 and welcome to morning prayer. Let's all stand to our feet and those of you who are joining us from home this morning, we wanna invite you to get your Bible, your journal, coffee, whatever. Today is gonna help you engage in ministry and worship to the Lord and also to hear from the Lord. And we're gonna give the Lord the next hour or so of our undivided focus, attention, and affection. So glad that you're here with us. And I wanna start this morning by just engaging our hearts out of Psalm 100. It's one of these short but yet really potent Psalms that calls us to worship. It says, make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth. Serve the Lord with gladness and come into his presence with singing. Know that the Lord, he is God and it is he who made us and we are his. We are his people, the sheep of his pastor. Enter his gates with thanksgiving, his courts with praise, give thanks to his name, bless his name, for the Lord is good and his steadfast love endures forever and his faithfulness to all generations. Serve the Lord with gladness and come into his presence with singing. Singing and worship and thanksgiving is the master key that opens the door and gives us awareness and access to the presence of the Lord. David says over and over again, like in Psalm 103, he says, bless the Lord, oh my soul, there's a command of our soul that we have to engage with and willingly step into a thankfulness and of serving the Lord with gladness. And one of the ways that we serve the Lord is by ministering to him long before we ever ask him to minister to us. Now he does, he does as soon as we begin to sing, as soon as we begin to worship, as soon as we begin to pray, he's there. But the door that separates his presence being there and our awareness of it is our hearts stepping into the posture of thanksgiving and gladness. So the antidote to greed and covetousness and disappointment is always thankfulness and gratitude. This is how we step into the priestly role of being kings and priests before the Lord. We worship and we thank him. So we're gonna do that this morning. Right now wherever you're at, let's just take a moment, maybe just lifting up our hands, closing our eyes, taking a deep breath and just reminding our soul this morning, how thankful we are for his goodness. Lord, we thank you. Father, we thank you for your faithfulness, that you are good and your steadfast love endures forever. But with gladness we enter into your presence with thanksgiving, we remind our hearts who we belong to, that we are yours, we are the sheep of your pasture. And what an incredible privilege it is to serve you, to call upon your name, to know that we have the ability to walk through the door and to see you and to encounter you and to minister and to bless you. So Lord, we bless your name. We bless your name with your name on our lips. We say thank you. Let's just say that, let's just out loud, just say thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord, bless you, Jesus. Grateful hearts. We draw near to you, you draw near to us. Lord, would you cleanse our eyes this morning to have eyes of faith, eyes of faith that you've given us, Lord. In every circumstance, Lord, you have given us the greatest reason to praise. You are the reason that we can enter in this morning. Your body broken is the reason that we can enter in this morning. We fix our eyes on you, Jesus. Let the king purification of the shepherd himself without blemish to God purify. It goes on to say that the blood of Christ has made a new and a living way enter behind the veil into the heavenly of heavenlies. We have no price that was paid for the blood of Jesus when he, the son of the living God, laid down his life and allowed the blood as the old hymn says, flow from Emmanuel's veins. We have no idea the power and the strength of the blood of Jesus that that blood speaks of better things over our lives. It speaks better things than your guilty conscience does. It speaks better things than the voice of the accuser. It speaks better things even of your own memory or your own understanding of who you are. The blood of Jesus declares you righteous. The blood of Jesus declares you a child of the living God. The blood of Jesus speaks resurrection over dead things. This morning, I want us to take a few moments. We're going to go back into singing, Oh, the blood of Jesus. And I want us to add into there. I'm thankful. I want us to sing and I want us to declare that over our lives and in the face of whatever maybe opposition or discouragement or frustration you might feel, we're going to elevate the blood of Jesus. The flesh is white as snow. It has changed and saved us. It's made a new and living way. Our consciences this morning are sprinkled with the blood of Jesus. We're made one with you because of the blood that you shed Jesus. Precious is the blood. Passover, they would put them as a sign of and it's a picture of how Jesus has set us free. And this morning, I want us to take the next minute as the musicians play your Passover Lamb this morning. This is where we step into it and we appropriate it, which means it has power when it's added with faith. The blood of Jesus. Over the doorposts of our own lives, over our family, over our children, over people that are closest to us right now, Lord. We're saying we claim the blood and we plead the blood of Jesus that sets us free, that saves, that heals, that delivers. Wherever there's been demonic deception, we plead the blood of Jesus where there's sickness or disease. Right now, we plead the blood of Jesus that heals because of the stripes that the suffering servant, the son of the living God bore on his back and the nail holes in his hands and his feet. We say that by your stripes, we are healed. We claim that over strep, we claim that over shingles, we claim that over every virus, every sickness, every cancer, every mental illness, every ounce of depression and anxiety. We plead the blood of Jesus. And we appropriate the blood of Jesus over those who are far from you, Lord, those that are still in darkness, dead in their sins, that have been blinded by the God of this world, every prodigal. And we say in the name of Jesus, the blood of Jesus over our families, over our household, we appropriate it in your name and we say salvation has come to our house today. We say deliverance has come to our house today. We say that open eyes have come to our house today, ears unstopped in the name of Jesus because Jesus, you shed your blood and you the spotless worthy need to receive the rewards that you paid with your precious blood when you died in our place on a Roman cross of suffering and shame. You said it is finished, our debt was paid. The voice of accusation silenced. Now, Lord, we're asking that the power would come to bear over our families, our marriages. We pray for reconciliation and marriages, soft hearts and marriages in Jesus' name, reconciliation today in Jesus' name, not because of our own strength, but because of the power of your blood. And right now I want you to just plead the blood and literally see yourself placing the blood of Jesus over the doorpost and on the lentils of your household. And whatever is lacking, whatever is needed is found in Jesus. My righteousness. I wanna invite you to open your Bibles to Colossians chapter one. We're gonna take the next several minutes or so and we're gonna pray through this apostolic prayers and sing it, pray it. And I want you to see it as we're praying. So have your Bibles open. This is where we learn to pray prayers that God has already signed off on. It's like, if it's in the Bible and it's a prayer, it's God's way of saying, this is a prayer that not only do I want you to be encouraged by, but I want you to repetitively pray this over your own life because once it gets into you, it becomes reality. Paul prays this prayer, Colossians one and verse nine. He says, and so from the day that we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking, and here's the prayer, that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bring fruit in every good, work and increasing in the knowledge of God. May you be strengthened with all power according to his glorious might for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the Father who has qualified in you to share in the inheritance of the saints and the light. So we're gonna take the next several minutes, meditate and pray and sing out of this. When we pray, I want you to pray. And when we sing and when the singer seeing you sing, these are not things that we just observe others to do that we engage with this and we allow it to saturate and soak into our spirit so that it becomes reality. So Father, right now we join our hearts with the heart of this prayer. We join our hearts with even the heart of how Paul prayed and we ask, Lord, we're asking you once again, because you've invited us into this prayer that you would fill us with the knowledge of your will, with all spiritual wisdom and understanding, Lord, that you would fill us in an age when we're filled with so many opinions and in a time when so many people are riddled with anxiety because they're trying to please other people, we position our hearts before you on the altar of prayer and we say, God, we want to be filled with your knowledge. We want to be filled with spiritual understanding about your will in our lives. So Lord, today would you open the eyes of our heart by your Holy Spirit, who you said would come and lead and guide us into all truth and would glorify Jesus. Or today would you fill us, like open up our hearts and fill us from the inside out with knowledge, not head knowledge, not worldly knowledge, not knowledge of the things of this world, but knowledge of you. And Lord, would you release today by your Holy Spirit, wisdom and understanding from your word and by your Holy Spirit of your will. This is what we want more than anything, Lord. We say, your will is our will. Your way is our way. Your truth is our truth. We lay every other thing on the altar this morning. We say, God, we reject knowledge that contradicts you. We reject any fact that contradicts your truth. We want you more than anything else. Spiritual wisdom and revelation that comes from your spirit in our lives today. So would you fill us today with the knowledge of who you are and your will for us. Give us understanding. Lord, give us understanding about how, though not just what it is, but actually how to step in to give us spirit of wisdom. Counsel so that we might, as this is in verse 10, walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing it. We want our walk, not just our intellectual beliefs, not just what we say, what we proclaim a creed or what we read in our devotions, but Lord, we want our life and our practical day-to-day steps in the way that we think, how we engage with others, how we respond to you, Lord. We want our lives to be worthy of you for us as our great intercessor that our faith would stand. Lord, the price of your life for our redemption is worthy of us to follow you. Lord, we don't want to live our lives the way that at the end of them, when we stand before you, we took the lowest common way to go, Lord, the wide road that leads to destruction. Lord, we don't want to say, I'm so sorry, Jesus, you paid such a high price for me, but I wasn't willing to obey you, Lord. We want to stand before you some day and to the best of our ability to be able to say, Lord, with everything that we had, even though we stumbled and even though we felt the trajectory of our heart was to come after you. Lord, we want to live obedient to you, submitted to you, worthy of you want to live our lives, God, in a manner that is worthy of the price that you paid so that we can fully please you, God. Lord, this is our desire that we might be found pleasing to you. It's only by your grace, God, we can only stand by your grace, but Lord, it's by faith and obedience to you that we'll hear you say, well done, good and faithful servant, because you're pleased with us. Lord, would you release to us revelation and even conviction in our hearts by your Holy Spirit of the sin and the weights that so easily beset us and keep us from running a race that's pleasing to you. Lord, would you convict us? We don't want our hearts to become dull and calloused, so we just kind of take advantage of grace. Think we can live in one way and please you at the same time, Lord. No, we want our hearts to be sensitive and soft and pliable before you so that we can fully please you with our lives. This is what we were created for, for good works, to partner with you, to be led by your Holy Spirit, to walk in the Spirit and not in the flesh. Help us to please you fully. The places where we've become familiar with you and your word, the places where we've become with abiding and indwelling sin that we've not submitted to you. Lord, break it up, soften our hearts, give us hearts of flesh, give us a heart of conviction that says, Lord, I want to please you and I want to bear fruit in every good work and I want to grow and I want to increase in the knowledge of who you are, Lord. Lord, we want to bear fruit out of our lives, fruit that brings glory and honor to you, Lord. Not the fruit of the works of the flesh, God. Not the fruit reproduces and spreads and defiles, but God, we want to grow the fruit of the spirit out of our lives because we're increasing and we're growing in the knowledge of who you are. Water us with your love, soften us with your presence. Father, you said that those who are sons of God, Lord, you love and you discipline. Lord, we will not reject your hand, we will not reject your discipline. We submit to you. We say, Holy Spirit, you put the blade of the plow into the hardened soil of our hearts and turn it over so that it's ready to receive truth. It's ready to receive your word once again. Not just lying on the surface of the wayside pathway that the birds of the air come and steal the seed, Lord. We want your seed, we want the word of God to go deep into our hearts. So that we know you, so that we're growing in you, Lord, so that we're strengthened by the power of your Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit, we submit to you. Lord Jesus, we submit to your word, your abiding word. You said, if you abide in me and my word abides in you, choose to abide. We reject all others. We reject all other voices, all other environs. We say we are grafted into the vine and we are abiding in you, Jesus. Biding in your truth, abiding in your presence, abiding in your word that we might bear fruit that pleases you. Bearing fruit in every good work, Lord. This is the desire of our heart, Father. Holy Spirit, would you water us? Would you pour out the reins of righteousness upon our hearts as we yield to you? And would you open our hearts by your Holy Spirit to see the power of God, the grace of God in us at work? Give us endurance and patience to stay faithful to you. We pray. Lord, I'm praying that every moment and every person that's been engaged in this prayer time, Lord, that throughout this day we're gonna have our hearts meditating on you, Lord, and the power of your blood and the presence of your Holy Spirit in us and that you do have a will for us and we submit to the will of God. We submit to your plans and purposes over us. And we thank you for the joy of the Holy Spirit that's resident in us. Help us to walk in the joy of the Holy Spirit. We pray in your name, amen. Those of you who are at home for joining us today, for morning prayer and invite you back at noon tonight, today and tonight at 6.30 p.m. Here in the prayer room at the Radiant City Center from the heart of our city. We're so grateful you're joining us. I want you to know God loves you. His presence surrounds you. If you're a child of God, He dwells in you and we're just believing for better things over your life today than what the accuser and what the slander and what the enemy wants to say over you. Jesus says, you are loved. Those of you who are here in the room, we're gonna ship gears here in the next few moments and go into a devotional set. So we just ask that if you're leaving, you leave quietly if you're staying in the presence of the Lord here. We welcome that as well. Have a great day. God bless you.