To experience this power within you, first, you need to have a strong desire to get completely out of death. If you cannot tolerate death within you, you will realize the resurrection power. Many Christians are indifferent toward death. As long as they can come and sit quietly and hear the choir sing and the pastor give a good sermon, they are content. They may love the Lord and fear Him. They may try not to do anything sinful or be worldly. They may save some money for the offering, and sometimes they may even pray for the church. However, whether the church meetings are dead or living, they would not care. Concerning death, they are altogether indifferent. Someone who is indifferent like this could never realize the power of resurrection. If you mean business with the Lord and if you hate death and are desperate to be delivered from anything dead, deadened, or deadly, you will see the power that is “toward you.” If you are genuinely grieved that your city is so dead, with nearly no one loving the Lord and standing for His testimony, and if you are desperate with the Lord, then the resurrection power will be manifested.
As long as there is any amount of death among us, the church is short. Death is a reduction of the church. The more death there is among us, the less church we have. The less death, the more church there is. Suppose we come together, yet we are all in a dead condition. That is not the church. That is just a religious community. The church is something so living and powerful that it swallows up all death. The church is something in the resurrection power.
Some may say that to have power you need the so-called “baptism of the Holy Spirit.” I have seen many who said that they experienced such a “baptism.” They spoke in tongues, but there was no power with them. In mainland China, no one has ever been as prevailing in preaching the gospel as Dr. John Sung, yet he never spoke in tongues and was absolutely against the tongue-speaking movement. He was strongly opposed to speaking in tongues, yet he was so prevailing, so powerful, in the gospel.
Also on the island of Taiwan, all the missionaries, even those who opposed us, had to admit to our brothers that no work of the gospel on that island could compare with the work among the “little flock,” as they called us. Yet among us we would never encourage people to speak in tongues, although we do not oppose it. The resurrection power is not with speaking in tongues. The power is right within us, but we have to be desperate. Then the resurrection power will be manifested.
Not only is the church in resurrection, it is also transcendent. If anything continues to suppress or entangle us, we are not in the reality of the church. The church is utterly transcendent. We must realize that all of our problems are opportunities for us to experience God’s transcending power. In the midst of all our problems, we should say: “Hallelujah! Deep within me, there is the transcending power that seated Christ at the right hand of God, far above all.” Our wives may be opposing us, or our husbands may be bothering us, but we are sitting in the heavenlies, transcendent (Eph. 2:6). All things are ours, even life or death (1 Cor. 3:21-22). All things are for the church. We need all the troublesome situations for God’s transcending power to be manifested.
As Christians, we may try not to make any mistakes. At times, we may have been in fear and trembling, looking to the Lord and praying, “Lord, save me from making any mistakes.” But regardless of how much you prayed in this way, you made a big mistake. It seems that the Lord did not hear or answer your prayer. Actually, however, He did hear your prayer and answered it. He knew that you needed that big mistake. In His sovereignty, the Lord will allow us to make some mistakes.
Today in the church, there are many young brothers and sisters who have recently been married. Every brother who loves the Lord, looks to the Lord for a good sister to be his wife. Every sister who loves the Lord also prays that the Lord would prepare a good brother for her. Eventually, every brother gets a good wife, and every sister gets a good husband. Each wife is exactly what the brother needs, and each husband is exactly what the wife needs. The Lord has never made a mistake. Eventually, however, the honeymoon is over, and the wives and husbands begin to “grind” each other. Then the children that we have help in the grinding process that we need to pass through. As the many grains of wheat, we need to be crushed and ground to make the bread, the Body of Christ (1 Cor. 10:17). If certain persons and situations are grinding us and we complain, that means we are not transcendent. Because we are all under the grinding stone, we need the transcending power. This power is within us. If we experience God’s transcending power in all of our circumstances, the church life will be manifested.
Ephesians 1:22 says that God has “subjected all things under His feet.” This is God’s subduing power. All things have been put under Christ’s feet, and today it should be the same with the church. We only need to be desperate and pray: “Lord, all the things have to be under me. You are the subduing power and You are within me.” The more that things are subdued under our feet, the more the church comes into being. The church life may not be so manifested in your locality because many things have not yet been subdued. Some may be subdued by bad or even unclean habits. Others may be subdued by the modern way of dressing. In their dress, they may follow the flow of this age, the present course of the world. How can we have the proper, adequate church life if we are subdued by many things? Paul said, “All things are lawful to me, but not all things are expedient. All things are lawful to me, but I will not be brought under the power of anything....all things are lawful, but not all things build up” (1 Cor. 6:12; 10:23). This shows that Paul had the real freedom and was not subdued by anything. We should not have outward regulations in the church life, but we need the subduing power to live a subduing life. Then when others come among us, they will realize that we are those who experience God’s subduing power. Nothing in the current of this modernistic age will subdue us. Rather, all these things will be under our feet. If we fully experience God’s subduing power, the church life will be fully manifested. God’s power is to the church, and this power issues in, produces, the church.
Then the fourth item of God’s power is the overruling power. Christ is the Head and we are His Body. We are one with the Head. He is overruling all things, and we share in His overruling. When all things are under the rule of the Head and His Body, the church is manifested.
Now that we have seen the power that produces the church, our only need is to be desperate. We should pray, “Lord, I am desperate to be saved from anything of death and from anything that would suppress, subdue, or overrule me.” Then we will see the power that is within us. The word dynamo is an anglicized form of the Greek word translated “power” in Ephesians 1:19. A dynamo is a generator. We must realize that within us there is a generator, a dynamo. It is dynamic and powerful, but it needs our cooperation. We have to have our capacity enlarged by being desperate. Then we will see the manifestation of the church in our locality.
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