WHAT IS WITHIN THE BELIEVER
We sang in our hymn about the Spirit springing up within us1. I wish to use these verses to encourage us as to what we have within us. We perhaps look too much for things to happen outside of us. We pray, we pray in faith, and we can expect things to happen. The power belongs to God. That is why we pray in faith, that He may take heed and answer our exercises. It is striking how often the power of God is referred to in connection with the resurrection of Jesus. It is the great evidence and witness to God’s power, that He raised Christ from among the dead. The enemy’s power had, we might say, spent itself. It had demonstrated its power in crucifying Christ; the enemy had shown his power in rolling that stone over the entrance to the grave; there was the tomb, and the Lord in it, and the stone sealed over the grave. That was the demonstration of the enemy’s power. Finality, it seemed; an affront to the things of God. But God came in, and rolled the stone away. The psalmist says, “he smote his adversaries in the hinder part”, Ps.78:66. God dealt with the whole power and authority of the enemy in one act of power in raising Christ.
That is how God works, and He does work outside of ourselves. But I believe there is a need for us to realise that God has given us power within us, the gift of the Holy Spirit, to complete the journey. It says in connection with the resurrection of the saints, that they will be raised on account of His Spirit which dwells in us (see Rom.8:11). It suggests that there is a demonstration of the worthiness of the saints to be raised on account of His Spirit which dwells in us. It says too, as to Philadelphia, that “thou hast a little power”, Rev.3:8. There is to be no assumption of it, no claim to it; but I believe there is a need to recognise it and to honour it, and to respect it.
It says here that God “is able to do far exceedingly above all which we ask or think”, and we sometimes stop there. It is true, thank God it is true, that He “is able to do far exceedingly above all which we ask or think”; where would we be without it? What a demonstration of His grace and of His love for us: “far exceedingly above all which we ask or think”. There is the Father: the Father’s hand and the Father’s power, and His grace towards us. But the verse goes on, “according to the power which works in us”. It is not going to be any other power. It has been said, helpfully and rightly, that there is no change in the power from Pentecost until now. The power is the same – the same power that was in these apostles, when Peter preached and three thousand were saved and added to the Lord, and then the number grew to five thousand (see Acts 2:41; 4:4). The same power is still here, and it is in believers: “according to the power which works in us”.
I only call attention to it to encourage our hearts to make room for it. As to present matters, I believe we learn power in our individual exercises; the believer acquires power to refuse sin, to refuse the temptations, to refuse the attempts of the devil to ensnare us; the believer acquires power through these exercises that are recorded in Romans. The ability to say, ‘No’, to refuse the things that tempt us and test us – we prove the power which works in us, and we learn the power that is for us through these exercises. The believer thus becomes triumphant, and superior, to the power of the devil and the power of sin working in us – because that works in us too; the power of the flesh and sin works in us. We are not immune from that. But we have this: “according to the power which works in us”. It is the power of the gift of the Spirit. I trust that in present matters we would seek to make room for that power. It would help us to be active. We pray much and for many things, but there is a need for action on our part, “according to the power which works in us”.
I thought the woman in 2 Kings just demonstrated that very thing: the resource was there, the pot of oil was there. You might say that she had a history; according to our way of speaking, she had been in fellowship a long time. She was not new to it; she knew the features of the fellowship, but here she is in dire circumstances, and what is she going to do? Her past was not helping her. No doubt she had experience; but matters had come into her life such that she says that she “has not anything”. How often we revert to that question, ‘What can we do?’. “What hast thou in the house?” the prophet says in this passage. It is a striking feature of Elisha’s ministry. In chapter after chapter, he draws on resources that are available to resolve matters. The waters were bad, and he asks for a new cruse, and salt (see chap.2:19-22). Evidently they were there. Elisha takes very simple things to meet emergencies. Elijah was more on the line of calling down power, in a sense, from heaven. But Elisha is representative of the believer with his eye on Christ in glory, and the Holy Spirit here. He asked for “a double portion” (v.9). That is, he had a sense of Christ on high as his great high Priest, and he had a sense, using Christian language, of the Holy Spirit within him. He says, “Tell me, what hast thou in the house?”. When other things came up, he asked for meal (see 2 Kings 4:41). He did not call down great things; he took account of what was there; it suggests what is within us. He is calling attention to that in this woman. He asks, “what hast thou in the house?” ‘Oh well’, she says, ‘I had this and I had that; but now there it is – only a pot of oil’. But Elisha shows it is more than enough.
May we be encouraged, dear brethren, by what is within us. There is more than enough power in the Spirit for our individual exercises and for our assembly exercises. “Tell me, what hast thou in the house?” She says, “not anything”, “not anything at all”; she might have stopped there, but then she says, “but a pot of oil”. It had been neglected, you see, something that had been neglected. Perhaps it becomes neglected in our lives, the power within us: “according to the power which works in us”. God is not bringing in something new, but He is calling our attention to what we have, that we may use it; and that, dear brethren, is the way to prosperity in everything: using what we have. It is true also in our practical lives, using what we have. Things are tied up – that man with a mina wrapped up in a towel (see Luke 19:20), he lost everything; but there were others who had minas and they used what they had. There was a power within them, and it met all the exercises that were current in that day. There was neglect – that man who had one mina neglected current experiences among the saints; the others traded with what they had in view of the soon return of their lord, as he had instructed them (see v.13). This woman was obedient. She is encouraged by the prophetic word; she is revived in her spirit and her sons are saved, and things are restored to what is normal.
May that power work within us, dear brethren, for His praise and glory.
Word in a meeting for ministry, Kirkcaldy
May 2003
Bert Taylor (not revised by the author)