Morning Prayer Summary for  Wednesday, May 24, 2023


Morning Chapel Prayer Playlist

Pastor Ken…

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Morning Prayer this Wednesday morning. Good to have you with us.

Things are looking up…

It’s so good that we can lean into His presence and trust Him. Things are looking up. Things have and are shifting in a fresh and new direction for you. Can I just say that over you this morning?

“Well, how can you prophesy that, Pastor Ken?”

Because of the Word. The eternal hope of the Gospel. The Gospel isn’t just for those far from Jesus that they might turn and know the Savior. The Gospel is for you and me no matter how long we’ve been on this spiritual journey. The Gospel is a word of hope that we need to hear regularly… daily… sometimes moment by moment depending on the day. It is filled with hope, and it reminds and instills us with faith to take the next step. It instills us with faith to trust Him. All the Father wants us to do is just to grow to know Him and trust Him. That’s why that prayer is so powerful. “Lord, we trust you.”

So there’s hope today for you. Things are looking up. Things are shifting in the right direction for you. Can I just say that? If that resonates, if you need that small word of encouragement, grab hold of that and say, “That’s for me, Pastor Ken. Things are looking up. Things have turned a corner for me. Things are shifting and moving in a God-ordained direction for today… this week… this month… and the year ahead.

“Well, what if I don’t see changes around me practically today?”

Don’t sweat it. Don’t get nervous. Don’t pick up emergency tongues and pray nervously. No! Just let your heart and your soul be settled. The Holy Spirit brings to us the ability to have a “settled-ness” about us. Jesus never exhibited nervousness and He never freaked out. He never called for angels to come with hazmat suits and cleaned something up because it didn’t turn out the way He intended. No, He was calm, cool, and collected. And so can we be in our hearts. Because the Gospel is a Gospel of hope. And it tells us that He is shifting things, even negative things, even what the enemy’s doing in our own state, our nation, or attempting to do, even according to Isaiah, even weapons that have been—that’s past tense—formed against you will not prosper.

God can turn the enemy’s evil meant for you back in his face…

The Bible says in the book of Romans that He’s able to take what the enemy meant for evil and turn it, and in fact, use it for good. Back in the enemy’s face! Glory to God. There’s just something about God. He is in the business of taking the Devil’s best attempt in our lives, the best temptation, the best attack, and He’s able to turn it into fertilizer and fuel for the next season that we would flourish and grow and bloom and multiply in effectiveness, and in the display of God’s goodness.

So take courage this morning…

If you find yourself in a fight of faith, if you find yourself in a season where it’s not what you thought, a season of the “dark night of the soul,” just know that God intends for you to rise up in faith to grab hold of hope. The hope that things have turned a corner for you today. Whether it be in your finances, your relationships, things are turning in America, I proclaim… turning in Minnesota, turning in the body of Christ, turning at Living Word, turning in a fresh and new direction for a new day.

Grab hold of the message of hope…

Our God is a God who is always doing something new. Religion has taught us and hemmed us in to think that we just get into a rut and we just stay there and “hold on till Jesus returns!” No! God is the most creative and inspiring being in all the universe. That’s why what we see around us and what we can’t see in the cosmos is called creation because He is a creator and He has created and prepared and intends to do some new things, to bring some new things through you, to exhibit some new facets of His goodness in your life and in the church in this day. That’s why we grab hold of the message of hope. That’s why we give Him praise and worship Him because it permits the power of God to be assigned and the power of God to flow to you and through you… to situations, to circumstances, to nations that the goodness and the birthing of heaven might be unabated.

God calls us to a spiritual prolific-ness…

The birthing meaning constant birthing and precipitating of new and good and God things … healings, salvations, supernatural provision, ideas and concepts, new seasons, promotions, new businesses, new ministries, new churches planted like we’re planting around the world right now. Even here at Living Word. God is prolific. And He calls us, first and foremost, to a spiritual “prolific-ness.” And as we’re prolific in Him in our walk with Him, our journey with Him, in our utterance, in our worship, in our thanksgiving, in our prayers, day by day, taking steps to know Him, then He’s able to put on display His prolific-ness in your life.

God will have the final say in this hour…

There are things your eye hasn’t seen yet, your heart hasn’t grasped yet, your cognitive abilities has not entertained yet, that God intends to do in you and through you in this church, in America and through America, in your nation and through your nation. God will have the final say in this hour. Make no mistake about it. He wants to have the final say concerning that evil report in your life. He wants to have the final say regarding that bankruptcy. He wants to have the final say about that relationship. Will you let Him have His say in your life?

So take that for encouragement this morning. Sometimes you got to fight the fight of faith as Paul writes, to lay hold on the prolific-ness, the creativeness, and the eternal life-ness of God. You got to fight.

God has sent some things to get over to you…

As we are worshiping this morning, I sensed to encourage you, “don’t stop believing, continue to contend.” Just understand, God has sent some things. He’s trying to get some things over to you. He’s trying to show you and I in the church in this hour some new things. Don’t withdraw. Don’t acquiesce. Don’t be oblivious. Understand that the Holy Spirit comes to transmit, disclose some things about His goodness, some things that He intends for your today and your tomorrow, and your days ahead.

In Him, we find completeness…

He is the all-wise one. And in Him, we find completeness in all things… including wisdom and discernment and strategy and next steps and decisions that must be made and prayers that must be prayed.

So I just sense the Lord encouraging us to keep fighting. That’s what contend means. Keep reaching. Keep striving in the spirit and in faith. Not in yourself, not in your intellect, but in faith to apprehend those things that He is has already sent.

Remember the prayer of Daniel, how he prayed and it took 21 days for the answer. The answer was sent the moment Daniel prayed. The answer is sent… the supernatural provision is sent the moment you pray the prayer of faith, the moment you stand on the promise of the inerrant Word of God.

But there sometimes are interferences in the atmosphere of the spirit dimension… that the answer is sent immediately. God responds immediately but for whatever reason there can be a delivery time, a manifestation time, a due season, right? A season between the “yes” and the “amen” and the “Look! There it is.”

God is rooting for you…

So don’t stop believing. Continue to contend whether you’re praying for your nation, for salvations, for loved ones, for those in your city, whether it’s a personal thing, a promise of healing… stay in there! God is rooting for you. He is not only for you and with you and in you, He is cheering you on. In fact, all the hosts of heaven, if we’re going to bring the scripture into this conversation this morning, are in the balconies cheering the church on in this hour saying, “Go! Keep going. Don’t stop. Keep contending. Keep praying.”

The Bible says that we’re to strive to apprehend that for which God has apprehended us. In other words, God’s laid hold of you for a particular reason. Even that you might stand on the word of healing, for example… that you might grab hold and apprehend that and bring that from a spiritual promise into reality in your life. Because in doing so, you bring glory to God.

Let’s be a Christmas tree for His glory…

He likes Christmas because of Jesus, of course. But I was just thinking of the analogy of decorating a Christmas tree and how we put beautiful and intricate ornaments on Christmas trees and lights. And bulbs and all sorts of things. If you grew up in the seventies, tinsel, right? Somebody might say, “God forbid, tinsel.”

But the word picture is God wants to decorate our lives with His goodness. He wants to add a bulb of one of His promises where it’s manifest. He wants to decorate and adorn you with all of His promises, with all of His goodness, with things that are unique and specific for your journey and your race of faith. He wants to dress you up with His glory. That’s why we pray and continue to pray. That’s why we stand and continue to stand. That’s why we lean forward in hope, reaching for and grasping that which He’s grabbed hold of us, that we might be a Christmas tree for His glory, if you will.

Wow! There’s just lots that I could share, but I got to figure out, “What do you want to do here, Lord?” Whew.

Worship leader Kathy…

So, Pastor Ken, there’s a verse that keeps coming back to me about how the Word is a lamp to our feet. And I think this speaks to His goodness. We think His goodness would show us the “whole road.” I think it’s His mercy and goodness and grace that actually doesn’t. Because, for example, the stuff that I’ve walked through the last couple years, I would’ve parked myself back on that spot in the road and never moved if He had showed me the whole road.

I think maybe this is for somebody. You might be in a spot where you wonder, “I don’t see it. I don’t see the way out. How is God good? I don’t see it at all.” But He sees the whole road. The enemy doesn’t see the whole road. God does. And He’s got a plan for every single trap the enemy has, every single problem, every single issue. He is that good.

So rather than asking God to show you the entire path for the next 10 years, ask Him for the next step or the next two, or whatever it is. That’s what the Word tells us when it says He’s a lamp to our feet. Not a light for the entire road of our whole life. But that’s His wisdom. The Holy Spirit is the revealer. He will reveal what we need in the moment we need it. That’s where the trusting comes in. But to stop and think about how the fact that He actually withholds things from us, from knowing things because He is good. He’s not doing it because He’s mean.

I mean, how many of us have kids and we withhold the surprise or we withhold the good thing and our kids find out. They don’t call us mean when they find out. God’s even better than that, right? So, it’s just something I’ve been thinking about. And that must be for somebody because it had kept coming up. So just trust that He is good. Even when you can’t see around that bend in the road, you can’t see beyond the mountain. You can’t. But He can.

The enemy thought he took Moses out…

Moses was in the middle of the wilderness tending sheep. God knew where Moses was. God hadn’t forgotten about Moses. God hadn’t forgotten about the people of Israel, even though it looked like for the last 400 years He had. To them it looked like He forgot. He didn’t. Trust His goodness shows up even in the fact that you might not know the whole road.

Pastor Ken…

That’s really good. Thank you, Kathy.

We won’t know it all…

I think too that God is not withholding from us. But there are ways in His kingdom and the way He does things, there’s a specificness to how He does things. First and foremost, He set things up for us to journey by faith where we won’t know it all. And all we know to do is the next step of faith, as Kathy’s saying. But that step will open up another step and another view and another perspective.

Moses didn’t know…

He spent 40 years in the backside of the wilderness. He didn’t know exactly how God was going to get him to the next level to do what He had called him to do. He just took the step that was before him. He just set his hand to the plow, so to speak, with what he knew to do and stayed with it.

And sometimes when the Lord isn’t saying anything or there isn’t a specificity of His voice in your life, a whole lot of activity in what He’s saying necessarily, like specific to your course. That’s His endorsement to say, “You’re on the right track. Just keep going.”

God knows your address and He’s got your number…

And when it’s time to make a shift and take that step, when it’s time to do something different, He has a way. As long as you’re just bringing your heart before Him and endeavoring to live before Him and staying connected to Him. He knows your address. He’s got your number. He will connect with you.

In fact, I’ve learned that a lot of the important things in life… I mean, there’s so much grace built in, even when you make mistakes, He’s able to overcome that. He’s already, in fact, factored in failure and mistakes into your journey. And guess what? It still turns out good. He’s not nervous or concerned about that. He’s just saying, “Just take a step today. Take another step.” Maybe that step is just to spend some time with Him to pray, to build your prayer life praying in the spirit. Prayer in general is your number-one daily opportunity to engage in the supernatural-ness of God. And that includes His strategy and mentorship and wisdom and direction for you.

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