Pastor Ken…
Good morning, everyone. Happy Wednesday morning.
That we would give ourselves to prayer like the early church…
This morning I was just pondering a little bit about this great opportunity to pray that’s been given to us, to literally live and breathe the breath of God, to draw in and to exhale the breath of our Creator through prayer. And one of the things that I have never intended and don’t want to do is, I don’t want to foster or encourage a consumeristic prayer culture. Before I came down here, I was thinking about what was on my heart to pray about, and honestly, one of the things that was big in my heart to pray about and to just lift up to the Father is that we would be drawn into prayer. That we wouldn’t just view from afar, that we would like it says in Act 6:4 of the early church we’d give ourselves continually to prayer, that we would cultivate the very spirit of prayer. The Holy Spirit is actually called that in the scripture, the spirit of prayer. In other words, His very aura is prayer. All of heaven is standing at attention with us today. Standing at attention, waiting for us to give ourselves to Him.
Prayer is more surrender than anything, a yieldedness…
As I’ve said before, prayer is more surrender than anything. It’s more yieldedness than anything. And it would be my prayer that we would be inspired, challenged, and be drawn into the things of the Spirit, drawn into prayer because of this morning prayer gathering, whether it’s streamed or you’re here physically. Because if there’s anything the Spirit of God is praying about or Jesus is interceding about is for us to co-labor with Him, to cooperate with Him. Whether it’s the fact that your life is going well or not so well.
“Wait a minute, I need to pray for him!”
I wrote this down a while back. And I said, “If you will take time to pray, not just observe prayer, consume prayer, but give yourself to prayer, even if it’s just a moment where you just lift up somebody’s name…” This morning, a pastor that I happened to know just came across my mind and I was thinking about him and wondering how he was doing and reflecting on some things he’s been through. And then slow maybe as I was, I realized, “Wait a minute, I need to pray for him. I just need to lift him up,” as I was getting ready this morning. That’s prayer. That’s a form of prayer.
We must learn to pick up on our prayer cues…
So I just want to kind of tune up your spiritual discernment this morning to recognize that the Spirit of prayer, the Holy Spirit, is perpetually transmitting assignments and sending things to our hearts that we would pick up on them. Like Pastor Lynne used to teach, “pick up on our prayer cues.” He’s putting cards in front of us. Cue cards, if you will, saying, “Lift this person up. Pray about this.” We have been equipped. We have been made replete with the fullness of Jesus and all that He is arrayed with and all that He received through His redemptive work. Not so that we can just come out of our past or break free from the bondage of sin and be okay. We have been made complete and whole and fulfilled in Him so that we can go. God is now more than ever orchestrating His plan through prayer. And we’re part of that. Essential. Important part of that. So give yourself to prayer. Practice yielding to Him, don’t just listen to me or whoever’s leading up here, but have an ear to heaven, have an ear to your heart and sense what He’s saying and begin to practice picking up on what the Spirit is transmitting to you. An idea, a concept, a solution, a prayer that He wants you to pray. Heaven is inviting us to pray now more than ever. Even when Jesus was still on the earth…
Quote from Pastor Ken’s personal notes…
I didn’t actually read what I wrote down. A while back I wrote down, “If you will take time to pray about what God wants you to pray about, to spend time with Him, things will change. Things will change for you. Healing will come and blessings will knock on your door. In Jesus’ life when He was on the earth, He said this as recorded in the gospel of John 16:23–24. Jesus was speaking of the day when He would arise and go to the right hand of His Father and send the Holy Spirit, the great and mighty Holy Spirit. Remember He was the one that said, “Hey guys,” to His disciples and to us, “It’s advantageous for your benefit, your profit that I go to the Father because when I go to the Father, then I can send the promise or down payment on your salvation. The promised Holy Spirit, who will be with you, live in you.”
I think that’s a good thing to practice in prayer just to remind yourself. You are inhabited with God. Understand that God, the Holy Spirit, is co-equal with God, the Father and God the Son. He carries the fullness of the Godhead to the earth to inhabit us the fullness of His wisdom, the fullness of His design and desires. And make no mistake about it, it is God’s desire that you and I receive answers to prayer.
He’s given us a “blank check…”
I’ll point out what I pointed out yesterday. Nowhere in the gospels does Jesus teach how to deal with situations where you’re not receiving answers to prayer, because He never not once didn’t receive answers to prayer. He always received answers in His prayers. Because prayer is designed to be answered. As it’s inspired of the Spirit, inspired of His Word. And so Jesus, one day speaks over us today, long ago, when He said, “and in that day…” That’s today. “You will ask me nothing. Most assuredly, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in my name, He will give it you.” In other words, this is a blank check. Do you realize that God gives you a blank check every day? That’s powerful. What could be changed today? What doors of possibility could be thrust open today? If we would simply use our language, use our intentionality, use our yieldedness, use our opportunity to pray. God wants to manifest the miraculous in this generation in this moment, in this hour. Not only in your set of circumstances or in your symptoms, but in your neighborhood and in your city and in your nation. Why, of course, God wants to do the miraculous. Why, of course, He wants to demonstrate the works of Jesus and greater.
The clearest illustration of God’s love when the miraculous comes into being…
In many ways it is the clearest illustration of God’s love when the miraculous comes into being. And that’s possible as we co-labor with Him. As we see ourselves as those virtual portals of the Spirit that God wants to pour Himself through to bring, once again, heaven to earth. Heaven is waiting. Heaven stands at attention. Heaven is replete with resources and divine intentionality and all power and wisdom and grace and what’s needed not only for you and for me, but for culture in nations and unprecedented situations that are presently being reported about on the news.
But heaven waits for earth to call out...
It’s a spiritual principle. Heaven responds in reply to earth’s call. God looks over the balcony, one great prayer writer said one time, God looks over urgently and expectantly the balconies of heaven, looking for His Word reflected like a mirror back unto Him. His promises, His heart… Prayer is as much connecting with the heart of God, picking up on the spirit of prayer and what He’s saying and what God’s heart is beating for and simply then repeating that back to Him, reflecting that back to Him. Maybe in words of your own understanding, maybe in a groan, maybe in a simple song of worship, maybe just in one heartfelt “Lord, I lift that up to you.”
Ask that your joy may be full…
God can do way more than we have ever dreamed of and imagined as we just simply yield to Him and synchronize ourselves with His intent and His Word. Let me read this again. “Jesus said, and in that day you will ask nothing in my name. Most assuredly, I say to you whatever you ask the Father in My name, He will give it you.” That’s you. That’s not Pastor Mac. It’s not Kenneth Copeland. That’s you. He’s speaking of you and me. “Until now, Jesus says you’ve asked nothing in My name, ask and you will receive that your joy may be full.”
I have to just say, we can’t overlook that. It appears in this instance and in others the joy is directly connected with our prayer lives. Jesus, it said, had more joy than all his brethren. He was the most joyful person you would ever meet in His earthly ministry. And it was a result of His determination to pray and stay connected to His Heavenly Father. You need joy today? You need peace today? You need to have your emotions stabilized today? Do you have need in a situation that you don’t know what to do about or a decision you need to make and you’re not sure which direction go in? Surrender yourself to Him. You don’t even need to figure out how to pray or what to ask or how to ask it. Just surrender yourself to Him. Say, “Jesus, I just yield to you today. I come to you today. I present myself to you today in your very presence.” He’s hovering over you today. He’s right there with you.
Kenneth Hagin thought highly of E.W. Kenyon…
I love what E.W. Kenyon said. He actually quotes Ephesians 6:13 in his book, “In His Presence.” Kenyon was a great author and minister who brother Kenneth Hagin thought highly of. And if I recall correctly, shortly after brother Hagin was promoted to heaven, somebody went into his office and took a picture of brother Hagin’s office and what was on his desk and on his bookshelves. And I believe on his desk at that moment, shortly after he passed, was a book by brother E.W. Kenyon. And how many of you know that brother Hagin definitely was an apostle of faith and a great man of God and had remarkable results and miracles, and fruitfulness in his years of ministry. So the fact that he seemed to look to Kenyon as something interesting and significant to me, as somebody that he read after and learned from.
Quote from E.W. Kenyon’s book, “In His Presence”
But in Kenyon’s book, he quotes Ephesians 6:13, which says, “Take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day and having done all to stand, stand therefore having girded your loins with truth and having put on the breastplate of righteousness and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace with all taking up the shield of faith.” Come on now, raise up your shield of faith today, right? With the remembrance of what God’s Word says, “wherewith you shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the evil one and take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God, with all prayer and supplication, praying at all seasons in the spirit and watching there unto in all perseverance and supplication for all the saints.”
Kenyan writes, “You notice by this translation that the object of the Christian soldier’s coat of armor is that they may enter the prayer fight. Preaching and personal work our God honored and blessed vocations or ministries, but prayer is the foundation of it all. A man might preach with the eloquence of Henry Ward Beecher. He might have the skill of a diplomat, but he will fall short of his ministry in both fields if he isn’t backed up by the prayer life.”
I’m telling you, this is the answer. This is not a cliche. You should pray. Your prayers changes thing. It is the answer. It is to be the heartbeat of the church. It is to be the transforming power in culture and in every situation to be given to prayer.
Kenyon quote continued…
“The failure of all Christian enterprise is a prayer failure. Prayer alone gives success. There are many different kinds of prayer. There is simple petition, lifting up its sentences in Jesus’s name to a heart of love. There is persistent tenacious prayer that will not yield until the answer comes. There’s prevailing prayer that overcomes every obstacle and finally lands the answer in the harbor of peace. There is a battle prayer with its tears and agony and it’s intense yearning. There is quiet prayer of faith whose voice has never lifted above a whisper. But whose persistent faith shakes the very throne of heaven. There is a prayer without ceasing that seems to perfume every act of the one who prays persistently. Then there is the unconscious attitude of prayer. Paul says, “praying at all times in the spirit with all manner of prayer.”
It’s so fragrant right now here in Minnesota. I don’t know how it is where you are, but flowering crabs are out. The lilacs are blooming. There’s so much fragrance in the air. The Bible says that when you pray, this is you emitting a fragrance, the fragrance and the loveliness and the goodness of God into the atmosphere of your home, into the atmosphere of your marketplace assignment, into the atmosphere of your church. Wherever you are, you are emitting the fragrance and the fullness of God when you pray.
Kenyon quote continues…
He goes on to say, “How desperately the nation needs it. How desperately the church needs it. Nothing can take the place of prayer. Every believer should go into the school of prayer with Christ and actually learn the secret of prayer. The precious ministry of intercession. The prayer of intercession is the prayer for another, not for self. It is the prayer that passes out from your domain, your realm, into the realm of another. Jesus ever lives to make intercession at the right hand of the Father. The Holy Spirit oftentimes makes intercession that cannot be uttered in words. Often we are depressed. We cannot understand it or see any reason for it. It is the Holy Spirit in agony reaching through us to the Father.”
Pastor Ken expounded…
I think I’ve actually shared that before. When you sense that you’re melancholy or feel down or depressed even, don’t always chalk it up, “Oh, the devil must be attacking me.” It might be that there’s something waiting on you in the spirit and our response no matter what it is, should be to lean in through praying in the Spirit. Through waiting on God through giving ourselves to Him. Because it could be the very thing that He’s using to propel you to pray until that thing lifts off of you. It could be you’re identifying with someone who is going through a struggle or is at the door of considering suicide or giving up in some way. And it’s up to us to respond in that moment with the Holy Spirit that we might change the trajectory of that person’s life or that situation.
Kenyon quote continued…
He goes on to say, “If our spirits were only fruitful, perhaps we could understand the language and the agony of the Spirit in His mighty outreaching towards the throne of grace. If our lives were only more perfectly under His sway, a.k.a. yieldedness, in other words, He might be able to breathe His passion through our conscious faculties in His mighty agony for lost men and women. Often our spirits are dull though, and He cannot communicate His passion and yearning through them to our minds. So it becomes unintelligible agony, “groanings which cannot be uttered,” Romans 8:26.
“I suppose this is the reason why certain men and women are led to become the prayer channels for a whole congregation. So that few of us in our busy lives take time to pray that the Spirit searches through the congregation for willing hearts that will deny themselves some of the common pleasures. And will be first in line of prayer instead of last. On these willing hearts rolls the burden of the entire church. Thank God that in our church are those who are willing to set aside a whole nights in prayer, who will leave the joy of visiting with loved ones and hideaway alone with Him to take the burden and take my burden and yours that we may in some way have failed to roll on the Lord. They encompass our Jericho with their persistent intercession. It is a pity that more of us do not force ourselves into prayer. We have the time. We use it in useless talk or careless reading while the Spirit is searching for an outlet. …
He goes on to say, “If you live with the Lord in secret, you will be able to pray with great freedom in public. Unconsciously we call upon the people to pray who are praying. Seldom will the spiritual mind reach out to an unspiritual life for help. It is only when we are clutching at straws that we do it. You see, prayer has several elements. It brings you into personal fellowship and touch with the Father and with the Holy Spirit and with Jesus, all three of the Godhead are brought into the prayer life. You are praying to the Father. You are praying in the name of Jesus. You are praying through the Holy Spirit. Your prayer is based upon the Word. It brings this earth heart of ours into contact with the heavenly center of all divine power and activity. The quietness, the unshaken faith, the deep unsounded peace that pervades the Godhead will overflow into the life of the one who prays.
“One cannot spend an hour in conscious communion with the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit and the Word without carrying away from that place the fragrance that fills the atmosphere. There is a heavenly fragrance about Jesus that lingers with those who pray.”
Pastor Ken…
I’m going to stop right there actually.
Prayed…
Father, we thank you for those words that remind us of the significance of relationship with you. We just honor you this morning, and we just surrender our hearts and lives to you.
Lord, that you would just impart the fragrance of your spirit, that you would impart what is stirring in the spirit…
Father, help us to see it… agendas, yes, even agendas … oh holy agendas… divinely appointed agendas…
We fling open the door of divine agenda today… open up in Jesus’ name…. element, elements, elements. We lift up the elements.
Mysteries, mysteries… assignments … secret things … open up, open up that we might see in Jesus’ name…
We make a way today … we pray for a highway today, Father … that you would make a way Lord, that you would make a way in America … that you would make a way in our churches, in our families… We pray for pathways, highways…
open up, open up in Jesus’ name… out, out pathways and highways out of destruction, out of that situation, out of the clutches of the enemy, out of darkness and into life out of hopelessness and into a bright and beautiful and burgeoning new day…
We pray for highways and pathways for the plan of God to advance and be precipitated now, like never before … in roads, in roads into situations, inroads into the political arena… we pray for inroads into churches… inroads into souls… inroads today… opening up … it’s imperative… open up …
This is a season of openings… a season of fresh starts … a season of God coming to earth and being put on full display…
Our heart cry…
So we say to the Father, “Lord, use me. Let me be that which you pour yourself through, that which your grace and your love and your glory and your goodness can be put on display through me, through us, through your very church, Lord” … that’s our heart cry and our prayer today… that you would clothe us, that you would open up and clothe us with some new things, with some new things now … things we’ve not seen, our ear hasn’t heard, our eye hasn’t glimpsed before… yeah, yeah, yeah.
New things are coming…
Some brand new things coming your way today. Oh, so open up, open up to the spirit… cooperate with Him. Just say, Lord, whatever you want. I turn myself over to you, whatever you want as a pastor, as a leader, as a mom, as a dad, as a teenager… whatever stage or place you find yourself in, simply turn yourself over to the Father of Spirits, to the creator of heaven and earth and say, Lord, have your way… I’m willing to go with you. I’m willing to flow with you. I’m willing and want to be filled with you. I’m hungry for you today. I must have you more and more. I can’t stay in this place where I’ve been. I must go to where you are…
Prayer about a season of unprecedentedness…
And so it is a season of openings… It is a season of new things… It is a season, oh yeah, of unprecedentedness, of unprecedented display of glory… we declare Lord that you will have your way. We declare that God will get glory in this hour, like no other hour. We declare … a mighty move of God is breaking forth on the scene of America … on the scene of your nation… we declare revival… We declare displays of the miraculous and the glorious and the goodness and fullness of God.
Prayer about a turning of hearts…
Oh, we declare today… we prophesy today is not only a day of openings, but it’s a day of a turning of hearts, turning of children, spiritual children, and natural children back to their Father’s heart… turning in Jesus’ name, turning of hearts…
Declarations over people…
Even right now, we just speak over people. Some we may know, some we don’t… you might just see a face or hear a name of somebody you don’t know, regardless right now, Father, together across this great prayer movement this morning, we pray for a holy arrestings, that the Spirit of God would go out and arrest people today and capture their attention and grab them with lovingly and graciously and help their eyes to be turned back to God.
Prayer about divine assignments and appointments…
We pray for divine assignments and appointments and opportunities and bridges to be presented to people today, to cross back over wherever they have drifted to wherever they’ve gone that they would cross back over into the place of God… back into the place of prayer for some … over into the plan of God and the divinely appointed lane that’s been assigned to them as far as their journey is concerned.
We pray for on-ramps and off-ramps and bridges and opportunities. And even the angelic to show up in people’s lives today … we pray for people’s attention to be garnered today. for people to be captivated by a sense of God, by an awakening in their hearts…
Prayer for interruption of the regularly scheduled programming…
You will not have them, Devil. We say whether it’s our own family members or friends or brothers or sisters in the church or others we don’t know, we say “no weapon formed against them will prosper today. And we declare a breaking off of demonically assigned strongholds. We command those strongholds to be broken today. We command captives to be loosed in Jesus’ name. We command… those mindsets to come off. Those spirit-induced mindsets to be broken today… for their to be an interruption of the regularly scheduled programming of the enemy in people’s lives. We command there to be an interruption and for those signals and that content that’s controlling those people to be interrupted today, broken off today, taken an off the air…
Prayer for divine help for Ukraine…
We just send light out today. We send hope out today. We send divine help today to those who are hurting, to those who are broken … and to those who are in harm’s way such as Ukrainians and others in that nation today… we lift them to you and we pray for divine intervention in the lives of the church, in the lives of believers in the Ukraine right now… that you would supernaturally turn hopeless situations, supernaturally manifest we pray in the lack and in insufficiency and in hunger and in pain and in devastation and loss… we pray today, Father, for inroads into that nation and into those people … and into the church there, Lord …
That what would come in the wake of what has happened, Lord, would be an inroad in a pathway that leads to something even greater in regards to the plan of God and the compassion of God for a great land, for a great people, for a nation, Lord…
Prayer for mercy and help to the leaders…
We just lift up that land, Father, to you today, and we pray for mercy over them… And we pray for help, Lord, that help would be sent in spiritually, practically in answers and in revival, Lord … move in the hearts of leaders there in the church and in the civic arena … that you’d move in the hearts of leaders to be strategic in their decision-making … to be strategic in their next moves now … to be strategic in what you’ve called them to do … very strategic in Jesus’ name … and timely…
Prayer for eyes to be opened in Ukraine and here at home…
Thank you, Father. Thank you, Jesus… open eyes, open eyes, Lord… we pray for eyes to be open… both in the Ukraine and right here in our land and our nation and in your nation wherever you are today… we pray for eyes to be opened… We stand against deception… we stand against an onslaught of end days’ deception … we will raise up a banner in the spirit. We raise up a standard of the blood of Jesus …