The Power of Christ in you
An excerpt from a John G. Lake sermon
“In the Chicago conference I sat with an old colored lady one afternoon after meeting, and she told me of her woes and sicknesses-and they were many. After a time when she had grown somewhat still, I said, “Dear Mother, how long have you been a Christian?” She replied, “Since I was a child.”
Then I tried to show her that God expected a development of God and His nature and the working and action of God in her in transforming power through the agency of the Holy Spirit, and that there was a process of remaking and remolding that should change her nature and life, and dissolve the rheumatism and Bright’s disease and all the other difficulties, just as truly as long ago sin dissolved out of her soul.
After the conversation had gone on to the proper point, I said, “Dear Sister, anybody can see that Christ dwells in your spirit.” Her eyes were lovely, delightful. “Let your mind extend just a little bit. Let your thought comprehend that just as Jesus dwells in your spirit and also possesses your soul, in just exactly the same way He is possessing your blood and your kidneys and your old rheumatic bones, and that the very same thing will happen in your bones when you realize that truth as happened in your spirit when you were converted at the altar.”
(She told me how she had prayed twenty-two days and nights until Christ was revealed in her soul as Savior. She seemed to want to wait twenty-two days and nights for God to manifest Himself in the rheumatic bones, and I was trying to get her away from it.) She said, “Brother, lay your hands on me and pray for me, and I will be healed.”
I answered, “No, I want you to get well by realizing that right now that same Christ that dwells in your spirit and your soul is in your bones and in your blood and in your brain.” Presently the old lady hopped to her feet and said, “My God, He is.” She had it. Christ had been imprisoned in her soul and spirit, now He was permitted to manifest in her body.”
-John G. Lake
