MUSINGS
Pressing In Before God gets ready to do a great work, He always sets His people a-praying. As Andrew Murray says: âIt is in intercession that the church is to find and wield its greatest power.â WORDS BRENDA GOH, TEAM LEAD, PRAYER & INTERCESSION
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t our February 2020 Pastoral Prayer Leadership (PPL) meeting, we had a strong inkling that 2020 would turn out to be a different and difficult year. At that time, COVID 19 was still well under control in Singapore, though by contrast, it was already raging in China, having first surfaced in Wuhan in late 2019. But even prior to this, ever since the outbreak, one phrase that we had consistently received from the Lord was âthe Body of Christâ. We discerned that God was speaking to His people. He was on the move. Shaking, shifting and sifting. And a global crisis was a defining moment for the Church to wake up. The following words and visions received at the February 2020 PPL confirmed the shakings and siftings: 1. a vision of a burning candle, but with a flickering flame, with the sensing that the wick must be trimmed so that it can burn more brightly; 2. a vision of a long-handled frying pan tossing food over hot fire, with the sensing of shaking and tossing; 3. vision of a diamond master examining diamonds to separate the real from the fake; 4. several other visions involving cutting and stripping away (some received in subsequent months). Combined with Hebrews 12:26-28, received at the same PPL, we discerned that cosmic shaking had already begun â not least through the virus. Things that can be shaken will be shaken. Only the eternal, the things that cannot be shaken, will remain. God was doing a new thing in our midst. Pruning, refining, and purifying His Church to ârightly represent Christ, being ready for the harvest and fit for battleâ (LoveSingapore). God was preparing us for greater things to come!
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Over and over again, we have seen the Spirit of God uncovering truths and stripping away human ego, vain conceits, and false securities. This was a call to wake up. To align and agree with God. To worship Him acceptably, with reverence and awe, for He is a consuming fire.
