Morning Chapel Prayer Playlist
Morning Chapel Prayer Today
Pastor Ken…
Happy Wednesday, everyone. Good morning, good afternoon, maybe good evening. It’s good to have you with us. My name is Ken Olson, if you don’t already know.
The Father’s agenda…
But before we get into worship, can I just share a couple of quick things with you? When I get up to lead morning prayer, I’m always just aware of God the Holy Spirit. Hopefully, I’m practicing that regularly. But especially with morning prayer, it’s not about what is on my agenda or your agenda, but what’s on the Father’s agenda. What does He intend to do today? What is His plan? What is He saying?
William Seymour from Azusa Street Revival…
I want to share something with you that is a quote from William Seymour, who was one of the participants and really one of the leaders of the Azusa Street Revival back in the early part of the 20th century. And he really spearheaded the Azusa Street Revival and he said, “Pray more. There are better things to be had in the spiritual life, but they must be sought out with faith and prayer.”
Lester Sumrall quote…
And then another great man of God by the name of Lester Sumrall once said, “Prayer is the council chamber where divine commands are issued, where the believer obtains solutions to his or her problems and receives the divine infilling of divine energy.”
In other words, the presence of God. Oh, how I was reminded this morning of the presence of God and its significance. It’s not about what we can muster up or what our best ideas might bring to the table. It’s about His presence. I’m so grateful for that. I am humbled by that and stay humble because the more you’re humble, the more His grace flows. And the more His anointing and His favor operates on your behalf and on behalf of His plan. I love that.
I’m always reminded under the Old Covenant, wherever the representative presence of God went, that being the Arc, I like to say…
The grass grew greener,
The tomatoes were fuller,
Israel’s enemies were defeated every single time,
There was protection,
There was provision,
There was a lot of winning going on.
Every day is for Winning!
God has set us up to win. Oh, that’s a good word for a Wednesday morning. Wednesday’s for winning! Every day’s for winning when we go with God. And so don’t get it mixed up.
It’s not about your best religious performance.
It’s not about your most articulate prayers.
It’s not about your most energized prayers.
It’s about us acknowledging ahead of prayer even, the favor of God, the hand of God on us, the infilling and the ever-presentness of His Spirit in our lives and in our collective gathering across digital platforms and in this place today.
It’s His presence that’s the difference maker.
It’s His presence that changes the game.
It’s His presence that goes before us and makes a way.
It’s His presence that causes things to fall into line in your life and causes things to work and for doors to be open and blessings to flow and for you to be at the right place, at the right time to pray, to preach the Gospel, to receive a blessing or step through a new open door that He’s assigned for you.
It’s His presence. Plain and simple, it’s His presence.
So it should be no surprise that He went to great lengths and with a great price, that being His Son, to make a way, God the Father, for Him to insert Himself once again into a humanity. For Him to make a way for God the Holy Spirit, that third person of the triune Godhead, to live inside of us. Because it’s His presence. It’s His presence.
Don’t look to the failure…
Yes, you may have failed. Yes, you may have messed up yesterday, this morning. I don’t know. Don’t look to the failure. Don’t look to the mistake. Don’t be bore sighted on what you messed up or what you didn’t do right, or what you didn’t do perfectly. It’s not about you. It’s not about what you must do.
Instead, Christianity is all about “done…”
DONE. Jesus “done” some work for us. Excuse my English. But He did a work and it’s completed. It’s finished. And we just simply need to receive that finished work, stay focused on that finished work, which released His presence long ago from the Holy of Holies in the temple. His presence was released so that no longer will we have to pilgrimage to the hill in Jerusalem. But instead, He chose to be with us everywhere we go. And to be an ever-present supply of grace and mercy and forgiveness.
Remember that repentance changes things…
Repentance is an act of spiritual warfare. So recognize the Holy Spirit’s presence in your life and take advantage of His mercy. Take advantage of His grace. Keep your heart bowed toward Him, especially when you mess up. Just quickly, get back to that place of connection with Him. Quickly take advantage of His blood. Quickly lean into His presence. He’s capable of cleansing you from all unrighteousness. Now and perpetually.
Lester Summer, let me finish this quote…
Lester said that prayer is the council chamber where divine commands are issued, where a believer obtains solutions to his or her problems and receives a divine infilling of divine energy. Every outstanding person of God in history has been a person of prayer. It is not possible to possess great dominion and not return constantly to the Master, to receive instructions from Him in its use. The act of praying generates omnipotence or unlimited power. And it generates continual communion with the commander who assures victory.
Let me read a couple scriptures…
First Peter 5:7 says, “Cast your anxiety on Him because He cares for you.” There’s plenty of grace to deal with what is tempting you to worry about and for you to take care of today. You don’t have to. You can resist taking the care. You can resist worry because His grace is there for you.
Psalm 94:19 says, “When anxiety was great within me, your consolation brought me joy.”
Philippians 4:6–7 says, “Don’t worry about anything. Instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need and thank Him for all He has done.”
Stay focused on the finished work…
In other words, thank Him for His finished work. Jesus finishing His earthly ministry and the work of the cross means that He has made a complete and never ending and always replenishing supply of freedom, of mercy, of grace, of power, of provision for our lives. Stay focused on the finished work.
This passage goes on to say…
“Tell God what you need and thank Him for all He has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds everything we can understand.”
So right now, just exhale any toxicity of anxiety or worry or concerns or angst or unforgiveness you have toward another or even toward yourself. Anything at all, any pollution of the age or the world that we live in, just exhale that right now and draw a fresh breath of God’s peace and presence into your lungs, into your very being this morning.
A great transition is coming…
Now this is something interesting. Maybe you’ve heard this. I heard it twice yesterday actually from two different ministers. One’s very well known. Actually he has come and has spoken as a guest minister here at Living Word a number of times. Another minister, I don’t know. But within a span of a few minutes, I was listening to some things and I heard both of them say to the effect of, “You must pray because there’s coming a great transition. There’s a great transition coming. Pray to prepare the way and pray to be prepared.”
A shaking is coming…
This is something I also heard from one of them, which is something we prayed often about, and that’s a shaking. And this particular minister said, “We’re going to see a great shaking to awaken.” So I don’t know, just let that settle in your heart. If that registers with you, great. But I want us to pray about that a little bit. The transition. First, we don’t know the outworking fully of a transition, but firstly, it’s spiritual. And perhaps it’s already happened or it’s in progress right now.
Spiritual transitions aren’t always discernible by your intellect or your five physical senses. But make no mistake about it, God has a plan for this generation and there’s a transition occurring. And it’s going to, I believe, show up in the natural, show up in people’s lives, show up in the church, show up in America. A good God ordained transition.
Repentance…
And that reminds me, the reason I had repentance on my mind and I said something earlier is because this is a good time for us to employ repentance.
Just the other day… I’ll just tell on myself. I think it was in a meeting actually, and something hit me like, “Oh my gosh, I failed in this area. I made a mistake over here.” I thought of something very specific and I didn’t even realize it. And I had to repent. “Lord, forgive me.”
Repentance initiates change…
Repentance is an act of spiritual warfare. The enemy does not like it. That’s an understatement. When we repent, when we humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God, when we invite Him through His Spirit to change us, to interrupt us, to address what’s going on, on the inside of us.
Sometimes that’s the prayer God is calling for in our individual lives. He’s saying, “Hey, my son, my daughter, I simply want you just to turn to me and acknowledge me and invite me into what’s going on inside of you.”
Sometimes we don’t even know. You’d have to pray, “Lord, help me to understand what’s going on. I feel emotional, or I feel up and down, or I feel tempted in this way, or I feel hopeless, or I feel… You fill in the blank. The God we serve isn’t just spiritual. He wants us to encounter Him emotionally as well in our souls. But He waits to be invited.
Why is that important?
Because as your soul goes, so goes your life. Paul wrote in John 3:2, “Beloved, I desire.” In other words, the will of God is that He desires that you would prosper and be in health and do well, even as or in correlation to how your soul is going, how your soul is doing, your mind, your will, and emotions. So there’s a great preparation in the midst and out ahead, perhaps, of this transition. And it is one collective in nature, meaning it’s across the body of Christ. I believe that judgment starts in the house of God. Not a judgment to banish you to a bad place, but a judgment that addresses what’s broken, what’s missing, what’s out of joint, what’s been put up with too long in our lives that we ought not put up with anymore.
Because the glory is on its way…
The glory is being poured out. And the glory demands that we level up in how we are doing our lives, that we no longer live on the fence line or in some mediocre middle place. But instead that we step over that line of mediocrity and that line of putting up with this or that, that line of sin, that line of disobedience.
And disobedience doesn’t have to be what we would label as outright horrible sin. It might just be you haven’t responded to the Lord and His invitation to build a prayer life, to take that next step, to forgive someone, to let go of the past. So that you can lift your eyes and see the future that is before you, that the Lord has already prepared and has in mind for you.
So there’s a great preparation, yes, in the lives of believers, yes, in the church.
So I just encourage you, search your heart in these coming days. See what the Lord is up to and what He would say to you and what He wants to address in your life.
