Meet Me in the Morning, Part 3

Greetings, friends and new listeners. Welcome to this program of the Archie Hardy Ministries. I'm Sharon Knotts thanking you for joining us today because we know faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.

I'm happy to bring you today's message, Meet Me in the Morning. I don't know about you, but the most important thing in my life is the presence of the Lord. Without God's presence orchestrating the daily events of my life, whether extraordinary or mundane, I would have no joie de vie, no joy of life, and certainly no peace of mind and rest of heart. And they all flow from my morning time with God.

This sets the tone for the day. But I did not always practice this until God showed me His way and said, Meet me in the morning. Lamentations, the third chapter, and I'll read it to you.

Verse 19. Remembering mine affliction and my misery. I was in misery. I can't even begin to describe to you the misery I was in. Sometimes I think about it now. I can't believe I lived through it.

The wormwood. That means the bitterness and the gall. My soul hath them still in remembrance. And now when I think about it, I think, My God, how did I survive?

Well, I know how, but you know, it's a rhetorical thing. Amen. My soul hath them still in remembrance and is humbled in me when I think about it. This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope. It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed because his compassion's fail not.

They are new every morning. Great is thy faithfulness. And what happened to me is I would get out of that bed of pain. I hated in a way to see part of me hated to see the day come because I knew it was gonna be another day of pain. But I got out of that bed and there was nothing I could do but walk and talk to God. I couldn't get down on my knees.

I wouldn't I couldn't get in that kind of a position. So I would begin to walk and talk with God. And as I began to walk and talk with God, he began to pour out his mercy for that day. I got through that day. Well, next day I repeated it. I got through that day and one day at a time, morning by morning, God sent his mercies. God sent his compassion's. And when I would begin to connect to God, my spirit began to get stronger. My faith began to develop. It was painstakingly slow. I don't want to mislead you. It didn't happen in a week.

It didn't happen in a month. It was a long journey, but it was happening little by little morning by morning. God was revealing more and more of his mercies to me.

Amen. And I began morning by morning to meet God. And I began to spend that time with God and God began to do a work on the inside out.

It would be a whole nother message to tell you about that. And maybe I will one day. But you see, that was how I got my breakthrough to start to fix the when. The when part of my broken prayer life was getting up in the morning and being with God. And after a while it dawned on me, my Lord and my God, why haven't I been doing this all those years when I had a well body?

When I didn't have pain in my body? What if I had back then done this? My God, what maybe I don't know. Maybe I would have had a different outcome.

I don't know, but I know that's what it took for me to see. And I'm saying to some of you, if you are wondering how you can fix your broken prayer life, there's nothing I could tell you more. If you want to be in ministry, if you want to be used by God, whatever it is, the greatest advice I could give to anybody is start your day with God and whatever the sacrifice is to do it, make up your mind to do it because the rewards far outweigh.

And there'll come a time when you'll look back and forget about that you ever had a problem. Amen. This was David's secret. David, the Bible says was a man after God's own heart.

How many know that? And what was his secret? I will take you quickly through some of the things that he said. He said in Psalm five, give ear to my words, O Lord, and consider my meditation. Harken unto the voice of my cry, my King and my God, for unto thee will I pray. Verse three, my voice shall thou hear in the morning. O Lord, in the morning I will direct my prayer unto thee and will look up. The first place I need to look in the morning is up. I need the first thing to direct my prayer unto God.

I need the first thing that I say is to God. In fact, I don't even get out of bed until I look up while I'm still in the bed. I look up and I say, good morning, Father. Good morning, Lord Jesus. Good morning, Holy Spirit.

I'm going to look up in the morning. Amen. Looking unto God.

It's the secret. Amen. And then as I developed that time, I started off, you know, with 15 minutes in the morning and it's stressed to a half an hour because you gotta remember my body was so weak. It was so weak for me to be up on my feet for 15 minutes and that was it. 15 minutes and I had to go lie down. So it began 15 minutes, but for you know what I had stretched, I could be up a half an hour for you know what, honest to God, it was 45 minutes before I know it was an hour and before I knew it, I mean, I just lost time that now sometimes it's two hours that I'm on my feet just walking and talking with the Lord.

Amen. Where did that strength come from? It came from having that fellowship and communion with my Lord and receiving his strength. He said, my voice will you hear in the morning? You're going to hear me Lord.

As soon as that alarm clock goes off, you're going to hear my voice. I'm going to look unto you. He said in Psalm 143 eight, cause me to hear thy loving kindness in the morning for in thee do I trust. Cause me to know the way wherein I should walk for I lift up my soul unto thee. I told you I'm getting loud, but he's going to holler.

So you're not only, now listen, I want you to see this. First he said, my voice will you hear God, you will hear my voice in the morning. And now he says, now cause me to hear your voice.

Did you get that? Psalm five three, you'll hear my voice. Psalm 143 eight, I want to hear your voice. I want to hear your voice and I want you to cause me to know the way when I should walk.

I want to hear and I want to know. You see, that was the next thing that I stumbled on. I found out that sometimes because I would get exhausted in my body and worn out from walking and praying, I have a chair in my living room that I would go and sit down for a few minutes. It's become the prayer chair. It's broken.

It's been glued and screwed and it's still broken, but it's anointed. So I hang onto it and I would sit down in that chair kind of just like, and I discovered something, you know, serendipitously. I stumbled on if I will just shut up after I prayed a while. Amen. If I'll be quiet, God will talk to me. I'll hear him.

I will hear his voice. You see, for a long time I was under the impression I had to pray like I do preach loud and powerful and commanding and all of that. I thought that was the only way I could pray and be successful, but I found out that that prayer is a two way thing.

Amen. I found out that that he said that we will meditate and hear the voice of the Lord. Meditating is, is our, you prayed under the Lord, you've worshiped, you've talked to God, and now you just sit still there for a moment and think about what you've said and before you know it, God starts dropping things in your spirit. He starts dropping things in your spirit. Now I try to keep a pencil and paper close by so I can write the things down so I don't forget them because prayer is not only you speaking, but it's listening to God. Your prayer can be, I found out you can have a little small whisper of a voice and that doesn't make it any less powerful.

Amen. And when we meditate and when we let God speak back to us. So David said he went to bed with the mindset of getting up just like God told Moses to do. He said in Psalm 57 eight, I'll wake up my glory, awake, Psaltery and harp.

I myself will awake early. He said that when he went to bed, I will wake up early and when I get up, I'm going to have my heart ready and I'm going to start singing songs to the Lord. He said in 59 16, but I will sing of thy power and not like this. Yea, I will sing aloud of thy mercy in the morning for thou has been my defense and refuge in the day of trouble.

So David began his mornings in worship and song. Can I tell you a new, don't laugh at me please, that the Lord has given me songs. He's given me songs that he didn't get. They're for him.

Okay. He doesn't laugh when I sing them. Surely I sing these songs to the Lord and and and he gives me the now I gotta tell you the tunes are lacking. They are a little I mean yeah I told the Lord this one song I said that these are really good words. I really love these words Lord but I don't like the tune I got please give me a better tune.

But so far I'm stuck in this one too. But I'll tell you the words that the Lord has given. He gives me these songs. So yeah, there are a lot of you know, I sing old hymns.

I mean, you know, old ones that go back to the 1700s. And I sing new contemporary songs, and I sing little courses. And then I sing the songs that the Lord gave to me. And oh, it's so wonderful.

Amen. I can't sing or play like David did. But I found out that the Lord gives me a song. It's beautiful to sing.

And you know what, it sets my heart in the right tone for the day. And after that, it's really hard to get ugly with my mouth. It's really hard to get snippy and snotty and mean. It's hard. I'm not saying it's impossible. Okay, please don't misunderstand me. I don't have any wings.

I don't have a halo or anything up here. But it's hard. You don't just fall into it. Because your lips have already been sanctified. Because you've been face to face and lip to lip with God.

And it does something to you. Amen. I know I'm running out of time.

I'm running out of time. And I've talked about David, but I got to at least talk about Jesus because he's the best one of all. Amen. So turn with me in Isaiah, the 50th chapter. It's only one verse, but boys, it one of my favorite ones. You say, Well, if you're talking about Jesus, what in the world you're doing in the Old Testament? Well, you know, Isaiah is a messianic prophet, chapter 50, verse four, this is speaking of the Messiah. In fact, the Messiah is speaking in the first person, the Lord God hath given me the tongue of the learned, that word there, it means to be discipled, to be disciplined to be taught. You know what I love about the well, there's a lot of things I love about Hebrew, but this one particular word in the Hebrew, that word is lamed. And do you know it has a double meaning? The word means both to teach and to learn.

It's reciprocal. Because when you have learned something, you want to tell somebody else, you want to teach someone else. In fact, I found out that when God gives me something new, gives me a new revelation, gives me some new truth, the best way that I can commit it to my memory and to my spirit so I'll never forget it is to tell somebody else is to tell somebody else. And you know, in the early days when I was still in a lot of pain, and you didn't see me in church because I couldn't get out and different people would come and minister to me, my parents would come and other people would come. And you know, in the meantime, God was starting to show me things and give me things. Oh my God, when people came to see me, they better be ready to get an earful. Because I had all this stuff.

I had no outlet. And when they came, I was going to preach everything the Lord told me. And I would tell them everything. I don't know if they liked it or not. They listened. But you see it got it in my spirit. Amen. And that's what Jesus said. He said, Give me the tongue of the learned that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary.

And here's what I love. He waken if my ear morning by morning he waken if my ear to hear as the learning the secret to having the tongue of the discipline is having the ear of the discipline. Be quick to hear it. Slow to speak, slow to rap, because the wrath of man never works the righteousness of God. If you want to have a disciplined tongue, a tongue tamed by the Holy Ghost, it starts with the disciplined ear. And it starts in the morning.

What did he say? Awaken my ear morning by morning revelation is progressive. How many understand that? God gives you revelation. He sends it line upon line, precept upon precept, truth upon truth, here a little there a little here a little there a little, there's some revelation God can't give you because you don't know this.

And you wouldn't understand that. So he's got to wait till you know this, and then he can give you the rest. And that's what he did. Even Jesus said that morning by morning by morning, God awakened his ear and gave him revelation. Amen. And that's what God wants to do to us morning by morning.

Okay, now let me tell you something. This was Jesus daily pattern and I'm winding down I promise. This was his daily pattern. We know that he was anointed with the Holy Ghost and with power. We know he went about doing good healing all that were pressed of the devil for God was with him. There wasn't a devil he didn't cast out. There wasn't a sickness he didn't heal. Blind eyes came up when he did everything that everyone that ever presented themselves to him with the need. He did it.

Amen. The devil came out every time. And in fact, I'm going to go through these quickly.

If you're taking notes, just jot it down. When he was preaching, and a lot of people questioned him about his authority and how come you can do this and who gave you this authority and all of this they were asking him. And he would answer him such things as john 828 I do nothing of myself. john 838 I speak that which I have seen with my father john 716 my doctrines not mine but is that sent me as my father has taught me I speak these things. Jesus said the father taught him he heard the father and he saw the father do these things.

Isn't that what he said? So I ask you, when did the father teach him? When did he see his father do these things?

When did he hear his father say these things? How did he know what he was supposed to do? When he came up on certain things presented themselves remember there was a couple times the scripture says he already knew what he was going to do. He already knew. How did he already know?

Because he already saw it like a video played out. He already saw exactly what was going to happen who was going to do this who was going to do that say this that the other nobody ever caught Jesus by surprise. Every time they tried to trick him when they specifically weaved webs and scenarios thinking we'll get him on this.

We'll say Oh, should we pay taxes or not pay taxes? Well, oh boy, we've got him now. And they every time they deliberately set out to snare him, they ended up being embarrassed until that one day I think that one day I forget what chapter it is. That one day the Pharisees came, the Sadducees came, the Herodians came, the lawyers came all in the same day. And when he finished with when he got to the last one after all of those tricks, tricky questions they presented to him, and he turned it all around and made them all look really bad.

I love how it ends that chapter. And from then on, no man durst asked him any more questions. He was ready.

Why? Because morning by morning by morning, it says in Mark, the first chapter, verse 35. And in the morning, rising up a great while before day, he went out into a solitary place. And there he prayed, just like Moses, just like David, come up into the mountain, come early, and come alone.

And I will meet you there. Luke 21, verses 3738. Because what Jesus heard and saw at that time with his father, he went out and put it into action. And in the daytime, he was teaching in the temple.

And at night, he went out in a boat in the Mount of Olives. And all the people came early in the morning to him in the temple to hear him. The people came early to hear him. Let me tell you something, when you know that you're going to receive a word from God, you will make whatever sacrifice you have to make to get there to hear it. Some of you may even now I see what time it is on the clock, and I'm almost finished. But the fact that some of you are saying I'm going to wait until Amen, because I want to hear what the Holy Ghost is saying.

I don't want to miss one thing that he might be speaking. Amen. The people got up early in the morning to come and hear him, because Jesus had already gotten up before day and got his word from his father, John 8 two. And early in the morning, he came again under the temple. And all the people came under him and sat down.

And he taught them. That's why I like to preach on Sunday morning. Because I know I'm going to give people that have rested and their hearts are open, and they have ears that are ready to hear a lot of messages the Lord gives me.

I you know, I want you number one, I'd like you to be able to look in the Bible with me. And some things when your mind is tired and your body's tired, you just you just don't really get it, do you? But one thing about being in the morning, and that's why I want to encourage you exhort you, you have to start somewhere.

Do like I did. If it's only five minutes, I know the devil will say it's only five minutes. There's no point.

What's the point? Five measly minutes. The devil is a liar. Start with five minutes and let the Holy Ghost do the rest. Amen.

Let the Holy Ghost do the rest. You will find out before long. You will open your eyes, the clock hasn't gone off.

Nobody else has gotten up. You open your eyes and you look at that and every day you'll wake up at the same time. Is that a coincidence?

No, it's the Holy Ghost. He's saying I'm ready. Are you ready? Are you ready?

Are you ready to meet me? Amen. God wants every one of us to have a dynamic, powerful, enjoyable prayer life. Amen. And if you want that, stand on your feet. If that's what you want, stand on your feet. Amen.

I want you to put your right hand on your heart and your other hand in the air. If, if, don't do it if you're not ready, it's better not to vow a vow than to vow one and not keep it. Amen. It only puts you under condemnation. It only gives the devil more ammunition to beat you up. So if you say, Lord, I'm ready for a breakthrough. And maybe you've already got one.

I mean, I'm not trying to say that everybody's in that condition, but I know there's always room for growth. No matter what. Maybe you're, you're, you don't have so much of a problem with the prayer time as you do with the listening time. Or maybe you don't have so much a problem with that as you do with reading the Bible so God can speak to you through his word. You hurry through it and then you don't even know what you read.

Maybe that's your problem. Whatever it is, if you're ready for a breakthrough, put your hand on your heart and your other hand raised to God. And God is looking and he sees and he knows the heart. He knows your cry.

He hears how desperate you are. Just like Moses said, Lord, we want to know your ways. We want to know your heart. We want to come into intimacy with you, Lord.

We don't want to say like the children of Israel. Oh no, no, no, that's not for me. Lord, we want to come into your presence even if it makes us tremble. Even if when we come into your presence, our heart is convicted and we say, Oh Lord, I have unclean lips because we know Lord at the moment that we confess it in that very instant, your spirit will cleanse us from all sin and all unrighteousness and you will renew your spirit in our hearts. We ask you Lord to anoint these lips. Lord, let us have the lips of the discipline as you awaken our ear every morning to hear the voice of the Lord, to hear your word, Lord, as we will worship you even in our prayer language, as we speak in tongues under the utterance of the Holy Ghost and you are teaching us mysteries and revelation in the spirit that our spirit is calling unto you deep under deep and Lord God, as we then break out into singing and worship you in song, that it's a sweet smelling savor offered unto you acceptable in your sight like perfume, like the rose of Sharon, like the lily of the valley, like the frankincense upon the meal cakes. Lord, so let our worship and our songs rise up to thee. Holy, holy, holy, Lord God almighty, early in the morning our song shall rise to thee.

Holy, holy, holy, Lord God almighty, merciful and mighty, God in three persons, blessed Trinity. Let that be our song, I pray and I pray for an anointing to rest upon these people, Lord, like you put on Moses, like you put on David, like you put on Jesus when he walked in the days of his flesh. Lord, put your prayer shawl on us and Lord, give us a breakthrough and let us grow and develop in our spiritual life.

I pray, Lord God and Lord, I know as sure as we stand here that the enemy is calculating already to try to find detours that he can try to discourage us, try to find ways to keep us, Lord, from reaching our goal. But we declare in Jesus name, we will not be held captive to our flesh, we'll not be held captive to the carnal mind, we'll not be held captive to the demonic powers that war against us because right now we take authority over them in Jesus name and we cast down every thought, every high and lofty thought, everything that's a rogue thought that's disobedient, we bring it into captivity to the mind of Christ in Jesus name. And Lord, I know that you're going to bring this people up into the mountain of prayer and let us see your glory. This is our desire, Lord, and we ask it and we agree to it and we seal it in Jesus name and let the church say, Amen. Amen. What an inspiring word of the Lord.

Meet me in the morning. You know, it was always God's intention to have a daily personal relationship with man and he did until Adam sinned. Then God chose Abraham and his seed to reconnect the broken relationship. When he sent Moses to bring them out of Egypt's bondage, they were two to 3 million people and on Mount Sinai, God spoke to them and called them to be a nation of priests unto himself. God told Moses to tell the people to prepare themselves for their meeting on the holy mountain, but when they saw the lightning, the fire and smoke and heard the thunder, they were afraid and ran. They said to Moses, you speak to God and you tell us what God says and we will hear, but we don't want to hear God speak lest we die. And sadly they pulled away from the presence of God, but not Moses. The scripture says that God showed Israel his miracles, but he showed Moses his ways. Moses beseeched God, not for material blessings or prominence, but he said, show me your glory.

And God told Moses, be ready in the morning and come up in the morning to the mountain and present yourself to me and no man shall come with you. This is the secret and this is the price for intimacy with God, morning prayer and meditation with the Lord. Every great man or woman of God who ever had a successful influential ministry has had a daily time of intimate prayer with God to meet God first thing in the morning before the busyness of distractions and the carnal routines of life intrude on the thoughts and hearts and set the emotions on a particular course and chart the day without divine guidance and spiritual strength. Even Jesus, the son of God, had to rise up early a great while before day to spend time with his father and receive his instructions for the day's ministry. You know, for many years I had a woefully impotent prayer life of which I greatly lamented.

I would try to break out of my rut, but always would fall back into prayerlessness until I discovered it was not how I prayed that was my problem. But when to meet God in the morning was the key to developing a dynamic and enjoyable prayer life. To order meet me in the morning on CD, send a love gift of $10 or more for the radio ministry, request SK145, that's SK145, mail to Archie Hardy Ministries, P.O. Box 1744, Baltimore, Maryland 21203, or order online at ArchieHardy.org, where you can also order on MP3. But to order by mail, send your minimum love gift of $10 to P.O. Box 1744, Baltimore, Maryland 21203, and request offer SK145. Until next time, this is Sharon Nott singing Maranatha.