To understand the Twelve Powers, you have to know that they are twelve expressions of the one Power, the Christ within each of us. The Twelve Powers are: love, faith, understanding, wisdom, imagination, zeal, strength, will, life, power, renunciation and order.

What is meant by “the Christ” is “the fully awakened human being.” … It is the state of consciousness within us that is completely one with God. Jesus, the man from Galilee, born in Bethlehem, realized his true spiritual nature and became the Christ … showing us the way for each of us to know our Christ nature and to fully realize it.

When Unity and New Thought speak of the Christ, we do not generally have Jesus exclusively in mind. We are usually speaking of the divine potential that we are here on Earth to realize. Charles Fillmore saw twelve pathways for realization of this one Truth; they are twelve paths that lead to the one mountain.

Fillmore also saw the twelve disciples of Jesus as symbolically representing each of these twelve pathways, these twelve powers of the Christ. He believed that each disciple manifested one aspect of the Christ more perfectly than any other and connected that power to that disciple. Peter became Faith; James became Wisdom; John, Love; Andrew, Strength; and so on. …

Just as Jesus tended to send his disciples out two by two (Luke 10:1) or in other combinations greater than one, the powers themselves do not truly work in isolation. If you contemplate it, you can see that the power of love needs the power of divine discrimination, of wisdom, to complement it. Faith works wonderfully well with understanding; imagination is activated by the power of order, and so on. In reality, all the powers are always at work, even when one seems to be predominating; all are really the Christ power manifesting itself in different ways. … The Christ is the vine, the powers are the branches, and the branches tend to intertwine!
 

This excerpt is from New Thought for a New Millennium: Twelve Powers for the 21st Century.

Unity is designating 2010 “The Year of the Twelve Powers.” A variety of resources are offered FREE online to help you understand and apply one new power each month. Additional articles, affirmations, meditations and music are available at www.unity.org/12powers. We invite you on this yearlong spiritual journey to tap into your divine power and more fully express the Christ within.