Morning Chapel Prayer Playlist
Morning Chapel Prayer Today
Worship leader…
While we were singing in the spirit, I kept getting the verse, “Be still and know.” And I was like, “Hey, God, we’re actually doing something. What are you talking about?” And He’s like, “When you sing and pray in tongues, your mind becomes still.” And that’s a form of stillness that we all need to do. Worshiping, singing, praying in tongues stills your mind so you can hear Him. And how much more do we need that in this busy season? Right? And you feel His presence and you feel His stillness come even when we’re singing, even when we feel like we’re doing something, our mind has gotten out of the way. And that really helped me to know that stillness is not always just sitting and doing nothing. It’s getting our mind out of the way so He can talk to us.
Pastor Ken…
Pastor Lynne has taught us so well about the importance of “getting into your heart,” as she called it. We’re such a cranial people. We live and function so much from our minds that we don’t realize that prayer and other acts of worship are something we must do from our hearts. We’ve got to delve deep into our hearts. We’ve got to, in a way, turn off our minds and sometimes it’s through an act of worship or praise so that we can get into our hearts. Because it’s the effectual, fervent, heartfelt prayer, the prayer that emanates from the heart that makes much power available, dynamic in its working.
Prayed…
So we just thank you this morning, Father, we thank you that you are at work in our lives and in circumstances, and even among the nations, simply because we bring our hearts before you today.
Worry is a sin…
The Bible says in Philippians 4:6, from the Passion translation, “Don’t be pulled in different directions or worried about a thing.”
You know that worry is a sin, right?
It’s a low-grade form of fear. Fear is of the enemy. And anxiety and dread and worry are all low-grade forms, or cousins, of fear. They’re spinoffs of fear. And we’re not to give it a place. And it’s the act of worship. It’s the act of prayer that creates disturbance in the spiritual realm. It’s the act of prayer, prayer in the spirit, the act of the prayer of worship that is spiritual warfare and pushes back darkness.
Prayer is pushing back darkness…
When you pray in the spirit, when you worship with uplifted hands, you are pushing back darkness. Paul wrote to the Ephesians church at Ephesus, “Be being filled, speaking out in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord.”
That’s an important principle there because when you open your mouth, you are receiving. In worship and in prayer, you are being filled. You are receiving heaven’s flow so that what is in you “that ought not be so,” goes. When you’re filled, it flushes out all of the old.
When you’re filled with God’s presence
When you’re filled with prayer
When you’re filled with worship
When you’re filled with a celebration and even declaration of God’s Word…
…it fills your soul.
…it fills the interior of your life.
…it flushes out dread.
…it flushes out fear.
…it flushes out doubts.
And it flushes out those doubts and those secondary thoughts.
“Well, if it doesn’t work out, maybe I’ll do this.” No! God doesn’t have a second thought concerning that situation, concerning America. His thought is “the” thought. And it’s a glorious thought. And it’s the thought that shall come to pass for America, for your life, for your family.
Philippians 4:6…
And so prayer and worship are so important in keeping us filled and flooded with God and keeping flushed out of our lives what should not be there. Philippians 4:6 says, “Don’t be pulled in different directions or worried about a thing. Instead, be saturated, be filled in prayer throughout each day, offering your faith-filled requests before God with overflowing gratitude.”
Oh my! We have so much more to be thankful for than we recognize. God is so much greater than we first thought. Glory to God! And God is wanting to stretch us in this hour and day. Stretch us from the inside, stretch our consciousness regarding Him and what He’s able to do. So that we never return to a small finite perception of Him. He wants us to see that He is limitless in His ability to perform and to do with limitless power and limitless wisdom and limitless ability to heal and set the captives free. And limitless ability so that even in a day a nation could be turned and that His power is so great that you and I don’t even have to necessarily always gut it out in the spirit all night long.
He works when we wait on Him…
Sometimes it’s just bringing yourself before God, just worshiping Him. Once again, He works when we wait on Him. He turns situations around when you’re just practicing silence and solitude. That’s actually a form of spiritual warfare. Silence and solitude are acts of spiritual warfare, especially in this hour when there’s a war being waged against us of distraction. But just being silent and quiet before Him and just surrendered to Him to what He would direct or prompt us to do is spiritual warfare. It makes the enemy nervous.
And there are so many stories of men and women of God who gave themselves to prayer and took up the assignment God was leading them into regarding prayer, regarding the exercise of their authority, and many accounts as waiting in God’s presence for short seasons, perhaps protracted seasons, caused whole situations to be rerouted in the direction of God’s intention. Breakthroughs to come. Revivals to break out in nations.
We have historical accounts of that occurring because people waited in His presence. Much of what Simeon and Anna did in the early years before Jesus showed up was to the temple and wait before God and prayed.
Spiritual principle in watching…
Jesus taught His disciples and through their recordings He said, “Could you not simply watch and pray?” So there’s a spiritual principle in watching, a spiritual principle in silence and solitude that somehow releases the hand of God to do what He wants to do in the earth.
Continued to read Philippians 4…
I don’t think I finished reading this. Philippians four goes on to say, “But be saturated or filled with prayer throughout each day, offering your faithful requests before God with overflowing gratitude. Tell Him every detail of your life, then God’s wonderful peace that transcends all human understanding will guard or will surround you, will guard your heart and your mind through Christ Jesus.”
When you practice the presence of God, it saturates you and it guards you, and it flushes out every vestige of evil and temptation and vulnerability. And it keeps you strong. But you’ve got to do it daily.
Mark Batterson’s book, “Circle Makers”
I want to read something here really quick, but in Mark Batterson’s book. He has a book entitled, “Circle Makers” which has to do with prayer. And I love what he says regarding prayer. In the second chapter, he writes…
“Bold prayers honor God, and God honors bold prayers. God isn’t offended by your biggest dreams or your boldest prayers. He is offended by anything less. If your prayers aren’t impossible to you, they are insulting to God. Why? Because they don’t require divine intervention. But ask God to part the Red Sea or make the sun stand still or float an ironhead ax head and God is moved to omnipotent or all powerful action. There is nothing God loves more than keeping promises.”
Come on now. That’s a good word to us today, right? I am just thrilled in my heart about what God is up to you right now in the earth. In your life, in fact, I’m thrilled about what He’s up to.
Excerpt continues…
“Answering prayers, performing miracles and fulfilling dreams. That’s what He does. That is who He is. That is what He does. And the bigger the circle the better, because God gets more glory. The greatest moments in life are the miraculous moments when human impotence and divine omnipotence intersect. And they intersect when we draw a circle around the impossible situations in our lives and invite God to intervene. I promise you this, God is ready and waiting. So while I have no idea that what circumstances you find yourself in, I’m confident you are only one prayer away from a dream fulfilled, a promise kept, or a miracle performed.
“It is absolutely imperative at the outset that you come to terms with this simple life-changing truth, and that is that God is for you. If you don’t believe that, then you’ll pray small, timid prayers. If you do believe it, then you’ll pray big audacious prayers. And one way or another, your small timid prayers or big audacious prayers will change the trajectory of your life and turn you into totally different people.
“Prayers are prophecies. They are the best predictors of your spiritual future. Who you become is determined by how you pray. Ultimately, the transcript of your prayers becomes,” or you can say, converts, “into the script of your life.”
Isn’t that good?
In other words, the transcript, or what you pray, results in the script or what is recorded about your life in the time to come. And then one more thing I want to read here.
He writes…
“As I look over my shoulders, I’m grateful for the miracles God has done. And I’m keenly aware of the fact that every miracle has a genealogy. If you trace those miracles in His life all the way back to their origin, you’ll find a prayer circle. Miracles are the byproduct of prayers.”
Ooh, that’s good. Right? I think I mentioned on Monday that the great missionary to China, many years ago, Watchman Nee talked about how prayers laid down tracks for the power of God and the plan of God to travel. But make no mistake about it, we are in participation with God for your life, for the greater plan of God, for others’ lives, for that matter. Prayer lays down tracks. It builds a road over which the plan of God can advance, travel, and be accomplished. That’s why the transcript of your prayers ends up being the script of your life.
He goes on to say…
“Miracles are the product of prayers that were prayed by you or for you. And that should be the motivation you need to pray. God has determined that certain expressions of His power will only be exercised in response to prayer.”
So what’s possible today? In our nations, in our churches, in our families, in our own lives. What is possible or really probable in the mind of God. But it’s just waiting for somebody to ask, somebody to seek, somebody to knock, somebody to use their voice to call out to God.
After all, in Romans 8:26, it says that the Holy Spirit goes to meet our intercession, or our request or our prayer. There’s a coming together in prayer. When you pray, it activates the Holy Spirit to pray, and He goes to meet your request. He goes to meet and carry out your supplication, your intercession, your whatever it is, your prayer faith.
You see that? So think about that today. Okay, what could be and really should be from God’s perspective in my life, in my church, in my nation if I will but pray.
