Pastor Ken…
Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Morning Prayer. Good to see you all.
We’re going to spend some time worshiping today and then just let God lead us in prayer as He prompts our hearts.
Don’t underestimate what God can do in your life…
Like I said yesterday, don’t underestimate what God is up to in your life. Have a reverence and honor and an expectation for what He’s doing. Jack up your hope… faith, hope, and love. The greatest of these is love, but hope is still a key ingredient and necessity in our spiritual journey.
We are here on an assignment…
And God wants us to be the most hope-filled people. Pray-ers ought to be the most hope-filled people on the planet. We are here on an assignment, right? We’re here to ask because God wants to do it. Jesus said, “Ask that you may receive that your joy may be full.” So even before you ask, you can be hopeful because He’s a God of yes. He is perpetually passionate to minister to His people. He’s perpetually passionate to do something for humanity.
Victory is at hand for us…
He has done something in one sense. If it was just what Jesus did, that’s enough. But because of what Jesus did for us, there’s more specifics that He wants to accomplish in advance in our lives. And so I just encourage you, be hopeful today. As we said yesterday, it bears repeating: victory is at hand! Victory is at hand for us. And so be expected, be hopeful, not only for the Prayer and Presence Conference, but for today, this week, that things are turning, shifting, moving in a fresh and new direction.
Clearly that’s the case all over the earth right now, with revival breaking out and increasing numbers of locales and places around America, around the earth. And I believe, He is visiting you in your household and your life and producing answers.
Ephesians 4:22…
And so this morning, I want us just to take a few moments… in fact, let me just read something really quick before we go any further. A passage found in Ephesians 4:22. This is the Amplified rendering of it. This is would be a good action step for each day, honestly. Some days, every hour we could be reminded of this.
Strip off that negative self…
Paul writes, “Strip yourselves of your former nature [put off and discard your old unrenewed self]…” That negative self, in other words. That self that only processes and thinks through worst case scenarios or what the past has meant to us or done to us. So strip that off! Get rid of that former nature. Put off and discard your old unrenewed self, “which characterized your previous manner of life and becomes corrupt through lusts and desires that spring from delusion; 23 And be constantly renewed in the spirit of your mind [having a fresh mental and spiritual attitude]…”
Adopt a new attitude…
One translation actually says, “Make it your habit to adopt a fresh or a new attitude of mind each and every day.” Before I finish that, let me just remind you that there’s a lot we can’t control. Even as pray-ers, as believers, there are many things you can’t control and that’s generally where we go down the wrong road. And end up spiraling into a wormhole of negativity and frustration and weariness and wanting to give up and throw in the towel and wave the white flag in some aspect of our lives, relationships, finances, calling, dreams… whatever. Because there is a lot we can’t control.
We can choose to lean into Him…
But there are things we can control. We can choose to lean into Him today. We can choose to adopt a fresh attitude of mind, contrary to what our circumstances are saying, contrary to what our mind is trying to tell us, we can choose to believe what God has said, the report of the Lord. We can choose to yield our spirits over in worship. You can’t control what’s going on in maybe a situation in your household, but you can choose to worship Him. You can choose to rejoice. You can get joy by rejoicing and entering into His presence. You can choose to think words of faith and speak words of faith. You can choose what you think and you can choose what you say. You can choose to go another day today and not give up. You can choose a number of things by faith, and that can turn the trajectory of everything that’s going on that you can’t control.
Focus on what you can control today…
So focus on what you can control today. Focus on casting off or stripping off the old negative mindset in ways and choosing and adopting a fresh attitude of mind… that I have been born into this generation for this time. That He is the one who will always cause me to triumph. That He has and is shifting and turning things and will cause things to work out for my good, for your good. Despite how I feel.
I heard a great quote…
I don’t think I can do it justice here, but it essentially says that your emotions or your feelings, you have to treat them like children. “You can’t put them in the driver’s seat, but you can’t put them in the trunk either.” You’ve got to process them, talk them through a little bit, right?
Prayer is a great way to process your feelings…
Prayer is a great way, by the way, of processing your feelings. Prayer… just talking to God about them. Journaling out your feelings, what’s going on, on the inside of you. Don’t put your feelings in the driver’s seat. Don’t put them in the trunk. That would not be good. But definitely, invite God, the Holy Spirit, the divine psychologist and mentor to help you process what’s presently going on.
Victory is at hand…
Make no mistake about it, victory is at hand for you. Change is happening. Breakthrough is beginning to precipitate. Abundance is flowing. Healing is being ministered to you. If you prayed the prayer of faith, if you’ve chosen to take a strong stand on God’s Word, as a believer, as a pray-er, then you believe you receive according to what Jesus taught us. We believe you receive healing and that we receive it in the moment we pray, right?
Adopt a fresh attitude of mind…
So, you know, what do you do between “Yes, Amen.” And look, “There it is.” The full manifestation? Well, there are a number of things and one of them is to adopt a fresh attitude of mind. Allow the Holy Spirit to come into your psychology, into your heart, into your emotions. What’s going on, on the inside of you. And sometimes I’ve found that I’ve felt burdened or kind of pressured in some ways, and come to realize as I kind of just opened up my heart and said, “Holy Spirit, will you just counsel me and show me what’s going on here? Grant me a spirit of wisdom and revelation and the knowledge of what’s happening in my heart.” Come to find out, I was identifying with the situation that I needed to simply pray out.
Praying in the spirit repairs you…
There’s a quote I came across the other day that it kind of fits here too when it comes to our emotions and processing. In other words, how we’re doing life, how we’re doing our emotions. Inviting the Holy Spirit, yielding in prayer specifically one that is key is praying in other tongues. Somebody said, “Praying in the spirit, repairs you, builds you, strengthens you.” I like that.
Let Him help you process and work through things…
So just know Holy Spirit. He’s there. He knows. Call out to Him. Don’t stuff what’s going on in you in the trunk. Nor put it in the driver’s seat once again. Let Him help you process and work through things. I mean God has an intended end for you, as the Bible says. He’s got an intended and good plan and purpose and hope for you, and it shall be so.
He’s able to redeem the negative things in our lives…
But in the meantime, He’s working in us His good pleasure. In the meantime, He’s untangling some things. He’s changing some things in us. He’s strengthening us. Over and over through the various stories and narratives of scripture, we see that God is able to redeem and leverage. In fact, the negative things that occur in our lives, the attacks even of the enemy, He’s able to redeem them and actually use them to change us, to strengthen us, to actually fashion a platform on which we can stand stronger and taller in Jesus… to go forward and go further and go faster than we ever imagined because of what we’ve been through.
Open your heart to Him…
He’s in the business of redeeming and restoring and healing. He’s got that. Open your heart to Him. Even as we worship and pray this morning, invite Him in to speak to you, to help you interpret what’s happened to you. What’s gone on in your in life in recent days or years… what you’re feeling maybe today. Invite the Holy Spirit to put His finger on those things. To Strengthen you. Lean into Him and trust that His grace is sufficient, that He hasn’t brought you this far to abandon you. His promise is that He will be with us even under the end of the age. Oh, He’s a good Father. He knows what you’re feeling, what you’re going through, what you’ve been through in the past, and He’s smiling nonetheless because He knows what He’s in the process of doing. Just cooperate with Him.
A prayer of surrender…
Even as we worship this morning, perhaps pray, “Lord, I just commit and consecrate my heart and my life to you. I give myself to you. I surrender. I turn myself into you. I choose to stop running and striving and working and trying to be better. Instead, I just fall back into the arms of my Father, that, you’ve got me. You’re going to catch me.”
Prayer is not an exercise of plate spinning…
Sometimes I think we think prayer even and our spirituality is an exercise in keeping multiple plates spinning simultaneously. Just keep them spinning. I got to keep this spinning. I got to keep this going. I got to keep that going, right? No! He’s just inviting us today and every day to enter into rest, to trust, to fall into His arms. The Holy Spirit’s not in a hurry. The Father’s not in a hurry. He already knows the end from the beginning. He knows you’re end from the beginning. And He’s not in a hurry. He’s not nervous. The angels aren’t freaking out and running around with scissors in their hands in heaven. It’s going to be okay. It’s going to be all right.
Ephesians 4:22…
So this passage goes on to say, “Which characterize your previous manner of life and becomes corrupt through lust.” I’m reading Ephesians 4 and I might as well just start all over because it’s the word. Ephesians 4:22 from the Amplified Bible. “Strip yourselves of your former nature [put off and discard your old unrenewed self] which characterized your previous manner of life and becomes corrupt through lusts and desires that spring from delusion; 23 And be constantly renewed in the spirit of your mind [having a fresh mental and spiritual attitude], nd put on the new nature (the regenerate self) created in God’s image, [Godlike] in true righteousness and holiness.”
Phil. 1:19…
One more passage found in Philippians 1:19. This is the New King James. It says, “For I know this will turn out for my deliverance.” I mean, just that right there. Somebody needs to grab a hold of that, reference that, and just start saying that over that situation. Maybe it’s a bill that you can’t seem to pay or a situation in your body or a relational challenge. Whatever the case is, begin to say, “For I know that this will turn out for my deliverance through your prayer and supply of the spirit of Jesus Christ, according to my earnest expectation and hope that in nothing I will be ashamed.”
You are not assigned to shame…
In other words, you are not assigned to shame. People say, “shame on you.” Don’t say that. Can I just step on somebody’s toes? Don’t say shame on you. Say shame off of you. “There is, therefore now no shame nor condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.” Right? Glory to God. We think that these aren’t significant or important, but they are when it comes to spiritual laws and principles. God is so passionate and full of resource, unending resource, and wisdom and glory. He does want us to go from glory to glory, from strength to strength, from victory to victory, from dream to dream.
Don’t handcuff God with your words…
But the more you mature spiritually, the more He expects us to grow and align with spiritual principles. When you’re a baby Christian, there’s grace for some things. But when you’ve been in the faith for 40, 50, 60 years or whatever, and you’re still spouting off at the mouth with words of death and negativity and self-condemnation and shame, you’re kind of handcuffing God. He wants us to learn His ways. To synchronize with the ways of His Word and His kingdom so that we just begin to walk in abundance. And it’s not a matter of going into emergency tongues to pray about every situation that pops up more and more, we mature because of the Word, and we begin to see the harvest perpetually in the results perpetually of life and health and goodness and breakthrough. And more and more, we’re able to focus on praying for greater concerns around the world than others, making a supply in the spirit for them in prayer. And we just start living in a wake of glory and goodness.