In addition to this intrinsic constitution, we also need power. We Christians are not common. We are very particular because we have the divine power. People cannot overcome their temper, but we can. Paul said, "I am able to do all things in Him who empowers me" (Phil. 4:13). In the One who empowered him, strengthened him, Paul could do everything.
In the past certain ones came to me, telling me that they could not live the Christian life. A brother came to me and said, "As a husband, I am charged by Ephesians 5 to love my wife. I must confess to you, Brother Lee, I just cannot love my wife." He thought that God might have made a mistake by giving him the wrong wife. He knew that a Christian husband should love his wife and should not divorce, but he said he could not make it and had no way to go on. When he asked me what he should do, I said, "You have to be a Christian." Then he said, "But I cannot make it." I responded, "You cannot make it, but Christ can make it." I told him that if we are in ourselves, we are through. But we have to realize that we are in Christ. We are in the One who empowers us, strengthens us, to be able to do everything. I encouraged him to take Christ as the One who empowers us and to remain in Him.
Husbands can love their wives in Christ, the One who empowers them. This remedy is very effective. A number of saints were helped by this kind of fellowship. They were helped to love their wives in Christ as the empowering One. Within us intrinsically, we have a divine constitution. We also have the divine power operating upon us and within us. This power is the Triune God.
Ephesians 1 speaks of the impartation of the Father, of the Son, and of the Spirit, the divine dispensing of the Divine Trinity, but it also reveals that the three of the Triune God work together to become a kind of power. The Father is embodied in the Son, and the Son is realized as the Spirit, making the Triune God a power. This power is greater than any kind of power.
The Triune God caused this power to operate in Christ in raising Him from the dead, in seating Him at the Father's right hand in the heavenlies, in subjecting all things under His feet, and in giving Him to be the Head over all things. Christ was uplifted not from the earth to the moon but to the third heaven to sit in the heavenlies. He overcame the dark power of Satan in the air. All things were subjected under His feet, and He was given to be the Head over all things to the church, to the Body. Everything the Head is, is to the Body, that is, to be transmitted to the Body.
We not only possess the Triune God as our intrinsic constitution but also as our outward and inward power. We are powerful. We have a divine, intrinsic constitution with God's nature, God's life, God's element, and God's essence. We also have the Triune God, processed and consummated, as the power operating upon us and within us to make us powerful. With this power, we can do everything. We can suffer things which others cannot suffer. We can bear a burden which others cannot bear. We can love people whom others cannot love. This is the reality of the Body of Christ.