Morning Chapel Prayer Playlist
Morning Chapel Prayer Today
Pastor Ken…
Just let this be an altar moment right now. I have a sense that perhaps there are some things that we need to put on the altar, so to speak. The Lord is inviting us to lay some things down, to offer some things up. So whatever that is for you, if you feel like God’s dealing with you about something, maybe it’s a train of thought or something that’s going on that is out of your control. Maybe something from the past, a disappointment, a failure. Maybe there is unforgiveness or a grudge has worked its way into your soul, into your thinking. In this moment of history in the church and I believe in many people’s lives, God is doing business with us first. The Bible says judge yourself lest you be judged. And so God always goes to His house first to address issues, not because He wants to be on a cosmic deity trip of some kind, but because the Devil is bad and every work of darkness, no matter how subtle it may be, the enemy means for it to create harm and destruction and problems in our lives. And His grace and mercy and forgiveness is so good. So just know that God’s mercy and grace is crashing in on you today. Oh my goodness!
Once again, the Bible says that His grace swells. It doesn’t diminish. God doesn’t retract it from you. No! The more we mess up and fail and make mistakes, the Bible revelation is that His grace swells and grows to swallow up those mistakes and those mess ups.
God is addressing some heart conditions…
So just let your heart be laid bare this morning and invite the Holy Spirit to invade and crash in on whatever’s going on. Jesus didn’t do what He did so that we could just cope with certain things, so that we could just “get by,” so that we could just “hold on” until the end of our lives or His return. He wants us to be free in every sense, in every way, regardless of your age, the demographic category you fit in, the amount of degrees you have or money you make. Jesus is here. He is where you are this morning. Yes, we’re going to pray about some things beyond ourselves, but He’s addressing heart conditions right now. He wants to subtract some bad things from our lives. But He needs us to, once again, cooperate with Him and to lay those things down, even if they’re subtle, even just in our thinking.
And somebody might be asking, “Well, I don’t know exactly what that would be, Ken.”
Well, then I would challenge you to simply pray a prayer of permission for the Holy Spirit. Say, “Holy Spirit, arrest me.” Because sometimes we’re experiencing challenges in our lives because we have blind spots. And we don’t even see where our words, as the Bible says, are stout against the Lord… where our thoughts are self-defeating. And they pollute and they detour what God really wants. They work against us.
Prayed…
And so, Father, we invite the Holy Spirit to enter into our souls today and reveal to us those blind spots we pray. Even in the church at large, Lord, here at Living Word across America, around the world today, we realize that graceful judgment starts in the house of the Lord.
Lord, that you are preparing us for what you have prepared for us in the coming days. And so we just lift our hearts to you. We say, Lord, we hear you knocking, we hear you inquiring to enter in new ways into our souls, into our lives, into our emotions, into our relationships, into our church gatherings, into our homes, and into our marriages, and even finances. Lord, in every way, nothing should be off limits to you. And so, Lord, we repent where we have taken the wheel, so to speak, and said, “Lord, I’ve got this.” Because truth be told, you gave us your all. So you deserve our all.
Word of the Lord…
Now, can I just say this. I sense this could be a word for some, or if not all of us, in some way. But the Lord just wants us to know and to lovingly and gently say to us that whatever it is that the enemy’s trying to convince you about yourself or about a particular situation or circumstance, he’s been kind of harassing you in your ears, so to speak. And or maybe you’re just playing these worst-case scenarios over in your mind about your finances or about a situation with somebody in your family, a child, a grandchild. Maybe it is in regard to your ministry or your calling, like there’s no hope. There’s no way it’s going to go this way. It’s going to go south. It’s going to go the negative direction, the worst-case scenario direction. The enemy’s trying to convince you and get you to believe that and maybe to some degree you’re contributing to that because you’re giving your thoughts to that. The Lord would say, “I’m going to interrupt that. And it’s going to be rerouted in the right and the God-ordained way.”
Do not remember the former things…
I was planning on reading this morning out of Isaiah chapter 43. I believe the Lord would say instead of what the enemy’s saying to you regarding that situation, that he would say, “Do not remember…” Now take this as a word directly from Him because it’s in His Word. Isaiah 43:19, beginning with verse 18. “Do not remember the former things. Do not consider the things of old.”
That’s a good word right there. We could stop, say amen and go home and have a really good day. Just on that.
“Do not remember the former things, nor consider the things of old.” Maybe for some of us, that’s yesterday. That’s the old. For others it might be decades ago… or a past situation. It’s time to let go. The Lord wants to lighten our loads as pray-ers, as believers because there’s much more race ahead of us. There must be because there’s still breath in our lungs, right? We’re still on planet earth. Yes, it’s late in the timetable of God, but there’s still much to be done for you and for me, not just for Pastor Mac and Lynne and a few select public ministers. But every one of us… you have a supply that the kingdom of God needs desperately now… from your spirit, but also in your representation of your life and your gifts and your callings.
The Lord wants to set us free…
Don’t remember. That’s the first step. “Don’t remember the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold I do a new thing. Now it shall spring forth.”
“Well, Ken, I don’t know of any new things. I don’t know if I even want a new thing.”
Well, that’s okay. The Lord’s saying “For you, I am doing a new thing. Will you not simply agree with it?” That’s all it requires. Even if you leave today, you don’t know what that new thing is. Just begin to declare, “Lord, I thank you that you’re doing a new thing in my heart, a new thing in my life.”
Maybe some of you know well where the new thing needs to be. Maybe it’s in a relationship or your children, or something regarding a decision you need to make. Begin to declare, “Lord, I thank you that you’re doing a new thing. Spring has sprung on the horizon of my life. I’m expecting today to see the goodness of God bursting forth from the fallowness of the ground of my past or my heart, or a divorce or a failure of some kind or a mess up. The Lord of Heaven, your Heavenly Father, is in the business of resurrecting and bringing forth life where there was only death and destruction.
So even if it looks like the enemy has won for the moment… Get ready! The keys of death, hell, and the grave are in Jesus’ hands. And He Himself was swallowed up by the earth itself. But instead of saying, “Oh, well, I guess I failed, Father.” He recognized that what He went through in His death and burial was simply that He became a seed. The Bible says He was the ultimate seed planted into the belly of the earth. But then the earth cracked. There was a great earthquake, right? And He came forth. And the Bible says Him being the ultimate and original seed for humanity brought forth many sons to glory. So what you have been dealing with, what you have been through, that failure, that mistake, that mess up, even what America has been through, I believe, is simply seed in the hand of the great husbandman, the Father God. And He’s going to bring forth something greater, something new and better. Can you agree with that this morning?
Faith says what God says…
And so faith simply says what God says, “Lord, I say I forget the past. It’s under the blood. I’ve repented of it. I put it in your hands. I release it and let it go. And I choose to believe that you’re doing something new today in my soul, in my body, in my family, in my church, in my nation.”
Come on now. The Bible’s very clear. It gives us very specific direction and clarification and definition to what faith is and what faith does. Faith speaks. Faith is in your heart and faith is in your mouth.
If you want to know if you have faith, check your heart, check your mouth. Faith declares and calls things which be not as though they are. You don’t have to figure it out. You don’t have to have a perfect roadmap to get to where you believe God wants you to be or where you want to go. You just need to declare and believe and call things that be not as though they are. That’s one very important aspect of prayer.
God can make rivers flow in the desert…
“Now it shall spring forth, shall you not know it. I will even make a road in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.” So don’t mind the fact that all you see is desert right now. God has made a way for rivers to begin to flow. That’s what Isaiah’s saying long ago. Rivers in the desert, the beast of the field will honor me, the jackals and the ostriches because I give waters in the wilderness and the rivers in the desert to give drink to my people, my chosen.”
We are His chosen. So just imagine that this morning. Just see the rivers of the living God flowing and making their way to the desert places in your life, in our nation, in our states, in the lives of those that you know desperately need it. It’s not hard for God.
I mean, let’s back up a little further, maybe hundreds of years before this. Isaiah prophesied when God miraculously and supernaturally delivered the children of Israel out of Egyptian bondage, the most prominent and powerful empire on the planet at the time, those who built the pyramids, right? And probably had the help of maybe some Nephilim, some fallen beings to do what they do, some think to build those pyramids and possess technologies well beyond their time. The Egyptians that is. So there are very fearsome empire and people. And here were these slave people, the Israelites. And God delivers them out of this bondage and brings them out across the Red Sea into the wilderness where there was nothing but desert and dryness and parch-ness and scorpions. And right in the middle of that place, God supernaturally brings forth a river, brings forth a fountain of living water that nourished and refreshed some 2 million people and all of their animals.
So, of course, it is not a big deal for Him to do that for you and for me in our situations down to this day. Of course, what I just read here in Isaiah 43, I believe is prophetic of what Jesus ultimately did and what He said, which is that out of your belly would flow rivers. So when we pray in the Spirit, you are making rivers available. You are causing a flow to emanate from your heart and your life to flow to you and through you.
So I just challenge you in the coming days, your challenge and your task is not to figure it out or make it happen, but instead to be passionate about His Word and renewing your mind and passionate about prayer… in particular, praying in the spirit. Because as you pray in the spirit and as you’re inspired to pray in your understanding, as you connect with your heart, you are allowing the river of God to flow out and pour water on thirsty ground. Firstly, the ground of your own heart. Because wasn’t it Jeremiah who prophesied that essentially that through stammering lips and another tongue will I speak to this people? That this would be the place of refreshing, the place of recreation, the place of repose. Oh my goodness! We still don’t realize just how powerful and purposeful praying in the spirit is in this time of God’s plan. You are pouring water onto the dry ground. You are making ways in the wilderness for you and for those God’s called you to influence through your supply of the spirit.
Breakthroughs are birthed in that place of prayer…
So many supernatural things, so many breakthroughs are birthed in that place of prayer, in that place of praying in the spirit. It’s not just some gift that’s relegated to a few select special pray-ers. Now every one of us is called to this place of prayer, called to this place of intimacy with the Father where heaven connects with earth— earth being you. And there’s a divine hookup and a divine flow that allows the plan of God to be discharged and lives to be saved and situations to be detoured back to the mercy and the justice that God intends.
The man felt like a prodigal his whole life…
I heard a story recently from a pastor and he shared a story of a man who was far from Jesus. He was a big man in stature, very successful businessman, kind of had a larger-than-life personality. And he was a long way from God. But his wife had been praying for him. And then finally one day, maybe years into her praying. He said to her, “Honey, I think I want to go to church with you today.” So they got in the car, they hit the road, and about halfway to the church, this man just broke down. Literally. He was driving, broke down emotionally and began to weep. He had to pull off to the side of the road. And his wife said, “Honey, what’s wrong? What’s going on?” He said, “I think I just realized that my whole life I felt like a prodigal. And then if I did come back to God, He would only ask me, ‘Where have you been? What have you been doing? Why have you been away from Me?’”
He felt condemnation and regret. So he gathered himself there in the car with his wife and was able to compose himself and get back on the road, and they got to church. And that morning, the pastor gave an altar call for this man. And he was a man’s man, according to this pastor… big guy, larger than life, hugely successful in the business community. And at the altar call, he came down to the front and gave his life to the Lord. And when the pastor came over to lay hands on him and pray over him, rivers of living water were flowing. There were streams in the desert that day to that man and through the pastor.
And as the pastor laid his hand on this man, the Lord spoke to him through the pastor and said, “The Lord wants you to know, I know that you’ve always felt like a prodigal. I know that.” And then the pastor went on to say that “The Lord wants you to know that He doesn’t care where you’ve been and what you’ve been doing or what you’ve done. He just wants you. He wants you back into His family and His presence.”
The supernatural plan of God was discharged, was able to come from heaven to earth through that pastor and to that man. And that pastor would go on to say he prioritized praying in other tongues. Because to pray well is to have prepared well. I don’t care if you’re the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, a teacher in the public schools, a student at a local community college, somebody who’s retired from what you’ve done for years, whatever the case is, there is so much purpose that God wants to bring through us in and through prayer. You and I are to be living, breathing, walking, talking rivers of living water in a world that is a desert basically.
So I challenge you today as pray-ers, as believers to embrace this life of prayer. Because it’s meant to be a life. I think it was Katherine Kuhlman who said that prayer and in particular praying in the spirit isn’t to just be a one-time opportunity. It’s to be a life. It’s not just a privilege, it’s a life.
