“Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.”
John 14:12
What we do in the first hours of the day will determine the identity and outcome of that day. The same principle applies on an annual level, the first things we do in the initial few days of the year will determine what the rest of that year will be like. Again the same thing happens in marriage. Whatever a couples does in the first few weeks after their wedding, will fashion the type of marriage they will develop.
When Jesus began His ministry, the first thing He did was to go to the synagogue, take the scroll there and read Isaiah 61. The first phrase He read was, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me…” With these words He was giving a face to His ministry. From that moment on, all of the events in His life were marked by those words. He was able to fast in the desert for forty days, because the Spirit strengthened Him. He faced Satan and overcame temptation because the Spirit reminded Him of the right Scriptures to use in response. He came back down from the mountain in the power of the Holy Spirit. Miracles and wonders followed Him wherever He went amongst the people. Throughout His time of ministry, the Holy Spirit accompanied Him; not once did the Spirit abandon Him. When the agonizing moments came at the Cross, Jesus said, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit” (Luke 23:46).
Jesus died and was resurrected. Later, He appeared to the disciples and said to them, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you…” (Acts 1:8). These words were His last before ascending into heaven. Through them He laid out a path for the church to move in the dimension of the Spirit just as He had done with signs, wonders, and miracles. The words that Jesus spoke to His disciples were words of hope and motivation because just as the Spirit had been with Him during His ministry, He was also going to be with them. They had to do the same things their leader had done. In other words, they had to let themselves be guided by the Holy Spirit.
The Lord Jesus said, “You will receive power,” which is the Greek word “dunamis,” this word is where we get the word dynamite from. The power of God is like dynamite that God uses in our lives to bind the demonic powers, to overcome them, to close the doors of our cities, to stop the evil one from entering our nation, and to transform negative circumstances into positive ones. Because the Spirit that lives in us is the same Spirit that was alive in Jesus and is the same Spirit that created the world in the beginning, all we need to do is believe in Him and yield our lives to receive Him.
SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT
I want to share with you this uplifting testimony. One of the first dreams we had as a family was to go to the ocean for our vacation. It was the morning of January 18th 1983 when my wife and I wrote down our desires. We had always wanted to have the money to go on vacation to the coast as a family. By the afternoon, the Lord had already supplied everything we needed. It was on that trip that God spoke to me for forty-five minutes. The first thing He said to me was, “Take care of the ministry, serve Me and I will take care of all your needs. Is there a better master than I? Is there a better company than mine? All that you need, I will give to you.” At that time, I hadn’t really dreamt of a great ministry; but the Lord had. After that trip everything changed in me. If we do not experience a true change, it will be impossible to reach God’s dream.
TODAY’S DECLARATION
“I have the anointing to conquer, the strength to persevere, and I know that the Spirit of God will carry me until the end.”
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: Ruth 4; Psalms 94
- New Testament: Mark 9:14-32; 1 Corinthians 16
