 All right. Good morning, Radiant Church. Welcome to our morning prayer time. I encourage you wherever you're at to stand with us, to join in with the worship as we seek the Lord together. I want to read out of Psalm 34 for us. It says, I will bless the Lord at all times. His praise shall continually be in my mouth. My soul will make its boast in the Lord. The humble will hear it and rejoice. O magnify the Lord with me and let us exalt his name together. This is a call for all of us this morning. It doesn't matter what experiences we have, maybe you've got a busy schedule coming up, maybe you've got family coming into town and you're thinking about all the the preparations and the list of things to do, but this morning we're putting things aside to be able to seek the Lord together and together we are going to lift the name of our God. We are going to exalt his name above all other things. We are going to acknowledge who he is that he is holy, righteous, pure, good, kind, loving. We are going to acknowledge and exalt the name of our God. If you would just begin to lift up your own praises to the Lord, begin to acknowledge who he is. Lord, you are incredible. You are majesty. You are glory. Lord, we love you. We lift your holy name. Lord, we give you our full attention, our full affection right now. Lord, have the praises of your people. Let our mouths be full of the the praises of God. We will bless you Lord at all times. It is good to give him thanks and praise to give you the highest praise. Shining down with the world all as it is. Psalm 1611 says, For you not abandoned my soul to shield, nor will you allow your holy one to undergo decay. You will make known to me the path of life, for in your presence is fullness of joy. In your right hand there are pleasures forevermore. When we sing, blessed is the name of the Lord. No matter my circumstance, no matter what's going on, the Lord could be blessing my socks off right now, or there could be so many circumstances that are pulling my attention away, causing anxiety and fear and confusion. Irregardless, the Lord is worthy of our praise. He is worthy of our our adoration and our love. And when we enter into His presence with joy, with thanksgiving, we receive in His presence the fullness of joy. In His right hand there are pleasures forevermore that even in the circumstances that we may be facing, the hardships, the pain, we can experience the joy that is found in His presence. We press in right now. We press into the presence of the Lord. We bless His holy name. We exalt Him. We lift His name high. Psalm 73 says, Though my heart and flesh may fail, the Lord is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. We press past our limitations. We press past our pain and we seek after the one who is consistent, the one who has stayed the same, the one who is the same yesterday, today and forever. And we bless you, Lord, for you are good. You are kind and gentle. Just begin with your own words even. Maybe there's even a chorus of thanksgiving you need to lift up to the Lord to just even remind yourself, remind your own heart of the goodness of the Lord. Faithful. He has been faithful before. Won't He do any bless your holy name despite our circumstance? And I feel just even an invitation for those of us that are experiencing hardship and pain right now. It can be easy in those moments to be asking why, Lord, what's happening and to be in confusion and anxiety. And the invitation of the Lord is to not sit in your confusion, to not sit in your fear and your anxiety, but enter into His presence and receive of the promise of His presence. And it doesn't necessarily remove the circumstance or miraculously heal whatever is happening. But in that moment, we are actualizing who He is. We are realizing and being put into alignment with the reality of God in those moments. So even now, for those of you, like maybe it's even just raising your hand just for the Lord to see you. Lord, saying that, Lord, I'm in, I'm in pain right now. Maybe there's a physical ailment in your body. Maybe there's a family circumstance that's happening. Maybe there's a struggle within your marriage right now. I think the enemy has been attacking marriages and he has been putting the word divorce in people's minds. And he is saying, get into my presence because I'm going to put new words into your heart and your mind. And it's not going to come from some good help book. It's not going to come from just thinking good thoughts. But no, you're going to enter into my presence and you're going to experience my joy and my fullness and my goodness. So Lord, we enter into your presence right now. Lord, I pray for those that are experiencing these anxieties, these sufferings, oh Lord. Would you realign our minds and our hearts with the reality of who you are? Constant Lord, you stay the same. You are still good. You are still kind. And we pray that we would receive the joy, the fullness, the peace, the blessing that is found in your presence. I pray right now in the name of Jesus, let the presence of God fill this place, fill our homes, fill our workplaces. That we might enter in boldly into your presence and receive what can only be found in you that is found only in you. The psalmist says, therefore my heart is glad and my glory rejoices. My flesh will also dwell securely. For you will not abandon my soul to shale. I hear the Lord saying, I have not abandoned you. I have not forsaken you. And so in this moment we receive from the Lord, we may feel a closed hand, a clenched fist, because we're frustrated at a delayed promise. But right now the Lord is saying, open your hands that you might receive. Open your hands that you might receive my joy, my peace, the pleasure that is only found in my presence. So Lord, we open up, we unclench our fists. We're not going to try and just figure it out right now. We've wondered and we've supposed and we've been thinking about how could this be, what's the solution? And the Lord says, open your hands and let me give you my joy and my peace. I will not abandon you, I will not forsake you. Receive my presence, receive my nearness. So even as we sing this again, this receive my joy, I receive your joy. Open up your hands, open up your hands and say, Lord, I receive it. I receive your joy. I receive your peace. We receive what only can be found in your presence. Lord, you have done great and marvelous things throughout the generations. We want to be reminded of that, Lord. You're still the God who raises the dead. You're still the God who split open the seas. You're still the God that knelt down into the dust of the earth and formed and fashioned. You're still the God who breathes life into our lungs. You're still good. This is who you are, Lord. I feel the Lord saying, the situation may not be changing, but what does change is our position. What does change is our attitude in our perspective. And as we go into another time of worship together, if there's things that you're experiencing right now that this has just been hitting home, man, I encourage you to just position yourself in a posture of worship to the Lord, a posture of thanksgiving, acknowledge who He is. Let's worship the Lord together. The profession of our hearts. Let it go past our understanding. Let it surpass our circumstance. There's nothing that's worth more than finding you. You're worthy of losing everything, of laying down everything. If but to just find you. To lay a hold of you. To behold you. Lord, I pray that you would lift our eyes to the hill. Where does our help come from? Who is our only hope in life and in death? It's only you. It's always been you. Lord, though we're fickle and we change our minds over and over again, we have to come back to this realization that it's always been you. Remind our hearts again. Remind us once more, Lord. It's you. It's you. It's you. You're what we need. We take our eyes off everything else and we look to you right now. Hold the Lord together. Always been you, Lord. You are good. You are kind. I've been going through some question and answer kind of teaching with my son and one of the first questions is what is our only hope in life and in death and it's that we belong to God, that we are His and He is good and He is faithful and He is true to us and this morning I love that we've been focusing in on the goodness of the Lord, beholding Him and receiving from Him peace and joy and love. Today I want to be praying for families in our church, the family of God, particularly mothers and fathers, husbands and wives and their children. We're going to be praying out of Ephesians chapter 3 so if you could please have your Bibles open following along using these scriptures as we intercede. It says this in verse 14, for this reason I bowed my knees before the Father from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, that He would grant you according to the riches of His glory to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith and that you being rooted and grounded in love may be able to comprehend with all of the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God. Lord as your church we lift up the core the family of God. We ask right now that they would be strengthened and empowered by the Holy Spirit in their inner man. Lord there may be so many circumstances that are pulling their attention away it can get so busy it can get so distracting but would our families lean into the Spirit of God? Would our families look for their strength for their encouragement for the power in their family to be found in you? Lord we are praying for families that are rooted and grounded together in love. They are rooted they are established in the love of God. Lord we pray that for our families that may have even been distracted from this truth. Lord we ask that you draw them back in by your love by your kindness. Would you root and establish families in the love of God in Jesus name according to the riches of your glory to be strengthened with power through your Spirit in their inner man? Lord we are praying and lifting up husbands and wives this morning. Lord would you root them and establish them in love? Would you strengthen their inner man? Lord we even pray for the bond of marriage to be strengthened in our families for husbands to love their wives like Jesus loves and cares for the church and for their wives to love their husbands to lay down their lives to love and serve their husbands. We are asking that even the division that the enemy is sowing in marriages right now we bind the work of the enemy. We pray oh God would you crush the teeth of the lying deceiver who is sowing in dissension who is sowing in fear and lies into the the hearts and minds of husbands and wives. We pray that the spirit of we pray that there would be even a purifying fire that would enter into our marriages of God in any place that we have allowed the the dissidents of this world where anywhere we have allowed the lies of this world to enter into our marriages. We ask right now for the truth of God to reign supreme. We ask right now that the love of God would reign supreme of Jesus the marriages within our church and we say root them and establish them in your love lift our voices we're singing our prayers right now husbands and wives and our mothers and fathers in the church Lord I pray that you would re-establish mothers and fathers in the spirit of God in the love of God Lord we've relied on so many resources to strengthen us and encourage us but the ultimate source of life the ultimate source of power of love and encouragement is only found in you Lord in our church where our our moms and our dads established themselves in you and in your love Lord I pray that they would lead out of a deep well of intimacy with you. We pray right now that even those that have not been doing this they've haven't been so intentional with their relationship with you. Let them start right now would there be a holy initiative that is put into their hearts where they say I need to get into the presence of God and I need to bring my family with me. God we are praying that the family that the moms and way for their children into the presence of God would there be a holy exodus out of Egypt and into the promised land would they exit out of the ways that they've been doing the the the the distraction the anxiety Lord the things that have been pulling their hearts in different directions God would our hearts be drawn back into the promise back back into the truth Lord would our families be rooted and established in the love of God again and I pray that fathers and mothers would help their children comprehend what is the breath and length and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge Lord others and fathers lead their children into the presence of God I need to say help me just have a sense that uh some of us are going home to maybe prodigal family members or family members that don't know Jesus and I just want to pray over the lost family members represented in this room and I'm online and I just want to kind of just have a shotgun prayer and so I'm going to ask all of you we're going to pray together so on the count of three I'm going to pray out loud I'm encourage you to pray out loud as well and there's a hundred people in this room many on the live stream but we're going to we're just going to send mighty prayers to heaven that prodigal family members would come home I know mom and dads you may have been praying for decades maybe you've been praying for your spouse a cousin and aunt and uncle whoever it may be but I just sense that there's just going to be powered this Christmas season for the man in white Jesus the Son of God to be revealed to our lost family members so let's get ready to pray all of us open our mouths on the count of three ready one two three Jesus we ask that you would come forth that your glory would come down God we pray over families Lord lost sons and daughters we say bring them home bring them home God would you reveal yourself to them and would your glory come down God we ask that you would take the scales off our family members eyes off the prodigal's eyes God I pray that you would you would open their eyes to see that their lifestyle isn't producing fruit that what they're eating isn't satisfying and Jesus the bread of life I pray that you would come you would reveal yourself and God I pray you would equip us you would equip the saints to not just intercede but to speak the kind words to speak the words in the moment that will bring life and God I pray right now that those that are so far gone that we've written off God would you graph them in by your grace and Lord would you use us would you use the intercession and would you use our interactions in our words and we say bring them home bring them home may this be the year may this be the year we say bring them home in Jesus mighty name amen man with your spirit we come in agreement with your heart for the lost especially in our families of God and we ask that you would work a miracle in this season change hearts change minds and in a final prayer and blessing over our homes Lord would you bless our homes would you keep our families would you shine your face upon them would you be gracious to them oh Lord and would you give them peace in Jesus's mighty name we all pray amen amen well thank you all for joining us today if you're in the room or online we're going to be back here at noon today 6 30 this evening otherwise we'll see you tomorrow morning at 8 a.m have a good day