 Well good morning everyone, welcome to morning prayer those of you who are joining us online. From home or wherever you are we are so glad to have you with us. There's something really powerful that happens when we unite our hearts together in interceding and standing in a place as priests and kings before the Lord and worship and prayer and intercession. And that's really our primary calling in the Lord far beyond just the things that we do for the Lord is what we're created to be and what we're created to be as those who sing, those who pray, those who serve and minister to our God on his behalf. And first we start with ministering to him in particular. And so we're so glad you're joining us. One heart, one spirit, one moment in praying, seeking after him. Psalm 145 this morning. It's a Psalm of David and David calls our heart to worship. He says, I will extol you my God and my king and bless your name forever and ever. Every day I will bless you and praise your name forever and ever. Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised and his greatness is unsearchable. One generation shall commend your works to another and shall declare your mighty acts on the glorious splendor of your majesty and on your wondrous works I will meditate. They shall speak of the might of your awesome deeds and I will declare your greatness. They shall pour forth the fame of your abundant goodness and shall sing aloud of your righteousness. I love this idea that every day, every day I will bless you and praise your name forever. This is part of our perpetual ceaseless, ongoing, focused meditation and calling. So today that's how we're going to begin. We're going to begin as we enter into the gates of Thanksgiving and into his courts with praise. This day and every day and the morning, noon and night, our heart cries out to his heart. Something happens when you and I decide to put our gaze and our focus on him and to worship him. Not only does the Lord receive blessing and it touches his heart as he responds back to us. He draws near to us. Our eyes are open to see from an eternal perspective. Our fears and anxieties dissipate. The enemy is resisted. We have this secret place, this time and the strength and confidence that comes from being with him. So let's do this this morning. Wherever you're at, let's just open up our hands, close our eyes, put our focus on the one who seated on the throne. And Lord, today we say like David did. Every day we will praise and exalt you, starting today, starting in this moment. This is what we were created for, to bless your name, to recount all of your wondrous works, your greatness, Lord, your goodness, your mercy, to lavish praise and to lavish love upon you, and to tell you how grateful we are for you. Thank you for saving us, Lord. Thank you for calling us. Thank you for making a way where there was no way. Thank you for taking us out of the mirey clay and setting our feet upon a rock. Thank you for taking us who had no name and giving us your own name, lavishing your love and your grace upon us. Your goodness, your mercy, your power, it's unsearchable, oh Lord. But Lord, we dive in like a child into the lake that can never measure its depth, it's with, can't swim across it. He just enjoys it today. We dive in to your presence. The unfathomable, the unsearchable riches in Christ, we call upon your name and we bless you in the seeker place today. Psalm 119 says the Lord is good and he does good. Lord, you don't just do good things, the very essence of who you are. Not good the way we define good, not good because you do what we want you to do, but in everything that you do, it's perfect, it's righteous, it's holy. Jesus even said, why do you call me good? There's only one that's good. Roman says that there's none of us that are good all have strayed, like sheep we've strayed from you. There's not one of us that is good in and of ourselves. Lord, when we stray you stay. Lord, you are faithful. You promise to never leave us nor to forsake us. Lord, today would you awaken our hearts to the reality of your faithfulness, your steadfast covenant keeping love. You don't come and go based on your emotions. You don't come and go based on our faithfulness to you. First, Timothy says that when we are faithless, you remain faithful and you promised you would never leave us. Lord, to those who right now who feel lonely, to those who feel abandoned, to those who feel rejected, to those who wonder whether you still are faithful to them, still draw near to them because of things that have happened or even the things that we've done. Lord, today show yourself faithful, to the fatherless become the father, to the widow become the husband, to the solitary place us in families, to the orphan become a father, to the hopeless become the anchor of our soul. You are good and you do good. You work all things for our good, intricately weaving our mistakes, our disappointments, what others have done that we did not plan on, and even the blind spots of our life, you're weaving it together into the fabric of your purposes, all for your own glory, all for your own majesty. And we say your riches and your wisdom and your good is unfathomable God. Who is this God that is so faithful to us? Who is this father who refuses to turn away from us? Who is this savior that allows the guilty hands to nail spikes into his? To redeem us back to him? All we can say is thank you for your faithfulness, Father. Thank you for your unfailing love, for the extreme extents that you would go for us, God. Faithful and true. Standing before you, Father, is not by our own merit, it's by the grace that we stand, that was purchased by the finished work of Jesus, your Son, upon the cross, the perfect blood of the perfect Passover Lamb, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Jesus, you are the spotless, perfect Lamb of God who is worthy to break the seals on the scrolls of redemption. You alone are worthy. And Lord, through your finished work, Jesus, your blood applied to our lives washes us clean, gives us standing before the Father. We stand today in the heavenlies dressed in the apparel of priests and kings before you, standing as intercessors for your will to be done on the earth as it is in heaven, with the authority that Jesus won at his death and in his resurrection. All authority in heaven and earth has been given unto me, therefore go into all the world. Jesus, you said you've given us authority over scorpions and serpents and every work of the enemy. So today we don't stand in our own merit, we don't stand in our own authority, we stand in the name of Jesus and in the authority of Jesus. Today I want to invite you as we step into a time of intercession to look with me in 2 Corinthians chapter 4. Today we're going to be praying for God to open the eyes, the spiritual eyes of those that have been blinded to the glorious gospel of Jesus. Especially at this time of year, right now we're in a very unique, a very sacred period of time. It's Ramadan for Muslims in which they're fasting from sun up to sun down, no food, no water as a form of devotion to Allah. Many times out of spiritual desperation and hunger and while they're fasting we're going to pray today over the Muslim community and the Muslim world that Jesus, Esu in the Quran would break through the spiritual idolatry, the spiritual darkness and reveal himself to them. It's also a time approaching Passover and the different feast times of Passover for the Jewish people. We're going to pray that God would open the eyes of the Jewish people and reveal Yeshua as their Messiah. We're praying over our own culture, our secular culture in here in America and even what we're going to call a post-Christian culture of people that have a little bit of knowledge of the gospel but yet are inoculated to it. We're going to pray that the Lord just puts the gospel on turbo boosters and opens the eyes and reveals the gospel in churches this Easter and Good Friday and all of this season that when darkness wants to blind people's eyes to spiritual reality and who Jesus is, we're praying for a revelation of that in 2 Corinthians chapter 4. It says, and even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled only to those who are perishing. In their case, the God of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ who is the image of God for what we proclaim is not ourselves but Jesus Christ as Lord with ourself as a servant. So today as we intercede, I want you to join as we sing and as we pray. Don't just listen to us praying and us singing your prayers. Your songs are breaking through the heavenly's opening things up establishing a Jacob's ladder for the angels and for the spirit of God to move between heaven and earth over the lives of those we intercede for. So Lord today we come as intercessors and we're pleading for you in this hour in this season this very specific time frame, this era, this epic. Lord that you today would open the eyes of those that are spiritually blinded by the devil himself and by demonic forces and by the hardness of their own hearts so that they cannot see spiritually. Jesus said, he who has eyes to see, he who has ears to hear, let him hear. And Lord, even though we have natural sight and we have natural hearing, there is the ear of the heart and the eye of the spirit that must be opened for the light of the gospel to penetrate and change hearts. So Lord today we're joining with you and we're praying, God would you open the eyes of those that have been spiritually blinded so that the light of the gospel can enter in the truth of the gospel, the truth of the good news, who Jesus is, would be revealed to those that are far away from you today in Jesus name. Beyond every lie, beyond all ignorance, beyond every deceptive thought or doctrine of men that has kept them from you today, we're asking for a revelation of Jesus. Romans 1 says that I am not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. And so Lord today we begin by praying for the Jewish people that have yet to receive Yeshua their Messiah. Lord, we believe that the promises of God are yes and amen. The promises that you made to Abraham to Isaac and to Jacob are still intact. All Israel will be saved. Even the natural olive branch that has been cut off for a time and hardened in part will be grafted back in according to Romans 9, 10 and 11. So Lord we are so grateful for our Jewish forefathers that have given us a revelation of God, a revelation of the word, the law of God, a revelation of the ordinances and given us the prophets and even given us our Messiah, Jesus. And so Lord we who are the wild olive branches that have been grafted in to the people of God, we stand in the place of intercession we say, spirit of the living God. Pull back the veil that is over their eyes. Second Corinthians chapter three says, but even their minds were hardened for to this day when they read the Old Covenant that same veil remains unlifted because only through Jesus Christ is it taken away. Lord we pray that that veil would be taken away from the minds of the Jewish people. All scattered all over the earth and all the nations Lord we're watching even our own day how you're fulfilling prophecy by bringing them from the north the south the east and the west back into the land just as you foretold 2000 and 3000 years ago. You said in the last days they would cry out to you and say, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. God would you lift the veil off of the Jewish people's eyes the hardening. God pull it back that they might see Yeshua their only son their Messiah their savior the redeemer of Israel and that even as they read the scriptures they would see you in the scriptures from the first word of Genesis to the last word of Revelation that they would see it's all about Jesus the son from the letter been in their alphabet to the letter of none in their alphabet the alpha and the omega the first word in Genesis and the last word in Revelation it spells son everything is about the son of God Jesus Lord open their eyes to see Jesus as their Messiah in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem in New York and Chicago and all throughout Eastern Europe and scattered in the nations of the earth let them see you Jesus pull back the veil that they might believe. You said that you came and you've been anointed by the Holy Spirit to open blinded eyes that you would open the eyes of Muslims all over the world those who have sought the God of Abraham those that have sought to please the one God but have yet been blinded by the spirit of false religion and idolatry and deceptive doctrine almost 1.5 billion Muslims on planet earth right now whose eyes have been blinded and we're praying Father would you send angelic ministers would you send a spirit of conviction a spirit of hunger and thirst among the Muslim community to search out the truth about Jesus Lord we're praying for dreams and visions angelic visitations we're praying for missionaries that are in the Middle East right now that Lord you would open doors for the gospel Lord that you would open doors for conversations Lord that the stereotypes that they have about Christians hating them Lord that the missionaries that are there those who are Muslim in her background and now believe in Jesus and those who are outside of it even their Jewish brother and Lord that there would be an opening for the gospel in the Middle East in the West Bank in Gaza in Lebanon in Syria in the United Arab Emirates Saudi Arabia and Oman in Yemen Iraq Iran Afghanistan Pakistan Kazakhstan Uzbekistan Tajikistan Lord we're praying for Turkey we're praying for Tunisia Libya praying for Egypt that Lord in all of these nations of Malaysia and Indonesia where there's a high concentration of Muslims in India Lord that you would break through in this season of Ramadan that it would not be a season of religious observation only but their hunger and their thirst would drive them to search you out God we know that you're moving we know that you're moving powerfully in the Muslim world we're saying Jesus turn up the value of the voice of Jesus turn up the volume of the gospel here in America Lord we're Muslims and Detroit and Dearborn in Chicago and New York and LA and every state and here in Kalamazoo college campuses all over the US Lord that there would be divine encounters with you with angelic ministries with dreams and visions and Lord even beyond that apostles and prophets and evangelists that are being raised up to boldly proclaim Jesus is the Son of God Savior of the world resurrected Messiah Lord break through the defenses break through the walls that hell has set up to blind the Muslims eyes from hearing the gospel and let the truth break through have your inheritance you deserve worship the adoration and the rewards of your suffering Jesus we're praying for America in our secular semi-Christian post-Christian prodigal nation today and we're praying Lord that this resurrection season that we're in as we approach Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday that there would be a mighty outpouring of your Holy Spirit of boldness upon the children and saints of God to evangelize to share their faith to invite to church and we're praying Lord in every place across the the nation and the nations let the gospel be boldly proclaimed and the resurrection of Jesus from the dead be boldly proclaimed and signs and wonders following Lord and we're praying that a prodigal nation's heart would be turned back to you that people would come hungry to church and even in this hour as they're focusing on Easter coming up Lord that there would be a rekindling of their heart back towards you Holy Spirit you would draw all men under Jesus you said Jesus that if I be lifted up I will draw all men unto myself and Lord we're drawing near to a time when the cross is the central focus where we see you on the cross and we remember your victory at the resurrection and we're praying that as we focus on that that there is salvation and repentance that is released and there is a revelation in your people already who believe of the power of the resurrection and that just as those first disciples walked away from the resurrection and went and they proclaimed the good news Lord that there would be a reinvigoration of the heart of your people to boldly proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord Lord win back the prodigals win back those who have fallen in the last couple of years those who haven't been in church in years those who had a form of godliness but denied the power of their of Lord draw prodigals from the north south east and west to flood churches and to worship Jesus and to repent of their sins and to rent their garments and to cry out for mercy and to be saved god fill churches fill your kingdom destroy every idol and let Jesus be worshiped and adored so we say for the Lamb of revelation conviction angelic ministry evangelism and urgency of the hour in the hearts of your people so that Jesus is magnified glorified rightly and deservedly so Jesus we worship we adore you we thank you that you hear our prayers that angelic ministry is already dispatched and glory belongs to you in Jesus name amen we thank you for joining us this morning we invite you to come today at noon tonight at 6 30 p.m as we continue to lift up prayer and worship before the Lord from the heart of our city morning noon and night god bless you