THE POWER OF THE PROMISE

05_18

“Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.”

2 Peter 1:4

A promise of the Lord found in His Word is like having a check in your hand that is guaranteed by God. In 1990, I was looking for help and guidance on how to work in the ministry. The Lord removed the veil from my eyes, and gave me one of the greatest revelations I have ever had. It not only shook up our personal lives and the lives of our disciples, but it also gave direction to our whole ministry. At that point, God asked me a question. He said, “How many people did Jesus disciple?” The scenes when Jesus was harassed by the multitudes came to my mind and I realized that one day he was with one large group and the next day he was with a completely different group. However, He stayed in continual, close contact with His team of twelve. I heard the voice of God speaking in my heart, saying, “If you disciple twelve people and they do the same with another twelve, and again each one repeats this, there will be exponential growth.” That day, a veil fell from my eyes and I was able to see the drastic increase the Lord wanted to give me. What is now known as the G12 Vision was born that day! The letter “G” stands for Government, where the number twelve is the number in the Bible that signifies government.

Although Jesus could have invested all of his time in the multitudes, he chose not to. Instead, He preferred to work forming the character of just twelve people all very different from each other. Just as a potter does with clay, for three and a half years, Jesus shaped and formed the individual characters of each one of His disciples. This fulfilled the words written in Job 10:8, “Your hands shaped me and made me.” For this reason, before Jesus ascended into heaven, He gathered His disciples because he knew they were lacking that final touch of the Master – his divine breath within them. It was the final, indispensable tool for the work of evangelism that he was sending them out to do in all the different nations of the earth. He told them, “‘Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.’ And with that he breathed on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit’” (John 20:21-22).

How did Jesus succeed in transforming twelve common men into the pillars of Christianity? They were, for the most part, uneducated. They weren’t the wealthiest men and not one of them had any great social status. The answer is simple; these people were willing to be molded by Jesus.

SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT
We don’t know how much time it took God to form Adam’s body, but we do know that it took Jesus three and a half years to completely transform the twelve men He had chosen. A good comparison to this is an architect, who hands the blueprints of the design he has in mind to the builder. The builder has to make the building exactly in accordance with the model the architect gives him. Jesus also had to leave His disciples a pattern for life in the church by which they could build. Paul’s words proved that he understood this well when he said, “Until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:13).

TODAY’S DECLARATION
“I can win twelve people just as Jesus did, and they will multiply through the power of the Cross.”

Today’s post is an excerpt from Pastor Cesar Castellanos’ book, Declarations of Power for 365 Days of the Year: Volume Two.

TODAY’S BIBLE READING

    • Old Testament: 2 Samuel 11-12; Psalms 111
    • New Testament: Mark 14:43-52; Galatians 2

THE POWER OF THE PROMISE