PRAYER FOR THE NATION

THEME: HALLOWED BE YOUR NAME

This year’s Malaysia Day on Sept 16th coincides with Rosh Hashanah, the Beginning of the Jewish New Year.  Rosh Hashanah signifies the start of something new.  It starts with the blowing of the shofar, which is a reminder that our God is Creator and King of all His creation as well as Lord on a personal level.

The sound of the shofar is also to awaken us from slumber and to embrace a New Beginning.

Let us all use this month to declare the Greatness of Our God and bring a shift in the spiritual atmosphere, both over ourselves and over our Nation.

To enrich the prayers to hallow God’s Name, we invite you to join us in the following:

  • Come, join us to shift our own mindset by a reading of the bible. In the next 2 months, we will read through all of Genesis and Exodus.
  • As you read, ask – Who is our God? How does He reveal Himself? How do others see our God and how does God reveal Himself through His actions and works?
  • Then use what you have discovered and GIVE THANKS TO GOD FOR WHO HE IS. Let us worship Him in a much deeper way to herald in a new hunger for Him!

Below are 3 Names of God from Genesis and Exodus. Use each name per week in next 3 weeks.

 

Week 1:  El Roi, the God Who Sees me.

Read Genesis 16 & 21

Almighty God, You are El Roi, the God who sees me.  

  • When Hagar fled from Sarai, You saw her anguish and sent Your angel to meet Hagar who told her to return and submit to Sarai (Gen 16). You promised Hagar that her son, Ishmael, would also form great nations and she would have many descendants. You, LORD, saw Hagar when no one else did. Hagar thus declared, “You are the God who sees me,” for she said, “I have now seen the One who sees me.” (Gen 16) Years later, when Hagar was sent away, You were there for the boy Ishmael as he grew. You are the God Who saw and watched over the boy Ishmael (Gen 21).

 

  • When Israel was enslaved in Egypt, You appeared to Moses and told him “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the hands of the Egyptians … The cry of the Israelites has reached Me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them.” (Exodus 3:7-10 NIV) You are the God who not only sees but You are the One who rescued and delivered Israel from the oppression of Egypt and brought them into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey.

 

Hallowing God as El Roi over your Personal Life 

  • Our Father in Heaven, though You are the Almighty God Who Created Heaven and Earth, You see me personally. I stand in awe to know that You are such a personal God.

You watched me as I was being formed in my mother’s womb. You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in Your book. Every moment was laid out even before a single day has passed. Like an open book, You watched me grow from conception to birth; all the stages of my life are spread out before you. The days of my life were all prepared before I had even lived one day (Psalm 139:15-16 NLT/The Message). Many a times while going through the valley of the shadow of death, I felt abandoned but now on hindsight, I thank You for those days for it was then I experienced Your Presence, the God Who Sees me, and tasted of Your goodness, Your healing, Your deliverance, Your mercy and Your grace. (You can spend more personal time to thank God as El Roi – the God who sees you personally).

 

Hallowing God as El Roi over Malaysia

  • Our Father in Heaven, I praise You for You, for You are El Roi – the God who sees and watches over Malaysia. You see what has happened in her history, You see her coming and going. Truly, You are the God who Sees and everything is laid bare before you, absolutely nothing is hidden from Your sight. You have watched over the formation of Malaysia for the past 60 years. As we celebrated Malaysia Day on the same day as Rosh Hashanah, we ask may You continue to be El Roi – the Lord who sees, watching over Malaysia and bringing her into her destiny.

We give thanks to You, Our Father in Heaven, You are El Roi, the God Who Sees.

 

Week 2: Our Father in heaven, You are our shield.

Genesis 15: 1

“Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your very great reward.”

Lord, we praise You as our shield and great reward. You protect us from danger and shield us from all harm.

I see how You shielded Abraham in all his journey. Even in his mistakes and when he went to Egypt and allowed his wife to be taken into Pharoah’s courts, You shielded Sarah and Pharoah could not do what he wanted (Genesis 12:10-20).

You also shielded Abraham from being enticed into indebtedness to the King of Sodom when You guided him to refuse the King of Sodom’s offer of riches (Genesis 14:21-24). Indeed, You taught Abraham that You alone would be his shield and great reward and You made Him the father of nations.

When Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers, You shielded him even in prison and enabled him to rise to his destiny. Nothing could hinder Joseph’s destiny so no matter what the devil did to him, You turned it into a great salvation for many (Genesis 50).

Hallowing God as your ‘Shield’ over your Personal life 

I praise You, Heavenly Father, for I have also known You as my shield in times of danger. I praise You for when I call You my shield, I will remember that You are shielding me from my own foolish mistakes and also from temptations. You are shielding me so that my destiny will not be derailed!

(As you hallow God Who is your shield, the Holy Spirit may remind you of other incidents in your life when you can see God’s hand shielding you. Use this time to thank Him and glorify His name.)

Hallowing God as the ‘Shield’ over Malaysia

Our Father in heaven, You are truly the God Who is the Shield over Malaysia. We thank You for shielding Malaysia through the many storms we have gone through. You have shielded us during the Sabah earthquake, the tsunami, SARS and Covid 19, the economic crises and the turbulent political crisis over these past few years. We know that through all these, You have been our Shield and we see Your good hand over our nation. Let nothing prevent Malaysia from coming into her destiny just as nothing prevented Joseph and the nation of Israel from reaching their destinies.

We Your church do not want to take this for granted. As an act of thanksgiving, may we the church of God arise to join You and partner You to bring Malaysia into her destiny.

Yes, Father in Heaven, You are our Shield and Great Reward.

 

Week 3:  THE GREAT I AM

Exodus 3:1-22

14 God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’”

15 God also said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites, ‘The LORD, the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you.’

“This is my name forever, the name you shall call me from generation to generation.”

  • You O Lord are the Creator of Space and Time, Light and Darkness,
  • You are the Master Architect who sets the foundations of the earth and the universe (the solar system),
  • You are the Subject Matter Expert – from atom and cells to solids and liquids,
  • You set the dynamics and physics, the biology and chemistry,
  • When You said, “Let there be separation between land and water and water should not return to where it flows from”, You set the law of gravity and geometry, which calls weight, elevation and matter to come to union,
  • You are the Great Accountant where everything is measured, demanding every input to produce an output, where energy cannot be destroyed but converted, an exact amount of energy imparted will produce a certain amount of output, as water turns to vapour at 100 degree C,
  • You are the Great Physician who is intimate to the form of man as well as every living thing,
  • You are the Master Artist, who produces colour and shapes of every kind, and even hide colours in light that we call the rainbow,
  • You are the Great Shephard and Farmer,
  • You are the Great General Manager of seasons and times, who release the winds from Your storehouses to bring in the rain, the harvest, and dictate our plan.

Hallowing God as the Great I AM over your Personal life 

When Moses asked God what to tell of His Name to the Israelites, He said: “’I AM’ (He is everything) has sent me to you.”

Lord, I am truly humbled by WHO YOU ARE and always will be.

I thank You for the many times and ways You have shown me who You are even in my doubts. (Allow the Holy Spirit to remind you of how the glory of God has been manifested in your personal life.)

Hallowing God as the Great I AM over Malaysia

You, O Lord, are the Great I AM over Malaysia.

You are Malaysia’s Maker, putting her in such a strategic location between the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean. You have placed her in the midst of so many countries of this great continent of Asia and said to her, “Malaysia is truly Asia”.

You have given her a wonderful tropical climate, shielded her from typhoons, hurricanes, and from both extreme heat and extreme cold.

You are our Great I AM and have blessed us with abundant natural resources.

As the Great I AM, You have made Malaysia a land with a rich diversity. In Your wisdom, You brought together the Malays, Chinese, Indians, Orang Asli and the many tribes of Sabah and Sarawak to become the nation of Malaysia.

You are the architect of our history, allowing the British to rule us so that we would be able to master the English Language. You have laid down for us the foundations of the judiciary system, parliamentary system, the Constitution and a constitutional monarchy as part of our government.

As the Great I AM, You brought the children of Israel out of their captivity in Egypt. As Malaysia’s GREAT I AM, You have brought salvation to us. You sent your best servants to come and be missionaries to this land of Malaysia, and they have laid down the spiritual foundations for all of us even to this day.

You have established churches in every language group in Malaysia, brought great and godly men and women to keep teaching us, warning us and rebuking us. Now you have trained us to build prayer altars so that Your Presence, the great I AM, can dwell among us.

Now O Lord, the Great I AM, You have also called us to come together to bring Malaysia into her destiny. You are the GREAT I AM calling every tribe and tongue to come out of darkness into Your glorious light, out of captivity into liberty, out of bondage to sin to walking in holiness before You.

Almighty God our Heavenly Father, You are the GREAT I AM! We give You praise forever and ever, amen.