The Power of OneSample

December 7, 1941, is a day marked by infamy.

In an early morning surprise raid, Japanese warplanes and submarines launched an attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. More than twenty-four hundred U.S. Armed Forces personnel were killed, and eleven hundred were wounded during the raid. Feeling he had no choice but to retaliate, President Franklin D. Roosevelt did so by sending the Seventeenth Air Force bombardment group to fly over Tokyo to execute a counter-attack. While the attack was successful, all but four were killed. Among those to survive was a man named Jacob DeShazer.

A prisoner for forty months, DeShazer, who was an atheist, convinced a Japanese guard to lend him a copy of the Bible. The message he read led him to give his life to Christ.

Later, as a devout Christian, he met Japanese captain Mitsuo Fuchida, the man responsible for leading the attack on Pearl Harbor. If ever there was a potential for two men to despise one another, this would have been it. But instead, Fuchida read a piece written by DeShazer entitled, I Was a Prisoner of Japan. This work led Fuchida to Christ, and he spent the rest of his life as a minister in Asia and the United States. Becoming friends, DeShazer and Fuchida even preached together as Christian missionaries in Japan. In 1959, DeShazer moved to Nagoya, the very city he and his team bombed, to establish a church.

The Holy Spirit’s work and calling in these two lives, despite the horror of war, serves as an example of God’s grace. The call to reach people with his good news transcends every human barrier, and he has commissioned us to reach all people everywhere and to do it together.

Remember the revelation the Lord gave me from Habakkuk 2:14? When God spoke to me about the “new flood” that would cover the Earth, he impressed upon me that there would be three water sources, one of which would be a convergence of spiritual movements that would bring a confluence of spiritual power. Where and when believers connect in unity, it will be like a surging tide, and the power of the Holy Spirit will spiritually flood the Earth around these connection points. Movements and streams will converge in our day in new ways, and we will see a great flood of grace. Unity is powerful, and when God’s people are united, they can do the impossible.

Reaching everyone will require everyone. One preacher can’t reach everyone. One influencer can’t reach everyone. One institution can’t reach everyone. One denomination or movement can’t reach everyone. No one group, movement, person, technology, or initiative can reach everyone. It will take all of us working together in a united effort to reach the world with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

In ten years, 2033 will be upon us and will mark the two thousandth anniversary of Christ’s crucifixion, resurrection, and outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost. In 2013, Empowered21 adopted our network’s vision which is “That every person on earth would have an authentic encounter with Jesus Christ through the power and presence of the Holy Spirit…by Pentecost 2033.” I believe this decade leading to 2033 will be one of unprecedented evangelism—one in which everyone on Earth will be reached with the good news.

A new era of evangelism is dawning. God is realigning our focus, hearts, and efforts to reach the world one person at a time. This is the strategy God has given us for fulfilling the Great Commission.

It starts with people like you and me. In this next decade, let’s join together for a united purpose and reach every single person on Earth through the power of the Holy Spirit with the saving message of Jesus Christ!

Who will be your first or next ONE?