There is also a difference between the growth of life and the increase of power. Samson was very powerful, but what did he have-life or mere power? Sometimes people say that Peter was also powerful. Often, though, I consider that Peter was not as powerful as Samson. Peter was powerful in a different realm, in a different way. Samson had genuine power from God, but that power was not life. We cannot see much life in the record of Samson.
Today most Christians do not differentiate power from life. In a sense, someone may even have a kind of spiritual power but still be very short of life. Power must be for life, but people today mistake power for life. A powerful person may not be full of life. We have to differentiate these two. Power is for life, but power is not life. Regardless of how much increase of power we have, we may still be poor in the growth of life. For the growth of life there is the need of the work of the cross, but for power in itself there is not such a need.
What then is life? Again I say, life is Christ Himself, and the real growth of life is the increase and expanding of Christ. How can we have the expanding of Christ? There is no other way but to always open ourselves to the Lord and contact Him, not only once a day but all the time, daily, every day. We have to open ourselves to Him and let Him come in. Therefore, we should forget about behavior, the form of godliness, zeal in service, knowledge, gifts, and power. Simply pay attention to one thing, that is, to Christ, to open ourselves to Him, contact Him, breathe Him in, feed on Him, and drink of Him. Then we will have not merely the improvement of behavior but transformation. We will have not merely the form of godliness but the reality of godliness. God has the appearance of a precious stone, like jasper, so we too will have the appearance of jasper (Rev. 4:3; 21:11). We will be transformed into the very image of God, not in form only but in reality.
Then to be sure, the more we feed on Christ and breathe Him in, the more we will be burned and will be burning; we will have the real zeal within. We will also have the real knowledge, not the knowledge in the soul but the real knowledge of Christ in the spirit. We will have the experience rather than mere knowledge. We will know Christ not merely by reading and listening but by experiencing Him. We also will have not the mere manifestation of the gifts but the function of life. The function of life comes out of the growth of life. The more we feed on the Lord, the more we take Him in, and the more we grow in Him, the more our function in life will come into being. Then we will have the power in life, the indwelling Christ as the real power, just as 1 Corinthians 1:24 says that Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God.
In order to know and experience the inner life more and more, we need to learn to differentiate all these things. We should forget about everything but life and learn to do only one thing: open ourselves to Christ, take Him as the tree of life, feed on Him, drink of Him, and breathe Him in more and more. This produces the genuine growth of life.
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