“Singapore is in a grave situation. The COVID-19 caseload is exploding exponentially in our migrant worker community,” wrote Pastor Lawrence Khong, Chairman of LoveSingapore, in an e-mail to church leaders on Facebook today (April 17).

“None of us would disagree that the most powerful thing we can do now in this topsy-turvy pandemic is to pray.“

He urged all believers to take “personal ownership” and suggested that before May 5, when the Circuit Breaker period is due to end, each person set aside a day to pray and fast to seek God for the nation’s healing.

“Imagine – every believer praying from home. Everyone getting online with heaven on behalf of our beloved nation. Everyone having heart-to-heart conversations with God,” he said.

“It was Oswald Chambers who famously said: Prayer does not fit us for the greater work; prayer is the greater work. 

“What a great way to steward this Stay Home, Work from Home order!”

Following LoveSingapore’s Day of Prayer on Good Friday (April 10), the unity-prayer movement has released an updated Prayer Guide as follows.

LoveSingapore Prayer Guide

Fix our eyes on God Almighty. Exalt Him by acknowledging who He is:

• He is all-knowing. Nothing is a mystery to him. n He is all-present. Nothing escapes his attention.
• He is all-powerful. Nothing is too hard for him.
• He is all-wise. He never makes a mistake.
• He is all-loving. He always acts in our best interest.
• He is all-merciful. He is our very present help in trouble.
• He is our Sovereign King. He is the Ruler of everything.
• He is our Father. He has a future and a plan for our city.

In light of who God is, let us examine ourselves:

Have we made God too small in our eyes? Have we doubted His character?

Have we sinned against Him with our attitude of pride, self-sufficiency, and duplicity? Do we honour God in the way we think, talk, and act?

In this time of shaking, sifting, and shifting, let us heed God’s Word to humble ourselves and seek Him to heal our land:

“When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people, if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land. Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayers offered in this place.” (2 Chronicles 7:13-15)

God has allowed this pandemic and its impact (the worst crisis in a century) to humble and discipline our world. Judgment begins in the house of the Lord. He is purifying His Church to rightly represent Christ, being ready for harvest and t for battle.

Let us strip away all weights and sins that entangle us and hinder us from running well and finishing well.

Let us get serious with God and repent:

• Sin of double-mindedness
We have not kept the First Commandment. We have not loved the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. We have doubted our Father’s infinite goodness. We have robbed the Sovereign King of His glory and created worthless idols in our own image: power (self-importance, self-promotion, self entitlement), popularity (name, fame, branding), prosperity (wealth, luxury, comfort).

• Sin of pride
We have not trusted the all-knowing, all-present, all-powerful God with all our hearts. We have leaned on our own understanding. We have depended on ourselves and our abilities more than we have depended on God. We have put our trust in our institutions and our systems more than we have trusted God. We have not feared Him. We have relied on our own reasoning and resources more than on the leading of the Holy Spirit.
We have quenched the Spirit (pause: ask God to reveal in what specific ways, personal life and church context) and hindered God’s promised visitation in manifest presence and power.

• Sin of ingratitude
We have not fully appreciated the goodness of God our Father in our lives and in our land. We have succumbed to habits of fault-finding, murmuring, and complaining. We have taken God and His blessings for granted. We have withheld praise and thanksgiving for every good gift He has bestowed on us in our 200-year history, and especially in our 55 years of nation-building thus far. We have denied our God-ordained Government the honour and appreciation they rightly deserve.

• Sin of greed
We have not trusted the all-wise God as our Provider. We have fallen in love with mammon. We have succumbed to the fear of lack, the fear of not having enough. We are forever anxious about the job market and our financial prospects. We are weighed down by overwork and the burden of keeping up. We are preoccupied with the temporal. We have become selfish and covetous.

• Sin of immorality
We have not honoured the all-merciful God by living holy lives according to the standard of His Word. We have yielded to unbridled lust and shameless filth, fearing neither God nor the consequences of our sinful choices. We have opened the door for the work of evil to trap and ruin our lives, wreck our families, shatter our values, and undermine our personal purity and public morals. We have contributed to this present darkness.

• Sin of prejudice
We have not represented the heart of the all-loving God to a watching world. We have not given equal respect and equal opportunity to one and all. We have looked differently on others of a different history, a different culture, or a different economic standing. We have not loved others as ourselves, especially those in need.

• Sin of injustice
We have not treasured the gift of human life created in the image of God our Father. We have murdered unborn children. We have exploited the weak and vulnerable instead of empowering them and ministering to them. We have acted unjustly to our foreign domestic helpers and foreign construction workers.

• Sin of carnality 
We have not lived up to our call to shine as children of God our Father in a crooked and perverse world. We have tarnished our testimony, playing the games of the godless. We have stumbled unbelievers by our angst and anxiety, our competition and cheating, our strife and slander, our hype and hubris.

A February 18 prayer meeting at St Andrews Cathedral saw Bishop Rennis Ponniah and pastors on bended knees as they sought forgiveness from God for themselves, their flock and the nation. Photo by St Andrew’s Cathedral.

Our cry for Singapore

1. Our government

• Pray for divine wisdom to do the right thing at the right time in the right way and for all the right reasons.
• Pray for divine protection in spirit, soul and body.
• Pray for divine favour and mercy, mighty intervention to turn the tide.
• Pray for divine blueprint for economic recovery.

2. Healthcare workers

• Pray for supernatural protection, strong immunity, sufficient rest, sweet sleep, good appetite, great stamina.
• Pray for unwavering passion and amazing grace to serve with peace and joy:
  “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12:9)

3. Medical researchers

• Ask God to single out and favour His young David in the scientific world: The one who’s hidden in some obscure place. The one who’s not interested in making a big name for himself or big money for his pharmaceutical company. The one whose heart is after God’s own heart. The one who’s moved by God’s compassion for the sick and suffering. The one who seeks to glorify God!
• Ask God to download His revelation in young David’s mind: a series of eureka moments to unlock the mystery of the virus.
• Ask God for astounding outcomes: medical firsts, revolutionary breakthroughs that stun the world.
  No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him. (1 Corinthians 2:9).
• To God be all glory!

4. The afflicted

• Pray for accurate diagnosis, swift contact tracing, rapid recovery.
• Pray for the visitation of Christ, His peace to flood their souls.
• Pray for God’s manifest presence and power: glorious outbreaks of miracle healings, signs and wonders especially among those in the ICU.

5. Family and home

• A new joy of being home together, fun and safe, showing grace and patience to one another.
• A new sparkle in marriages, rich and real, choosing forgiveness and reconciliation.
• A new bonding in parent-child relationships, deep and strong, restoring trust and honour.

6. The unsaved

• Ask God to stir within the lost an intense longing for hope, inner peace, and a holy curiosity for the meaning and purpose of life.
• Ask God to protect the most vulnerable among us: the elderly, the mentally-ill, the poor, the homeless, the women and children in abusive situations, the foreign workers.
• Ask God to reveal Christ and trigger a massive turning to Him: Saviour, Healer, Living Hope, Prince of Peace.

7. Pastors and church leaders 

• Pray for grace and wisdom to warn and encourage the Church that God has allowed this pandemic for a redemptive purpose: He’s cleansing His temple. He’s weaning us of our worldly ways and wants. He’s stripping us bare of human ego, human vanities, and false securities. He’s forcing us to re-think life, values, and Church.
• Pray that in wrath, God will remember mercy (Habakkuk 3:2)
• Pray for strength to shepherd God’s flock in this time of severe testing and learn lessons from it.
• Pray that each one will take this national pause as a forced sabbatical for maximum soul care (Acts 20:28).
  The Lord is my shepherd. He makes me lie down in green pastures. (Psalm 23:1)
• Pray the Word: The Sovereign Lord has given me a well-instructed tongue, to know the word that sustains the weary. He wakens me morning by morning, wakens my ear to listen like one being instructed. (Isaiah 50:4)
• Pray that each one will guard fiercely their sacred time in the secret place, listen to the Lord for His word to sustain the weary nation, public servant, healthcare community, or essential service provider. The weary spouse, sibling, son or daughter. The weary neighbour or friend. The weary stranger or migrant worker. The weary church staff or member. 

8. Christians

• Pray the Word: Those who feared the Lord spoke with one another. The Lord paid attention and heard them, and a book of remembrance was written before him of those who feared the Lord and esteemed his name.
  ‘They shall be mine,’ says the Lord of hosts, ‘in the day when I make up my treasured possession, and I will spare them as a man spares his son who serves him. Then once more you shall see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve him’. (Malachi 3:16-18)
• Pray that we will fast and pray, and intercede for our nation with a deeper sense of belonging, a greater sense of urgency and desperation.
  Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful. (Colossians 4:2)
• Pray for fathers to lead by example. Steward well this Stay Home period. Restore the family as the basic unit of discipleship. Restore the family prayer altar. Fan the flame of revival. Towards a great awakening: Home- based, ground-up, Spirit-filled.
• Pray that we will arise with faith, hope, and love to overcome fear; and make the most of every opportunity to serve others practically with glad and generous hearts (Acts 2:46).
• Pray for personal evangelism under one roof. Reach out to loved ones. Prodigals to come to their senses (Luke 15:17) and come home to God.
• Pray for pro-active prayer evangelism from the home by phone, Zoom, Google Hangout, or WhatsApp. Ask God for an outbreak of healing miracles block-by-block.
  Awe came upon every soul… the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved. (Acts 2:43, 47)

An Easter Meditation: A Call to Reveal, Reimagine and Reset