Quotes from Watchman Nee

There is nothing stereotyped about God's dealings with His children. Therefore, we must not by our prejudices and preconceptions make watertight compartments for the working out His Spirit, either in our own lives or in the lives of others. We must leave God free to work as He wills and to leave what evidence He pleases of the work He does.

Bible-reading and prayer are not wrong, and God forbid that we should suggest that they are. But it is wrong to trust even in them for victory. Our help is in Him who is the object of that reading and prayer. Our trust must be in Christ alone.

The Law requires much, but offers no help in the carrying out of its requirements. The Lord Jesus requires just as much, yea more (Matt. 5:21–48). But what He requires from us, He Himself carries out in us. The Law makes demands and leaves us helpless to fulfill them; Christ makes demands, but He Himself fulfills in us the very demands He makes.

We think in terms of apostolic journeys. God dares to put His greatest ambassadors in chains.

We all have the same Christ dwelling within, but revelation of some new need will lead us spontaneously to trust Him to live out His life in in that particular.

It is not a matter of how many loaves we have in our hands, but whether or not God has blessed them.

Lord, I do not know fully what the value of the blood is, but I know that the blood has satisfied Thee; so the blood is enough for me, and it is my only plea.

The author tells a story wherein a missionary friend of his was invited by unbelievers on a train ride to play cards. The friend declined, saying that he did not bring his hands with him. He explained to the astonished group that the hands attached to what they saw as his body belonged to the Lord, and he was thereby able to explain the Gospel.

God must bring us to a point--I cannot tell you how it will be, but He will do it--where, through a deep and dark experience, our natural power is touched and fundamentally weakened, so that we no longer dare trust ourselves.

We recognize already that regeneration of the spirit is the paramount need of man.

To be useful in God's hand, a man must be properly adjusted with respect to all three: his position, his life and his warfare. He falls short of God's requirements if he underestimates the importance of any one of them, for each is a sphere in which God would express "the glory of his grace, which he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved" (1:6).

If you have not experienced the death of self, your spiritual life will have little real progress.

If any person desires to think, he must possess memory, imagination and reasoning power; but the Christian has presently lost these powers, hence is unable to think. He cannot create, deduce or recollect, nor can he compare, judge and apprehend. Therefore he cannot think. And should he attempt to do so he experiences a kind of dazed sensation which stifles any productive thought.

God's Word tells us that God has spoken of old in many portions and in many ways through His servants concerning His heart's desire and that He loves us. But man did not understand. Therefore, God had to personally come to this world and become a man. This man is Jesus, the Christ, whom we know.

Man's failure is not due to his weakness, but to his not accepting God's strength. It is not in his inability but in not allowing God to enable him. He cannot do it, but why not let God deliver him? This is what the Lord stresses here. The things which are impossible with men are possible with God. Our Lord wanted to prove to the young ruler what God can do, but he, instead, went away with the conclusion that the thing was impossible to him.

Jesus] said, "Those who are strong have no need of a physician, but those who are ill.…For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners" (Matt. 9:10-13). Jesus opened up God's heart to men.

The more spiritual a child of God becomes, the more conscious he is of the significance of walking according to the spirit and the dangers of walking according to the flesh.

Other people cherish another thought. They conclude that life is power. To have the Lord as our life means to be given power by Him to do good. Nevertheless, God shows us that our power is not a thing; it is simply Christ. Our power is not the strength to do things; rather, it is a Person. Life to us is not only power but also a Person. It is Christ who manifests himself in us, instead of our using Christ to display our good works.

Andrew Murray once said that what the church and individuals have to dread is the inordinate activity of the soul with its power of mind and will. F. B. Meyer declared that had he not known about the dividing of spirit and soul, he could not have imagined what his spiritual life would have been. Many others, such as Otto Stockmayer, Jessie Penn-Lewis, Evan Roberts, Madame Guyon, have given the same testimony.

The soul seeks to retain its authority and move independently, while the spirit strives to possess and master everything for the maintenance of God's authority.

They are trying to look within, to differentiate, to discriminate, to analyze, and in doing so are bringing themselves into deeper bondage. Now this is a situation which is really dangerous to Christian life, for inward knowledge will never be reached along the barren path of self-analysis.

Prayer does not alter that which God has determined; it never changes anything. It merely achieves what He has already foreordained.

The daily life of the Christian can be summed up in one word: receive.

Neither our psychology nor that of the unbelievers can impart life to them. Unless the Holy Spirit Himself performs the work, all is vain.