We have stated that the three areas of attainment to the development of eternal life in the Christian personality are as follows:

The doing of God's will.

The creation of Christ in us.

Life lived in the power of the Holy Spirit.

We have discussed the first two aspects and will now turn to the third.

The third aspect, that of attaining to life lived in the power of the Holy Spirit, of changing our source of motivation and energy from sin and self-seeking to the Divine flowing of the Holy Spirit, is associated with suffering and crucifixion. This is why we find Paul exclaiming:

That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death; If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection [Greek, out-resurrection] of the dead. (Philippians 3:10,11)

God has to bring us down to the death of Christ before God can raise us by the same power that raised the Lord Jesus from the dead. The deeper the crucifixion the more powerful the resurrection. Resurrection flows from crucifixion. God does not raise us until the occasion requires that He act.

The suffering and death of Christ are associated with the power of His resurrection.

Christ suffered social rejection, loneliness, being misunderstood. So did Joseph, Job, Jeremiah, and Paul. Christ suffered questionings and oppression in Gethsemane—a greater load of darkness than any other person could bear or ever will be called on to bear.

Job, Jeremiah, and countless others of God's saints of all ages have suffered spiritual questionings and the darkness of intense oppression. Such afflictions are a normal part of the Christian experience. But the Lord delivers us out of them all.

Christ suffered physically on the cross. Many of the heroes of faith of the Old Testament suffered physically and so have multitudes of Christian martyrs.

Under the new covenant the fellowship of Christ's sufferings brings to us the power of resurrection life. We Christians are made life-giving spirits when God raises us by His resurrection power. Death works in us but life in other people.

Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God. For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ. (II Corinthians 1:4,5)

When we are brought low by social, spiritual, or physical suffering, God, after a season, raises us. The power that raises us spills over on the people around us so they too are raised. The power of the Spirit that consoles us also consoles them. The greatest comfort we ever give to the saints is that which flows from our own death and resurrection.

But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead: (II Corinthians 1:9)

Gradually we Christians learn to live with the "sentence of death" in ourselves. We continually are being brought low in the sufferings of Christ. Sometimes we become "pressed out of measure, above strength" to the point we despair of our life.

Then the awesome power of Christ's resurrection lifts us and we live again. Those about us live also because the power touches them. We are changed each time we are raised. Gone is a bit more of our sin and self-seeking. In their place is the power of the resurrection. (from The Land of Promise)