Morning Chapel Prayer Playlist
Pastor Ken…
Good morning. It’s a good day. God’s mercy is renewed toward us this morning.
There’s great and exceeding power toward those who believe. And I believe that we’re recipients of that power and grace and mercy. My confession often is “Lord, I thank you that your goodness and your mercies, your kindnesses are hovering over me.”
The importance of words…
There’s a couple of things I wanted to share this morning. But let me just as a point of reflection, let me draw your attention, once again, to the importance of words. I don’t mean just intentional words that you say before you go out the door to work on a given morning or before you go to bed at night. But I mean the words that come forth from your mouth at all times.
In Isaiah 51:16, from New King James translation. It says “And I put my words in your mouth. I have covered you with the shadow of my hand, that I may plant the heavens, lay the foundations of the earth, and say to Zion,” that’s us! Say “That’s me.” We’re Zion. Spiritual Zion. “You are my people.”
Tim Sheets quote from book, “Prayers and Decrees That Activate Angel Armies…”
And in Tim Sheet’s book, “Prayers and Decrees That Activate Angel Armies,” he writes regarding words that yield harvest, “In this verse in Isaiah, God talks about words sounding forth from the mouths of His sons and daughters, His heirs, into the realm of the heavens and the earth. This, again, emphasizes that words are seeds. Word-seed decrees. This also includes prayer because prayers are words of communication seeded into the heavens and into the earth.”
How’s that for a reminder this morning? We’re seeding the heavens and the earth and the atmosphere of our lives and our homes and our businesses and our workplaces and our churches and our children’s hearts and grandchildren’s hearts with our words. Words are truly important according to the scriptures anyway.
Prayer is speech to God making requests…
“Prayer is speech to God making requests. But it is also at times a decree of God’s promises. Prayers express confidence in God’s answering abilities or they may ask for divine intervention into a situation. From the beginning, God’s original intent was for His sons and daughters, His heirs, to open their mouths and declare His words into the earth. He has put His Word in your mouth so that He may plant it in the heavens and the earth. The word for plant is the Hebrew word nata, and it means “to plant, to fix, or to set in place.”
What are you planting…
So what are you planting, fixing, or setting in place? Establishing, if you will, in your life? Your words do that.
Are you planting, fixing, establishing abundance and hope in a positive forward leaning expectation in God for the future? Or are we just leaving our words to chance? Whatever happens to come out comes out. The Bible over and over reminds us to be intentional with our articulation, with our communication. Even when we’re alone. Because you’re the most important preacher in your life. That’s what I always say anyway, because what you say feeds into your heart. Feeds and plants seeds into the atmosphere of your life that establishes, as this Word says, fixes or sets in place for your future.
God is the original gardener…
“God Himself was the original gardener and we have inherited that job from Him as His heirs. The entire universe is made to hearken to the voice of God’s Word. Heaven and earth are made to respond to the voice of God’s Word. Angel armies are made to respond to the voice of God’s Word. Amazingly, human beings made in God’s image and likeness are also carriers of God’s voice when they are activated at the new birth.”
So we’re activated, in other words, once we’ve professed Jesus. Activated to plant, activated to sow.
“As His seed on the earth, we are to open our mouths and plant the heavens and the earth with God’s Word. We are to declare His Word, the words of God into the heavens and earth into mankind, nations, governments, congregations, and people everywhere to set in place foundations for stable government, a stable society.”
Right? Isn’t that what the scripture reads that we’re to first and foremost pray for those in authority, that it may go well for us? We are to be stewards of what God said was to be.
“That’s what intercession and prayer is all about… what could be and what really should be in accordance with what God has laid down in His Word, what He’s prophesied. Intercessors step into the messy middle or the void or the unknown or the chaos and we establish with our words, with our prayers inspired by the Holy Spirit. Our words, as we speak forth the Word of God, we make it possible for what could be and really should be to become possible and to become reality, not only in our lives and homes, but also our culture, our nation, our leadership, our future elections, Israel, the nations.
And in this final hour, God has chosen human agency to conduct His operations. He’s chosen to use human vessels. That’s you. That’s me. That’s us collectively, to accomplish His purposes. As the great John Wesley said some 150 years ago now, it seems that God can do nothing for mankind unless someone asks Him. Unless someone appeals to Him. He’s chosen to do that.
James says you have not because you ask not. That doesn’t just mean your natural concerns or needs or that extra hundred dollars you need this month. That means everything pertaining to the nation’s revival and what God wants to do in and through the church in this hour. He’s searching throughout the whole earth right now looking for individuals, looking for a people who will have a heart to hear and give themselves to hear His call and give themselves to prayer.
This chapter goes on to say, “If the foundations are not a set according to God’s Word, then at some point that society is going to crumble under the weight of iniquitous roots. Jesus said that such a house will not be built upon rock. It will be built upon sand. And when the storm comes, it’s going to fall. The body of Christ is to open their mouths and plant God’s Word into the earth.
So, in other words, we have a purpose. Yes, a purpose to share our faith. Yes, a purpose to be a part of a local church family, of course… to raise our kids… to do what we do in a natural plane of existence. But first and foremost, as I often remind us, God has created us in His image, right? A speaking spirit… Enabled, empowered, given authority, given a will to choose to say what God is inspiring us to say, what He’s said in His Word.
And those words make a difference. Those words shift things. Those words in prayer or just in your daily conversation have the ability to reroute lives. Those words connect you with the Father and His heart and His will. They allow partnership to happen between us and our Heavenly Father. They enable a connection between heaven and earth. Because heaven looks to earth to determine what it’s going to do. God’s already determined everything concerning our lives, right? Everything concerning the Church. But it only flows to the degree that we say.
The Bible says if we’ll decree a thing, it shall be established. Jesus said, “Whosoever shall say unto this mountain of impossibility,” wherever you see impossibility, wherever you see opposition and obstacles and deception, wherever you see dysfunction and brokenness, God intends to redeem, heal, restore. And He’s able to do so through His church, through His people, through prayer, which opens the door for what He intends to flow from heaven to earth.
When earth calls out, heaven responds. Heaven already knows what needs to happen. Heaven already has a full supply. But it’s prayer that makes the connection and allows what’s in heaven, as Jesus talked about, to be established in the earth. In our lives, in our bodies, in our churches, in our communities, in our elections, in Israel, around the world.
So the body of Christ is to open their mouths and plant God’s Word into the earth. The Bible says, “I have put my words in your mouth that I might plant the heavens and the earth.” Words are seeds we plant with.
“Your words matter today. You can’t control many things in the natural arena, but you can control which words you choose to speak. And the words that you speak, words of life, have the ability to shift things in time externally and in the natural.”
Romans 8:18…
There’s one other thing I want to share before we worship. And it comes from Romans 8:18, which Paul writes, “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us.”
The Passion translation puts it this way. “I am convinced that any suffering we endure is less than nothing compared to the magnitude of glory that is about to be unveiled within us.” In verse 19 it says, “The entire universe is standing on tiptoe yearning to see the unveiling of God’s glorious sons and daughters.”
And I guess I wanted to share that especially for those of us that are going through transition perhaps. We all go through different transitions. Life isn’t just one long season. Life is back to back to back to back seasons. And there are transitions between those seasons.
There are spiritual seasons, there are natural seasons, there are seasons in your career, your job, or what you do for work, and with your family. There’s relational seasons, right? There’s seasons in your prayer assignments. And there are transitions that connect all of those different seasons.
And so when I read this the other day, I thought, “Wow, that’s so good. For I consider that the suffering… So the challenges that we’ve faced, the unknowns, the upset that you might feel. When you disconnect from one season to embark upon a next season. Maybe you know what that next season is. Maybe you don’t quite yet. Sometimes it can just feel uncomfortable and uneasy because we’re creatures that want to know, right? We don’t want to have any ambiguity in our lives.
And that’s where faith comes into place, right? That’s where we have to remind ourselves that even though we don’t quite know where we’re going next, or how this is going to play out, or how this is exactly going to look like or feel like, or how God’s going to solve this problem for me… I just want to remind you this morning that whatever suffering, whatever unknown, whatever chaos, whatever disconnect you might feel, however alone you might feel, however daunting the future might appear to you, that as Jesus said, you don’t have to live by what you see, but instead we can choose to live by what we believe.
And I believe God.
That He inspired the Apostle Paul to say, “For I consider the sufferings or the challenges or the adversity that we’re going through of this present time,” of this transitionary period that you might be in, in some way in your life, to be small, infinitesimal, not worthy, as he says here in the New King James, to be compared with the glory.
“And I know there’s a glory coming when we are fully revealed as to who we are as sons and daughters of the most high God.” This is the Passion translation. But there’s also glory and goodness that God wants to reveal in that next season, in those next steps. So stay. You may be disconnected from a previous season but stay connected to your Heavenly Father. Stay connected to His Word. Amen?
If you feel uncertain, unsure, isolated, alone… know that when you open His Book, the Bible in other words, God opens His mouth and He has something to say. And it connects you to His heart and it connects you to His plan and it connects you to Him. So as you navigate through a transitionary period in your life, relationally, financially, emotionally, maybe because of some difficulties… maybe it’s illness that you’re coming out of and you’re just trying to find your footing again. Because you’re coming out of it, but it just feels weird and you just like, what was I doing again in life? Whatever the case is, just know that God is right there with us. He’s journeying with us each and every day.
One time I was in a meeting with Pastor Mac and I was sharing some things and he just looked at me and reminded me, “Ken, the Lord’s right here with us, right now.” It seems really simple and like, “well, duh…” But yet I think sometimes we forget He’s journeying with us through every season, through the full extent of our course down here in this life, including transitions. He’s saying, “Hey, son, daughter, it’s going to be all right. I’ve already factored in even failures, even your mistakes and mess ups. I factored in a grace and My goodness and My mercy and My redemptive work so that it all turns out all right.
So I just want to draw your attention to the Father’s heart this morning. He’s right there with you wherever you might be around the world. If you’re streaming this online, He’s right there with you. He’s not going to abandon you.
