Quotes from Watchman Nee

The knowledge of Christ which is produced by man's own cleverness and wisdom is not a rock that can stand firm.

This is a fact. But Satan does not attack just prayer; he also attacks the praise of God's children. The ultimate goal of Satan is to stop all praises to God. Prayer is a warfare, but praise is a victory. Prayer signifies spiritual warfare, but praise signifies spiritual victory. Whenever we praise, Satan flees. Therefore, Satan hates our praising the most. He will use all his strength to stop our praising.

The idea of waste only comes into our Christianity when we underestimate the worth of our Lord.

Here is invariably a spiritual fact: Our spirit is released according to the degree of our brokenness.

How pitiful it must be when the flesh gains dominion. Sin has slain the spirit:

He who has ascended the cross and refuses to drink the vinegar mingled with gall is the one who knows the Lord. Many go up to the cross rather reluctantly, still thinking of drinking vinegar mingled with gall to alleviate their pain. All who say—"The cup which the Father has given me, shall I not drink it?"—will not drink the cup of vinegar mingled with gall.

The electric bulb cannot give light without electricity. Likewise, you cannot change yourself if today you are cut off from Christ. If there be any change or difference in you, it is not because you yourself have changed, for all is in Christ. Such is the way of God's salvation.[2]

Only those who are subject to authority can be authority.

How many of us dare not use our time or money or talents as we would, because we realise they are the Lord's, not ours?

Only those who sit can stand. Our power for standing, as for walking, lies in our having first been made to sit together with Christ. The Christian's walk and warfare alike derive their strength from his position there. If he is not sitting before God he cannot hope to stand before the enemy.

The operation of His life in us is in a true sense spontaneous, that is to say, it is without effort of ours. The all-important rule is not to "try," but to "trust," not to depend upon our own strength, but upon His. For it is the flow of life which reveals what we truly are "in Christ." It is from the Fountain of Life that the sweet water issues.

The life of faith can be called the life of the will since faith is impervious to how one feels but chooses through volition to obey God's mind.

Many Christians are unaware how drastically the cross must work so that ultimately their natural power for living may be denied.

For Christianity begins not with a big do, but with a big done.

The vessel through which the Lord Jesus can reveal Himself in this generation is not the individual, but the body of Christ. True, "God hath dealt to each man a measure of faith" (12:3), but alone in isolation man can never fulfill God's purpose. It requires a complete body of Christ to attain to the stature of Christ and to display His glory.

Because it has been so united with the devil it is vital for man to receive from God a change of mind before he can receive a new heart.

Authority in the world is being increasingly undermined until at the end all authorities will be overthrown and lawlessness shall rule.

The author sees Joseph of Genesis as a type of Christ's Pentecostal power. He who was thought dead has been raised in power, and the power is evident in the chariot he sends for his own.

Whenever man touches God's delegated authority he touches God within that person; sinning against delegated authority is sinning against God.

Only if we completely acknowledge that what man requires today is God's life: the quickening of the spirit: will we then perceive how vain is any work performed by ourselves.

The glory which God had in the beginning, even the unapproachable glory of God, was also the Son's glory. The Father and the Son exist equally and are equal in power and possession.

God's ways with us are all designed to establish in us this other principle, namely, that our work for Him springs out of our ministering to Him. I do not mean that we are going to do nothing; but the first thing for us must be the Lord Himself, not His work.

Let me say from conviction that tears are the outlet of the heart.

Emotion must go through the cross (Matt. 10.38-39) in order to destroy its fiery nature, with its confusion, and to subject it totally to the spirit. The cross aims to accord the spirit authority to rule over every activity of emotion.