Morning Chapel Prayer Playlist
Morning Chapel Prayer Today
Worship leader Kathy…
Good morning, everybody. We’re glad you’re joining us.
I’ve been stuck in Psalm 145 for a while in a whole bunch of translations. This is actually the ERV, which means the Easy to Read Version. It actually takes kind of what we would call “Christianese” out of it. It’s really good for baby Christians who might not understand all of the complicated words that are sometimes used in some of the other translations.
Psalm 145:1–3 says this…
“I will tell of your greatness, my God and King. I will praise your name forever and ever. 2 I will praise you every day. I will praise your name forever and ever. 3 The Lord is great and deserves all our praise! No one can fully understand his greatness!”
His greatness is so far beyond anything we can imagine. You think of the most amazing thing about God and it’s even beyond that, right? Which is why it’s going to take us all of eternity to learn about Him and to worship Him. Because He’s so far beyond what our minds can imagine, which is why He can do more than we can imagine. Because He is beyond more than we can imagine.
It’s your breath in our lungs…
And thinking about His greatness, there’s a song we do a lot, which we’ll do here in a minute. Great are you Lord. But there’s a line in here that really stuck out to me that says, “It’s your breath in our lungs.” Well, there is a word that actually when you translate it “breath” can also mean “spirit.” It’s His Spirit in us. It’s His breath.
You are my breath…
And on the way here, the phrase that kept coming to me was, “You are my breath. You give me breath.” And somehow, He can do both. And that is His greatness. Somehow, He can be my breath and give me breath, like, right? And that should create wonder. Wonder is a good thing for us.
So we’re going to start with a song that most of you probably know. We’re going to start with “Great Are You Lord.” But I don’t want you to just sing this because we know it really well. I actually want you to think about His greatness, whatever that thing… it could be you stood out and looked at the night sky and it took your breath away. It could be God healed me from “fill in the blank.” There is something in each of our lives that makes us go, “He is great.” So while we sing this, think about whatever that is. Let that not just touch your spirit but actually leak out onto your face.
Sister Cindy…
Thank you, Father, for your Word. The entrance of your Word to bring peace to every distress. Thank you, Father, for the fitting of your Word.
Worship leader Kathy…
So there’s a passage in Exodus three, where Moses is just going about his ordinary day. And all of a sudden this bush lights on fire. And like any of us, Moses freaks out. I mean, I think we would all agree that that would be shocking. This bush he’s walked by hundreds of times is suddenly on fire and talking to him. And Moses has all these questions like, “Okay, God, but what about this? And I can’t do this.” Sound familiar to any of us? And basically, I remember reading in one of Pastor Lynne’s books that she pointed out that basically God kept saying, “But I’m here. I am the answer. My presence is your answer. It’s going to be fine. I’m with you.” Over and over. If you read that, basically everything comes down to “I’m here. I know what I’m doing. It’s okay. I know I picked you. I get that. It’s okay.”
Which is why when we spend time in His presence, the peace comes. And we feel like, “Okay, but I don’t know anything more than I did 10 minutes ago or 20 minutes ago.” But your spirit and your soul feel different. It’s because He is the answer.
Cindy…
Kathy, you’re saying that He’s greater. He’s so much greater than we can imagine and think. And we’ll take all of eternity to plumb the depths of His greatness and the heights and the breath and the width and…
He is the source of contentedness…
The verse that was coming up in my heart was that when our hearts condemn us, He’s greater than our hearts. And He knows all things. He’s the source of our contentedness. When we’re discontented, no matter what the circumstances are, we anchor our hope in the greatness of God; the greatness of His plan is working out through the age. And had the enemy known, he wouldn’t have crucified the Lord of Glory. Those places where we don’t know and we don’t understand, we know He’s working. He’s working for the glory, a greater glory to be on display… and the boldness and the courage that comes… comes from just looking to Him. And being radiant with the light that He is shining on us in order to reflect it to the world.
Thanksgiving…
And it’s surprising, because our trust is in you, Father, the author and the finisher, and the one who’s walking it out through the whole messy middle. Thank you, Father, with us. One of the names of God is “with us Emmanuel.” And if God is with us and He said He’s for us, who can be against us? Even in the trouble, even in the distress, and even in the contradicting circumstances that surround us and want to speak into our lives.
We say, “Let God be true and every man a liar.”
Because He has appointed unto us places and spaces to walk, the glory growing brighter with every step because we’re locked in step with you… not because we’re so great, but because you are great and your plan is being beamed forth or shining on us that we would beam it forth just as you planned, just as you please.
Glory, glory, glory to your name in and through the church, which is the hope of our glory, that the manifold wisdom of God, your ways, your plans, your purposes might be on display through the church.
So we mount up once more and again. We don’t allow our feathers to fall because the wind of His Spirit, the breath of God, our life is blowing through the house today. So He’s lifting us to higher heights than we would be able to find on our own.
Worship leader Kathy…
Because eagles don’t have to make an effort when they fly. So when you mount up with wings like eagles, you’re not making an effort. They just ride the storm. They just ride the wind of the Spirit, right?
Cindy…
So the Word says to wait on the Lord. You wait for that thing that’s coming, as sure as the sun rises in the morning. Because when you set your hope on Him, He most surely comes. He says stand still and see the salvation of the Lord. Our confidence is in Him. “It’s not by might nor by power, but it’s by My Spirit. Will you go with Me?”
He’s beckoning us to walk with Him…
And when you were singing earlier, I was seeing Peter on the boat saying, “Lord, if that’s you, bid me to come.” It’s like we want to walk out on the water and you’re calling us to walk out on the water in places that we have never gotten before. And we’re not used to. But you’re beckoning us to come. We’re walking on the Word, the washing of the water of the Word, and now we’re walking with our Savior Jesus. If you’ve seen Jesus, you’ve seen the Father. We most surely live a life of looking into Jesus’ eyes. And being transformed.
Book by David Wilkerson about the names of God…
I just have a little reading and it’s interesting. This is a book by David Wilkerson about the names of God. He says “Those that know My name, He will save and he will do great exploits.” Because His name is His character. And what He is He will do through you. He is the healer, the God that healeth you. He is your banner of victory. He will have victory through him. As you simply look in His eyes.
Jehovah Shalom…
So this is the name Jehovah Shalom. Every year at harvest time, Israel was invaded by the Midianites and the enemies knew exactly when Israel’s fields and vineyards became ripe and when the cattle gave birth. And for seven straight years, they migrated to Israel’s borders on their camels camped just beyond the outskirts and waited. Then when the time was right, they swooped down on Israel like locusts and descended on the fields, taking everything in sight, fruit crops, cattle, and literally wiped out the harvest leaving God’s people impoverished. They destroyed the increase of the earth and left no substance for Israel.
The Israelites were dumbfounded by it all. For years, they had to live in caves for protection. They held prayer meetings in those caves and cried out to God. “Lord, we’ve not forsaken you. You see us calling on you day and after day weeping and interceding. Please tell us why this is happening. Why did we have to endure such trouble from our enemies? Why don’t we enjoy your peace Shalom anymore as we did under your servant Deborah. Why don’t we see your work on our behalf?”
The Lord delivers them …
Let me point out here that not all trouble, which comes upon believers is a result of sin. The Psalmist writes, “Many are the afflictions of the righteous,” Psalms 34:19. Yet note the second half of this verse: “but the Lord delivers him out of them all.” According to God’s Word, our Lord in His time delivers His righteous servants out of their afflictions. They don’t have to live in constant state of distress. Mount up, wait on God, look to Him and be illumined. Take strength. Take courage in the mighty name of Jesus. His presence is in you. He’s with you. He has a plan. He has might and power and dominion in places that He has given to you to take. So be of good courage and know, rest your hope holy and unchangeable on God’s grace supplied through our union in Christ.
They enjoyed peace in their time of trial…
They may undergo seasons of affliction, but the Lord is forever present to reassure them and deliver them. Eventually night turns to day. This wasn’t the case with Israel in Judges six. Why did the people have to endure constant distress? It was because their continual idolatry. They acted wholly before God offering a prayer and weeping and intercession. But as soon as their prayer meetings ended, they sneaked off to kneel before their altars of Baal. In fact, throughout those seven years, the raids from the Midianites, Gideon’s Father, Joash, kept an altar to Baal in the backyard. Why would any Israelite do such a thing? He did it because like the other Israelites, he was jealous of the prosperity of the Midianites that they enjoyed. The Israelites thought “our enemies are prospering. They’ve got our fruit and provision. Their God provides them with everything while we sit here starving. Those Midianites must have one powerful God. Obviously, we can’t afford to offend him.” So the Lord’s people became hypocrites, two-faced worshipers. They gave lip service to Jehovah while paying tribute to another God.
At the very height of Israel’s poverty…
God sent another prophet to expose people’s sins. He wanted to show them exactly why they were distressed and impoverished. Scripture describes the scene in this way. It came to pass when the children of Israel cried to the Lord because of the Midianites and the Lord sent a prophet unto the children of Israel, which said unto them, “Thus saith the Lord God of Israel. I brought you up from Egypt and brought you forth out of the house of bondage, and I delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians and out of the hand of all that oppressed you and drove them from before you and gave you their land. And I said unto you, I am the Lord your God. Fear not the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But you have not obeyed My voice.” Judges 6:7–10.
Okay, I’m going somewhere…
Who was the unnamed prophet who delivered this word. Scripture makes it clear this stranger was the Lord himself, a Christophany. Often the Old Testament Christ is called the Angel of the Lord. Later in the same passage, we see the stranger referred to that way. There came an Angel of the Lord and the Angel of the Lord appeared unto him, Gideon 6:11–12.
Then just at a few verses down…
We see this angelic figure referred to as the Lord. The Lord said unto Gideon, “Peace be unto thee. Fear not.” When the unnamed prophet appeared on the scene, Gideon and his family were among the poorest of Israel. And were living off of the handfuls of grain Gideon brought home from a hiding threshing floor. Gideon was trying to eke out a living by scavenging any leftover wheat he could find.
Now, as the angel of the Lord appeared, he said to Gideon, “The Lord is with thee, thou mighty man of valor.” On the surface, these words may seem puzzling. God was speaking to a man who like every other Israelite had sat and done nothing for seven years. Indeed, in all the years the Midianites attacked Israel, Gideon hadn’t displayed a single evidence of valor. He hadn’t even protested against his Father’s pagan altar. Like everyone else, Gideon had lived in fear and bondage. Yet now the Lord was instructing this man, “Go in this thy might and thou shalt save Israel from the hand of the Midianites. Have I not sent thee?”
Where did Gideon get his strength?
Wherein this story do you read of any infusion of strength or power into Gideon? Did something supernatural happen during this exchange so that Gideon’s doubt and fears were transformed into might, or was he supposed to claim some divine vigor by faith? Clearly, something happened to Gideon in this scene. Scripture indicates that there was a definite transfer of power into him, an infusion of might from the Holy Ghost.
The Lord looked upon him…
We find a clue to this divine infusion in verse 14, which begins, “The Lord looked upon him.” Do you know His eyes are always looking upon you. At any moment, you can just turn and be strengthened. The Hebrew verb for “looked” in this verse is the same verb used in Genesis 32:30 when Jacob wrestled with the Lord. That verse reads, “Jacob called the name of the place paniel, for I have seen God face to face and my life is preserved.” Jacob was saying, in essence, God looked me right in the face. What was the outcome of Jacob’s face-to-face encounter with the Lord? Scripture tells us as a prince has power with God and with man and has prevailed. Evidently a transfer of power took place when Jesus looked Jacob in the eye. With this single gesture from the Lord, Jacob received an infusion of supernatural strength that prepared him to face any foe.
The Apostle Paul describes this kind of supernatural transfer in the New Testament terms: “We all with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord are changed into the same image from glory to glory.”
