or plan, to send you to earth to be here now because He knew you could be counted on. Because He knew you would yield to His Spirit and you would leverage that hunger on the inside of you to follow Him and to co-labor with Him in the fulfillment of end time events.
Let that percolate in your heart…
So it’s not a coincidence that we showed up, that we were born for such a time as this. So don’t lose sight of that. Let that percolate in your heart. You’re not here just to get by. You’re not here just to survive or make it through another week. Sometimes it feels like that. That’s okay. We don’t live by what we feel. We live by what we know. And we know this: that God has appointed you and the good work that He’s begun in you and me here at Living Word and your church community, your family. He will continue it, and He will bring it to fulfillment. He will fulfill His promises.
Declaration of realizing God’s plan for your life…
Can I just start with that this week and just say over you: The plan He’s begun in your life, the promise He spoke over you, the word that you’re clinging to presently in this season of your journey, He is going to bring it to completion. He has every intention and every plan to fulfill His promise. Whether it’s physical healing in your body, finances for your business, the realization of that dream in your heart, the accomplishment of the ministry that He sent you to earth to do, He’s going to bring it to a flourishing finish.
Can I get an amen this morning?
Don’t yield to the fear…
The enemy can take his shots, and we can feel fear at times, but we don’t have to yield to it. We can experience the temptation that comes with what the enemy tries to do, but we can resist it. We have the capability and the empowerment by His grace and His redemptive work to resist all temptation, including fear or dread or worry or the desire at times to throw up our hands and say something negative and gripe and complain.
God has given us the language of faith…
No! God has given us the language of faith. He’s given us the opportunity to pray, which is the entrance to co-labor with Him so that His plan would become reality and the enemy’s plan would be routed…
And run out of our lives…
And run out of our families…
And run out of our future families and those who follow after us if Jesus tarries…
And run out of our nation. Isn’t that a good word?
You have the ability to run the enemy out of your life…
You have the ability to route or run the enemy out of your life. Don’t delay today. Let that spirit of faith and that spirit of boldness and that spirit of confidence in Jesus rise up in you. Especially since we have experienced some difficult things right here in Minnesota this last weekend. At the same time that we feel that loss, we can be righteously indignant and say, “How dare you, Devil? Who do you think you are? The last time I checked, my Bible says you’re a defeated enemy, a renegade holder of authority, meaning you ought not have what you have and you ought not be doing what you’re doing.”
The only reason he’s able to do what he does is because the church is apathetic, or maybe we have been ignorant or lax in the exercise of our authority. But we are at the moment in history where we have the ability to continue to turn things in the direction of what God had planned all along.
Dutch Sheets anecdote…
I think Dutch Sheets shared this and transcribed it. He shared a story not long ago. He said toward the end of the 19th century, a Swedish chemist by the name of Alfred Nobel awoke one morning to read his obituary in the local newspaper. How’s that for a way to wake up and begin your day? It stated “Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite who died yesterday…” Wow. That kind of wakes you up! “What? I died. What happened?”
Obituary continues…
“…devised a way for more people to be killed in war than ever before. And he died a very rich man.” Actually, it was Alfred’s older brother who had died. A newspaper reporter had bungled the epitaph, but the account had a profound effect on Nobel. He decided he wanted to be known for something other than developing the means to kill people efficiently and amassing a fortune in the process. So he initiated the Nobel Prize, the award for scientists and writers who foster peace. Nobel said, “Every man ought to have the chance to correct his epitaph in midstream and write a new one.”
What are you saying, Pastor Ken?
I’m saying this. Prayer and revival, which comes in as a result of prayer, will rewrite our epitaph. Prayer can rewrite yours and my personal epitaphs, if you will, if we had this experience. No matter what has occurred up until this point in the church, in your life, today is a new day, His grace and mercy have been fully supplied and are there standing at attention ready for you to take hold of that grace, that encouragement, that opportunity as an individual believer for us collectively to go with God. Aren’t you glad that you stand with and you walk with Him today? You’re not going in alone today.
Anecdote showing we live in difficult times…
I was just talking to somebody on the way down to prayer here this morning. I said, “Hey, how was your weekend?” This other staff member and friend said, “Oh, it wasn’t good.” His brother-in-law had just keeled over in the car. He and his wife were driving down the road and he started swerving and his wife was able to take control of the wheel and pull the car off to the side. And he expired and went to heaven right there. So, yeah, we live in some difficult times.
Let’s go with God…
I’m glad, aren’t you, that while there is life in my being and breath in my lungs and stride in my step, I’m going to leverage my will and I’m going to go with God and I’m going to let my voice be heard.
And I believe you will too. In the realm of the spirit and in the realm of the living, we must let our voices be heard and see today is the day the Lord hath made once again. A gift granted to us…
That we might overcome evil with good…
That we might reach those that have yet to be reached with the good news of Jesus…
That we might turn even world events in the direction of what God intends and has plans…
Hallelujah. Glory to God.
Oh, I’m just so glad I get to go by faith today, that I live by believing and not by seeing, aren’t you? We’ve all been through some challenging things. Just like my friend. But God intends that He would have His way. And that the enemy be routed at every turn. Even in your soul, even in your emotions, even how you feel today, your will…
You have a will.
You have a chooser.
That is your ability to choose over what you feel…
What you’re going to do today…
What you’re going to say today…
That you’re going to pray today.
He calls out to you…
After all, He calls you a son. He calls you a daughter. He calls you a highly favored one. The Lord of heaven. He calls you His beloved. He calls out to you and says, “Acceptable one, forgiven one, favored one. The one in whom He loves, and the one in whom He cherishes and is pursuing.
Stop running. Just stop and turn around and see that He is coming for you, the Lord of heaven. He’s right there. Join with Him in your life today. Don’t go it alone. Don’t listen to what the enemy is saying or what he’s pedaling or selling.
Instead, choose to go with God. That begins by going with what He has to say. His Word. His Word announces hope. His Word announces that what you’ve been through, this too will pass and fade away. And the day and the hour for your life, for America, for what God’s doing in the earth is changing and it’s getting brighter now.
You can choose the message of hope in challenging times…
Oh, there still will be chaos, but aren’t you glad you don’t have to participate in death and chaos? And that even in the midst of challenging times, you can choose the message of hope. You can choose the message of His grace. You can choose the message that the path of the righteous as the word describes it is a path that is onward and upward and gets more glorious with each passing day.
