Morning Chapel Prayer Playlist
Morning Chapel Prayer Today
Pastor Ken…
God is faithful and you can take that to the bank…
I have one thing to say this morning. I don’t know what you’re facing, what you’re going through personally, what you’re dealing with, but I just sense the Lord wants to remind us that … I’m not saying this is a “thus saith the Lord” or anything, but I just sense in my heart the Lord wants to remind us that He is faithful and to not think for a moment, not verbalize in your words or your language today or any other day or even give it one ounce of energy in your internal life, that God isn’t going to be faithful. You know that, right? You know that God is going to be faithful in that situation. He will come through for you. It may not look like it to your natural discernment, but in the spirit, God is at work in regard to that physical deal that you’re going through, that thing you have to walk out in a legal sense, maybe in the courts or with another party, maybe it’s a business thing or a family thing or an inheritance thing. I don’t know what it is for you. Maybe it’s something going on emotionally in your soul. Maybe it’s a decision you need to make. Maybe it’s just a season of life right now and it doesn’t look good or feel good or you don’t know that it’s going to ever change.
Well, I’m here just to simply announce and remind you this morning that God is faithful. He is still on His throne. His words still stands and rings true to all generations. You can take His Word to the bank. That is one thing that is not going to change. There’s no hesitation in the voice of the Spirit of God, even in this 21st century hour.
We don’t have to fear…
And if you need a little reminder… Can I just take a moment and remind myself if nobody else needs it? Or maybe you do too. But get this. The Word says, for example, in 2nd Thessalonians 3:3, “But the Lord is faithful and will strengthen you and protect you from the evil one.” We don’t have to fear though we live in this turbulent hour or regardless of the country you’re in right now, or the missions field you might be laboring in or the situation you’re going through. We don’t have to fear.
Let your roots sink deep into God…
Instead, the Bible teaches us to let your roots sink deep into your relationship with God, sink deep into His Word. You know, when you don’t know what to do or you don’t see things changing from your natural perspective, what do you do? You just go to work at putting your roots down and settling yourself and stabilizing yourself on the rock that is the revelation of His Word.
Rehearsing the faithfulness of God…
You put your roots down in rehearsing… I like to say rehearsing the faithfulness of God. Sometimes I’ll do that just when I’m driving down the road or when I’m in a moment of prayer, just because I enjoy it. My grandfather actually taught me that. He would always be rehearsing and telling a story of how God came through for him and what He did for him, and how He healed him of cirrhosis of the liver and cancer of the bladder and delivered him of alcoholism and turned his life around at 65 years old. Like the next week after he had retired, after years working, his life looked like it was coming to an end. But God had another plan.
So can I just prophesy that over you today, over your situation, your ministry, your finances today, perhaps your emotional state today? God has another plan and He has even factored in, as I like to say, failures and mistakes and missteps and false starts and abandonment. Some of us have been through abandonment. Some of you have been through betrayal. Some of you have been through all sorts of things, including the kitchen sink, the enemy threw at you.
The earth proclaims He is faithful…
But guess what? But God… had another plan! But God… and His grace is able to completely repurpose what you went through and use it to yours and His divine advantage and propel you forward for a brand new day. It’s not over. Ha ha ha! It’s not over because God has a plan for you today. He has provisioned for you today, tomorrow, and into the coming year of 2024 because He is faithful and His Word announces and annunciates His faithfulness from cover to cover. Yes, even the whole earth proclaims, He is faithful. He’s coming through for you. And if all you prayed today and all you said today over your life and what’s going on is “God is faithful,” that would be a good thing and that would be enough.
Let us hold unswervingly…
The Word also says in Hebrews 10:23, “Let us hold unswervingly…” In other words, don’t swerve like some of us do in traffic. “But hold unswervingly.” In other words, steadfastly. Be steady. Be immovable. Be a perpetual student of the Word. Just sink yourself into the Word. Just sit there. Sometimes what faith does and the best thing you could do on a given day is just sit in the presence of God. Just sit before His open Word. Pastor Lynne has taught us, “When you open His Book, He opens His mouth and He speaks.”
But, Ken, I need a miracle. How do I know if it’s God?
We need to first sit with Him…
Don’t worry about that. Just sit with Him today, tomorrow, the next day and journey day by day with Him in the stillness and quietness of and simplicity of your prayer closet, your kitchen table, a walk on a day hopefully warmer than today… But whatever the case is, God just wants to walk with us and talk with us. And wants to sit with us. But we need to first sit with Him and settle our hearts down in the awareness and the remembrance that He is faithful.
Hebrews 10:23 says, “Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess for he who promised is faithful.”
First Thessalonians 5:23–24 says, “May God himself the God of peace sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul, and body.” That pretty much covers it right there, right? Your whole spirit, soul, and body… “be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Verse 24 says, “The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it.” Oh yeah, that might be a good thing to write down and stick up on your mirror. The one who calls you is faithful and He will do it.
Deuteronomy 7:9 says, “Know therefore, that the Lord your God is God. And he is the faithful God keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commandments.”
Lamentations 3:22–23 says, “Because of the Lord’s great love, we are not consumed for his compassions never fail.” You can translate that into his kindnesses, his loving kindness, in other words. His compassion never fails. “They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness.”
Psalm 91:4 says, “He will cover you with his feathers. Under his wings, you will find refuge. His faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.” When you rehearse the faithfulness of God, much like King David who rehearsed the faithfulness of God and called to remembrance and celebrated the fact that God once gave him the ability, delivered him to kill the lion and kill the bear and keep him protected the whole time. He rehearsed that and put it up as a shield around his mind and around his heart, even in advance of going out and facing his greatest giant and enemy yet, which was Goliath.
His faithfulness is your shield…
So his faithfulness is your shield. Put up your shield today. Remind yourself what has God done for you. Be thankful. Be grateful. Stir that up in your heart and in your remembrance. It’ll act as a shield from the darts and the flaming arrows the enemy would like to send your way. It’ll extinguish them… nothing like the remembrance and celebrating of the faithfulness of God to extinguish the enemy’s attacks.
Psalm 119:90 says, “Your faithfulness continues through all generations. You establish the earth and it endures.”
Exodus 34:6 says, “And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness.”
So I felt like I just needed to say that this morning. Don’t even let the thought or the word come out of your mouth that God isn’t going to be faithful to you because He will. There is a timing factor often in His plans and what He wants to do, but He will be faithful. And He will—make no mistake about it—come through for you.
A couple of thoughts on Psalm 46…
Let me just share a couple of thoughts with you here this morning and actually one of the things I wanted to do is I wanted to read a passage or read Psalm 46. Just let this kind of settle your heart this morning. Let it be your prayer this morning. We’ll just agree on this. I’m going to read it from the Passion translation. It gives it kind of a postmodern spin. But it says in verse one,
“God, you’re such a safe and powerful place to find refuge.” He’s a refuge. You can run into Him as a refuge, into your relationship, into His Word, into worship, into prayer, and find safety.
“You’re a proven help in a time of trouble more than enough, and always available whenever I need you.” Isn’t that good? This is Psalms 46 from the Passion translation.
“So we will never fear even if every structure of support were to crumble away.” In other words, even if the foundation of the earth began to shake and sometimes it feels that way, right?
“We will not fear even when the earthquakes and shakes moving mountains and casting them into the sea. For the raging roar of stormy winds and crashing waves cannot erode our faith in you.” That’s a good prayer. Just pray that over your day.
“God has a constantly flowing river whose sparkling streams bring joy and delight to His people. His river flows right through the city of God most high and into His holy dwelling places.” Who are those holy dwelling places? A temple in Jerusalem. We are. Exactly. We’re His holy dwelling place. You are the holy dwelling place of God. That’s what the blood of Jesus and the redemptive work of God did… made you a new temple, a holy temple.
Verse five says, “God is in the midst of His city, secure and never shaken.” See yourself just not shaken. Founded on the Rock, winds may come, the waves may crash, darkness may look to be on the horizon, but we are unshakeable. He is with us. He is in us.
“At daybreak His help will be seen with the appearing of the dawn when the nations are in an uproar with their tottering kingdoms.” We’re seeing a lot of that right now.
“God simply raises His voice.” That’s why we want to listen and sit with Him. Because when He raises his voice, everything changes. All bets are off concerning the enemy.
“God simply raises His voice and the earth begins to disintegrate before Him.” This is the God we serve. He’s mighty in power.
“Here He comes, the commander, the mighty Lord of angel armies is on our side.” We don’t need to quake in our boots. If we do feel fear, we can still stand and not move. Sometimes you just got to do things afraid, feeling the nervousness or afraid-ness. That’s really what courage is. Courage doesn’t mean the absence of the feeling of fear or nervousness or whatever. It just means you do the right thing that is needed to be done regardless of how you feel. Because you have a higher command and a higher voice and a higher instruction from His Word. And when you do, your feelings change and fall in line with what the Word has to say. That’s faith.
That’ll preach, Pastor Ken! Well, I’m glad that you agree.
“The mighty Lord of angel armies is on our side. The God of Jacob fights for us.” And I don’t mean to be too much in the commentary, I know I am sometimes, but I think that’s where the church is at right now. I believe that to be the case where He’s wanting to reinforce us. He’s wanting our foundations to be sure and stable and fixed now. You and me personally. The church overall because the times that are before us from the natural perspective, look ominous. Not a lot of good things on the world stage look good on the horizon that’s ahead for us. But that doesn’t matter because our kingdom is not of this world. Amen. It is His kingdom that we’re a part of and a citizen of. So God is leading us to be more skillful in how we do our day, how we do our thoughts, how we make decisions, how we tend to our souls.
The Bible talks about your heart, your soul being like a garden. You’ve got to tend to it. You’ve got to sow and water and nourish it with the Word, with His presence, with the skillful use of your decision making as far as the thoughts you think and the words you speak, the people you associate with. We have a responsibility for it to be pray-ers and believers to gain and garner wisdom as to how to live.
And one of the things God is directing and I believe leading us collectively in is to put our roots down, to settle down, and to be stable and fixed upon the eternal reality of who we are in Him and what we possess and what we can do as intercessors.
For example, we’re called to trample and tread on serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy. But that begins by dealing with the anxiety that we put up with or let limit us on a given day. We’ve all done things to avoid pressure, to release the pressure because “that’s too hard. I feel nervous about that. I don’t think I can do that.” And so we go an easy, natural way.
But God has called us to the way less traveled. I would say and suggest it’s the way of faith that requires we grow stronger with each passing day, that we become immovable in our faith, grounded in His love, and more and more in the realities of what has been revealed to us through our relationship with Jesus. Bold and unashamed, that we are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. That we have been made holy because He is holy. That we’ve been handed weapons to wage a good warfare to repel forces of darkness. And as I said, as intercessors and pray-ers tread on serpents and scorpions. And as the old phrase says, “dispatch the enemy.” Run him through with the Word, the sword of the Word of God. Push back darkness with a decree. Take up our stance in the spirit and pray in harmony with the Holy Spirit who prays in and through us in harmony with the will of God. We are called to be the true spiritual giants in the earth.
