During our first Training and Togetherness in Prayer, General Superintendent, Rev Dominic Yeo gave a fresh word to start the year.
With much excitement and anticipation for the new year, we gathered as God’s servants in the Assemblies of God on January 5, 2023. The invitation was to realign ourselves to Jesus, the One who is worthy, the One who is awesome and who is calling us to “A Greater Tomorrow”.
2023 marks the start of 10 years before the fulfilment of MM33 where we would celebrate one million AG churches all around the world. 2023 also marks 95 years of the Spirit’s work in Singapore through the Assemblies of God. All these pointed to a “A Greater Tomorrow” as Rev Dominic Yeo exhorted us from Isaiah 43:18-19.
The first thing we must not do as servants of God is to look back! We must be conscious about the old recordings that are being replayed in our mind and spirit, because these old recordings can keep us trapped. Past victories do not have the substance to sustain us for “A Greater Tomorrow” while our past failures can stifle us. That is why we must not dwell on either of them. Lot’s wife had a longing, attachment, and preoccupation to her past, which ultimately led her to ruin. She did not look to her future which was in front of her.
And that is the second critical thing to do as ministers and servants of God, we need to look forward! By beholding our future, we come into agreement with God which will lead to an alignment with Him. In that place we acknowledge that it is only possible by His Spirit, which leads to us participating with God’s redemptive work in the world through us.
Through Jesus and by the power of His Spirit, God is always doing something new amongst us, something that has never been experienced nor seen before. Just as the neurons in our brains cannot be replicated, only God through His Spirit can do something new. For God is the One who is sprouting forth life and newness—a new life that can be unseen at the beginning, which can grow gradually or fast.
There were five areas to believe and look to the Lord for new life in 2023:
1. New Breakthrough (For us in AG Singapore as we celebrate our 95th anniversary)
2. New Direction (For us and our churches)
3. New Opening (For streams in wastelands)
4. New Works amid desolation
5. New Breath of Life to things that have died
It was with this exhortation that we turned to the Lord in prayer together. We prayed for a healing and freshness with God for our pastors and leaders. We prayed for a Pentecostal fire to sweep our AG churches again and for churches who are going through transitions in leadership. We prayed for ACTS Bible College to be a house of truth and sender of church-planters, and finally a revival to sweep across Singapore once again.
