Watchman Nee Quotes

Good is not always God's will, but God's will is always good.

A drowning man cannot be saved until he is utterly exhausted and ceases to make the slightest effort to save himself.

Our old history ends with the Cross; our new history begins with the resurrection.

I do not consecrate myself to be a missionary or a preacher. I consecrate myself to God to do His will where I am, be it in school, office, or kitchen, or wherever He may, in His wisdom, send me.

How true it is that without the guidance of the Holy Spirit intellect not only is undependable but also extremely dangerous, because it often confuses the issue of right and wrong.

When one tries to increase his knowledge by doing mental gymnastics over books without waiting upon God and looking to the guidance of the Holy Spirit, his soul is plainly in full swing. This will deplete his spiritual life. Because the fall of man was occasioned by seeking knowledge, God uses the foolishness of the cross to "destroy the wisdom of the wise.

How dangerous a master human emotion is!

Man's thought is always of the punishment that will come to him if he sins. God's thought is always of the glory man will miss if he sins. God's purpose for redemption is glory, glory, glory.

The Spirit is both a builder and a dweller. He cannot dwell where he has not built; He builds to dwell and dwells in only what he has built.

Lord, I am willing to break MY heart that I might satisfy THY heart.

All satanic works are performed from the outside inward; all divine works from the inside outward.

God will not give me humility, or patience, or holiness, or love as separate investments of His grace. He has given only one gift to meet our need, His Son Christ Jesus.

Genuine spiritual knowledge lies not in wonderful and mysterious thoughts but in actual spiritual experience through union of the believer's life with truth.

He who is able to accept everything gladly from the Lord - including darkness, dryness, flatness - and completely disregard self is he who lives for Him." -

I must first have the sense of God's possession of me before I can have the sense of His presence with me.

If we throw ourselves open to God, He will reveal. The trouble comes when we have closed areas, locked and barred places in our hearts, where we think, with pride, that we are right.

God does not blame me for being an individual, but for my individualism. His greatest problem is not the outward divisions and denominations that divide His church, but our own individualistic hearts.

We must be brought to a place where, naturally gifted though we may be, we dare not speak except in conscious and continual dependence on Him.

We must not pay attention just to reading and studying; rather, we should ask if we are open before the Lord. If we do not have an unveiled face, the glory of the Lord will not shine on us. If our heart is not open to God, God cannot give us any light.

It is a great thing when I discover I am no longer my own but His. If the ten shillings in my pocket belong to me, then I have full authority over them. But if they belong to another who has committed them to me in trust, then I cannot buy what I please with them, and I dare not lose them. Real Christian life begins with knowing this.

Every true work is not done to the poor. Every true work is done to Me.

Man may think human intellect and reasoning are almighty, that the brain is able to comprehend all truths of the world; but the verdict of God's Word is, "vanity of vanities.

Do we impress people with ourselves, or with the Lord? Do we draw people to our teaching, or to the Lord? This is genuinely vital. It determines the value of all our work and labor.

It is so easy to become more attached to the gifts of God than to the Giver—and even, I should add, to the work of God than to God Himself.

Attempting to follow Him without denying the self is the root of all failures.

Do you know, my friends, that the Spirit within you is very God? Oh that our eyes were opened to see the greatness of God’s gift! Oh that we might realize the vastness of the resources secreted in our own hearts! I could shout with joy as I think, “The Spirit who dwells within me is no mere influence, but a living Person; He is very God. The infinite God is within my heart!” I am at a loss to convey to you the blessedness of this discovery, that the Holy Spirit dwelling within my heart is a Person.

The Christian life from start to finish is based upon this principle of utter dependence upon the Lord Jesus.

Church planters deliberately left so that the church could function under the headship of Christ. If a church planter stays in a church, the members naturally look to him to lead. Every-member functioning is hindered. This is still true today. The pattern throughout the entire New Testament is that church planters (apostolic workers) always left the church after they laid the foundation. For more details, see The Normal Christian Church Life by Watchman Nee

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Actually, only God can satisfy a Christian's heart; man cannot. The failure of many is to seek from man what can be found only in God. All human affection is empty; the love of God alone is able to fully satisfy one's desire. The moment a Christian seeks a love outside God his spiritual life immediately falls.

To be penitent, to feel sorry for sin, to shed tears, to even make decisions does not bring in salvation. Confession, decision, and many other religious acts can never be and are not to be construed as new birth. Rational judgment, intelligent understanding, mental acceptance, or the pursuit of the good, the beautiful, and the true are merely soulical activities if the spirit is not reached and stirred.

But Christianity is a queer business! If at the outset we try to do anything, we get nothing; if we seek to attain something, we miss everything. For Christianity begins not with a big DO, but with a big DONE.

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.

The author nicely encapsulates Paul's overarching intent in his letter to Corinth, to impress upon those in the church infatuated with the gifts of the Spirit a greater awestruck awareness of His presence in and among them. The author then illustrates thusly: if we have but a few coins, we may carry them lightly with little concern as to whether we lose them. But if we are aware that we carry a great sum, we will carry it with great care. How much more the Treasure of the Holy Spirit within the earthen vessel of our bodies?

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

The reason for so many defeats in the spiritual realm is because this sector of the soul has not been dealt with drastically.

[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.

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).

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.

Today, even amongst Christians, there can be found much of that spirit that wants to give as little as possible to the Lord, and yet to get as much as possible from Him. The prevailing thought today is of being used, as though that were the one thing that mattered. That my little rubber band should be stretched to the very limit seems all important. But this is not the Lord's mind. The Lord wants us to be used, yes; but what He is after is that we pour all we have, ourselves, to Him, and if that be all, that is enough.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

It is because we know God’s will that we may say to Him: “God, we want You to do this thing, we are determined that You do it, You cannot but do it.

power of the Holy Spirit is superabundant.

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?

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

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.

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

Only those who are subject to authority can be authority.

Al servir a Dios no debemos desobedecer a las autoridades, porque el hacerlo es un principio de Satanás.

Porque la autoridad de Dios representa a Dios mismo, mientras que su poder representa sus hechos.

Sitting describes our position with Christ in the heavenlies. Walking is the practical outworking of that heavenly position here on earth.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Why does God not declare himself as the God of Adam? For we know that Abraham sinned even as Adam did. Why then did He not call himself the God of Adam? Why did He not say the God of Abel, the seed of Adam? Why instead did He call himself the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob? Why according to the flesh was our Lord Jesus presented in the New Testament as having been born of the seed of Abraham? Why from among all men should God have called himself the God of these three particular persons? Wherein lies the difference between these three and other people? Well, apart from the fact that God had covenanted with these three men, He takes them up as representative personages. He chooses them to represent three types of men in the world. What type of man is Abraham? He is a giant of faith. He is rather uncommon; in fact, he is quite special. As the God of Abraham, God declares himself to be the God of excellent people. Yet, thanks be to God, He is not only the God of the excellent. Were He merely this kind of God, we would sink into despair because we are not persons of excellence. But God is also the God of Isaac. What type of person is Isaac? He is very ordinary. He eats whenever he can, and sleeps as he has opportunity. He is neither a wonder man nor a wicked person. How this fact has comforted many of us! Yet God is not only the God of the ordinary men, He is also the God of the bad men: He is the God of Jacob too, for in the Scriptures Jacob is pictured as one of the worst persons to be found in the Old Testament. Hence through these three persons, God is telling us that He is the God of Abraham the best, the God of Isaac the ordinary, and the God of Jacob the worst. He is the God of those with great faith, He is the God of the common people, and He is also the God of the lowest of men such as thieves and prostitutes. Suppose I am special like Abraham; then He is my God. Suppose I am ordinary like Isaac; then He is also my God. And suppose from my mother’s womb I have been bad like Jacob was in that I have striven with my brother; then He is still my God. He has a way with the excellent, with the common, and with the worst of humanity.

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 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.

That which they have need of . . . let it be given them day by day without fail. Ezra 6:9 If we really trust God, we shall expect to bear unaided the spiritual burden both of our own needs and of those of the work. We must not secretly hope for support from some human source. Our faith is not to be in God plus man but in God alone. If brethren show their love, thank God; but if they do not, let us thank Him still. For God’s servant to have one eye on Him and one eye on other men is a shameful thing, unworthy of any Christian. To profess trust in God yet to turn to the brethren for supplies is to bring only disgrace on His name. Our living by faith must be transparently real and never deteriorate into a living charity. Yes, in all material things we dare to be utterly independent of men, because we dare to believe utterly in God. We have cast away all other hope, because we have unbounded hope in Him.

God’s way of salvation is in Christ, not in your own self. Patience is in Christ, humility is in Christ, holiness is in Christ. All is in Christ. In you, yourself, there is always uncleanness and unholiness. If you live in Christ, you have everything. But if you live in your self, you remain unchanged. UNITED

 The Lord continued His teaching on the matter of authority. He called His disciples together and instructed them about future things in glory. He said that, among the Gentiles, men seek for authority in order that they may rule over others. It is good for us to seek for the future glory, but we ought not have the thought of ruling or lording it over God's children. To do so would cause us to fall into the state of the Gentiles. To exercise authority and to rule are the desires of the Gentiles. Such a spirit must be driven from the church. Those whom the Lord uses are the ones who know the Lord's cup and the Lord's baptism.

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.

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.

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.

Brothers, if God brings us to the point of seeing that everything in God's work depends upon His blessing, it will bring about a basic change in our labor for God.  We would not consider how many people, how much money, or how much bread we have.  We would say we do not have enough, but the blessing is sufficient.  The blessing meets the need that we cannot meet.  Although we cannot measure up to the size of the need, the blessing is greater than our lack.  When we see this, the work will have a basic change.  In every other matter we must look at the blessing more than we consider the situation.  Methods, considerations, human wisdom, and clever words are all useless.  In God's work we should believe in and expect His blessing.

Los que somos tan justos según nuestra propia opinión, y sin embargo, tan ciegos, necesitamos tener a lo menos una vez en la vida un encuentro con la autoridad de Dios para que seamos quebrantados hasta la sumisión y comencemos así a aprender la obediencia a su autoridad. Antes de que un hombre pueda someterse a la autoridad delegada de Dios tiene que conocer primero la autoridad inherente de Dios.

The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him. 1 Corinthians 2:14 It has pleased God to say many things which leave room for misunderstanding, and not to explain them. Often in the Bible there seem to be conflicting statements or statements that seem to violate the known facts of life, and it has pleased Him to leave them there. There are many scriptures we cannot clearly explain. Had we been writing, we would have put things far more plainly so that men should have before them all the doctrine in foolproof systematic order. But would they have had the life? The mighty eternal truths of God are half obscured in Scripture so that the natural man may not lay hold of them. God has hidden them from the wise to reveal them to babes, for they are spiritually discerned. His Word is not a study book. It is intended to meet us in the course of our day-to-day walk in the Spirit and to speak to us there. It is designed to give us knowledge that is experimental because related to life. If we are trying through systematic theology to know God, we are absolutely on the wrong road.

The word of God is living, and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit. Hebrews 4:12 Some of God’s children lay great emphasis on rightly dividing the word of truth. Indeed, Scripture itself tells us we are to do this (2 Tim. 2:15), but it also tells us His Word is to divide us. Where we may be wrong is in seeking to divide His Word first before we have allowed it to do its work on us! Are we aware of this living, powerful character of God’s Word? Does it deal with us like a sharp, two-edged sword? Or do we handle it as though it were just one more book to be studied and analyzed? The strange thing about Scripture is that it does not aim to make us understand doctrines in a systematic way. Perhaps we think it would have been better if Paul and the others had got together to provide a detailed handbook of Christian doctrines. But God did not permit this. How easily He could have settled some of our theological arguments, but it seems He loves to confuse those who only approach the Bible intellectually! He wants to preserve men from merely getting hold of doctrines. He wants His truth to get hold of them.

Abraham saw God as Father. He proved Him to be the source of all things. Isaac received the inheritance as a son. It is a blessed thing to have a gift bestowed upon us by God. Yet even what we receive we may seize upon and spoil. Jacob attempted to do this, and was only saved from the consequences by having his natural strength undone. There must be a day in our experience when this happens. The characteristic of those who truly know God is that they have no faith in their own competence, no reliance upon themselves. When Jacob learned this lesson, then in truth there began to be an Israel of God.

Abraham saw God as Father. He proved Him to be the source of all things. Isaac received the inheritance as a son. It is a blessed thing to have a gift bestowed upon us by God. Yet even what we receive we may seize upon and spoil. Jacob attempted to do this, and was only saved from the consequences by having his natural strength undone. There must be a day in our experience when this happens. The characteristic of those who truly know God is that they have no faith in their own competence, no reliance upon themselves. When Jacob learned this lesson, then in truth there began to be an Israel of God. . .

Here is invariably a spiritual fact: Our spirit is released according to the degree of our brokenness. The one who has accepted the most discipline is the one who can best serve. The more one is broken, the more sensitive he can be. The more loss one has suffered, the more he has to give. Wherever we save ourselves, it is at that very place where we become spiritually useless. Whenever we preserve and excuse ourselves, it is at that point where we are deprived of spiritual sensitivity and supply. Let no one imagine he can be effective if he disregards this basic principle. Only those who have learned some lessons can serve. You may learn ten years’ lessons in one year, or you may take twenty or thirty years to learn one year’s lessons. Any delay in learning means a delay in serving. If God has put a desire in your heart to serve Him, you should understand what is involved. The way of service lies in brokenness and is connected with your accepting the discipline of the Holy Spirit.

This was God’s principle from the beginning. In the creation God worked from the first to the sixth day and rested on the seventh. We may truthfully say that for those first six days, He was very busy. Then, the task He had set Himself completed, He ceased to work. The seventh day became the sabbath of God; it was God’s rest. But what of Adam? Where did he stand in relation to that rest of God? Adam, we are told, was created on the sixth day. Clearly, then, he had no part in those first six days of work, for he came into being only at their end. God’s seventh day was, in fact, Adam’s first. Whereas God worked six days and then enjoyed His sabbath rest, Adam began his life with the sabbath; for God works before He rests, while man must first enter into God’s rest, and then alone can he work. Moreover, it was because God’s work of creation was truly complete that Adam’s life could begin with rest. And here is the gospel: that God has gone one stage further and has completed also the work of redemption, and that we need do nothing whatever to merit it, but can enter by faith directly into the values of His finished work.

God knows no good resides in man; no flesh can please Him. It is corrupted beyond repair. Since it is so absolutely hopeless, how then can man please God after he has believed in His Son unless He gives him something new? Thank God. He has bestowed a new life, His untreated life, upon those who believe in the salvation of the Lord Jesus and receive Him as their personal Savior. This is called "regeneration" or "new birth." Though He cannot alter our flesh God gives us His life. Man's flesh remains as corrupt in those who are born anew as in those who are not. The flesh in a saint is the same as that in a sinner. In regeneration the flesh is not transformed. New birth exerts no good influence on the flesh. It remains as is. God does not impart His life to us to educate and train the flesh. Rather, it is given to overcome the flesh. Man in regeneration actually becomes related to God by birth. Regeneration means to be born of God. As our fleshy life is born of our parents so our spiritual life is born of God. The meaning of birth is "to impart life." When we say we are born of God it signifies we receive a new life from Him. What we have received is a real life.