Morning Chapel Prayer Playlist
Pastor Ken…
[The first portion of Morning Prayer was inaudible. The transcript will begin when the sound returns.]
I pray right now, Lord, for those who are weary in their life’s journey, weary in their calling, weary in the midst of the battle that they’ve been facing. Lord, we assign supernatural grace and a supernatural reigning down of God the Holy Spirit right now on hearts to saturate the ground of emotions and spirits and bodies and relationships and hold churches and callings, people that have certain callings…
The Bible says you gave gifts to men, Lord, all kinds of callings, not just fivefold, but callings of leadership and callings of creativity and callings in various realms and culture and society and the marketplace. And so today, Father, we pray for supernatural saturation on hearts, in lives, on churches, in the midst of what’s going on, on planet Earth right now. We pray for supernatural saturation for the Spirit of God to rain, to rain, to rain, to rain, and to fall upon the church like no other hour in time, even as it was prophesied, Father. So that’s what we pray in the name of Jesus.
Matthew 24 in the Passion translation…
Now, a chapter that’s been kind of percolating in my heart a lot lately is found in the Gospel of Matthew. Let me just share this with you and read a couple things. I’m going to read this from the Passion translation, an excerpt starting in Matthew 24:4. “Jesus answered and He said, At that time…” I would say, that’s this time. “Deception will run rampant. So beware that you are not fooled. For many will appear on the scene claiming My authority or saying about themselves, ‘I am the anointed one,’ and they will lead many astray.” Verse six says, “You’ll hear of wars and revolutions on every side with more rumors of wars to come. Don’t panic or give into your fears.”
Can I just encourage you this morning? Don’t give into your fears. I know they can feel so real at times. And so overwhelming at times. Resist that. You have the authority and the right and actually all the power needed to resist every fear, every temptation.
If we resist the devil, he must flee…
The last time I checked, if we’re going to bring the Bible into this conversation this morning, my Bible still reads if we will submit ourselves to God, which we’re doing this morning and resist the devil, he will flee from us. That means there’s something great that has been invested in you. Little old you, little old me. Maybe we’re not so little, in other words. That maybe God is on the inside of you and me. He is!
You were sent here on a mission…
Can I just remind us of that this morning! You were sent here on a mission. You’re not an accident. You’re not a coincidence. You were a very clear intention in the Father’s heart, and that’s why He breathed you into your mother’s womb and you were born. And you were meant to be here at this time and in this hour. And while life can seem messy and chaotic and crazy and uncertain at times, praise the Lord! God has given us the opportunity to live by believing and not by seeing, to believe in His faithfulness and His goodness, to believe that His kindnesses are streaming to and toward you and yours today. Not just Netflix or Amazon Prime streaming your favorite show, but His kindnesses and His goodness and His great power are streaming toward us today.
The Lord wants us to turn ourselves into Him, to lean into Him…
So can I just encourage you today to turn yourself into God? The Lord wants us to turn ourselves into Him, to lean into Him… lean into His strength to shake off that lethargy, to shake off those thoughts of giving up or quitting or compromising in some way regarding your dream, or your call, or your finances, or a relationship, or a situation. Your prayers are working! God is with you. He will make sure that His will is followed through in your life. Amen. We don’t have to understand or see with clarity how it’s going to all play out. All we need to know is that God is good and faithful. And He is presently this day watching over His Word in your life to perform it. So stick with Him. He’s saying to us this morning, “Stay with me. I’m doing something. I’m working something out here. I’m lining some things up. I’m setting some things in order.”
He will take out the enemy like a smart weapon…
In fact, He’s saying, “…taking some things out, some things of the enemy. I’m taking them out like a smart weapon that’s released from a submarine out in the Atlantic, or a jet flying above releases a smart weapon.” So the Lord has some smart weapons that are going to take the legs out, annihilate the enemy. Stay with Him. Cooperate with Him. Let your words and decrees and everyday conversation be characterized by life and the promise of God’s Word and what He’s saying to you by the Rhema of the Spirit in your heart. He wants to infuse us and replenish us and fill us. He doesn’t want us to live on fumes anymore. As pray-ers, as believers, He wants us to shift into overflow, to truly live from a place of holy fire. Where we don’t live from a place of smoldering ashes. But we on purpose lean in and choose to seek and pursue Him in such a way that we present ourselves before God and the Holy Spirit’s able to saturate us and ignite within us a fresh fire.
We can have a fresh experience…
There is a fresh fire for you! You don’t have to go on yesterday’s experience. God has a fresh experience. He’s always doing something new. And I suppose that’s why the Word says, “I’m doing something new,” Isaiah prophesied. Will you not be aware of it?
He’s doing something new today for you and for me, and for the church in America and around the world. The Bible says, “Who among us will stir him or herself up to take hold of God?” You got to stir yourself up. You got to remind yourself. You got to preach to yourself. You got to take hold of the diversity of tongues that God has granted us and begin to yield to the Spirit of God and edify and build yourself up and take hold of the altar of God and receive His overwhelming sustenance and supply. Because we’re living in this time that Jesus prophesied, that I’m reading from in Matthew 24.
Again, He said, “Don’t panic or give into your fears.” You know, that’s all the enemy has, right? Is to try to get us to panic, to try to tempt us or lull us in some false idea or thing. But if we’ll resist that, He’s got no chance. He has no antidote to the Christian who will stand in their place of prayer and be vocal with their authority… be vocal with the Word.
You were created to be vocal…
Your vocation is dominion. Be vocal. Don’t just sit there and take it. Don’t just sit there and kind of get under it, so to speak, regarding what’s happening in the world or in the nation or in our politics or in our economy.
Brother Kenneth E. Hagin…
Years ago, the Lord really got all up in Brother Kenneth Hagin’s business. I think it was probably the mid-seventies, somewhere in there. The Lord began to teach and show Kenneth Hagin what happened in the late sixties and early seventies and how the church dropped the ball in that there was much economic difficulty, civil chaos in many ways. We were involved in a no-win situation in Vietnam. A lot of difficult times in the late sixties and early seventies. Not that I remember it…
But all that to say, the Lord talked to Brother Hagin years later and said the church really missed its opportunity to turn things around and to stop what came on our shores. In fact, the Lord gave him a vision of these giant, nasty looking frogs that leapt out of the Atlantic Ocean and onto our shores. And there were three of them. One was economic, one was civil, and the other one was issues with our leadership. We had Watergate, right? And the Lord talked to Brother Hagin about how the church could have stopped that if we would’ve stepped into the fray and represented Him as the intercessors He’s called us to be and prayed and exercised our authority.
At this time in history, we have another opportunity…
And we’re at another point in American history, where the mercy of God is streaming His kindness. His patience is available and God’s just saying, “Okay, here’s your opportunity. Will you perceive your assignment and your call to make a difference, to determine the course of history in your nation?”
And in fact, we’re at an even more epic moment in that we’re not only at a point where there’s lots of craziness going on in our own nation, but we’re at the moment when I would call the birth pangs before the great tribulation… where there are signs in the heavens and there are signs in the earth. And it’s clear so much so that even people far from Jesus are saying, “It seems like the world’s literally filled with signs. What does this mean?”
Jesus gave us a heads up…
Well, we know what this means. Jesus gave us a heads up. He said, “Don’t panic or give into your fears for the breaking apart of the world’s systems is destined to happen.” So that’s why it’s so important that we take advantage of God the Holy Spirit, so important to live from a place of holy fire and a place of presence and prayer. Because while things are going to break apart around us, in some ways, we’re called and assigned to stand strong and stable and fixed, rooted and grounded in His love and in His Word. So that we can be a beacon of hope, a passion of light, a people who are vocal, exercising our authority.
Terrible earthquakes at the end…
Jesus went on to say, “But it won’t yet be the end. It will still be unfolding. Nations will go to war against nations and kingdoms against kingdoms, and there will be terrible earthquakes.” Go to the US Geological website and look at earthquakes from 1970 to the present. You’ll be shocked at the hockey stick, literally, trend from somewhere in the seventies, eighties to today at the number and frequency of and size of earthquakes. It’s like off the charts! Clear correlation to what Jesus is saying here. “There will be terrible earthquakes, horrible epidemics and famines in place after place.” This is how the birth pangs of the new age will begin.
And I could go on, but I think that’s all we can take of Matthew 24 right now. Because there’s more that comes. I’ll maybe read more another day. But let me just share a couple more reflections with you regarding the Holy Spirit. Because as I’ve often said, God never intended us to just do church or go through some religious motion. He didn’t intend for us to live on fumes or last year’s experience. We’ve got to be hungry for Him. We have to be stirring ourselves up on a regular basis, practicing that habit of stirring ourselves up and really putting ourselves in a position to receive the ministry of the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is a person…
He’s not, as I say, some crazy uncle of the Trinity that you can’t know about. No, the Holy Spirit is a person, a beautiful, wonderful, amazing person who the Bible says He wants to be welcomed. But He’s also easily grieved. If we go our own way, He’ll stand respectfully near, but let you go your own way. But yet He’s the one with all the answers. He’s the one with overwhelming power. He’s the one who’s here to administrate and execute the plan of God through you individually and through us as a church. He’s the one who wants to animate your life and breathe on us. That our inhaling and our exhaling would not be the toxicity of a situation that you’re in or whatever fumes you’re breathing out on the highway somewhere. He wants our lives to breathe in and breathe out. Jesus did what He did, not so that you can just have fire insurance for eternity. He did what He did so that we could be fully prepared and worthy vessels. Cleansed from the inside out by the highest order of sacrifice, that being the sacrifice of the appointed and only begotten Son of God who shed His blood and gave His life so that that blood could be applied to the doorposts and lintels of your life, even as it was applied in ancient Egypt. So that when the Israelites went into their homes and they passed through those blood-laden doorposts and lentils, the death angel passed by and they left a place of death and entered a place of life and protection.
Jesus said, “I am the door…”
Well, guess what? Under the new covenant, the blood dripped from Emanuel’s veins and body, and it landed on that cross, that doorpost, that lintel. And when you enter in through the Holy Spirit, in through prayer, in through practicing presence, you enter into a new opportunity each and every day. Jesus said, “I am the door. All those who enter and find Me find life.” Well, that’s something we must do every day. Enter into relationship with Him. Be pursuant of Him. Be hungry for Him.
Resist what the enemy’s doing to try to lull us into a place of self-satisfaction, a place of religious duty, and pursue Him and enter into relationship more and more and more. Because as we do so, our lives will become fully animated, fully imbibed with the Spirit of God. You will find refreshing. You will find renewal. You’ll find creativity for each day and every situation, wisdom for every problem and power that you get to put on display for all the world to see.
God wants to put on display His manifest power and glory…
Because if there’s one thing God wants to do and why we pray in this hour is because God wants to put on display His manifest power and glory. He wants us to be the true lit-up ones, shining brightly living in such a place of relationship and presence, that it’s easy for those far from Jesus to find Him and to receive their miracle and to experience the life that we enjoy. God never intended for us to live on the middle line, but to get as far over into Him as we possibly can so that we are truly fanatical.
Jesus didn’t come to start the next branch to Judaism, the second church of the whatever. He came to start a revolution. He started a revolution. He inaugurated a new and living way. And I guess I’m probably preaching to the choir, I know. But it’s just good. The Bible says that we’re to give more earnest heed to those things which we’ve already learned lest that at any time we let them slip. And we are living in a world where as long as we’re in this particular dimension and time and space, there’s an enemy.
Our enemy wages a war of attrition…
Jesus Himself said there’s a ruler of the world and his name is the devil. And he wages a war of attrition. He wants to wear us down. He wants to try to harass us. And he’s already lost. He knows that. But if he can wear you down, He can detour you, discourage you, disconnect you from your courage, in other words, then he can slowly maybe get you to relent or just be neutralized at least. And then he can have his way with you and in our society and in the world.
The church must rise up and take hold of the revolution Jesus started…
But it’s when the church truly rises up and takes hold of the revolution that Jesus started in His blood and lives as He lived, we can turn this world upside down for God and for good in no time at all. And shift the course of human history.
Brother Kenneth E. Hagin…
Brother Hagin says this in one of his reflections about the Holy Spirit, “When you discuss the earthly ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ, most people immediately respond, ‘Well yes, but He was the Son of God.’ And of course, He was. But what they failed to realize is that He as the Son of God was one thing, and He as a person ministering was another thing. He did not minister as the Son of God. He ministered as a mere man anointed by the Holy Spirit.
Oh, how real He is. If people would start developing that consciousness of the indwelling Spirit, when they first become Christians, He would manifest. In other words, He would come forth, He would materialize, if you will. He would manifest Himself. But too often they, Christians, haven’t been taught correctly. They thought they got an experience. They kept trying to have another experience, like that one. But it wasn’t an experience at all. It was someone… a divine personality who came to live in them. He is a heavenly being. The Holy Spirit.
Praying in the Spirit activates the calling of God…
I’m convinced that the more we yield to the Spirit of God and are taken over by Him, the more results we’ll see. In fact, when you pray in the Spirit, you activate the calling of God. You come into greater focus and preparedness to do the plan of God, to follow and exhibit what His intentions are for you, your family, your church, and the world. It all comes alive in His presence. It all comes alive when you pray in the Spirit, when you worship. God wants to raise up, Brother Hagin says, a mighty spiritual army in these days equipped with His power and His Spirit that He can place His anointing upon.
Brother Benny Hinn…
Let me read you one other reflection about the Holy Spirit by Benny Hinn. If there’s one thing that earmarked Benny Hinn’s ministry, it was the Holy Spirit. We didn’t get an experience. We got a person who presently lives in us if we profess the name of Jesus. Benny said this at one point, “You ask, who is the Holy Spirit? I want you to know He is the most beautiful, most precious, loveliest person on the earth. God the Son is not on the earth. God the Father is not on the earth. They both are in heaven this very second. Who is on earth? God the Holy Spirit. For God the Father came to do His work through the Son who was resurrected. When God the Son departed, God the Holy Spirit came, and He is still here doing His work. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God. He is the power of the Godhead, the power of the Trinity. What is His job? The task of the Holy Spirit is to bring into being the commandment of the Father and the performance of the Son. The Holy Spirit is the power of God.”
That’s why the enemy wants to distract you and detour you, and somehow harass you and keep you from praying. He is deathly afraid, truth be told, of a church that prays, of a believer who will give himself over to the Spirit of prayer. Because therein lies the release of the power of the Trinity, as Benny Hinn said.
He goes on to say, “The Holy Spirit is the power of God. He is the power of the Father and of the Son. He is the one who brings into action the performance of the Son. Yet He is a person. He has emotions which are expressed in a way unique among the Trinity. The person of the Holy Spirit is distinct in the Godhead. He is tender, He is sensitive. But because Jesus gave Him to you and to me, He is not going to leave us. The Holy Spirit is a gentleman. He doesn’t enter your room until you invite Him.”
The Holy Spirit is a gentleman…
I suppose that’s why I’m kind of highlighting this because you have to recognize His presence and His ministry and His personhood in your life. And talk to Him, yield to Him. Be aware of Him. Develop a relationship with Him. The Holy Spirit is a gentleman. He doesn’t enter your room until you invite Him. He doesn’t sit down until you ask Him. And He doesn’t speak to you until you speak to Him. How long will He wait until you speak to Him? It could be months, even years. God forbid, right? He will just wait and wait and wait. Maybe that’s why the Bible reveals that He’s the standby, always standing by. You can go and do it your way or you can choose to speak to Him and discover God’s higher way and victorious way. My friend, you will never know His power, you will never know His presence until you go and sit beside Him and say, “Wonderful, Holy Spirit, tell me all about Jesus.” Isn’t that beautiful?
Brother John Osteen…
I want to read one more excerpt. This is from John Osteen, who years ago, he’s in heaven now, but he wrote these thoughts about the Holy Ghost. He said, “The Holy Ghost is the executive power of God. God the Father did His job in planning salvation. Jesus came down and completed His redemptive work. He has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. This though is the age of the Holy Ghost. I do not know of anybody in our day that is living, raising a family and trying to serve God that does not need the ability, efficiency and might of the Holy Spirit.”
By the way, you know the Holy Spirit can make up time for you, right? He can redeem time. He can redeem things. He can redeem relationships and situations. He supersedes time and space. He’s all knowing, all powerful, right? He’s everywhere at once and He’s on your side. He’s in you.
“When you get the baptism of the Holy Ghost, you touch a realm you never before touched.” Ooh, I like that. That gets me curious. “Even in your deepest dedication, it is a dimension where the gifts of the Holy Ghost operate. It is the realm of the supernatural. You begin to live in the same Holy Ghost charged atmosphere as those in the book of Acts.”
What? Yeah! That is what you’re called to. That’s what we in this present day and hour of the church are called to… to live in that charged atmosphere of God the Holy Spirit, charged with miracles, signs, and wonders, abundant provision, wisdom, answers, messages, songs, prophecies, poems, books, businesses, organizations, initiatives, callings, gifts that you don’t even know are latent within you activate when you begin to live and move and have your being in a Spirit-charged atmosphere in your heart, in your home, in your church, in your business, in the marketplace. Wherever you go, you can bring and create and cultivate your own atmosphere. That’s why what is written in the book of Acts was written and recorded because they discovered the Holy Spirit and the fullness of His ministry. And if there’s one prayer, we pray this morning together, agree with me, “Lord, we pray that you would take us back to a place of fullness of God the Holy Spirit, of freshness, of newness.”
