When the storm was tearing the ship apart Jonah was sleeping. The Captain woke him and asked him to pray so that their lives would be saved. What are we doing during this crucial time in human history?

Jonah was chosen by God to arise and do His work. Instead of accepting God’s assignment he ran away. There was a tempest and the people who were with him in the ship were in grave danger. While others were crying for help, he was sleeping! “So the captain came and said to him, What do you mean, you sleeper? Arise, call upon your God! Perhaps your God will give a thought to us so that we shall not perish.” Jonah 1:6

A Time of Peril

We are going through perilous times now. COVID-19 is like the tempest that Jonah and the people on the ship faced. People are feeling lost and hopeless. During this time, what is our focus? Are we only thinking about ourselves and our family’s safety? Are we looking away from the mission God has given us to save the perishing?

Ezekiel 22:30 says, “And I sought a man among them who should build up the wall and stand in the gap before Me for the land, that I should not destroy it, but I found none.”

Abraham was told about the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. His first reaction was to plead with God to save the city if there were fifty good people in it. When God agreed, he pleaded God would save the city for ten good people. The sad thing is that there were not even ten good people in that city.

The World Needs Intercessors To Arise

2 Chronicles 7:14 – “If My people, who are called by My name, shall humble themselves, pray, seek, crave, and require of necessity My face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven, forgive their sin, and heal their land.”

We are living in a time when the laws of the Lord have been broken by people in the nations. Many people take pride in blaspheming the name of the Lord. By their actions they are inviting the anger and judgment of God over themselves. However, the Word says if the people who know the Lord will humble themselves and pray, God will hear their prayer, forgive their sin and heal their land.

Today humanity is battling the COVID-19 virus that has already infected many people and caused the death of more than 87,000 people globally. Like the men on the ship, there are people who are hopeless and do not know the power that God has to heal and save them. They do not know about Jesus, the Savior who died so that they can be set free from every sickness, disease and plague. They don’t know that this same God saved the Israelites during the plagues.

Who needs a Saviour?

The people of this world do not realize they need a Saviour. Most people think that their wealth, status, power and position will save them from every ordeal they will have to face. Before this pandemic hit the world, people were thinking one way but after many deaths and the lockdown of the world, many are questioning what they believed in. Many are searching for answers to questions that only the True Living God can give them.

This is the time that the people who know the true Living God need to arise and pray and intercede for those who do not know the Lord. We need to heed God’s call and touch lives for the Kingdom of God so that they too will be saved. Just as God had mercy on us and forgave us our sins, if they seek Him and repent for their wrongdoing they too will receive His forgiveness and mercy.

Repentance and Seeking the Lord’s heart

It is time to examine our own heart and repent for the things that we did that have grieved the Lord’s heart for when Jesus returns He will come for the spotless Bride! It is time to seek the Lord’s will for the earth. We must assert our right as children of the Living God! We need to pray in tongues and allow the Holy Spirit to have His way and lead us to pray for those things that are on the Father’s heart for His lost and backslidden children.

Many Christians have become complacent. They use grace as an excuse to live worldly lives. Many leaders have not done their part in teaching about repentance, holiness and how one should live a life that is consecrated to the Lord and glorifies His name. Jesus said, “if your eye causes you to stumble and sin, pluck it out and throw it away from you; it is better (more profitable and wholesome) for you to enter life with only one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the hell (Gehenna) of fire” Matthew 18:9.

Let’s arise and pray that the lost and hopeless will experience the love of Christ! We pray that they will experience the Saviour who can heal! May He save them from perishing in this lifetime and forever!