Morning Chapel Prayer Playlist
Pastor Heather…
The thing that the Lord put on my heart today was that the things of God are like jewels. They’re valuable. And sometimes we’re going about our way, and we just think that these things are just going to be laying around on the surface for us. But like jewels, you have to be intentional. You have to dig. You have to find these things. The Bible says, “seek and you’ll find Me.” So we have to seek for these things.
There must be intentionality to finding things of value…
And I think sometimes we think we are just going to mosey through life and these good things of God are just laying around. But there is some intentionality to finding things of value. Not difficult… but intentional. There’s a difference. And I just want to make sure you’re not thinking it’s easy to please God… Yes, it’s easy to please Him, but there’s some intentionality to finding the deep treasures that He has for us. And He has pleasure watching us find those things, watching us seek Him, watching us press into His presence. It brings Him pleasure when we do that.
The things of God are not common…
And so I think there’s a danger of thinking that the things of God are common. They’re not common. There’s nothing common about God. Is He everywhere? Does He fill this world? Is He easy to please? Is He easy to find if we’re looking for Him? Yes. But is He common? No. He’s holy. And if we don’t have a reverence or if we don’t put value on something, it becomes common.
This is kind of what the Lord was showing me this morning. The danger of the world that we live in is it’s an instant gratification kind of a place that we live in. We want instant gratification. We want things quickly. We want them the way we want them, how we want them, when we want them. And so the danger of that is that we can see things as common. So like, okay, think back in Jesus’ day… chocolate. I don’t know if Jesus had chocolate. I don’t know. You had to be in a place where like the cocoa plant would grow, and you would make it. And I don’t know… Don’t look into Googling chocolate. I’m just using this as an example… or strawberries or anything that we think is common because we can just go out to the store and buy it. But in those days, they had to plant something. They had to wait. They had to water it. They had to pull the weeds. They had to wait for that fruit to come. And so there was something in those generations that was instilled in them of patience and waiting. And then that created this value for this thing that you took time to grow.
Those of you that are gardeners, you get excited. I hear people coming in, “Look! I grew these tomatoes in my backyard.” Nobody gets excited about a tomato at the grocery store. You don’t, “Look at this tomato! We’re going to have BLTs. Woo!” But when you grow it and you put that time and that effort into it, all of a sudden, there’s this value that you have on this thing that you invested your time in.
And so just talking about value and esteeming Him and not finding it common. Like those of you, you woke up today. That’s not common for everybody. Not everybody woke up today. Those of us that woke up in an air-conditioned house, that’s not common for everybody. It might be common for us. Taking a bath… I’m just thanking God I have hot water in my home. Not everybody has that. And so just recognizing that God is not common. And if we’re not careful, we can have this attitude and we can come into this place… Coming into this place to worship Him is not common. Not everybody can do that. Not everybody can come and worship in public. And then those of us that are on staff, we get paid to come here and to worship God. People would love to have that. I mean, just think of that. I’m so thankful for that. I’m so thankful that where I get a paycheck is to do His will, the things that He’s called me to do. That’s an honor, and I’m blessed. I’m so thankful for that.
But when things happen every day or we’re used to things… when there’s a familiarity, we can tend to make things feel common. And then we don’t esteem it. We don’t honor it. We don’t reverence it. And so the things of God are not common. They’re like precious jewels and they take time to press into. They take intentionality.
Example of intentionality…
Like driving here this morning, it was not difficult, but it took intentionality. I had to pay attention. I had to have a route. I had to know where I was going. I had to watch for things happening around me. It took intentionality. Not difficult, but I had to be aware and be intentional about driving. That is the same with our relationship with God. It takes intentionality.
Marriage takes intentionality…
Those of you that are married. You have to be intentional about investing into your marriage, investing into your relationship. You don’t automatically have a good marriage, just like you don’t automatically have a good relationship with God. He’s always loving. He’s always giving. But we have to be intentional in taking that time and honoring Him and esteeming His presence and the things that He has for us and not letting those things become common.
Not letting things become common…
And so I was asking the Lord, “How do we not let things become common?” Because we’re so used to this world that we live in. If I want strawberries in the middle of winter, I just go to the grocery store and I get them. If I want a diamond ring, I can go buy one. I don’t have to go mine it and find it and chisel away. I can go get one… If you have financial means, of course.
Walking a tightrope…
But what I’m saying is we have to esteem those things. The word “holy” means to be set apart, consecrated. And so God is holy. He’s set apart, He’s consecrated. He’s not common. I hope I’m articulating this the way He put it in my heart. So then I’m asking God, “How do we keep from seeing Him as common, seeing His presence as common?” We want to see it as like, we can have that. We can always have it. We want to see it almost as normal. But I also want to reverence it. So there’s this thing that we have to balance. It’s a kind of a little tightrope walk sometimes. And so I asked Him, “What’s the difference then?… What makes that difference?”
Gratefulness.
And when our heart is grateful, then it stops us from being entitled. It stops us from being lethargic. It stops us from being complacent. Because all of a sudden, we’re recognizing the value in things and even everyday things. I woke up, I took a bath, I had air conditioning in my home. I had a home. My kids are healthy. My husband’s healthy. All those things that seem common because it’s happening to me every day. But when we’re thankful, when we have a heart of gratitude, all of a sudden, we place value on that. And it shows God that we’re esteeming and valuing that. We see this as holy.
Count Your Blessings…
And so I just wanted to read a couple stats. It’s “Count Your Blessings.” This is an article from 2018, so the stats are probably greater now than they were then. But he says, “If you woke up this morning with more health than illness, you are more blessed than the million who did not survive this week. If you have never experienced the danger of battle, the loneliness of imprisonment, the agony of torture, or the pangs of starvation, you are ahead of 5 million people in the world. If you can attend a church service without fear of harassment, arrest, torture, or death, you are more blessed than 3 billion people in the world. If you have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof overhead and a place to sleep, you are richer than 75% of the people in this world. If you have money in the bank, in your wallet and spare change in a dish or someplace else, you are among the top 8% of the world’s wealthy. If you can read this information, you are more blessed than over 2 billion people in the world who cannot read it all.
“If we could shrink the world to a population of 100 people with all the existing human ratios remaining the same, this is how it would look. Seventy people would be non-Christian, 30 would be Christian. Six people would possess 59% of the entire world’s wealth, and all six of those people would be from the United States. Eighty people would live in substandard housing. Seventy would be unable to read. Fifty would suffer from malnutrition. One would be near death. One would be near birth. And one would have a college education.”
We have a lot to be thankful for…
And so why do I say that? Do we compare ourselves? No, but do we have a lot to be thankful for? Yes. And in the world that we’re in, you’re going to turn on the news and you’re going to hear lots of reasons why you shouldn’t be thankful, why you should be afraid, why you should be anxious, why you should be depressed. But I think if we would stop and not obviously listen to the world and the world’s point of view, if we listen to His point of view, He’s always more than enough. And we are blessed and He’s so good.
And if we can just be intentional about esteeming those things and recognizing that and being grateful, how much our lives would change. You can even Google the biological effects of gratefulness; it releases serotonin and dopamine. You’re healthier. Scientists and psychologists and doctors are finding how important gratefulness is and what it does literally in our body.
Let’s just take a minute and be thankful to God. Let’s express thankfulness… gratefulness. If you can even just think of 10 things to be grateful for and just thank Him for His goodness.
Pastor Folu is going to talk about His goodness. We didn’t even plan that. The Holy Spirit knew. And so it’s just going to all tie in. But He’s so good.
So let’s do that. Just worship him, praise him. Thank him from a thankful heart this morning. Thank you, Jesus.
Pastor Folu…
Just kind of jumping in where Pastor Heather finished talking about just being grateful. For the past month, I’ve been looking at this word that I’m about to read to you and it just blesses me so much. You know how you behold… what you read, you behold, right? You become it. And I’ve been reading this and it’s just the word of the Lord and it’s really going to bless you.
Listen to the head of the church…
He said, “For the outpouring of My generosity and My goodness has begun. And will continue and go on and on. For the bottom line is the freedom of My people and the true freedom of this nation. The people that raised this nation up are part of the great cloud of witnesses. They’re witnessing it in the spirit, the power of the resurrection of this nation to bring it back to its original roots and to bring it back to Me on bended knee. I have heard from heaven, from My people. And I will get it done. It will look better, do better, and be stronger than you ever dreamed it could be…”
And He wants us to know that He knows what time it is. He says, “This is 2023.”
Saints, talking about this goodness… because I’ve been looking for it. So you become what you behold, right? So everywhere I’ve been going, I’ve been looking for this… the goodness, the pouring of His goodness, the outpouring of His generosity.