God Accepts One Thing Only 7/1 Friday Faith

For if we are really led forward by God, we will surely discover that He hates our works as much as our sins.  To those who sin, they must perish; to those who depend on their own works, they cannot be saved.  God rejects our works just as he repudiates our sins.  He accepts one thing only, and that is His Son Jesus Christ.  It is Christ who becomes all things to us.  Thank God, it is the Lord and not I.

--Watchman Nee 

Life of a Christian is Christ 6/30 Thursday Thoughts

We should understand that Christianity is Christ, and the life of a Christian is also Christ. Do not pile up a thousand good items and view that heap as Christian life.  Were you able to gather up all the humilities on earth as well as assemble tens of thousands of other good traits, you still could not create a Christian.  

--Watchman Nee 

In My Daily Living He Is All 6/29 Wednesday Wisdom

Hereafter I can truly say that the Lord is all and in all.  I can testify that in my daily living He is all.  If today I am patient, it is not I but He who lives in me who is patient.  If today I love, it is not because I try my best to love, for the power of love is not in me; but it is because there is One who loves in me.  If today I forgive, it is not due to my generosity or effort or ability, it instead is purely due to the One who lives in me and always forgives.

--Watchman Nee

What We Really Seek 6/28 Tuesday Truth

In encouraging people, you can only stir them to self-action.  But when God opens their eyes, they will know Christ; this alone is effective.  Words such as these may be repeated for a hundred times without any result, until God opens our eyes to see that Christ is what we really seek.  

--Watchman Nee 

Christ Is All 6/27 Monday Meditation

Let me tell you that in bygone days God seemed to give you a gift, a power by which to be patient, so that you almost thought your problem of being patient was solved.  You then turned to deal with humility, and again God appeared to give you a gift, a power by which to be humble, so that you began to feel your problem of humility was settled.  Next you realized yet another problem in your life, for which you asked of God a solution.  Each day you tried to solve one or two problems -- yet what you were doing was solving fractional problems.
Brethren, God will take away all things in order to give you one Person who is to be simultaneously your humility, your patience, your gentleness, and your love.  For Christ is all.  And this is what Christianity actually is.   God builds incessantly until finally even this universe must confess that Christ is indeed all.  Today God desires to work out in us this confession that Christ is all.

--Watchman Nee 

Daily Destroying and Building 6/24 Friday Faith

God engages in a destroying work daily in the lives of His children that He may also do the work of a daily building up.  Daily destroy "things" and daily build up Christ.  This is God's way with His children.

--Watchman Nee

I AM 6/23 Thursday Thoughts

Today we are Christians.  We are saved, and God has given Christ to us to be our life.  Nevertheless, we are continually asking God for one thing, two things, three things, ten things, fifty things, a hundred things, ten thousand things, a million things, a billion things.  We think these actually count.  But God shows us that Christ is our all.
It is for this reason that God reveals in His word that Christ's name is "I AM".  We need to understand and experience more of this blessed name.

--Watchman Nee

Truth Becomes Weak? 6/22 Wednesday Wisdom

Friends, why is it that after many days the truth of God seems to lose it power, becoming so weak that it cannot touch us?  For no other reason than that it has become too much doctrine, too much theological knowledge!

--Watchman Nee 

If We Dispense the Light 6/21 Tuesday Truth

If doctrine is what we preach, doctrine will be received by people; but this is a dead object, not the light of life.  If the light of life is what we dispense, it will not only enlighten people's life, it will also be shone through them.  We must realize that since light was concrete and practical in the life of our Lord Jesus, it ought to be the same in our lives.

--Watchman Nee 

This Is Light 6/20 Monday Meditation

Many possess a rough and tough character.  They have never been broken by the Lord; neither themselves nor anybody else can deal with them.  Then the light of the Lord shines on them.  As soon as they see the light, they become broken vessels.  A person who sees the Lord is definitely weakened and broken.  No one is able to live after beholding the Lord.  This is light. 
--Watchman Nee

The Light of Life 6/17 Friday Faith

Many people mistake knowledge, doctrine, theology, and teaching as the light of life.  Some will even say they get light, though theirs is not necessarily the light of life.  What they consider light is only some interpretation regarding a certain passage of Scripture or a kind of teaching about the Bible.  The real light is not mere knowledge.  It is none other than the Lord himself.  The Lord emphatically declares that He is the light of life.

--Watchman Nee

Empty or Satisfied? 6/16 Thursday Thoughts

Oftentimes we do what we think is good and spiritual without knowing the Lord's mind, consequently we feel empty afterwards.  It is only when we follow the Lord that we achieve satisfaction.

--Watchman Nee

Feel Full Within 6/15 Wednesday Wisdom

It is the Lord who works in us.  Having touched the Lord, we will not feel empty but instead feel full upon finishing our work.  How mistaken we are if we regard rest or the hearing of a sermon or participation in a spiritual retreat as the means  of being filled.  To obtain food and spiritual nourishment is to allow the Lord to work out in us whatever He wishes to do.  The Lord who dwells in us allows us to touch His life, and this alone causes us to feel full within.

--Watchman Nee

Our Savior and Our Salvation 6/14 Tuesday Truth

...Of all God's grace there is only one grace, of all God's gifts there is only one gift.  That grace is Christ, that gift is also Christ.  Thank God, day after day He is showing us how Christ is all-inclusive.  Formerly we thought of the Lord as our Savior; now we can say He is not only our Savior but also our salvation.  

--Watchman Nee

More of His Life 6/13 Monday Meditation

Let us pray that we may truly know Christ to be our resurrection as well as our life.  May the Lord eliminate many of our "things" from us.  May He not only cause us to have more of His life but also less of ourselves.  How often we live according to the natural, neither knowing God's discipline nor the cross.  We need to ask the Lord to be merciful to us that the natural may gradually be decreased in us while the resurrected may be increasingly manifested.

--Watchman Nee 

The Church Is Not the Place 6/10 Friday Faith

The church is not the place where you bring in something of your cleverness and I bring in something of my tactfulness.  The church hs not built by your contributing a little bit of some natural thing and my contributing a little bit of some other natural thing.  The church shuts all the natural out and accepts only the resurrected.  Whenever the natural enters, the church loses its character.  There can be no unresurrected element in the church. 
--Watchman Nee

The Giver Is the Gift 6/9 Thursday Thoughts

Many Christians tend to talk about the Giver and His gifts separately.  But one day we find out that the Giver is himself His gift.  For God does not bring out many and various items to give to us in fragments; what He gives is Christ.  It is well if one day our eyes are opened to recognize this -- that all things are in Christ.

--Watchman Nee

His Doing Is Based on His Being 6/8 Wednesday Wisdom

What we admire and anticipate is that God will do more for us. Frequently our prayers and expectations before God are for the promise that the Lord will do thus and so for us.  Yet the Lord especially wishes us to see that it is not what He can do but what He himself is, for His doing is based on His being.

--Watchman Nee 

Working All the Time? 6/7 Tuesday Truth

When we first became a Christian, we were inclined to do everything ourselves, fearing lest nothing would ever be done or matters would fall to pieces if we did not do them.  Hence we were working all the time.  Later, in having seen the Lord to be our  life, we know that all is of Christ and not of us.  Consequently, we learn to rest and to look to Him.

--Watchman Nee 

Our Power Is Christ 6/6 Monday Meditation

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.

--Watchman Nee 

To Forgive or Not? 6/3 Friday Faith

Once a person wrote to a brother as follows:  "A brother has sinned against me, and I am not clear whether I should forgive him.  I therefore ask you to instruct me. My heart is quite composed before God. If you say I should forgive, I will forgive him.  If you think I should not, then I will not forgive him."  Brethren, what is your opinion about such a Christian?  

Suppose the one dearest to me is dead and so I write a letter to another person inquiring thus:  "He who is dearest to me is dead; should I therefore mourn?  If you say I should cry, I will cry; but if you say no, then I will not cry."  Most certainly you will laugh at such an inquiry, for it is absurd. If a person cries or does not cry according as he is told, neither his mourning nor his lack of mourning is real.  Both are false, and are therefore dead works and not life.  With your brother, you either forgive or you do not forgive.  Whenever you act on dead doctrine it is pretension.

--Watchman Nee

Christ Is Life 6/2 Thursday Thoughts

Many concede that to be a Christian is a difficult task.  This is especially true with young believers.  The more they try, the more difficult it becomes.  Upon having tried for a length of time, they still bear no resemblance to a Christian.  Brothers and sisters, if Christ is not life, we have to do the work; but if He is life, then we do not need to struggle.  Repeatedly we say that life is Christ himself, and work can never substitute life.

--Watchman Nee