Morning Chapel Prayer Playlist
Morning Chapel Prayer Today
Pastor Heather…
Good morning. Welcome to Prayer this Morning.
Let’s awaken our spirits…
We remind our souls that He is all we need today. Let’s sing in the spirit. What are we doing? We’re wakening up our spirit. We’re pushing our flesh down. We’re pressing past the natural. We’re going into the supernatural, into the secret place, into the presence of the Most High. And singing in the spirit does that. It crucifies your flesh. So go ahead, let’s sing in the spirit. Let’s glorify him. It’s the highest form of praise.
Prayed…
We welcome you, Holy Spirit. Come and move in this place. Move in our hearts. We give you free reign. Because one moment in your presence changes us. It changes us and what looked impossible to us, what looked impossible to our finances, to our bodies, to our minds. When we’re in your presence, all things are possible. Nothing is impossible with you.
Press into the secret place…
So as we press into that secret place… Why is it a secret? Because it’s just you and Him. It’s between you and Him. It’s an intimate moment. And you have to step away from the noise and the traffic to get there.
So come away…
So come away, come away, come away this morning. He’s calling us to come away to that secret place of His presence to be refreshed, to worship, to have an encounter with Him… into deeper, deeper, deeper places. He wants to take you into deeper places in His presence. But He won’t pull you. He won’t push you. He just invites you to come. So come to His presence.
Put aside your schedules, agenda, plans…
We do that, Father, we come into the secret place with you this morning. The presence of the most high God. We put aside our schedules, our agendas, our plans, our busyness, our to-do list. We set it all aside and we purpose to make this time yours. Otherwise, why are we here? To hear ourselves talk? No. We want to be in your presence, Father. There’s nothing like your presence.
Thank you, Father, for your presence. We allow His presence to fall. You can sense it. It’s tangible, like a heavy blanket now just falling over us. Just receive His presence, His peace, His joy, all the things that come when He comes. We receive that, Lord. We receive your presence. Peace.
You’re so good, Father, you’re so good that even as we just sit in your presence, you’re changing us, equipping us, empowering us, healing us, providing for us, awakening us, restoring us.
Whatever it is you need today, He is here to meet that need. He’s already met it, so just receive it now.
He’s working in our lives…
I sense that things are happening in hearts, in bodies, in situations. When we’re quiet and yielded in His presence, He can go to work and do the things that maybe our busyness and our striving has prevented Him from doing. So we say, “Have your way today, Father. Go! Do what it is you want to do in our lives, in our marriages, in our families, in our bodies, in our finances, in our churches, in our communities, in our states, in our nations, in this world.”
As we just sit in your presence and become more like you. As we behold you, we become more like you. And so we allow you to do that. Now we line up with what you’re doing right now, Father.
What do you want to do, Father? What are you speaking to hearts right now, Father?
Just listen to what He’s speaking to your heart right now. He’s showing people things. He’s revealing things. He’s changing things.
Thank you, Father. Do what you do best. You don’t need our help. You just need our participation, our permission. So we give you full permission to move and do what you need to do. We say yes, Lord. Here we are, Lord. Oh, it’s just a really beautiful presence.
“How are you doing?”
I feel like I’m supposed to share what I had today. So stay in this attitude and just let Him continue to move in, it lines up with what I had on my heart. How many times have you heard people when you say, “How are you doing?” And they say, “tired, busy, drained.” Right? I’ve caught myself saying a few of those things. But He wants us to stay filled. He wants us to say alert, right?
Matthew 25:1–13.
This is a story of the 10 virgins in the Passion translation.
“When my coming draws near heaven’s kingdom realm can be compared to 10 maidens who took their oil lamps and went outside to meet the bride groom and his bride. Five of them were foolish and ill-prepared for they took no extra oil for their lamps.”
And we know that oil in the scripture is a metaphor of the Holy Spirit.
“Five of them were wise for they took flasks of olive oil with their lamps. When the bridegroom didn’t come when they expected, they all grew drowsy and fell asleep. Then suddenly in the middle of the night…”
Wait, I just want to park there for a second…
Because I feel like this is what the Lord has been showing me. A lot of us are really drowsy and falling asleep right now. I’ll include myself in that. When there’s so much happening in the world that it feels overwhelming. Like if you have something stressful going on in your life, what do you want to do? I just want to go home and get in my PJs and check out. And I feel like spiritually there’s so much happening in the world that as Christians it’s easy for us to be drowsy, to fall asleep, to want to check out because it can feel so overwhelming when we see everything happening in the world, right?
We have to put that in perspective.
So here are these virgins, right? They’re waiting. They’re waiting. Here we are: the bride of Christ, right? We’re waiting. We’re waiting for Jesus to come back. And it’s easy to get drowsy in this time. It’s easy to fall asleep. It’s easy to kind of check out and be like, “Ugh, this is taking a while. And I just need just a little nap. I need to just sneak away.”
“And suddenly in the middle of the night, they were awakened by a shout, “Get up, the bridegroom is here. Come out and have an encounter with Him.”
This is simply not meet Him. For it’s a rare Greek noun that means “have a meeting or an encounter.” And I love that. So we think they’re just waiting to meet Him. No! They’re waiting to have an encounter, to have this moment with Him. Right?
“So all the girls got up and trimmed their lamps, but the foolish ones were running out of oil. So they said to the five wise ones, share your oil with us because our lamps are going out. We can’t, they replied, we don’t have enough for all of us. You’ll have to go and buy some for yourselves. While the five girls were out buying oil, the bridegroom appeared. Those who were ready and waiting were escorted inside with Him in the wedding party to enjoy the feast. And then the door was locked. Later, the five foolish girls came running up to the door and pleaded, Lord, Lord, let us in. But He called back, Go away. Do I know you? I can assure you, I don’t even know you. That is the reason you should always stay awake and be alert, because you don’t know when the day or the hour when the bridegroom may appear.”
Keep yourself filled with oil…
So the moral of the story is, we need to stay awake. And we need to be filled with our oil. We need to have our oil filled and overflowing. Filled with the Holy Spirit.
All the virgins went out to meet Him. So they were all wanting to have that encounter. Five of them. Well, all of them fell asleep too. So we’ve been guilty of that at times. But only five of them had enough oil to be ready for His return. So we have to have an abundance of oil of the Holy Spirit to keep burning in this day. We need to keep our fire lit with the oil of His presence.
So how’s your oil level today?
Do you have just enough? Not enough?
Have you given all your oil to other people?
Have you burned up all your oil on yourself?
You need extra oil…
We have to have not only just enough oil for every day to get through every day, but we have to have a reservoir. We have to have extra, right? Not just enough to eek by. Not enough to get through the next couple of hours or just through this day. Or if I could just get through this season. If I could just get through this next event, this next task, this next… You fill in the blank.
But God multiplies His oil when we make room for it. So you think of that widow and the jar of oil in Second Kings. When Elisha asked her what she had, what did she say? I have nothing but a little jar of oil. Everybody in this room has a little jar of oil, at the very least. We have the Holy Spirit inside of us; that is a jar of oil. So you already have what you need, and you already have that seed to sow to receive what God has for you.
Make room for the oil…
So what does Elijah do? He tells her to gather as many vessels as she can. He told her to go all around and get as many vessels as she can. So what does that mean? We have to make room. So the way I see that making room in my spirit for me, that means maybe turning off social media, turning off the television, setting aside a time and purposeful time to be in His presence to pray, to pray in the Spirit. And, praying in the spirit is such an easy thing that a lot of us just don’t intentionally do. If we’re honest.
Can I just stand in front of you and be honest? There are days that I’m like, “Oh, I didn’t pray in the spirit today.” Because I have my prayers, I read the Word, I have time where I’ll meditate, I’ll be quiet. I have all of that. But there are days that I realize I did not take that time to intentionally pray in the spirit. And it’s such a powerful tool that we have inside of us. We’re praying out mysteries. I just feel that word for all of us today.
Make time to pray in the spirit.
Not like a chore that you have to check off. I mean, make it into something that is personal between you and Him, but it is something that really needs to be a part of our daily lives. So take that or leave that. That was just extra.
And then what does He say?
He tells her to shut the door. Once you get what you need from the outside, once you’ve gone and you’ve gotten all your vessels. So maybe that means listening to extra teachings, being at church more often, getting into a Bible study, finding your own devotion, whatever that means. Go and shut the door and get alone with God. That’s important.
Then she filled all the vessels with that small jar. She filled all the vessels with her “nothing jar.” When he asked her, “What do you have?” She said “nothing.” But that nothing, He multiplied it to be enough to help them to live.
I mean, if you know the story, she was getting ready to go in her house and “We’re just going to die. We’re just going to eat our last meal and we’re going to die.” I don’t think anybody’s in that place today. We pray not. But sometimes we can spiritually feel like that.
“I just have this little snack. That’s all I have.” So then what happens? The oil ceased when she ran out of vessels. What would’ve happened if she got more vessels? She would’ve had more oil. So that also is just a way of showing us like the more room we make for Him, the more room we make in our lives for Him, for His oil, for His presence, He’s going to fill that up. Not just what you need. He’s not stingy. He’ll give you more than enough so that your “more than enough” is enough…
To spill over on that person in the grocery store
To spill over on that coworker
To spill over on your spouse, on your kids
Everybody around us right now is needing that oil. We need that presence of God. People are starving for it, so we need to stay filled. We have that point.
And then the second point…
We need to stay awake. There’s lots of scriptures I can go into and I don’t want to teach so much. You think of like the disciples in the garden of Gethsemane. Jesus says, “My soul is crushed with grief to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.” And we all know what happened. He returned to the disciples and He found them asleep.
I want to say that I wouldn’t be that person, but I kind of know that I would be. I can’t even make it through a movie half the time without falling asleep. So he says to Peter, “Couldn’t you watch with Me even one hour? Keep watch and pray so that you will not give into temptation, for the spirit is willing, but the body is weak.”
We’ve got to stay alert…
So what does that mean? When we are alert, when we are pressing into His presence, that is helping us, that’s our spirit, to be more willing than our weak flesh. So there’s this continual battle of our flesh and our spirit.
Cartoons always had the little angel on one shoulder and the little devil on the other shoulder, right? But in real life, it’s kind of like our soul is in between. Like, which way are we going to go today? Are we going to go on TikTok for an hour or are we going to read a book that is going to be helpful? Or are we going to watch a message? Or are we just going to spend time being quiet. It’s just that continual battle. Our flesh wants to take the easiest path of no resistance. Always. It will always want the donut over the broccoli. It’ll always want to lie on the couch instead of exercise. Maybe I’m the only one. But anyways, it’s always going to want that.
And that’s just like our flesh. Our flesh just wants what our flesh wants. It wants to have its way continually and it’s never enough. So one day you give it this and the next day I want two donuts, and the next day I want a dozen donuts, whatever.
What you feed grows, what you starve dies…
All that to say, when we’re feeding our spirit… What you feed grows. What you starved dies. So when we’re feeding our spirit, when we’re putting a precedent on our time with Him, when we’re putting a precedent on praying in tongues, and when I say this, I’m always so careful because I don’t want people to do this like out of obligation. That’s not what this is about. It’s a “get to.” Not a “have to.”
Sometimes it starts out as a “have to”
But I will be honest; there are times where it starts as a “have to.” It starts that way, and it turns into a “get to.” It starts as a, “Oh, I just really want to just kind of numb out and do a Netflix binge today.” Am I the only person? You guys are just all being all so holy and not looking at me. But you know what? I am going to listen to a podcast, or watch a message, or I’m just going to dive into the Word, or I’m going to do whatever that is. And in that moment, it starts as a, “Oh, okay, okay, I can do this.” Turn off the TV. Press into that thing, right? It starts there. Then all of a sudden, you’re in it. You’re so refreshed, you’re so built up, you’re so ready for whatever He has. Whereas had I done the Netflix binge, I’m at the end of my day. I’m still anxious, I’m still tired, I’m still stressed, I’m still… It didn’t do anything. That was not true rest. Right? Because what is true rest?
Coming into His presence?
