Vision Sunday each year in Cornerstone has always been celebratory, loud in thanksgiving and roaring with praises through songs, as one body, to the Lord Most High!
These past two pandemic years, however, our church family has had to listen in online from their homes. Nevertheless, it was a joy to be gathered as one family to celebrate God’s faithfulness while entering the new year, both in Singapore and with our Cornerstone Global Network Churches beyond our shores.
“It is the most important Sunday of the year because we get to hear a proceeding word from the Lord that will help chart our course for 2022 and beyond,” began Ps Yang. This 2022, the Lord has given us a clear mandate that is two-fold:
1. To raise and establish the Tabernacle of David
Pastor Yang explained that the Tabernacle of David was established on Mount Zion by King David, and it was everything that God had wanted in a spiritual house. He said, “If we are truly Zion, and I know we are, then it follows that we will need to pattern our ministry based on the Tabernacle of David.”
Pastor Yang referred to the building of a prayer movement that operates in the spirit of the Tabernacle of David, which would include David’s heart for worship and prayer, as well as involve prophetic singers and musicians (1 Chron 25). But more than just a 24-hour a day prayer house with the practice of worship and intercession, the Lord desires to “rebuild the Tabernacle of David, which has fallen down…so that the rest of mankind may seek the Lord.” (Acts 15:16-17). God desires that we re-posture our own hearts in intimate, voluntary and continual free-flowing worship, such as what David had, so that the promise of revival breaks forth to the nations!
Pastor Yang explained that the principal activity God desires in His house is the enterprise of prayer because prayer connects our impotence to His omnipotence and is the one thing that enables the will of God to be done here on earth. So in order for His Church to be restored where our resurrected Lord Jesus could rule and reign from Jerusalem and over all the nations in the Millennial Kingdom, we must essentially begin with a house of prayer.
Succinctly put, “if we fight the battles we aren’t supposed to fight, we won’t have the strength to fight the battles we are called to fight.”
God wants His glory to be made manifest to all whose
hearts are set to seek Him.
One thing Pastor Yang pointed out about David’s Tabernacle was the presence of the Ark of the Covenant. Since Moses’ day, the Ark had always been hidden and covered from the sight of common man. That is, until the significant moment when Jesus died on the Cross, which led to God’s first judicial act to tear the veil from top to bottom.
David’s Tabernacle stood apart from Moses’ Tabernacle and the Temple of Solomon because of the absence of this veil! It was David who, in his day, caught a glimpse of what God truly desired of His people! When David took the throne of Israel in Jerusalem, the first thing he did was to bring the Ark of the Covenant back to Jerusalem (2 Sam 6-7, 1 Chron 15-16). He set the Ark in a tent without a veil, and commanded Asaph, the song leader, along with specifically trained singers and musicians, to worship the Lord before the Ark night and day (1 Chron 16:37).
David’s kingdom was based upon ceaseless worship and prayer, which took place directly before the Ark of the Covenant. As a man after God’s own heart, he knew what God desired – people from every tribe and tongue that would behold the Ark of His Presence!
God wants His glory to be made manifest to all whose hearts are set to seek Him. And 2022 is a year where we are going to see greater manifestations and tokens of His glory and His presence!
2. Make room for the Holy Spirit and give Him His rightful place in the Church
“Everywhere I go, I see a diminishing of the power of God; I see a diminishing of the supernatural in the church. People seem to be ashamed of speaking in tongues. And it often seems like we have put the Holy Spirit in a box,” stated Pastor Yang emphatically.
He recounted that from 2012 to 2019, Cornerstone had had the privilege of hosting six Kingdom Invasion Conferences and 1 Trilogy series. “We were and are still called to carry the mantle for the supernatural for this nation and for this part of the world,” he declared, “and so we cannot let up, slow down or decelerate
the assignment.”
It was in this vein that God laid upon Pastor Yang’s heart the theme and direction for this year–John 20:22, where Jesus said to His disciples, “Receive ye the Holy Spirit”.
Receiving the baptism of the Holy Spirit is the game changer that God our Father has given us through Jesus, His Son. Without the Holy Spirit, we cannot come to a place of fruitfulness.
We need power encounters through the Holy Spirit to face the lost, those in need, and to confront Covid or cancer each day. And we need His power if we are to grow into the full measure and stature of Jesus!
But the degree to which God’s power can be manifest in our lives depends on the degree to which we are willing
to surrender and die to ourselves. And so we need to ask ourselves how willing we are to be co-crucified with Him. Pastor Yang believes that it is only then that we will be able to see an acceleration and escalation of the power and work of the Holy Spirit, and see physical tokens of His grace and glory in this coming year!
Finally, more than His Power and His Presence, we must not forget that Holy Spirit is a Person! Pastor Yang reminded us flatly that there is no one in this entire universe like Jesus, except the Holy Spirit! “He is the exact replica of Jesus! And He is the only One who can replicate the life of Jesus in us!”
In closing, Pastor Yang bemoaned how, in many churches today, we preach the “Father, the Son and the Holy Scriptures” and that is just not right. “That is not the full gospel,” upheld Pastor Yang. Then with fire in his eyes, he affirmed that for as long as he is the pastor of this church, “we will never relegate the Holy Ghost to some little corner in the church and when we need Him, we will call Him. No sir! He will always be in the forefront of what we do!” Amen!
“Come Holy Spirit, now, for Jesus’ sake!”
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