Morning Chapel Prayer Playlist
Morning Chapel Prayer Today
Pastor Ken…
Good morning. Hello everyone. Welcome to Morning Prayer here at Living Word. My name is Ken. Good to have you in the chapel.
Jeremiah 33:3, Call unto me…
Let me read this verse to you in Jeremiah. I’ll read it from two different translations—the New King James and the Passion translation. It says this in Jeremiah 33:3: “Call to me and I will answer you and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know.” The Passion translation states, “Cry out to Me and I will answer you. I will reveal to you the great things, or guarded secrets, that you could never have known.”
Every day, God extends to us an invitation to call upon Him…
I want to remind us as we pray this morning that God extends to us each and every day, every moment of every day, an invitation to call on Him. The New Testament records, “Draw near to Him and He will draw near to us.” And without a doubt, He desires to partner with us.
He desires to show us what is to come…
He desires to be near to us and us to be near to Him and to call out to Him that He would show us what is to come, that He would show us another side of His nature, of His character, of His love.
Prayer thanking God for showing us what is to come…
And so, Father, we open our hearts to you, and we thank you for your faithfulness. We thank you for your great love. We thank you for this reminder this morning that we can call unto you and that you will show us great and mighty things. We know, Lord, that what lies ahead is far better than what has been in the past. We know that there are amazing initiatives and works of the Spirit that you desire to accomplish—through us, in us, in our nation, and around the world that lie ahead for us in the coming days.
Dr. Yonggi Cho’s book, “Prayer That Brings Revival”
Let me read something to you. This comes from Dr. Yonggi Cho’s book, “Prayer That Brings Revival.” And Dr. Cho, who has since gone to Heaven, was a great man of faith and a great man of prayer. And, honestly, one of my first teachers when it comes to prayer, when I was, gosh, 18, 19 years old, honestly. I got ahold of his book, “The Fourth Dimension,” which was simple, but taught me how to pray effectively. And I saw many answered prayers in that season as I really delved into how to pray effectively. I mean remarkably so. Things that would show up in my life to the “T” of what I asked for. Because when it came to personal prayers of faith and things I was praying for, I learned to pray specifically. And I learned to write down what I prayed about. So I know that when the answer comes, I have received the answer. Because I wrote down specifically what I prayed for.
Challenge issued…
And this is off script, but I just challenge you. “You have not because you ask not.” When it comes to anything, but in particular your personal life, the Bible to this day still challenges us to ask. As I’ve often said, God wants us to be a people who are prolific in our petitioning, in our asking. Because God has chosen to get done what He wants to get done in the earth realm…
Through human agency
Through our intercessions
Through our petitioning
Through our prayers of faith and our faith decrees
It gives the Spirit of God license to enter our dimension and do what God has promised He would do in your life and my life and in our world.
Chapter title: “What Door Do We Enter in Prayers of Intercession?”
And so, Dr. Yonggi Cho writes in this chapter on intercession entitled, “What Door Do We Enter in Prayers of Intercession?”
He says…
“Besides, it’s common use as an entrance to a house or a building, a door is used metaphorically as an entrance into any spiritual experience or entrance to opportunity. Therefore, Jesus said, I am the door. Christ is the means by which man can reach the Father. Paul used the word as an entrance to opportunity. Paul said, ‘Furthermore, when I came to Troas to preach Christ’s Gospel and a door was opened unto me of the Lord, and I had no rest in my spirit.’
“John, when writing to the church at Philadelphia, shares the revelation from Christ, ‘I know thy works. Behold, I have set before thee an open door and no man can shut it.’ Not only is a door a place of opportunity to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ to a community, it is also an opportunity for an individual as the Lord confirms, ‘Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any man (or woman) hear my voice and open the door, I will come into him and I will sup with him and he with Me.”
“There are doors to nations and ethnic groups that can be opened. And I would submit to you, there are doors to situations and places in your community, in your nation, into families that can be opened. Once the door is open, they are able to receive faith and believe. ‘And when they come and had gathered the church together, they rehearsed all that God had done with them and how He had opened the door of faith under the Gentiles’ (Acts 14:27).
“Going through a door of opportunity means that we face spiritual opposition from the principalities and powers that keep nations from hearing and responding to the Gospel.”
Most common weapon of opposition the enemy uses…
And I would submit to you one of the most common and repeated weapons of opposition the enemy uses against the church is to distract us from our place of prayer…
To distract us
To detour us
To get us caught up in the affairs of everyday life.
Our ability to utilize our voices is key to God’s plan to open doors…
So much that we forget that our high and most holy calling is to surrender ourselves to Him, to surrender our human agency and our will and our voice to Him. You were created as a speaking spirit. And your ability to speak, your ability to possess and utilize your voice is key and critical in the plan of God in opening doors, in making a way where there doesn’t appear to be a way where there isn’t a way right now. He’s a “way maker,” but He’s chosen to collaborate through us to make that way.
Dr. Cho goes on to say…
“First Corinthians 16:9, ‘For a great door and effectual is open unto me and therefore there are many adversaries.’ So to be forewarned is to be forearmed. There is a press. There is a need for us to be strengthened and to be awake fully so that we can each day fight the good fight of faith. Yes, to believe, but also to intercede.
He goes on to say…
“Only the Lord Jesus Christ can open a door that has been shut to the Gospel. ‘Furthermore, when I had come to Troas,’ Paul writes, ‘to preach Christ’s gospel and a door was opened unto me of the Lord.’ (2nd Corinthians 2:12) How do we get the doors of faith and opportunity open? We have seen that Christ must open the door. However, God has made us members of His body. That means that the Head has chosen to function through the body in the earth.”
Who’s the body? The church. You. Me. You’re a body. I’m a body. Collectively, we’re the body of Christ with Jesus as the head.
He says…
“So it takes prayers of intercession to stand against the spiritual forces keeping the doors shut. Once the prayers break through, Christ can open the door, and an entire city, nation, or race can be saved. Paul confirms this in the book of Colossians when he writes… [King James version] ‘With all praying also for us that God would open unto us a door of utterance.’”
Prayer unlocks a door of articulation…
So in other words, prayer unlocks a door of articulation. I’ve noticed that so often in my life. And that’s why I think it’s important for us as Pastor Lynne once said, “Pray to pray.” Because when you pray, you’re making utterance. When you pray, like in your own time driving down the road, in your own time with the Lord, you are unlocking, or opening, a door of utterance. Maybe for later that day in your work environment or in a conversation with a family member. But also when maybe you’re leading a prayer group, or you’re asked to give your supply in prayer. Suddenly there’s just this flow. There’s this river that you’ve tapped into because you prayed to pray. You prepared for utterance. You’ve opened a door of utterance so that it can flow freely and easily, in your understanding oftentimes.
The prophetic of God is that spirit of prayer…
Paul said that he or she who prays an unknown tongue should pray that they interpret. And the more you yield to that, the more translation will come. The more there’ll be a flow where you can pick up on the prophetic and the flow of prayer. The prophetic of God is that spirit of prayer. Or I should say the spirit of prayer has on it prophecy or a “prophetic-ness.”
So he goes on to say…
“So it takes prayers of intercession to stand against the spiritual forces keeping the doors shut. Once the prayers break through, Christ can open the door and an entire nation, or race, or city can be saved. Paul confirms this in the book of Colossians, ‘with all praying also for us that God would open unto us a door of utterance to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in bonds that I may make manifest as I ought to speak.’”
Finally, Dr. Cho writes…
“Not only does Christ desire to open doors of opportunity for His people so that they may preach the Gospel, but also doors of revelation (or understanding). We just read earlier, Jeremiah 33:3, ‘Call unto Me and I will show you great and mighty things…’ that you did not know essentially is what it says.
“So it opens doors of revelation and understanding must also be opened. Jesus continually repeats the phrase ‘He that has ears, let him hear.’ This statement to the churches in Revelation in chapters two and three indicate that we often don’t understand what we are hearing.”
Layers of revelation…
Hmm, I feel like that’s true for me. You hear something and hear something, and it’s like “There’s something to that. What are you saying, Lord? What does that mean, Lord.” You know there are layers or levels to revelation, right? I mean revelation in His Word, but also revelation to you regarding what God wants to do in you and through you and in your future. There are levels to it. Many levels! That’s why I use the word picture of an elevator. ‘Lord, take us up in the elevator. Your elevator of revelation.’ There are levels, infinite levels of understanding, insight, prophetic-ness, prophetic intention that God wants to show His people.
But we must desire it.
We must call out for it.
We must ask for it.
Ask that you may receive.
Finally, he says…
“The door of understanding must be open for our minds to comprehend what God desires to reveal to us.” He quotes Revelation 4:1–2. “After this, I looked and beheld, a door was open in heaven. And the first voice which I heard was as it were of a trumpet talking with me, which said, Come up hither and I will show you things which must come hereafter. And immediately I was in the spirit.
“In Acts, we see how God can open a door of opportunity and keep the door open so the Gospel may be preached without spiritual hindrance. Paul had been accused and had been brought to Rome, a city that was at the time the center of sin. Paul prayed and asked others to intercede for him. Finally, the door to Rome was opened.”
Ask yourself…
What door do you need to open? What door has God assigned you to open? What person’s heart, what situation, what school needs to be unlocked?
You are the key.
Your prayers are the key.
Your intercession inspired by the Holy Spirit is the key to open and make the way.
