Morning Chapel Prayer Playlist
Morning Chapel Prayer Today
Pastor Ken…
Welcome, everyone, to morning prayer. My name is Ken Olson.
Excerpt from Nancy Dufresne’s book, “A Supernatural Prayer Life”
I want to read a segment from Nancy Dufresne’s book, “A Supernatural Prayer Life.” And, in particular, the section where she talks about the benefits of speaking in other tongues. I was reflecting yesterday a little bit about the importance of habits. Habits make up a big part of our lives…
Whether you like it or not
Whether you realize it or not
Some psychologists say that 95 to 98% of our lives are habitual. In other words, we create habits or permit habits. Sometimes they’re negative ones, unfortunately. And then our habits create our lives. So if we could shift maybe even one habit in our lives, it could make a whole lot of difference in our future. It is the fourth month now of 2026. And this would be a good opportunity… if there needs to be a shift in a habit in your life spiritually… to make it.
Nancy writes this about walking in love…
“We know that the Word tells us that faith works by love. Love is to faith what gasoline is to a car. Just as a car won’t go anywhere unless there’s gasoline in it, faith won’t go anywhere unless love is fueling it. When love stops flowing, faith won’t go anywhere.
“Jude also gives us instruction in this. He says in Jude 1:20, ‘But you beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost.’ Keep yourselves in the love of God by taking time to speak in other tongues you hold yourself in the place of walking in love.”
Nancy quotes Romans 8:13…
“Which tells us that we are to mortify, or deaden, the deeds of the flesh (or our bodies or lower nature) through the spirit. Every person has things present in their flesh that will trip them up and cause them to miss the mark if those things go unchecked. Hebrews instructs us in Hebrews 12:1, ‘Let us lay aside every weight.’” In other words, the things that slow our progress down, that trip us up, that impede our ability to move forward in God’s plan. “And the sin, which does so easily beset us.” Or you can say, detour us. “Jesus has paid a price to free us from those things that weaken us and open us up to defeat. If the Son, therefore, shall make you free, you are free indeed (John 8:36). “We are to walk free from those things and we have the Holy Spirit to help us mortify (or put to death) the deeds of the flesh that trouble us.”
She goes on to say…
“A man’s life is a picture of his habits. God gave us a habit-forming ability so that we could form the right habits to help shape our lives.”
Woman changed her life with a five-minute habit…
I was listening to a young woman who shared something online the other day, how she started to pray five minutes a day. And that turned eventually into a habit that became automatic in her day-to-day life and produced revival in her life and caused her to want to share the message of Jesus with people online and everywhere she goes. And it all started with a five-minute decision to get alone with God. Just five minutes.
Habits compound…
Habits stack one upon another. They compound, in other words. Somebody said that the eighth wonder of the world is the wonder of compounding interest. Well, guess what? Your time is an investment. And like money, it compounds. It stacks really quickly. Maybe not in the moment or in a day or a week. But over time, a couple of weeks, a month, a couple of months, you would be shocked at how much your life will shift in a fresh and better direction. How much will open up for you. How many opportunities will come your way that are even unsolicited, good opportunities. Because prayer unlocks the blessing. It unlocks heaven’s flow. It unlocks and releases God’s plan in our lives so that we can step into it.
Our part is to partner with Him through prayer…
Prayer’s not a work, but prayer does position us. And as Nancy’s alluding to, prayer sets a fresh and a godly habit in motion in our lives, that puts us in a position to receive what God has already planned. How many of you know God has…
Far greater things ahead for you and me
Far greater things ahead for us as a church
Far greater things ahead for us as a nation than are behind us?
But they must be sought out through faith and prayer.
Nancy goes on to say…
“Jesus had the spiritual habit of rising early to go to an alone place to pray. He didn’t make it a law for that would have brought bondage. But He made it a habit to govern His life. Luke 22:39 in the Amplified reads, ‘And He came out and went as was His habit to the Mount of Olives.’”
Isn’t that interesting?
Remember I said yesterday that we’re not too far away from the day He puts His foot down on the Mount of Olives and a great earthquake happens and it splits that mount? Well, He’s just returning to the place that was His habit… to pray in His earthly life.
“Jesus also had the spiritual habit of faithful church attendance, for Luke 4:16 tells us that it was His custom (or you could say habit) that He went into the synagogues on the Sabbath day. With this habit-forming ability, we are to establish good habits as well as good mental and physical habits that will bless and shape our lives.”
Or you could say, will set the trajectory for our future. You want change? Well, great! Ask for prayer. Certainly, prayer works when somebody lays hands on you or prays a prayer of agreement with you. We’re grateful for the gifts and the operation of the Holy Spirit and the working of miracles when they come into play. But one of the most fundamental ways we experience change and we take next steps into the plan of God is by being intentional to form and to invest in God-ordained spiritual habits. Even…
Five minutes of prayer
Five minutes of study
Five minutes of lifting up your holy hands in worship
So that your household in the very atmosphere of your life could be saturated with worship. And that worship is a frequency, really, that sends the enemy reeling so that you can experience a greater level of freedom and liberty.
She says…
“However, before we were born again, we sometimes established bad habits instead of good habits. Then those habits we had formed were points of weakness for us once we got born again. But we’re not left to ourselves to overcome those bad habits in our own human ability. We have the Holy Spirit to help us. We’re not left to just rely on our human willpower and self-help methods to overcome these bad habits. We’re not left to our own human ability to establish good habits, either. We have the help of the Holy Spirit available to us.
“Romans 8:13 tells us we through the Spirit do mortify, in other words, put to death the deeds of the body. We can employ our great helper, the Holy Spirit, to aid us in rising above these weaknesses and to replace them with good habits to help shape our spiritual, mental, and physical lives. We are fortified from within. (Fortified means to strengthen, to undergird, to reinforce.” Not from without, from within, as we take time to pray in other tongues. For praying in tongues is a spiritual action that helps our spirits dominate over the mental and physical arenas.”
We must build ourselves up for the coming days…
So maybe it’s not a matter of, “Oh Lord, come help me. I feel so weak, or I’m so incapable of resisting this temptation.” I’m not saying that’s a bad thing. I’m just saying maybe God is prompting us individually and collectively to build ourselves up in preparation for what is to occur in the coming days, for what we’ll experience in the coming days.
God is sounding the alarm…
I think holistically in and throughout the body of Christ, God is sounding the alarm and working to get our attention to wake us up because we’re in unprecedented days. But it’s going to get a whole lot more unprecedented. And so God in His mercy and love and foreknowledge is saying, “Hey, church, wake up. Take advantage of these God-ordained, even ancient practices of study and worship and prayer and silence and solitude and community.” It will be your superpower in navigating the days that are ahead. Not to just survive, but to thrive.
God wants or intends for us, the church, to lead the way in these unprecedented times, in this new era.
That we would stand out
That we will be outliers
That we will be clearly seen by the world as having something that they need
That we will be clearly seen as a people who are earmarked by the presence of heaven because we have been with Him.
The secret to the Christian life is in the secret place…
I’ve quoted this before, but it was said of Kathryn Kuhlman that because of how she lived her life, in other words, the habits that she prioritized and implemented in her daily life, it made it easy for others to receive their miracle. The secret to the Christian life is in the secret place. It doesn’t seem real exciting in the moment because you’d rather roll over and catch another 30 minutes of sleep or do something else. But the Bible promises if we will deaden the deeds of our flesh, the cravings of our lower nature, even five minutes at a time and give ourselves in surrender to Him by acknowledging Him, by worshiping Him, by meditation upon His Word through prayer, then it will permit a higher flow to be prominent and consistent in our lives. To change us and to bring change to those around us.
So finally, she goes on to say…
“We are fortified from within as we take time to pray in other tongues. For praying in tongues is a spiritual action that helps our spirits dominate our mental and physical arenas where many bad habits exist. Speaking in other tongues helps us to be more Spirit conscious. Thereby the mental and the physical arenas lose their sway.”
In other words, prayer begins to strip away the dominance and the temptation of our flesh and our lower nature so that we can more and more yield to our higher nature, our spirit nature.
