Pastor Ken…
Good morning, everyone. Great to have you with us this morning.
There is a profit in prayer…
Now, we don’t do it exclusively for profit, right? We do it because Jesus came long ago on our behalf to pay a heavy and dear price to redeem us and our lives and our eternities to come. But there are benefits and privileges and certain rights and positions and blessings untold that flow from that place of intimacy with our Heavenly Father. And God wants His pray-ers to, without a doubt, profit financially, in our health, in our day to day lives, in our life’s journey. He wants us to be weighted down with His favor and goodness. He wants our lives to increasingly align with His intention and design and desire for us, which is only good, right? His desire is to do good and only good, to bring increase as the Old Testament says to you and your children more and more. And so I just believe that you’re going to step up into that in a greater degree today. Each of us.
It’s more profitable that I go…
One of the things I was reminded of this morning in particular was a key aspect of God the Holy Spirit. Aren’t you glad that Jesus sent the Holy Spirit? And even in that, Jesus said, before He ascended back to the right hand of the throne of His Father, He said, it’s advantageous and to your benefit. It’s more profitable for you. That’s us. Jesus Himself said it’s more profitable that I go to the Father, because if I go to the Father, then I’ll send the promised Holy Spirit, the down payment on our salvation. And as believers, as pray-ers, we should never lose our curiosity and our reverence and respect and desire to develop an ongoing and personal relationship with God the Holy Spirit. He is truly infinite and all knowing, and all powerful and beautiful in every respect.
And He desires to pull back the curtain in our hearts and in our lives that we would know Him more personally. So often I think we get kind of stuck in our limitedness, in our limited perspective. But let’s remind ourselves this morning that we serve an unlimited God. Just jump on PBS and watch some of the documentaries that talk about the most recent pictures and images and knowledge that is streaming to us left and right from the latest satellites and the images that are being taken of our galaxy and solar system. And it’s like, Wow! Okay, I need to kind of go back to the drawing board and take some limits off my imaginations because God is truly bigger and greater and more amazing and beautiful and awesome than when we first believed.
And so the Holy Spirit is given to profit us, to bless us, to impart life to us. And what I was reminded of last night was that speaking in other tongues, speaking out inspired by the Holy Spirit, worship even is the most important and yet fundamental releases or activates… the most important and yet fundamental of the Holy Spirit’s ministries. And that is the impartation of life.
Can anybody use some more life this morning?
I don’t mean just kind of life, like Life Magazine or life like, “Yeah, I played a game of basketball today. I feel so alive,” or whatever. I mean, supernatural life, the life force of redemption that eternally flows from the resurrection of Jesus. The kind of life that’s able to quicken your body this morning. If you are feeling that there are symptoms in your back or in the back of your neck maybe. Maybe there’s some that have symptoms of a cold or a flu or your stomach has just been uneasy for some time now. Maybe your soul is just upset and all in knots because of things going on in your life or decision perhaps that you need to make or stuff that’s just gone on in recent days, months, or years.
There is a flow, right?
Heaven isn’t just a place. Heaven is a flow. And there is a flow of life that the Spirit of God seeks to impart and minister to you where you hurt, where you’re troubled, where there’s brokenness inside or outside of your life. He’s here this morning. So will you just reverence Him with me this morning and honor Him this morning, the spirit of Jesus. And know that as we worship today, know that as we pray in the Spirit today, we are triggering the Holy Spirit’s valuable and profitable ministry to impart life. In fact, I pray and we agree together. The Bible says that there is power in agreement, that there’s multiplication of God’s purpose and power when we agree and when we link arms in faith.
Prayed…
And so we just agree this morning, Lord, we pray for the streaming forth for fingers of life and light and love and grace to flow to you, to flow to your church
We pray for a supernatural release
We pray for the free flow of life.
We pray for an increase of God’s power and light and love and grace to stream into every quarter of our society, every facet of our nation and our generation
We pray for openings and entrances into homes and cities and nations and businesses
We pray for life and light and a resetting, renewing, reviving force of heaven, flowing and penetrating lives
Love the Lord your God with all of your mind…
The Bible says love the Lord your God of all your mind, as well as every other facet of your being. And one area I have grown to realize that I myself don’t utilize more is my mind, my imagination. It’s part of loving God. It’s part of interaction and engaging with the God of Heaven. And some of the most effective pray-ers, in fact, down through recorded history that we know of were men and women of God who took time, often well before they prayed or interceded or offered up a prayer of faith or a supplication of some kind, they spent time pouring over the scriptures and being alone in silence and solitude and just imagining the promise of God deployed and accomplished.
Out of your bellies will flow rivers…
So imagine the life of God, the life force of redemption, the anointing of God penetrating your heart this morning, turning over every stronghold of the enemy… Flowing into your heart like a river. Jesus said, out of your belly would flow rivers. Just see rivers now flowing, being released in you this morning. Rivers of healing this morning. Rivers of recovery this morning. Rivers of peace. Rivers of just peace that remind us all is well. God’s already gone ahead of you. He’s made a way. He’s put provision in place. He’s got a plan. You can rest, you can trust, you can worship Him in advance of the answer showing up where you can see it.
Words turn into rivers…
The Holy Spirit’s ministry of impartation of life is activated when we open our mouths… rivers flow. Words can turn into rivers. Words release rivers. It says in John 6:63 in the Passion translation. “The Holy Spirit is the one who gives life. That which is of the natural realm is of no help.” Maybe some of us have realized that by now. There’s a level of importance, obviously, in what we do naturally, but it’s no real help in what really God can do. It says, “The words that I speak to you are spirit and they are life.” Just imagine Jesus speaking to you this morning. Just absorb His words to you this morning. “The words I speak to you are spirit and life, but there are still some of you who won’t believe.” That’s not us. I choose to believe this morning. Just believe and go with God. Agree with Him, align with Him, merge with Him, merge with life.
I’m reminded of the story in the Old Testament that comes from the desert when God released and set the Israelites free from Egyptian captivity that they had been under for hundreds of years. And they were let out miraculously and supernaturally at the hand of the leadership of Moses. As he was anointed and gifted by God and eventually they were out in somewhere in the middle of the wilderness, where there were no trees, there were no food or water for that matter. And God instructed Moses at one point to strike a rock. And that water would flow. And then thereafter just simply speak to the rock and sustenance and life would flow. You can go back and read that story. There’s an example of what happens when you open your mouth and speak out in other tongues… when you worship… when you praise Him. Amen.
Romans 8:10–11 in the Passion translation
“Now Christ lives his life in you. And even though your body may be dead because of the effects of sin, his life-giving spirit imparts life to you because you are fully accepted by God.” There’s somebody online this morning. You just need to close your eyes and imagine yourself being fully accepted, fully forgiven. And in some cases, there are some that need to imagine and see yourself forgiving yourself, like writing down everything you hold against yourself that you condemn yourself for. Maybe you believe God doesn’t condemn you or hold anything against you, but you hold some things against you. And you need to write those things down on a piece of paper and come before God and tear them up and see them being swallowed up by a sea of forgetfulness. Never to be resurrected in your life, heart or mind again.
Jesus unplugged us from every work of darkness…
Understand that Jesus unplugged us from the curse. He unplugged us from shame. He unplugged us from every work of darkness, every strategy of the enemy. He unplugged you from sickness, unplugged you from insufficiency and perpetual problems. But so many Christians plug back in via their soul. They imagine, they think, they speak under the an Old Covenant. They plug back in, in their minds with their stinking thinking. As it was said of those children of Israel that never did get to the Promised Land. So use your imagination to worship God this morning. Use your imagination and see yourself receiving life this morning in whatever way that you need it. Use your imagination and see the burden-removing, yolk-destroying power of God being set in motion in your innermost being in your body, in your external life, in that situation that you’ve been praying about. See it in your mind’s eye. Know that there is a confidence in the place of God. Without a doubt, you have been purchased with the price of the blood of the Son of God that you might occupy confidently a place of authority, a place of life, a place of dominion, a place where you know your place before Him. And can confidently come boldly as well into His throne room this morning and receive. Amen. Prayer is only effective when we first position ourselves to receive the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, receive His life, receive His direction, receive His granted prayers that He wants us to pray and to utter. Amen.
