Morning Chapel Prayer Playlist
Morning Chapel Prayer Today
Pastor Ken…
Good morning, everyone. Happy Wednesday. Good to see y’all. It’s been a week since I did prayer, but I was also out of town. So it’s good to be back with y’all to see your smiling faces and get after things in prayer this morning.
Announcement…
Heidi Baker is going to be with us here at Living Word this weekend at all of our services, including Saturday night, both Sunday morning services. So you don’t want to miss that. She always comes with a relevant, timely word… anointed woman of God, and ministers so many places in the world, but in particular, Africa. So I’m excited to hear what she has to share this weekend. If you can’t be here in person, be sure to tune in online.
God is moving at the speed of prayer…
I just had a such a sense this morning walking down to prayer that God is moving at the speed of prayer. I heard that in my spirit: God is moving at the speed of prayer right now. You guys have heard me… I’ve talked often about how God wants nothing more than to co-labor, to partner with His people. That was always His plan in this time and dispensation. And it is true that He is moving at the speed of prayer. That this isn’t a time for us to sit back and be spectators in history in this moment, wherever you live or wherever you reside. We’re not here just to observe. God wants us to connect with Him. He’s waiting. He’s saying that to you. He’s waiting on you.
It’s not a time to allow your attention to be distracted…
I was talking to my daughter yesterday and I’ve shared about her college volleyball aspirations. And we were talking about what her modus operandi, her mode of operation, ought to be in this season. She’s a junior. I said, “Katie, it’s not time to be consumed with distractions on social media. It’s not time to be divided in so many ways. You’ve got to decide what you want, what you feel is right, and give yourself to that, to build, to prepare, to study academically, to work in her sport, to develop herself and endeavor to get better every day.”
God has planted us here at this time for a reason…
And this just reminded me that we are in a very pointed and particular season on the timetable of God’s plan. And of course, God cares about us and is going to take care of us individually when it comes to our practical and natural concerns. But ultimately, He sowed you and me into the earth with something in mind for this time. He planted us here because He knew we would be a people called out in the midst of a generation and a time just before He returns… to be a people who would give ourselves to prayer, to be a people who would be passionate to not just go the normal, “as the world turns” course. But, instead, to come out and be separate, to be a people who will be aware of the time and the seasons in which we live and which we have been appointed and sown into the earth by the divine providence of God, so that we could yield to His Spirit and yield to His assignment and be utilized to fulfill His purpose.
Push away distractions..
So it’s not a time for us to spectate. It’s a time for us to stir ourselves up, to take hold of more of God, as the scripture reads. It is time to push away the distractions, to lay down the self-life, and to take up the cross of Christ and follow Him. And be accounted for on God’s radar screen. Be available to speak and to pray and to advocate for what God wants and what He wants to accomplish in hearts and in lives.
While there is light, we must engage…
The Bible rings true. It says that there will come a time when no man will be able to work because they’ll be swallowed up by the darkness of the very end. But while there’s light, we must engage. We must pray. We must firstly lead ourselves well, which is what I was trying to impart to my daughter. You’ve got to first lead yourself well, if you want to accomplish something great or be a leader in some other way. And that starts with us leading ourselves well spiritually. And choosing to nourish and fan the flame of God’s Spirit on the altar of our hearts. And not just acquiescing to just going through the motions of a natural life. We’re called to be on-fire spirit beings, available to God, instant in season and out…
For whatever He wants to do
For whatever He wants to say
For whatever He wants you to pray
Excerpt from book, “Processing the Plan of God Through Prayer…”
And I wanted to share this with you. This is an excerpt from Mark Brazee’s book, “Processing the Plan of God Through Prayer.” And at the very outset of his first chapter, he writes…
“Throughout history, there have been many revivals of times of God manifesting His power and presence among mankind. These times and seasons of God’s glory have been for the purpose of bringing forth His plans on the earth. Every time without fail, as God prepares for one of these outpourings, their first comes from heaven a cry of the spirit.
“This generation is rapidly approaching its destiny, the greatest move of God this planet has ever seen or experienced. The cry of God’s Spirit is going forth again.”
Are you picking up on it today?
Are you sensing it today?
Or are you just kind of going through the motions of doing what you do each and every day?
“It is the same cry that has brought forth every move of God since the beginning—The call to pray. It is the call for God’s people to join hands in partnership with Him, doing what we can which enables God to do what He can. Prayer is always the catalyst which brings forth the ability of God on the earth.”
Isn’t that good? I would add this. Prayer is the difference between the best you can do and the best God can do. Oh, come on now. Somebody needs to post that in the chat this morning online: “Prayer is the difference between the best you can do and the best God can do.”
Get ready for your preconceived ideas to be blown up.
Get ready for your boundaries to be moved out.
God wants to expand our boundaries…
Yes, you and your little old world and me and my little old world. God wants to bring about an expansion in our hearts that we would see beyond our natural conceptions. That we would see beyond what we have known. God is enlarging the church. He’s enlarging what He’s doing in the earth and that always begins by Him enlarging us inside. Hallelujah.
Nothing should be off limits…
Make a decision now that there’ll be nothing off limits to you and what God wants to do with your life. That there’ll be nothing out of bounds or off limits for what you could pray about. That you would be willing to get uncomfortable, that you would be willing to be inconvenienced, to give yourself to the assignment of prayer.
Don’t stay in your comfort zone…
Another thing I always tell my daughter, you only get better when you compete against better athletes and better teams. You’re not doing yourself a service by staying in your comfort zone. You’re not helping yourself by just remaining in what you know. Open up your heart and say, “Lord, challenge me today. Give me something to pray. Give me something to step out and obey you in that requires me to live by faith.”
That’s what pleases God! He has called us to live lives of faith, not lives of what we have known or what we’ve already done. He wants to do something new through you, through me, through Living Word, through the church at large in the earth. Hallelujah.
Be your own best cheerleader…
But the call of the Spirit is to wake up and shake yourself, so to speak. Be your own best cheerleader, is what I like to say. Cheer yourself on to the next level. Cheer yourself on to not stay put in the status quo, but to grow and ask the Holy Spirit to help you to develop, to know the deep and the intimate and even profound things of God.
Enter the waters…
Don’t you want to know more of Him? We’ve only scratched the surface, church. We’ve only barely touched… we’ve only put a toe in the water. But the last time I read my Bible, there are waters not only to go ankle deep into, but waters to go waist deep and waters even to swim in…
In the things of God
In the plan of God
In the glory of God
In the Spirit and river of God.
I want to be one who is able to completely be immersed and swim in the rivers that are issuing forth yet today from the throne of God into the earth. That’s what the Bible says. The rivers that are being poured forth, even in our own nation now. Sometimes you just got to kind of slap yourself and arouse yourself. Like, “What am I doing?” Maybe what the world says is normal and the life that we lead is not it at all. Maybe there’s something far more supernatural and far more fiery and full of life and full of the power of God and full of signs and wonders and miracles that God has called us in particular as a generation to walk in.
Hallelujah. Glory to God.
God is looking to you as to what He’s going to do.
“What? That’s sacrilege, Ken.”
No! Even John Wesley long ago made this observation. I’ve often referenced it. “It appears that God can do nothing for humanity, or someone, unless someone asks Him.” Maybe for you today, it’s the prayer is as simple as, “Lord, I want to be free on the inside. I want to be free of my past. I want to be an emotionally and relationally healthy person.”
It may be a lifelong process…
Well begin to call for that and be willing to commit to that. Meaning it may happen in a day, but it might take you years. It may be a lifelong process. That’s okay. But it’ll be a process of faith. Just because you’re calling for something that is ahead of you. That is what God intends.
We must contend for His purpose…
He has a divine destiny and a purpose for us. And we must contend for that. If there’s one thing Pastor Lynne has taught us that is just kind of oozes from her teaching on prayer is the idea that prayer is our ability to contend, to fight the good fight of faith. Just giving yourself over to prayer and other tongues… just speaking forth words of life from the scriptures is prayer and a form of contending.
Quote continued…
Alright, I got off track. Let me finish what Mark had written in chapter one of “Doing Business With God.” Pastor Mark writes this…
“It is the same cry that is brought forth every move of God since the beginning—The call to pray. It is the call for God’s people to join hands in partnership with Him, doing what we can which enables God to do what He can. Prayer is always the catalyst which brings forth God’s ability in the earth. There is a church-wide unction…” [That’s like a prompting, you could say, an invitation] “…on the body of Christ to pray in these last days. What does that mean for us in the church today? The Word of God says in Hebrews 10:5, ‘A body hast thou prepared me.’ That verse has a twofold meaning to us in the church.
“First, God has prepared a physical body for Jesus to use while on the earth.
“Second, God has prepared a spiritual body for Jesus to flow through on the earth. And that is the church.”
Somebody say, “That’s me!” You are the body of Christ in the earth, individually and collectively. And that is the church” every born again believer. Ephesians 1:22–23 tells us when Jesus went to the Father’s right hand, God gave Him to be the head over all things to the church, which is His body. When Jesus came to earth and was made flesh and dwelt among us, He was the only body of Christ that existed on the earth at that time. Since Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection, His body has changed. He is now the head and the church is His body down here on the earth. Today, we are the body of Christ.”
