Peg shared…
“I’m not just good, I’m holy”
Good morning. I want to share something before we get into worship this morning. Two weeks ago, I was working on a bunch of songs about the goodness of God. I woke up on a Sunday morning and I was thinking about how good God is and everything. And then God said, “I’m holy.” And it was like… this is maybe how Saul was when he became Paul on the road to Damascus. It was just like God saying, “I’m holy.” And it flooded over me. And I can’t get that out of my mind, which is a good thing. It’s hard to describe. But if you know what I mean, it’s like God just hits you with His holiness. And it just covered every part of me and went through every part of me. And it was just so good. It was like God was saying, “I’m not just good, but I’m holy.” And if we think about that, that changes everything. Right? That changes how we think. That changes how we act. That changes what we’re going to do. It changes our future. A lot of times I feel like people think they need to warm up in worship. But Dr. James Tan talked about just kind of jumping in. Like, we can have it, we can be right there, right away. We don’t have to wait. And that’s how I feel about this part that I’m going to sing about that He’s holy and how I felt when He said that to me. It just hit me, and I want to stay in that place of knowing that He’s holy.
♪ Holy, we cry holy. Holy, we cry holy. Holy, we cry holy. Holy is our God. O You’re so holy. Holy, holy is the Lord. Holy. ♪
Pastor Ken prayed…
God is the God of breakthrough…
I hear in my spirit that God wants us to get through. And so we pray this morning, Father, that you would find your way through… into certain situations… that you would break through… in our nation today… in our churches, ministries, homes, and families and circumstances…
We pray for the God of heaven to break through … to be truly the God of the breakthrough…breaking through like the dawn on the eastern horizon… breaking through in our situations, in our churches, in our relationships and finances and outlook on the future.
Lord, we just let our prayers prepare them… make a holy highway for our God to come …in greater display, in greater power, in greater clarity and creativity.
Prayer for tragedy in Texas elementary school…
Lord, we lift up those in Texas and in that elementary school in particular who were affected by that tragedy… we pray for the light and the hope and the comfort and the help and the healing of heaven to break through in Texas and in that particular community
Lord, we lift up the families that are connected to Maranatha and our youth ministry… our families, our kids ministry… all across this church today, Lord, we lift up the hurting, we lift up the hopeless, we lift up those who are feel surrounded by darkness or exposed in and isolated in some way. We assign grace and mercy and power to their paths today … to break through, to come through for them… we push back darkness off of our family off of the church today…
Prayer about strategy of enemy…
We pray for a breaking off of strategies and tricks of the enemy… deceptions and lies, whether it relates to suicide or oppression, or fear or perpetual anxiety or issues with our upbringing…
Prayer about the church… supernatural power…
Father, we pray for power to be supernatural, heaven-sent power to be generated and released today into and through the church…
Prayer about a new positioning…
We pray and agree together for a new positioning, for a new outlook and perspective in particular… even as we see world events continue to spiral out of control and problems and circumstances appear almost every other day.
We pray, Father, for a positioning and an adjusting and a new perspective washing over the body of Christ…
Father, we call out to you and ask that you would cause our eyes to see, like they’ve never seen before …
Pastor Ken shared…
One of the things that I was reminded of last night is that as followers of Jesus, we don’t lack for anything. We’ve been granted and given and endowed with all things that pertain unto life and godliness. We’d been arrayed with the fullness of Jesus and nothing less.
But what I find often is that if I experience a lack or I feel a sense of limitation in some way, it relates to the fact that my perspective needs to be adjusted, that I need to gain new perspective on who I am and what I possess. As I said before, we share an equal position and possession with Jesus. And as the days continue to click by in this particular hour, it’s going to be increasingly important for us to live with a robust perspective, a robust understanding, a continual consciousness of just who we are and what we’ve been assigned with and granted and the opportunity that’s before us and who we are.
And then as we’ve been praying just this week, that we’re called to rise. To wake up and rise and conduct ourselves as the true spiritual giants as we’re called to be. This is so important because clearly, we’re not going to be renewed in our thinking by the reports of CNN or any other news outlet because whether it’s real or fake news, there’s a dark perspective on the world and in the spirit of the world. But yet we live not according to this world, but according to the kingdom that is within us. We’ve been given some things from which to live. We aren’t living for a victory. We’re living from a victory. We’re not living for a healing. We’re living from healing. We’re not living for resources. We’re living from a place of limited supply and reserves stored up for us in a heavenly place.
John G. Lake…
I was reminded that John G. Lake, one of the things he often taught was this idea that we have a body and the privilege and an assignment to be a human to be on this earth. And the fact that you are human or have a belly button means that you have the opportunity to exercise authority. And spiritual authority essentially means the right to rule within a given domain. That means your household and your space and where you journey where God’s called you to occupy.
But in addition to being a human during this time in our lives, we also have the opportunity to navigate back and forth between dimensions. Through relationship through the door, AKA Jesus, your relationship with Him navigates from that realm to this realm. To bring that perspective to this realm. From that realm to this realm. To bring from what’s there to here, not just for us in our own but for all those we’re called to influence. And that’s going to be a greater and greater need of this time. That we would be truly conduits, beacons, lighthouses, a people that could point the way to a world that is going to become increasingly hopeless and discouraged to the point where there are according to the Bible, to the point where their hearts could begin to fail as they see what’s coming upon the world. They’re going to look to the church. If we’ll take our place.
Psalms 139…
And I was reminded of this verse as we are worshiping in Psalm 139:5 from the Passion paraphrase. It says, “You’ve gone into my future to prepare the way.” That’s for somebody this morning.
“You’ve gone into my future to prepare the way.” It doesn’t matter if we have another pandemic. If there’s truly a monkeypox outbreak or whatever, it does not matter. He has gone into your future. Sometimes all that’s needed to change is just to adopt a new attitude of mind, to embrace a new perspective. Because your faith is connected to what you give your attention to. I mean, honestly, the longer I journey, the more I discover that really that’s what faith is all about. It’s simply hearing from God. It’s choosing to focus my attention on what is right, what is truth, what is God, what I know to be true in my inner most being.
But He says, “You’ve gone into my future to prepare the way, and in kindness you follow behind me to spare me from the harm of my past.” I love that! We don’t have to be worried about our past. We don’t have to lament and regret and be bore sighted and dragged down by issues of our upbringing in our past. I don’t diminish what we’ve gone through, but God is truly unlimited. He’s not limited, in other words, by time or space. He can go into your past and fix what needs to be fixed in your soul anyway. He’s able to spare you from the harm of your past. “You have laid your hand upon me.” Do you see that this morning? He’s got His hand upon you.
In one passage, it says “you are literally carved into or tattooed into the palm of His hand and you’re ever before Him.” There’s no need to worry. There’s no need to fear. You got to speak to that stuff. According to Mark 4, fear, anxiety, dread, panic, all of those are different forms of just fear. They’re the favorite weapon of the enemy because they steal the fruitfulness of the Word, and they often talk us out of the plan of God. So don’t put up with fear. Don’t put up with anxiety. Don’t put up with melancholy or low-grade dread. Speak to it like King David, who said once, “Yhy are you downcast, oh my soul? I will put my hope, my confidence, my trust in you.”
Your words are prophetic…
Your words, once again, a prophetic. They’re not just meant to mouth a prayer that you’ve memorized. Your words are meant to prepare the way before you, to frame your world, to prophesy what is to be, what could be and should be and shall be. It’s an awesome way that you can focus and keep your life refocused on a daily basis. By speaking forth words. Heaven sent divinely, granted words. God’s Word.
Psalms 139 continued…
He goes on to say, “This is just too wonderful, deep, and incomprehensible! Your understanding of me brings me wonder and strength. 7 Where could I go from your Spirit? Where could I run and hide from your face? 8 If I go up to heaven, you’re there! If I go down to the realm of the dead, you’re there too! 9 If I fly with wings into the shining dawn, you’re there! If I fly into the radiant sunset, you’re there waiting! 10 Wherever I go, your hand will guide me.”
There’s something right there you just need to start speaking. We need to say more over our lives. “Lord, You’re right there to guide me.”
I was out for a run late last night. I went out to run and pray, and it just came up in me, “Lord, grant me wisdom, guide me in the use of my finances and the investment, the use, the stewardship of my personal finances.” He’s got a plan for us. Even as days grow darker, we can grow more supernatural in how we conduct ourselves. That includes the most practical things like the management of money. If the economy dips or goes into recession, we don’t have to fear. We’re not going to be a part of that.
He says, “Wherever I go, your hand will guide me; your strength will empower me. 11 It’s impossible to disappear from you or to ask the darkness to hide me, for your presence is everywhere, bringing light into my night.”
Prayed…
I pray that for you this morning… pray that for your family, pray that for your children or loved ones that are heavy on your heart this morning… that God’s presence would just spontaneously and supernaturally show up in their lives.
Prayer for divine adjustments…
We thank you, Lord, that you are our supply. And we just thank you Lord for divine adjustments today. Just like someone has a particular prescription for their glasses or their contacts, they need to go in and have them checked out and maybe adjusted or tweaked from time to time. So Lord, we pray today that you would do that in the body of Christ today in our hearts, in the eyes of our spirits today, Lord, that you would adjust the prescription for this time and where we’re at and what we’re facing in the world that you would help us to see with a new set of lenses once.
We call in light…
We just call in light today, Father, just like the military would call in a missile strike if you will… for evil or for harm… Lord, we call in light today… rays of light … that you would expand the dimensionality of our sight, our spiritual perspective today …
Prayer about leaders…
We lift up pastors and leaders today, presidents and prime ministers… Governors … mayors… all across the country… people in decision-making roles, we lift them up to you and we pray for light. We call in light into their office and into their seat of authority and decision-making … that you would grant them like the apostle Paul prayed a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of you Father… in the knowledge of what your plan is, Lord, for a particular situation or a particular unprecedented problem. We lift that to you, Lord’
Help us now, Lord, to lead the day… to own the day … today, tomorrow, this particular day or generation … we pray that the church would step into the fray and own the day… in Jesus’ name with the help of the Holy Spirit…
Prayer about the church…
We pray for strength today, supernatural strength to be granted to the church, to pastors and leaders and pray-ers and believers today…not only in America today, Father, but to all points of the compass… we lift up the church… and today we pray for a generation of power of nothing less than supernatural grace and virtue sent and assigned from heaven … release through our praying today, released into the church, released into this time, released into what you want to do next Father…
Prayer about nations…
… unlock that… we pray for an unlocking of that today. Even in the nations… I hear the word “nations” … an unlocking in the nations today… It is an unprecedented time, but from a different perspective, that’s how God sees it. And unprecedented time of opportunity and unprecedented time of glory being put on display… an unprecedented time of visitation and heaven-sent creativity and power and miracles and harvest and good things that you’ve intended all along to do in this hour. We call that into play now…
Adjust us, align us, sync us up with mission now … with purpose now… with the design now… we pray that our intersession would tip the scales that we find ourselves in because of the sign that was in the heaven on the 15th of May, clearly we’re in a scale where the scepter of grace and mercy has been extended for a season of time…
Father, we pray that there would be a tipping in this window of time, a tipping and a moving in the right direction
Prayer about cycles…
We lift up the cycles … there are cycles in the plan of God… there are cycles in your heavenly intentionality…
We pray for intersections in the cycle. I see people that are in a cycle they’ve been going around, going around in a cycle. Some of them for decades and years… ignoring God… drawing back… not repenting… not obeying … we pray for heaven-sent God-ordained intersections with people’s life cycle.
Prayer about heavenly interruptions…
Divine appointments today, Father, that you would send divine visitations today to those… who need a heavenly interruption … who need to have a pattern interrupt in their lives
Father, we send out pattern interrupts, supernatural pattern interrupts into the lives. And even into whole churches who have been stuck in a rut going around a perpetual religious mountain year after year…
We pray for visitation to those houses of worship … visitation to families, visitations to ministries, visitation to whole schools…
We pray for a holy interruptions… that you would show up, Father, even in some in the nighttime, in the form of dreams and visions… those who have gone wayward, those wayward sons and daughters … we pray for holy interruptions that would turn them back to Father’s house…
Announcement…
Let me give you one quick announcement. Monday is Memorial Day, so we will not have live prayer in the chapel. The building will be closed. However, we will be streaming one of our previous prayer gatherings on our online church channel. So join us Monday for that. Otherwise have a great Wednesday. God bless you guys. Love you.
