Morning Chapel Prayer Playlist
Pastor Ken…
Prayer is the greater work…
Let me share a couple of reflections here in regards to the power of corporate prayer. Sometimes I just get so… I guess just so intrigued and captivated and stirred in my heart about the power of prayer. I just can’t stop. I’m like, the more I just navigate and I journey in the plan of God and in the understanding of the things of the Spirit, the more and more and more I am just like… Whooo! I just don’t want to stop. I want to keep going. Because as I quoted on Monday, I think it was Oswald Chambers who once said that we often think that prayer prepares us for the greater work. But in fact, prayer is the greater work.
Word of encouragement to those who feel discouraged …
I was thinking about how in my heart that there may be some that are discouraged about the plan of God for your life or the absence of things happening that you think are supposed to happen for you. Or maybe you feel stuck in a rut in some way spiritually or in your life in some regard… or desire to see more of the supernatural flow through you in prayer and in your calling in various ways, or in your household for that matter, in your business, in your school. Whatever the case is, I’m here to simply remind you this morning that prayer permits us to move forward in the plan of God. It is our God-given means in transportation. It is a transport vehicle—prayer—that goes ahead into the realm of the spirit, because I realize we’re a flesh, bone, and blood body, and we have these five physical senses that we tend to default to filter everything through and perceive the world around us through. But the truth of the matter is, the Bible reveals that there is the spirit dimension that is all around us that we cannot see. In fact, I believe that Adam and Eve could see God, and they walked with Him in the cool of the garden. But then sin entered into the human experience, and there was this veil between them and God. And probably between them and the spirit dimension. But the truth of the matter is, God has called us to navigate and partner and interact with the spirit realm… with Him, with His Spirit, with angelic ranks to make a way in the natural arena.
Jesus provided a template for us…
I often like to point out that Jesus provided a really great template for us. He prioritized prayer and fellowship and communion with His Father to such a degree that He went without sleep and comfort and got up… Many Bible scholars seem to think He got up at 3, 4 in the morning and would pray for two, three, four, five and more hours at a time each day before He ever took a step into Galilee to preach a message, to lay hands on somebody who is experiencing infirmity, before He turned the water into wine, before He did anything that He did, He had already journeyed there in the spirit. He had already downloaded the plan of God. And knew, oftentimes, and had seen in the mind of His heart in the spirit, in other words, He had already seen where He was going to go, what He was going to do, who He was going to confront, where He was going to cast out a devil, who He was going to raise from the dead.
That’s our template…
That wasn’t to be for Jesus alone. That was to be for the church. And Jesus punctuated that by saying, “The works that I do, you shall do, and even greater works.” The last time I checked, if we’re going to bring the Bible into this conversation, it says that the earmarks or characteristics of a bona fide, authentic Christian is that they will lay hands on the sick and they shall recover. They shall cast out devils. When was the last time you cast out a demonic entity harassing someone? They shall speak with other tongues. Not maybe… or some of them will… they all will! If they drink any deadly thing, or you could say encounter anything that threatens their life, it shall not hurt or harm them.
An element of supernaturalness…
In other words, there’s an element of supernaturalness that should characterize and reverberate from the life of every follower of Jesus. And that is possible. And that comes into exhibition in our lives because we first plug into the presence and power and communion with our Heavenly Father through time of prayer.
And when I say prayer, I don’t just mean you making your simple faith request to Him. I mean, time where you wait on Him, where you worship Him, where you journal as He inspires you, where you worship, why you intercede and groan and travail and sometimes weep, perhaps.
Don’t box prayer into one particular thing. There are many kinds of prayer. Prayer is just this fullness, a fellowship with your Heavenly Father. That’s why Jesus said this is eternal life, that you might know Him. Prayer is getting to know your Father. And in the process, He pulls back the curtain and shows you all that He has planned and prepared and wants to discharge or bring through you into the world.
You are His portal from heaven to earth…
Jesus taught us to pray that it would be on earth… in your household… in your neighborhood… in your church… in the boardroom… in the schoolroom… in your marriage… in your finances… in the earth as it is in heaven. That’s what prayer does. It makes a way for what is in heaven to come into earth to be constructed… to be erected… to become reality. That’s why the Bible says that he or she who prays in an unknown tongue makes progress. They rise like somebody building a skyscraper on Manhattan Island. It rises higher and higher to the glory of God. Your life, your calling, the plan of God, in you, around you, in the world, because we pray.
Fight the good fight of faith…
So if you feel like you’re stuck, you’re not seeing the supernatural characteristics that should mark a true believer, give yourself to time of communion with your Heavenly Father. Fight the good fight of faith that you might lay hold on eternal life, heaven’s life for you. I’ll put it that way.
Fight the distractions of the age…
How do you fight the good fight of faith? Well, real practical way of putting it is fight and resist at every turn the distractions of the age, the pulls of your lower nature, the lusts of the flesh, everything that wants to bind you up and just keep you just going around in circles with the cares of day-to-day life. I’m not saying there aren’t things you need to take care of and you just go live on a puffy cloud. I’m not saying that. But there must be a priority of God in our day-to-day lives. We put Him first like Jesus. Follow His template.
Because I have found, even going back to my earliest days as a young person that when you pray, you precipitate the plan of God. When you pray… What’s precipitation? It’s commonly called rain. And I found that when I pray, when I commune with Him, heaven seems to open up and precipitate the plan of God. And I find that I more consistently experience His favor. Because favor isn’t, you know, in the Word of Faith circles, I think we’ve relegated favor to a confession. “I’m God’s favorite.” Well, that’s great. Nothing wrong with saying that. But favor has more to do with us aligning and synchronizing with the Father, even where it hurts and is inconvenient and it’s hard.
It may be hard on the flesh…
Take up your cross, the Bible reads, and follow Him wherever He leads. It may be hard on your flesh, it may be inconvenient, it may be uncomfortable, it may not make sense to your natural mind, but if you follow Him, you will align with Him. And you will be positioned more accurately and more appropriately in the days ahead individually and us as a church and us collectively as the body of Christ to be recipients of the rain of heaven, of the favor of God.
Favor has more to do with being aligned and in position where He wants us to be, even if it’s in a developing nation where there’s much terrorism and not a lot of prosperity around. You’ll experience favor and blessing and the hand of God in the way of protection and so many other things if you are aligned with Him and that’s where He wants you to be. Amen.
There’s a momentum that comes with prayer…
I just encourage you, whether it’s you praying for other things around in your world or your life in particular, just stay the course. Keep giving yourself to prayer. Fight the good fight of faith to resist the lower things of this world and yield to the things of the Spirit. Sow to your Spirit man. Through the Word, through prayer, through worship. It’ll create a momentum that’ll make things happen for you. That you could not make happen on your own.
So prayer permits you to move forward in the plan of God. Prayer is our means to download heaven’s plan into our hearts, like Jehoshaphat. If you read that story in the Old Testament, you’ll find God downloaded a plan into his heart regarding Israel’s enemies. And that plan seemed kind of out there, honestly. And the plan was essentially to set worshipers and those shouting to the glory of God out ahead of the military. And as they went out ahead to praise and worship, it turns out that Israel’s armies didn’t even have to pull their swords out of their sheaths. They didn’t have to fight one minute because the enemies of Israel turned against themselves and killed themselves. All they had to do is get the plan of God and do the plan of God. Prayer makes that possible. It downloads the plan of God, and it empowers and strengthens you and propels you to do the plan of God. Amen?
Prayer transports you…
Prayer positions you to experience, as I just said, God’s favor more consistently. Prayer transports you and will move you forward in God’s intended plans and purposes for your life. You will be surprised how changed you can be in every regard a month from now, six months from now, one year from now, you could call yourself the most changed person in the world, your household, the most changed household, your business, the most changed business in the world… If you will follow the template of Jesus and give yourself to much time alone with the Father. It is so good.
There’s so much that is in the heart of God that He wants to disclose, that He wants to unfold, that He wants to bring forth in your life. Like there’s moments where I feel like I’ve had out of body experiences to the point where I’m like, I have to step back outside myself and like, “look at that, look what’s happening.” I was trying to live under the radar, so to speak. And look what God’s doing for me. I didn’t have anything really to do. I can’t take any credit for it. And He’s just doing this and He’s doing that over there. And He’s blessing me here and He’s positioned me for that. Look what He’s doing in my household, in the church. He is able to do what He wants to do if we will simply give ourselves to Him, partner with Him.
He’s got a plan…
He’s got storehouses untold, unseen by the natural eye of every resource, every creative idea you could and can’t imagine. That He wants to pour into the generation that we live in, to change the world and manifest His glory like the waters cover the earth as the oceans. If we will simply do it His way. Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness or rightness or way of doing things. And He’ll take care of everything else.
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Mark Brazee in his book, “Processing the Plan of God Through Prayer…” And by the way, just so you know, if you’re interested, I’ve heard that in the chat online there was a question about the book I read on Monday. Every day there’s a transcription of morning prayer and it gets sent out. You can find it in chronological order at theprayormovement.com, so theprayormovement.com. You can find it in a blog form there, chronologically, or you can go down a little further on that webpage, and you’ll find resources and teachings. Click on that. And you can actually subscribe and get a daily email transcription, or update of Morning Prayer. And usually there will always be like the excerpt from my books that I read, the title of the book, and just a synopsis of what was shared and what was prayed at Morning Prayer. So if that’s of interest to you. I haven’t mentioned that in a long time, actually. There you go. That’s where it’s at. ThePrayerMovement.com
No prayer on Friday announcement…
And on Friday, there’s no live prayer. We’re not hosting prayer live in the chapel on Friday due to Flashpoint. Flashpoint begins Thursday night, hosted here at Living Word, all day Friday, Friday night. We will be restreaming a previous morning prayer on YouTube and on our online church channel though on Friday. So you can still connect online digitally, but we just won’t have it here live in the chapel. We’ll reconnect again on Monday, the following Monday.
Mark Brazee’s book, “Processing the Plan of God Through Prayer…”
But in Mark’s book, “Processing the Plan of God Through Prayer,” he makes a few statements. I’m going to read a few excerpts to you regarding corporate prayer. He says…
“Jesus in Matthew 21:13 said, It is written My house shall be called the house of prayer.”
So you could really like tattoo that across your forehead because you are a house of God. You’re to be called a house, a life of prayer. He goes on to say…
“The house of God today is the church, the body of Christ. Notice, Jesus didn’t say the house of miracles, or healings, or teaching, preaching, or spiritual gifts. Why not? Because if we have prayer, we have everything else.”
It’s restated like I just said it, if you will call out to heaven, you’ll receive precipitation of heaven in every form that you need it. He goes on to say…
“We will find every miracle and major event that took place in the book of Acts was directly related to prayer. The majority of their prayers were united. Meaning, there was more than one person praying.”
Which, as I was meditating last night, I just want to encourage you this morning. As I told my daughter, she’s a volleyball player, she plays varsity volleyball here at Maranatha here at our school. I said, “Katie, don’t be afraid to start something.” Meaning don’t be afraid to take risks. Don’t be afraid to step out no matter how you feel like you are, or personality wise, don’t be afraid to start something. And I say that in regards to prayer, don’t be afraid to start something. In regards to grabbing hold of people and praying with them, inviting people over to your home to pray. Praying with somebody on the phone. If you see a need, say, “Hey, can I pray with you?” Gather together and unite in prayer. That’s the move of God now. Out ahead of what He wants to do in the days that are before us yet. He said…
“The majority of their prayers were united, meaning there was more than one person praying. Of course, corporate prayer or united prayer does not replace our individual times of prayer. We will always need to keep our individual lives active. Nothing can replace the fellowship and communion we have with God on a personal level every day. But we are living in a time when it is important to pray things through and when we come together corporately or collectively, we will accomplish those things more quickly than we can in any other way. When God spoke to me and said, Mark, you’re a half step behind. I knew He wasn’t talking about a half step behind in my responsibilities in ministry. What He meant was that I was a half-step behind in prayer. I reasoned that if I could be a half step behind in prayer, couldn’t I also get ahead in prayer? I want you to get to the place where I have so much prayer out ahead of me, I am waiting, I am walking things out instead of working them out.”
Which I think is a really interesting thing. If you find yourself working and striving and struggling, that is symptomatic that you’re leaning too much in your ability, your intellect, and the arm of your flesh. Because as I said earlier, you’ll have out of body experiences too when you get out ahead in prayer, God will just start doing things for you, things that you’ve tried for decades, maybe to make happen. He will make happen. He will bring to pass easily, organically, and even effortlessly. Because didn’t the Bible teach us that He desires to produce fruit on the branches of our lives? Simply because of fellowship or being connected to the vine, a.k.a. Jesus. He will produce fruitfulness in our lives automatically, effortlessly. He goes on to say…
“I am walking things out instead of working them out. The best way to walk things out is to get the way plowed and paved before we get there.”
I suppose that’s why Jesus provided the template that He left us and that He prayed before He ever stepped foot into ministry.
“Some things are accomplished more quickly with united or corporate prayer than any other way. Not only will things get done more quickly, but things will not be accomplished at all unless we pray them through corporately. In studying the book of Acts, we find that most of the prayers were united prayers. Beginning in Acts chapter one, Jesus gave His disciples instructions to wait in Jerusalem until they were endued with power from on high.
“In Acts chapter one, it says being assembled together with them commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem. But to wait for the promise of the Father. Which saith He, You have heard of me. For John truly baptized with water. But you shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost, not many days ahead. But you shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost has come upon you, and you shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and in Samaria and into the uttermost parts of the earth.”
In other words, prayer and the presence of God will propel you into your calling as far as it reaches, as far as you go all the days of your life.
