The Opportunity of a Lifetime is at Our Door

by Jennifer A. Miskov, Ph.D.

What if our generation is pregnant with birthing the next Great Awakening and The Call Azusa on April 9, 2016 is a tipping point? If this might really be the case, what would it look like if this unified Body of Christ assembling in Los Angeles for the 110th anniversary of the Azusa Street Revival knew the depths of God’s history there to be able to draw from and tap into the power of the testimony? What kind of focused prayers and greater signs, wonders, miracles, and stewardship of the awakening might take place because of this investment?

Now is our time arise and shine. Today is the day to dive in and not look back, to remain focused on Jesus, to immediately respond to the leading of the Holy Spirit, and to lean into the Father’s heart. Now is our moment as a generation to shine.

As a generation, we have been given a great opportunity to shift the culture of what the next 100 years and more can look like. What if once this billion soul harvest is released, the new believers immediately get welcomed into the family of God, are discipled and activated in signs and wonders all coming from a place of intimacy with Jesus? What if people are knit together in covenant relationships with the family of God who will encourage and cover them as they follow the leading of the Spirit even into dangerous places? We have such an awesome opportunity to create a culture of family, love, intimacy, and power to welcome the new Christians into. What are we going to do with the responsibility God has entrusted us with?

We were born for such a time as this. God has called and equipped us to stand together with one another. He has promised to be with us always.

To position yourself to step into what God has for us in our day, I encourage you to receive impartation from the Welsh Revival (1904-1905) video above. This revival preceded and was an important catalyst for the Azusa Street Revival (1906). The ladies of Destiny House watched this video during one of our Monday night family times and after it ended, we waited on the Lord. The presence of God was thick in the room. After some silence, prayer broke out, then I could hear weeping. Bodies covered the floor. A couple of the ladies were so rocked by God's presence after watching this that they never made it back home that night but lay there encountering God deep into the night. I pray the same refining fire falls upon you as you watch.

Be also encouraged by an exhortation by Azusa Street Revival participant Frank Bartleman written in June 1906, just months after the the Azusa Street Revival broke out:

“Opportunity once passed, is lost forever. There is a time when the tide is sweeping by our door. We may then plunge in and be carried to glorious blessing, success and victory. To stand shivering on the bank, timid, or paralyzed with stupor, at such a time, is to miss all, and most miserably fail, both for time and for eternity. Oh, our responsibility! The mighty tide of God’s grace and favor is even now sweeping by us, in its prayer-directed course.

There is a river (of salvation) the streams whereof make glad the city of God. - Ps. 46:4. It is time to ‘get together,’ and plunge in, individually and collectively. We are baptized ‘in one Spirit, into one body,’ - I Cor. 12:13. Let us lay aside all carnal contentions and divisions, that separate us from each other and from God. If we are of His body, we are ‘one body.’ The opportunity of a lifetime, of centuries, is at our door, to be eternally gained or lost. There is no time to hesitate. Act quickly, lest another take thy crown. Oh, church of Christ, awake! Be baptized with power. Then fly to rescue others. And to meet your Lord.” 

To learn more about the Azusa Street Revival check out Spirit Flood: Rebirth of Spirit Baptism for the 21st Century (In light of the Azusa Street Revival) and to be catalyzed to write literature that will set this world aflame with the love and fire of God check out Writing in the Glory. Join us at Destiny House Redding Friday mornings 8-10am for worship, prayer, and testimonies. Many blessings and fire!