Seeing the Difference between Natural Ability and Resurrected Ability in Serving God

We need to see the difference between the natural ability and the resurrected ability, for our natural being and natural ability are impotent and insufficient in the things of God, for He accepts only the manifestations of the ability of the maturity of life.

Solomon was a man full of natural ability, but he was not a man of life.

He was wise humanly speaking, but his wisdom was a gift from God, not a measure of life.

He had great careers and amazing accomplishments, humanly speaking, but these were not the manifestations of the ability of life but the evidence of his capacity from the God-given gift of wisdom.

This is very different from what we see in the New Testament, in God’s New Testament economy.

We need to see that there’s a difference, actually many differences, between the natural ability and the resurrected ability, and we need to grow in life unto maturity so that our service to God and our work would be the manifestation of the ability of the maturity of life.

May the Lord have mercy on us and enlighten us concerning the matter of our natural ability.

He may have given us a gift of wisdom or a natural ability, and everyone around us may agree that we have this or that ability given to us by God.

However, our natural ability is of no use to God; our natural ability has to go through death and enter into resurrection so that it may be useful to God.

There’s a clear distinction between what is natural and what is of the divine life, what is just a God-given capacity versus what is the manifestation or expression of the resurrected ability.

The outward work may be the same, for it is a certain work or activity that is performed or done, but the source is different.

God doesn’t want us, His people, to merely accomplish a certain work or do certain things for Him; He wants us to be in resurrection, one with Him, when we do anything for Him.

He put in us certain abilities and He has given us a certain amount of wisdom, but we need to cooperate with Him and allow the cross to operate in us to put the natural element to death so that our ability would be brought into resurrection and thus be truly useful to God.

We see this in Moses who was so capable and full of ability, but the best he could do in his natural ability was to kill an Egyptian.

However, after forty years of training and perfecting by God in the wilderness, he became useful to God in resurrection, for everything he did from then on was in dependence on God and in oneness with God.

Similarly, in Paul, we see a lot of natural zeal and ability right after he was saved, and wherever he went, he got in trouble when he spoke.

However, toward the end of his life, he became mature, and his ability was brought into resurrection so that he simply ministered life and cut straight the word of the truth.

God has no intention to “cancel us” or to “cancel our ability”; He has given us a certain ability and He wants it to be brought into resurrection so that it would be useful to Him for the building up of the church.

Seeing the Difference Between Natural Ability and Resurrected Ability in Serving God

We need to see the difference between our natural ability and the ability that has passed through death and resurrection, especially in our service to God (Acts 7:22; Exo. 3:2-3, 14-15; 1 Cor. 2:14; Phil. 3:3-9; 2 Cor. 3:5-6).

What is needed in the service of God is not people who are talented, gifted, and who has a great ability so that they would use it “for God’s glory”.

Church history is filled with examples of such talented and gifted Christians who eventually brought in division and confusion in the Body of Christ.

We need to realize the impotence, the insufficiency, of our natural being and natural ability in the things of God.

We need to grow in life, the more we mature, the more the ability given to us by God is going through the cross, and we will have a resurrected ability in serving God.

Our abilities should not remain just natural but need to be brought in the realm of life and resurrection.

In ourselves we think we’re quite capable, quite potent, and quite sufficient; but when the Lord touches us, we will clearly see that we cannot trust our natural abilities.

When the cross touches us and deals with our natural man, we will realize that our natural abilities are insufficient and impotent in the things related to God.

The natural man cannot understand the things of God; they are spiritual, they are spiritually understood and apprehended, and only when we have the maturity of life can we function in resurrection in the things of God.

We should not have any trust in our natural being in the things of God; instead, we should learn to reject our natural being and exercise our spirit in everything for the organic building up of the Body of Christ (Phil. 3:3; Rom. 8:4; 1 Tim. 4:7).

The matter of rejecting our natural ability depends on us; God will not reject it for us in us.

God can only shine and expose our natural ability and the natural man, and it’s up to us if we reject it, stand against it, repudiate it, and judge it.

We need to cooperate with God’s light to reject our natural man, stand against it, and not give him room to breathe and have his way in the church.

On the other hand, we need to exercise our spirit in everything for the building up of the Body of Christ.

In the Lord’s recovery, there is NO place for our natural being; in the church life, there’s no place for the natural man, only for the new man, the new creation.

If we do not reject our natural man and allow the cross to deal with it, the Body will reject our work and our activities, for they are in the natural man.

The churches in the Lord’s recovery, as parts of the living Body of Christ, will spontaneously reject anything that is natural (1 Cor. 12:12-13).

If we don’t reject our natural man, the Body will. We have seen this again and again in the turmoils and storms we passed through; eventually, the Body rises up in resurrection, in the life of God, to reject anything that is natural.

If we learn to reject our natural man and exercise our spirit to live and serve in resurrection, we will build up the church as the Body of Christ.

In the building of the church, every natural thing must be broken before we can be joined together; we can build only after we have been broken in our natural being.

May we see the difference between the natural ability and the resurrected ability and may we cooperate with the work of the cross by exercising our spirit so that we may be brought into resurrection.

We need to learn the lesson of the breaking of the outer man for the release of the spirit.

This means that there must be the stripping, the demolishing, the consuming of the outer man, the natural man, so that the inner man, the spiritual man where the divine life is, would flow out and be released.

We need to learn the discipline of the Holy Spirit, realizing that all things in our life, our environment, our situation, all persons and matters, everything works together under God’s sovereign hand for our good, for our transformation and conformation to the image of Christ (Rom. 8:28-29).

We should not prefer the good situations and good people around us but allow the Lord to break our outer man through the discipline of the Holy Spirit so that our resurrected being, our mingled spirit, can flow to minister life to the members of the Body of Christ for its building up.

Lord Jesus, grant us to be persons of life, those who serve God as a manifestation of the ability of the maturity of life. We want to grow in life unto maturity and have our natural ability go through death to be useful to the Lord in resurrection. Unveil us, Lord, and shine on us to clearly show us the difference between the natural ability and the resurrected ability! Amen, Lord, we open to You; have Your way in us through the work of the cross so that our natural man would be put to death and we would serve You in resurrection. Cause us to realize the impotence and insufficiency of our natural being and our natural ability in the things of God. Oh Lord, we do not trust in our natural being. We want to learn to reject our natural being and exercise our spirit in everything for the organic building up of the Body of Christ! Have a way in us, Lord, for the building up of the church! Have a way to deal with anything natural so that our ability would be brought in resurrection for the Body!

Resurrected Ability is Not Proud, Not for the Self, and is controlled by the Holy Spirit

As we live the Christian life and church life for the fulfilment of God’s eternal economy, we need to realize that there’s a difference between the natural ability and the resurrected ability.

If we look at our Christian experience, if we study the word of God, and if we look closer at church history, we will see some major differences between the natural ability and the resurrected ability.

First of all, natural ability is egocentric and causes us to become proud; when we do something in our natural ability, we are proud of what we have done, and we boast and glorify ourselves.

Resurrected ability, however, is not proud, nor does it boast in itself (Col. 1:17-18; Phil. 3:3; 2 Cor. 12:9).

Pride and arrogance, leading to ambition, self-justification and self-glorification, all come from the natural man.

It’s not a matter of us tempering our pride and trying to be humble; whenever we do something in our natural ability, we are proud about it and we love it when others appreciate us.

The natural life needs to be dealt with by the cross, and the natural ability needs to go; the natural man needs to be broken.

Secondly, our natural ability is selfish, and all its schemes and devices are for the sake of the self, without having any regard for the will of God.

Yes, we may do something “for God” or “in the name of God” but ultimately, we do something for the self, having no regard for God’s will. Oh, Lord!

Resurrected ability, by contrast, is for the will of God, for it has been broken and is not for the self and it has no element of self (Matt. 16:24).

The self and the natural man are totally related; the self is simply the expression of the natural man and vice-versa.

We all can testify that we may do something for the Lord or we may serve in the church life, and we may feel so good about ourselves when we do it, for we have done something, and our self is happy. Oh, Lord.

The natural ability doesn’t care for the will of God; it cares only for the self in the end.

May we allow the Lord to shine on our natural ability and expose the natural man, and may we allow the cross to deal with our natural being so that we may serve God in resurrection.

Natural ability causes self-reliance and self-confidence, acting on its own and causing us to depend on ourselves, not on God.

However, resurrected ability relies upon God and does not dare to act according to self, though it is truly able and capable (2 Cor. 1:8-9; 4:6-7; 12:7-9).

Resurrected ability is controlled by the Holy Spirit, and it does not dare to act according to its wishes.

What oozes out of a person who does things in his natural ability is self-trust, and self-confidence, for he relies on his own natural ability.

Resurrected ability, however, though it is able and capable, does not emanate any trust in the self but a full dependence on God, the source of that service and ability.

What others touch is life, not the self; what others see is trust in God, not trust in the self.

Even more, working for God and serving in the natural ability leads to presumptuousness, for we think we can do this and that for God, and we are bold in an improper way.

May the Lord shine on us and expose our natural ability and may we agree with His light so that the natural man would be exposed, repudiated, and put to death, and we would live in spirit and serve in resurrection.

Lord Jesus, we open as wide as we can: shine on us and expose what is natural in our being, especially in our service to God. Save us from serving God in our natural ability. May Your divine light shine, purge, and remove anything of the natural being with its ability in us. Bring our ability fully in resurrection so that it would truly be useful to You. Amen, Lord, may we be those who do not work in and for the self but in spirit and for the Lord, caring for the will of God. We depend on You, dear Lord, in everything that we do. We do not rely on ourselves and our own understanding; we depend on You and we dare not act according to our wishes. We allow You to control us and direct us according to Your will. Amen, Lord, may Your will be done in us.

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Sources of inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, a sharing by brother Minoru Chen in the message, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1953, vol. 3, “The Experience of Life,” chs. 9, 11, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-study of 1 and 2 Kings (2022 summer training), week 5, entitled, Natural Ability versus the Resurrected Ability of the Maturity of Life for the Building up of the Church as the Organic Body of Christ.
• Hymns on this topic:
  – First the blood, and then the ointment, / Cleansing, then anointing comes; / If we pass not thru Golgotha, / Ne’er to Pentecost we’ll come. / If the blood has never cleansed us, / Ne’er the Spirit’s pow’r we’ll know, / If for Christ we’d truly witness, / Self-life to the Cross must go. / Through the Cross, O Lord, I pray, / Put my soul-life all away; / Make me any price to pay, / Full anointing to receive. (Hymns #279, stanza 1 and chorus)
  – Here, Lord, we give ourselves to Thee; / Receive us into Thy wise hands; / Bend, break, and build together in Thee / To be the house to meet Thy demands. / Break all the natural life for us, / Deal Thou with each peculiar way, / That we no more independent be / But with all saints are one for aye. (Hymns #837, stanzas 7-8)
  – Oh, may Thy living light, Lord, / Scatter all my night, Lord, / And everything make bright, Lord, / For this I pray to Thee. / I hardly know myself; / Deceived so much by pride, / I often think I’m right / And am self-satisfied. / I know Thee even less; / In doctrine, shallowly; / True revelation lack / Of Thy reality. (Hymns #426, stanzas 2-3 and chorus)