It’s Time to Wake Up!

As I write this introduction for this week’s blog, I am with our OneCry Conference team at the second stop of our OneCry Georgia tour. Last week in Dalton, over 60 churches joined together in the convention center for four nights of seeking the Lord for revival and awakening.It was an amazing time as the church of Dalton came together across ethnic, denominational, generational, and gender lines. I cannot fully convey the sense of freedom, joy, and release experienced as we united in a single cry for God to come and manifest His glory in our midst.Others are longing for the same, as evidenced by this recent Facebook post by Damaris Medina. I have been following the work God is doing through Damaris as she has allowed the Lord to use her to foster a OneCry movement in Palm Beach, Florida.The passion and deep desire for purity in this movement is contagious, and central to what I believe God longs to do in many communities. I pray you will be stirred as deeply as I was, as I asked God to use Damaris’s words in my own heart. May this be a fire that sparks many more such movements.Thank you, Damaris, for allowing us to share your heart with so many others.Byron PaulusFounder, OneCry IT'S TIME!(by Damaris Medina)Whatever happened to the time when we used to worship the Lord in church and linger in His presence, pouring out our love until nothing else was left inside of us? The time when we didn’t care if we stayed at the altar a little bit longer, and all we wanted was for His love to touch every fiber of our beings?Whatever happened to the time when we would have all-night prayer meetings, when we would shut the doors, lock ourselves in and pray, and intercede through the watches of the night until the breaking of dawn?Whatever happened to the time when we would be moved with such compassion that the love of Christ and the passion of God’s heart compelled us to go out and bring the gospel to those in the streets and in our communities who were bound and broken, hurting and hopeless, lost and unloved?What has changed, Church?? What has changed?!?NOW, we’re satisfied just going to church, showing up just so others can see we are there. We sing a few songs, but there is no heart and purpose behind the words. We stick to programs, agendas, and time schedules, rushing through because we don’t know how, or should I say, have never learned how to linger in His presence and wait until He comes.NOW, we pray our little prayers just enough to get us by or appease our conscience, believing we did our duty as a Christian, and spoke to the Lord for the day, and God is well pleased.NOW, we’re a little less sensitive and compassionate to see the need for Jesus in the lives of those all around us who are lost, broken, and hurting, using all types excuses for why we can’t or don’t have the time, and justifying it by thinking, “Oh well, it’s their choice,” and so on ...We’ve changed our worship services into entertainment events, our prayer services into social gatherings, and our evangelism into community services with no follow-up. There’s no encounter and no engagement, therefore leaving no true transformation in the lives of people.What’s going on, Church?See, what I believe has happened is, we’ve become too familiar and comfortable with our Christianity. We have allowed the spirit of religion to sing its sweet little lullabies, and it has rocked us to sleep! We have allowed the spirit of entertainment to creep into the church and deceive us into thinking we are engaging with God, yet it’s nothing but hype and motivation! We’ve allowed the spirit of complacency to cause us to compromise our convictions, and the spirit of control to rob us from walking in our divine calling, gifting, and purpose!BUT I’M HERE TO ANNOUNCE TO THE CHURCH, IT’S TIME TO WAKE UP!IT’S TIME TO AWAKEN OUT OF YOUR SLUMBER!IT’S TIME TO ARISE OUT OF YOUR SLEEP!IT’S TIME TO RETURN TO YOUR FIRST LOVE!IT’S TIME TO LAY ASIDE EVERY WEIGHT THAT HINDERS US AND THE SIN OF THE WORLD THAT SO EASILY ENTANGLES US!IT’S TIME TO REMEMBER WHO OUR GOD IS AND WHAT HE IS ABLE TO DO!IT IS TIME FOR REVIVAL!