 Good morning. Welcome to Morning Prayer from the Radiant City Center in downtown Kalamazoo, where we have the high honor and privilege of entering into the presence of God and gazing on His beauty, beholding Him. And there's nothing better that we could be doing with our time. And there's probably a number of things we'll do today that we'll regret in eternity, hopefully not terribly, but this is not one of them. We will never regret time that we spent in God's presence worshiping and praying. This is time well spent and time well invested. We're going to pray through Ephesians 1, 15 through 21, one of the Apostolic prayers and one of my favorite prayers in all of Scripture, which is asking that the Father may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation, the knowledge of Jesus. David put it that he longed for revelation of Jesus like the deer longed for the water. And I just want to bring that before us and let that Scripture provoke us a little bit. Do we have that longing this morning? Or are we good if we, you know, we've already gotten, we know the Logos word and so we're good for today. And if God wants to interrupt, he's welcome to, but I'm just going to do my thing. Or are we approaching the day that if I don't get a rainbow word, if Jesus doesn't speak or reveal himself to me, I'm like a deer who's wandering in the wilderness looking for that drink of water. And let's allow that picture this morning to lead us to the place that Paul is praying from in this Scripture that he's asking the Father of glory to give wisdom and revelation, the knowledge of Jesus. So let's go before him this morning. Let's fix our attention on Jesus to the man who's seated at the right hand of the Father, the King of kings and the Lord of lords risen, exalted and glorified in Jesus. We declare this morning you are beautiful. You are good worthy of our time and our attention. And we need a fresh revelation of you, Jesus. We need to see you in a way we've never seen you before. We need to hear your voice. We need to have an encounter with the spirit of living God. We need something that flesh and blood doesn't reveal, but the spirit of living God confirms that revelation, that revelation, that spirit of a revelator, the one who is fixing attention and gazing and looking for a new glimpse. And Jesus, we need to see you in a new way. Open up our eyes, Lord, even right now. Open up our eyes to see Jesus in new and living ways. Spur our creative imagination, Lord. God, let us not daydream about comfort or escapes or getting away or our flesh, but Lord, let our daydreams be filled with fascination about the man Jesus Christ. Oh, Jesus, reveal yourself to us this morning. This is the band begins to create a space for us to see. I want to invite you if you, if you'll join us speaking tongue, speaking your understanding. If you don't know what to say, just say Jesus. Just say, thank you. As we do this as the band plays, I want us to just turn our gaze into his face. Bring a picture, a few pictures on the cross. Picture him in a field of wild flowers, dancing with him. I want us to just spend a couple minutes before we jump in and just speaking your understanding. Just look at him to a safe place. Here to pray and your understanding. Oh, just to bless his heart. So right now, all across this room, just engage with your journal and penning. Whether he's leading you to a scripture, let's engage with the Holy Spirit. Let's ask him. Let's just begin to ask him. Reveal the beauty of Jesus. Reveal the beauty of God to me in this moment. For these things I looked and behold, a door standing open in heaven. The first voice I heard was like a trumpet speaking to me saying, come up here and I will show you things which must take place after this. Immediately I was in the spirit and behold, a throne set in heaven and one sat on the throne and he who sat there was like a jasper and a sardius stone in appearance and there was a rainbow around the throne in appearance like an emerald and around the throne 24 thrones and on the thrones I saw 24 elders sitting clothed in white robes and they had crowns of gold on their heads and from the throne proceeded seven lamps of fire were burning before the throne which are the seven spirits of God. Before the throne there was a sea of glass like crystal and in the midst of the throne and all around the throne were four living creatures full of eyes in front and back that first living creature was like a lion the second living creature like a calf the third living creature had a face like a man the fourth living creature was like a flying eagle the four living creatures each having six wings were full of eyes around and within they do not rest day or night saying holy holy holy so the Lord God Almighty who was and is and is to come whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to him who sits on the throne who lives forever and ever the 24 elders fall down before him who sits on the throne and they worship him who lives forever and ever and they cast their crowns before the throne saying you are worthy of Lord to receive glory and honor and power for you created all things and by your will they exist and were created God capture us with your beauty and your majesty and your wonder like you captured John God we ask for an open door Lord even right in this exact moment Lord in this room to those who are joining together in unity of the spirit of the livestream Lord I ask for a door to stand open in heaven right now in the name of Jesus I ask for Jacob's ladder of revelation of angels ascending and descending I ask for the heavens that Jesus tore open Lord to come raining down with fresh revelation and encounter what do the angels see that caused them to fall down what do the 24 elders experience in their inner man that caused them to cast their crowns what is it that has caused the angels to sing the exact same lyrics for eternity past and it not get old what are the sounds of heaven or that thundering in that lightning what does the see a glass sound like and feel like what is the music and the singing and the worship in heaven sound like what is it about the glorified resurrected Jesus that the last time John saw him he was leaning his head upon his breast but now when he sees him in the islands he falls on his face like a dead man what type of glory and wonder what majesty I asked for an open door of revelation god we don't want to leave this prayer room we don't want to leave this prayer meeting until we've caught a glimpse that is more fascinating to us than the world than our own interests the comfort and social media the distraction a love that's stronger than the fear that's gripping us a grace that's overwhelming enough to take down our shame and our guilt a passion and fire in your eyes that's strong enough to consume our heart we've been lost to those who your heart burns for open our eyes open the eyes of our understanding enlighten the eyes of understanding and give us the spirit of the wisdom and revelation of Jesus Christ we confess our boredom we confess we can hardly focus on you for a couple minutes without our mind wandering learn to fix our eyes on worthless things but Jesus would you reveal yourself to us that we would behold you in your beauty 17 that the god of our Lord Jesus Christ the father of all glory may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation the knowledge of Jesus but the eyes of your understanding may be enlightened you may know the hope of his calling what are the riches his glory the inheritance and the saints and the exceeding greatness of his power toward us who believe spirit of living god we're in need of the same revelation that you gave to simon peter when upon being asked who is jesus you are the christ the son of the living god we need a revelation of you that flesh and bone did not reveal Jesus there's a there's a lot about you that we know sometimes even that information that's of course good to feast upon sometimes our hearts get to the place where we lose the the wonder we lose the desperation for a revelation of who you are that we even though you are a man we will never fully know you there will be facets of your glory and beauty 10 billion years from now that we still won't know but you'll continue revealing yourself so lord i asked that you would give us the same spirit the wisdom and revelation the knowledge of jesus oh lord how can we point to you if we don't have a fresh revelation of you one person consumed with the beauty of the lord can turn an entire generation it just takes one person to see something that nobody's ever seen before and call attention to that and lord we asked that we would see in a way we've never seen that the eyes are understanding would be enlightened that we would know the hope of his calling in the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints god we need that revelation of your glory the inheritance that we have to rule and reign with christ to be seated in heavenly places with him to be married to be one with jesus to partake in the marriage separate of the land god we need a revelation of that and you're exceeding greatness of the power toward us who believe god we've made you too small in our eyes we've even treated prayer just ask for barely enough instead of seeing the exceeding greatness of your power that's toward us who believe the oceans of your grace the rivers of your mercy the endlessness of your love the might and awestruck wonder of your power the other than this of your holiness there's nothing we want from you more than the way we want to see you jesus would you enlighten the eyes of our understanding for real be captured by your beauty jesus open the eyes of our understanding i have the sense that there's actually many maybe even most of you that are engaging in the prayer meaning that jesus has spoken something to you in the sense that i got was what i felt the prompting of the spirit was jesus saying don't overlook it just because it was simple what i spoke he might have just simply spoke love literally could bend that word okay i know that i just mean i mean i need something new the newness is not uh information or anything that we've never encountered but it's the depth of that revelation and belief that it's meeting in our heart and i actually i have the sense that some of you actually had a really like simple idea um i i had the sense that some of you somebody random popped into your head during the prayer meeting and the lord said that's me i want you to reach out to them i have something for them uh some of you had uh unique uh ideas for a problem that you've been thinking through and you thought that was kind of random and i felt the lord said nope that was me i deposited some of you there was actually i felt specifically the love of god and the grace of god that there was a simple emphasis that you got and you're tempted to overlook it and just because it shrouded simplicity doesn't mean that it's not brilliant and beautiful and deep and profound and so i want to share that with you right now and uh for for some of you that that hit you um i'm going to pray in a moment and i want to encourage you to then steward this if god gave you this pearl to treat it as precious to think on it to write in your journal and then to activate an obedience point don't just say well that's cool that was a great thought i enjoyed that but revelation of jesus it activates us to action and obedience and so lord i thank you just for what you spoke even what you spoke to me just in that word of knowledge and god i ask right now that you would confirm your word that you would confirm what you spoke lord i ask for every heart that's tempted to overlook what you spoke just because of how simple it was would i ask specifically for the revelation of grace i believe there's freedom this morning from not just one person multiple people that you've been been being eaten alive by guilt and performance and you don't even know it and realize it but this morning the lord is convicting you not by shaming you but by breathing on a revelation of his grace of the endless boundless grace of god that conquers all that is stronger than guilt that causes our sins to be removed for our sins to go east while he carries us west and the love and the kindness and the mercy of god i rebuke shame over past failures right now in the name of jesus i rebuke guilt where there has already been repentance i.e condemnation lord i ask for the activation right now for that random person that popped into the head lord would you give us a prophetic word would you give us an unction would you give us an open door for us to speak to them lord for every word that you spoke for everything that you highlighted that you're putting emphasis on right now oh god give us strength to activate that right now in the name of jesus to the past we washed away strategically putting unbelievers into our hearts and actually i heard him say that it was he was in the prayer meeting he was actually using the door of frustration and some of you have a like boss co-worker parent sibling who's not walking with the lord and they're driving you crazy right now and that that actually came up during the prayer meeting like that specific person and you were trying to push it aside and i actually felt the lord said nope that was actually me that was actually i wanted to put that person before you because i want to reveal myself i want to speak to that person and so i want to join in and and intercession these last few minutes and uh i i believe this morning you know sometimes it becomes broad but the focus is a lot of times the spirit kind of narrows in as we go in prayer i believe the lord wants to do a quick acts to commissioning we want to fill us with fresh boldness and wisdom to go out and and and i believe that there's a percentage it's it's not just one or two people that the lord is actually pulling on your heart as you are singing about the beauty of jesus to go and share that beauty with somebody else and so lord if you have and i ask for that person to come into our mind right now in the name of jesus lord i ask that we would not let this moment pass us by we wouldn't disengage but lord that we would activate our faith in this moment lord we thank you that you've put this specific person in our life lord even though they may be frustrating us right now they may be difficult they may be hard even the fact that they don't know you can be bothersome to us but jesus i ask right now that you would put them on our hearts and lord i ask that you would give words to speak jesus that you would open up their eyes lord i just ask for open doors right now lord for those relationships where there has not been an open door to share whenever we've brought up jesus there's an eye roller there's an angry response or there's some type of trigger and wall that we just seem to hit over and over again lord that you would break down that wall the next time we speak with them that there would be an openness there would be a receptivity to the gospel jesus i ask would you reveal yourself to the loss the broken and the hurting give jesus for speaking thank you for revealing yourself i want to highlight something real practical that that josh actually said about 10 15 minutes into the prayer meeting that i thought was so wise when he was saying hey in between moments where we're singing choruses and lyrics on the screen let's be still saying thank you and singing the spirit and praying something just transformative for me probably about 15 years ago in prayer meetings was when i discovered i didn't have to wait for my part and if you if you've ever been near me in a prayer meeting you know it probably annoys you but you know what i'm talking about like when zaks prayer leading and i'm on the front row i'm saying the phrase is zaks saying i might change him a little bit i might say amen where i'm praying in tongues i'm offering the fruit of my lips and i'm engaging in prayer in that way that was transformative to me there's something about the mind and when we don't sing and when we don't pray the mind just starts to drift and you know we're just kind of like go to other places and we kind of like sit down and then we want to get on our phone and and we kind of lose that engagement man it's something powerful in agreement and when pastor li's prayer leading i'm like man he prays so many good things i'm like i want to speak these aloud so i can get these in my spirit because he's he's operating from revelation if i just listen i lose a lot of it but when i speak it out loud i actually gain some of it and so i just thought that was super wise that little invitation just wanted to put that on the end to you and especially for struggling with distraction or disengagement man it can really be a game changer just to say those phrases and those those things allowed so there's that we'll be back here praying at noon and 6 30 p.m and then back tomorrow morning at 8 a.m have a great day