Watchman Nee Quotes - Page 2

We should not open our mouths too hastily upon approaching God. On the contrary, we first must ask God to show us what and how to pray before we make our request known to Him. Have we not consumed a great deal of time in the past asking for what we wanted? Why not now ask for what God wants?

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

We may be weak, but looking at our weakness will never make us strong.

The cross grants us position, the Holy Spirit gives us experience.

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.

It is important to receive God's arrangement in the circumstances. This arrangement is the discipline of the Holy Spirit. To escape God's arrangement just one time is to lose an opportunity to have our capacity enlarged. A believer can never be the same after passing through suffering.

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

Why do so many Christians pray such tiny prayers when their God is so big?

The right attitude is this: that I have my own will, yet I will the will of God.

Because the Lord Jesus died on the Cross, I have received forgiveness of sins; because the Lord Jesus rose from the dead, I have received new life; because the Lord Jesus has been exalted to the right hand of the Father, I have received the outpoured Spirit. All is because of Him; nothing is because of me.

If we just had more revelation of what we already have, there would be far less prayers and far more praise.

Not by gain our life is measured, But by what we've lost 'Tis scored; 'Tis not how much wine is drunken But how much has been outpoured. For the strength of love never standeth In the sacrifice we bear; He who has the greatest suffering Ever has the most to share.

The book of Acts is the best aid in approaching our work. We do not find there anyone consecrating himself as a preacher nor anyone deciding to do the Lord's work by making himself a missionary or a pastor. What we do see is the Holy Spirit Himself appointing and sending men out to do the work.

I need forgiveness for my sins, but I need also deliverance from the power of sin... I appreciate the blessed fact of God's forgiveness, but I want something more than that: I want deliverance. I need forgiveness for what I have done, but I need also deliverance from what I am.

The Christian faith begins not with a big DO but with a big DONE.

Often Satan injects pride into the believer's spirit, evoking in him an attitude of self-importance and of self-conceit. He causes him to esteem himself a very outstanding person, one who is indispensable in God's work. Such a spirit constitutes one of the major reasons for the fall of believers.

The Christian experience, from start to finish, is a journey of faith.

An unpeaceful mind cannot operate normally.

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

The system of fathers of the world church, the clergy system of the state church, and the pastoral system of the independent churches are all the same in nature. They are all Nicolaitans. In the Bible there are only brothers. There is the gift of a pastor, but no system of pastors. The pastoral system is man's tradition. If the children of God are not willing to return to the position of that in the beginning, no matter what they do, it will not be right.

Victory is the normal experience of a Christian; defeat should be the abnormal experience.

The life of faith is not only totally different from, but also diametrically opposite to, a life of feeling.

The Law requires much, but offers no help in the carrying out of its requirements. The Lord Jesus requires just as much, yea even 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.

Our bread is not only the Word of God, our meat is not only to do His will, our bread is also...the difficulties that are in our way.

May we always be possessed by the consciousness that we are not our own.