Experience the Power of Christ’s Resurrection to Participate in His Sufferings for the Body

Paul’s aspiration was to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings; we need to experience the power of Christ’s resurrection to participate in His sufferings.

If we put ourselves aside and remain under the death of the cross, we will experience the power of Christ’s resurrection for the building up of the Body.

What does it mean to experience Christ? How can we experience Christ in our daily life? To experience Christ is to know and enjoy Christ in an experiential way; it is not only for us to know about Christ and what He can be to us, but for us to have a direct, personal participation in Christ.

For example, a couple may be in the process of courtship, and after they are clear before the Lord that they should proceed, after they are married they have a direct, personal participation in the married life.

After believing into the Lord we have been brought into the realm of God, Christ, and the kingdom of God, and now we pursue Christ to know Him in an experiential way, having not only a knowledge of Christ but gaining His person.

To gain something of Christ we need to pay a price; Paul paid the price of all things, which he gladly gave up, for he considered them as refuse on the account of the excellency of the knowledge of Christ.

For us to gain Christ is to experience, enjoy, and take possession of all His unsearchable riches by paying a price. Christ our Saviour has unsearchable riches; His riches are unsearchable in their measure, but they can become our full reality as we enjoy and experience Him.

This is manifested and made clear at the Lord’s table, when we come together not only to mentally remember what the Lord has done for us, but for us to cooperate with the Lord whom we have enjoyed and experienced, to offer Him to the Father for His satisfaction.

May we go on and grow in the human life and the divine life day by day by enjoying and experiencing Christ, and may we pay the price of losing our soul-life, denying the self, and counting all things as loss on the account of Christ, so that Christ may be our daily experience and He would be wrought into us.

We need to know Christ by experiencing Him, enjoying Him, being one with Him, and having Him within us, having a daily life one with the Lord so that He may live in us.

Our Father desires to have the true worship from His children, and this true worship is not merely with the knowledge of Christ but with the experience of this wonderful and rich One who has been experienced and enjoyed by us in our daily experience.

We Aspire to know the Power of Christ’s Resurrection and the Fellowship of His Sufferings

Paul aspired to know the power of Christ’s resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings (Phil. 3:10). The power of Christ’s resurrection is actually His resurrection life, which raised Him from the dead (see Eph. 1:19-20).

Paul didn’t just want to know Christ in a general way; he wanted to specifically know the power of Christ’s resurrection and the fellowship of His suffering, being conformed to His death.

We need to specifically ask the Lord that we experience Him and know the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings.

The Lord in His mercy will give us light and bring about situations that will enable us to first-hand directly, personally, know this resurrection power, which death cannot defeat!

Death cannot defeat the resurrection life; death cannot defeat the Lord Jesus, and death can never defeat the Body of Christ. Even if some saints go to be with the Lord and it seems there’s an outward defeat, resurrection life will prevail, and resurrection power is the highest power in the universe!

The reality of Christ’s resurrection and its power is the Spirit (Rom. 8:9-11; 1 Cor. 15:45; 1 John 5:6). The Spirit compounded with Christ’s resurrection and its power indwells our spirit to dispense Christ’s resurrection and its power into our entire being (Phil. 1:19; Exo. 30:23-25; Rom. 8:6b, 10-11).

For us to experience and know the power of Christ’s resurrection, we need to live a crucified life according to the pattern of His life; our conformity with the death of Christ affords the base for the power of Christ’s resurrection to rise up so that the divine life may be expressed through us.

The Spirit – who is the reality of Christ’s resurrection with its power – is in our spirit to dispense resurrection life and its power to all the inward parts of our being.

Our aspiration is to know the power of Christ’s resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings; when we know the resurrection life, we are enabled and empowered to be conformed to the death of Christ.

Because Christ as the Spirit is in our spirit, our spirit is life because of righteousness; when we turn and set our mind on the spirit, our mind (the leading part of our soul) is life, and the Spirit imparts life into our mortal body to give life even to our physical body.

Hallelujah, our entire being is becoming life because the Spirit is spreading from our spirit into all the parts of our inner being!

Though our mortal body is getting older, the Lord gives us life day by day as we turn to our spirit, and the power of resurrection operates in us to both conform us to the death of Christ and to impart the divine life to our whole being!

Lord, we aspire to know the power of Christ’s resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings. Thank You for coming as the Spirit in resurrection to be joined with our spirit and impart the divine life to all the parts of our inner being. Hallelujah, our spirit is life, our mind is becoming life, and the Spirit imparts life even to our mortal body! Amen, Lord, may the same power that operated in You to raise You from the dead also operate in us to resurrect our whole being so that we may know the power of Christ’s resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings!

We Experience the Power of Christ’s Resurrection to Participate in His Sufferings for the Body

If we as believers in Crist put ourselves aside and remain under the death of the cross, we will experience the power of Christ’s resurrection; then, spontaneously, the power of resurrection experienced by us will build up the Body of Christ (Phil. 3:10; Eph. 4:12, 16).

The necessary condition for the experience of the power of resurrection (2 Tim. 2:11) by being conformed to His death is the fellowship of the Lord’s sufferings (Matt. 20:22-23; Col. 1:24).

In the Lord’s case, sufferings and death came first, and then resurrection followed; in our case, we first receive and experience the power of resurrection, and then we have the fellowship of His sufferings and the conformity to His death.

Hallelujah, whenever we turn to our spirit and touch the Spirit, we enjoy the power of the Lord’s resurrection, and then by this power we are enabled to participate in His sufferings and live a crucified life for producing and building up of the Body of Christ!

The base for our experience of Christ is being conformed to the death of Christ; if we’re not conformed to the death of Christ, we can’t experience Christ, for we have no base.

For us to experience Christ, we need to be conformed to His death, and to be conformed to His death, we must have the fellowship of His sufferings.

By participating in Christ’s sufferings, we are ushered into a position to experience the power of Christ’s resurrection.

However, some think that, if we set ourselves aside, that is, if we experience Christ in His death, there will be nothing left; however, when believers experience the denial of the self, what remains is Christ.

When unbelievers set themselves aside, nothing remains, for they don’t have the Spirit; but when we as believers deny ourselves, when we experience Christ in His death, the Spirit will be real in us, and He will live in us.

This is actually the power of resurrection. We need to do only one thing – always put ourselves aside, that is, put the self under death and keep it on the cross; then, we will live a crucified life as the base for the power of resurrection to be manifested.

When the power of resurrection is manifested, this is not mainly for our enjoyment but for the building up of the church as the Body of Christ. Our experience of the power of resurrection is for the producing and the building up of the Body of Christ.

What God desires is not some spiritual individuals through whom He can be expressed…He desires to gain a Body, and He wants the Body to be built up to be His corporate expression.

If we put ourselves aside and remain under the death of the cross, we will enjoy the power of resurrection; immediately, the power of resurrection will produce the Body and will build up the Body.

Yes, there will be opposition, but the Body will be built up, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it!

The expression” the fellowship of His sufferings” in Phil. 3:10 refers to the participation in Christ’s sufferings, which is a necessary condition for the experience of the power of His resurrection (Matt. 20:22-23; Col. 1:24).

Christ has already suffered for our redemption, and no one can participate in that suffering; but there’s another kind of suffering, as seen in Col. 1:24, which is making up what is lacking of the afflictions of Christ for His Body, the church.

We all need to enter into the fellowship of Christ’s sufferings for the building up of the Body of Christ. First, we experience the power of His resurrection, and then by this power we are enabled to participate in His sufferings (Phil. 3:10).

Some of the deepest sufferings will not be known by anyone there will be no appearance or something obvious, and we don’t pity ourselves or feel sorry but rather, we live before God the Father, we live a secret life, and the Body is built up.

These sufferings are mainly for Christ’s Body, the church; when we have the fellowship of His sufferings, the divine life is released in the Body of Christ for the building up of His Body.

Lord Jesus, we want to learn to put ourselves aside and remain under the death of the cross so that we may experience the power of Christ’s resurrection for the building up of the Body. Amen, Lord Jesus, may we enter into the fellowship of Your sufferings for the Body, and may we experience the power of Your resurrection. May there be many believers who enter into the fellowship of His sufferings by the power of His resurrection so that the divine life may be released in the Body of Christ for the building up of the Body!

This article can also be read in the Romanian language / Citiți acest articol în limba română vizitând următorul link, Să experimentăm puterea învierii lui Cristos pentru a participa la suferințele Sale pentru Trup.

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by bro. Ron Kangas for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1978, vol. 1, “The Experience of Christ,” chs. 15-16, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Experience of Christ (2019 Memorial Day Conference), week 6, Being Found in Christ, Knowing Christ, and Pursuing Christ.
• Hymns on this topic:
  # ’Tis not hard to die with Christ / When His risen life we know; / ’Tis not hard to share His suff’rings / When our hearts with joy o’erflow. / In His resurrection power / He has come to dwell in me, / And my heart is gladly going / All the way to Calvary. (Hymns #481)
  # Press on, press on to know the Lord / And resurrection power— / Oh, this is our supreme reward, / E’en in the suffering hour! (Hymns #1205)
  # Living out His resurrection, / Dying to the flesh and soul-life. / Living by the mingled spirit, / Natural man we will deny. / Now we’re living in the Body, / Every day we’re overcoming, / Striving for the peak of Zion, / Watching for our Lord’s appearing. (Song on, God has called us for His purpose)