Watchman Nee Quotes

#1. A born-again person ought to possess unspeakable peace in the spirit.

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#2. Do we not realize that the basic condition for a spiritual walk is to fear our self and its wisdom and to rely absolutely upon the Spirit?

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#3. Our rest lies in looking to the Lord, not to ourselves.

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#4. God has supplied all my needs and has not failed me once.

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#5. Christ is the Son of God. He died to atone for men's sin, and after three days rose again. This is the most important fact in the universe. I die believing in Christ.

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#6. With fear and trembling we must rely upon God for guidance in the inner depths. This is the sole way to walk according to the spirit.

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#7. Our prayers lay the track down which Gods power can come. Like a mighty locomotive, his power is irresistible, but it cannot reach us without rails.

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#8. 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.

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#9. So we can say, reverently, that God never gave us the Law to keep: he gave us the Law to break! He well knew that we could not keep it.

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#10. By the time the average Christian gets his temperature up to normal, everybody thinks he has a fever!

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#11. 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.

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#12. Do not grow overconfident following a few victories. Should you not rely upon the Holy Spirit you will soon be thrown once more into a distressing experience. With holy diligence you must cultivate an attitude of dependency.

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#13. The 'flesh' is too bad to be cleansed; it must be crucified.

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#14. 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.

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#15. At times it seems we require more grace to lose our wealth than to lose our life!

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#16. Let every soul be in subjection to the higher powers: for there is no power but of God; and the powers that be are ordained of God. Therefore he that resisteth the power, withstandeth the ordinance of God: and they that withstand shall receive to themselves judgment.

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#17. A spiritual Christian should welcome any burden which the Lord brings his way.

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#18. The cares of this life emerge as very small items indeed along our daily path.

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

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#20. 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?

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#21. Only as they cease to seek anything by themselves and only as they take the position of the teachable shall they be taught by the Spirit truth which they are able to digest.

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

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#23. 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.

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#24. 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.

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#25. Learn to recognize God's sovereignty. Learn to rejoice in God's pleasure. This was Abraham's first lesson, namely that God, not himself, was the Source.

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#26. Believers must persevere in prayer that they may see clearly their own pitiful state and understand the indwelling, working, and demands of the Holy Spirit.

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#27. May the things of this world so lose their power over us that we do not in the slightest wish to be 'worldly'; nay, we even delight in not remaining 'in the world.'

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#28. Frequently the enemy entices Christians to harbor an unforgiving spirit - a very common symptom indeed among God's children. Such bitterness and fault-finding and enmity inflict a severe blow upon spiritual life.

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#29. The burden imparted by God is lifted once we have prayed, but the heaviness from the enemy cannot be raised unless we fight and resist in prayer.

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

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#31. The child of God ought to confess his weakness that he does not know how to pray, and petition the Holy Spirit to teach him.

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#32. Oh, Lord, you have indeed been gracious to me.

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#33. Never adopt an attitude of indifference, for if you do you will suffer for it. The weight will grow heavier and heavier.

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#34. Knowing the truth concerning the deep workings of the evil spirit helps the individual not only to overcome sins but to eliminate unnecessary afflictions as well.

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#35. to offer one-tenth to God; but under the new covenant, ten-tenths are required.

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#36. Towards himself a Christian should have a broken spirit, but towards God it should be one of rejoicing always in Him. He rejoices not for its own sake nor because of any joyful experience, work, blessing or circumstance, but exclusively because God is his center.

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#37. If Christ lives in us, we will rejoice in everything, and we will thank and praise the Lord. We will say, 'Hallelujah! Praise the Lord' forever.

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#38. 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.

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

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#40. Overcoming sin, blessed though it surely is, is but the bare minimum of a believers experience. There is nothing astonishing in it. Not to overcome sin is what ought to astonish us.

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#41. Eternal life means more than mere future blessing to be enjoyed by believers; it is equally a kind of spiritual ability.

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#42. 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.

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#43. 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.

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#44. [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.

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#45. 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.

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#46. A Christian life is an unending engagement on the battlefield.

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#47. The gospel we preach must not be just something we hear from men or read from books or even conceived through our meditation. Unless it is delivered to us by God, it can serve no spiritual utility.

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#48. Now is the hour we should humbly prostrate ourselves before God, willing to be convicted afresh of our sins by the Holy Spirit.

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#49. One gains by losing self for others and not by hoarding for oneself.

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#50. For God to reveal His Son in us is not the result of research or searching; it is entirely a matter of mercy and revelation. It is an inward seeing, an inner knowing.

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#51. It is highly dangerous to receive the truths of the Bible with human wisdom, for this is a hidden and subtle method which invariably causes a believer to perfect with his flesh the work of the Holy Spirit.

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#52. Everyone who believes in God must have His revelation in his spirit, or else what he believes is not God but mere human wisdom, ideals or words. Such faith cannot endure the test.

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#53. If you would test the character of anything, you only need to enquire whether that thing leads you to God or away from God.

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#54. They spend more time in analyzing, in collecting materials, and in hard thinking than on prayer, on seeking God's mind, and on waiting for the power from above.

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#55. 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?

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#56. An unpeaceful mind cannot operate normally.

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#57. Whatever the mind sets itself on is what the man walks after.

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#58. Nowadays Christians appear to treat prayer as a means to accomplish their aims and ideas. If they possessed just a little deeper understanding, they would recognize that prayer is but man uttering to God what is God's will.

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#59. 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.

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#60. Not until we take the place of a servant can He take His place as Lord.

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

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#62. Any action which lacks in obedience is a fall, and any act of disobedience is rebellion.

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#63. The attitude of saints toward their possessions most assuredly signifies whether they continue to preserve their self life or whether they have consigned it to death.

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#64. 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.

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#65. Nothing is wrong with the inlet: It is the outlet that is obstructed. The water of life does not spring forth because the flow has no way through. Were the outlet cleared, the water of life would flow unceasingly. What a child of God needs is not more life but more flow of life.

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#66. 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. -

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#67. An affection which is not inspired by the Lord will soon be transformed into lust. Samson is not alone in the history of man in failing in this regard. Delilah is still cutting the hair of man today!

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

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#69. Many confuse understanding with believing.

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#70. Prayer is work. The experiences of many children of God demonstrate that it accomplishes far more than does any other form of work. It is also warfare, for it is one of the weapons in fighting the enemy. However, only prayer in the spirit is genuinely effectual.

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#71. Fellowship means among other things that we are ready to receive of Christ from others. Other believers minister Christ to me, and I am ready to receive.

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#72. 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.

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

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#74. Revelation is the first step to holiness, and consecration is the second. A day must come in our lives, as definite as the day of our conversion, when we give up all right to ourselves and submit to the absolute Lordship of Jesus Christ.

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#75. It does not matter what your personal deficiency, or whether it be a hundred and one different things, God has always one sufficient answer, His Son Jesus Christ, and he is the answer to every need.

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

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#77. 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.

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#78. 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.

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

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#80. The greatest negative in the universe is the Cross, for with it God wiped out everything that was not of Himself: the greatest positive in the universe is the resurrection, for through it God brought into being all.

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#81. From the evening I was saved, I began to live a new life, for the life of the eternal God had entered into me.

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#82. 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.

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

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#84. 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.

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#85. Prayer is the acid test of the inner man's strength. A strong spirit is capable of praying much and praying with all perseverance until the answer comes. A weak one grows weary and fainthearted in the maintenance of praying.

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

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

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#88. The child of God should not be overanxious to make new gains; what he essentially requires is to keep what he already has, for not losing is itself a gain. The way to retain what he possesses is to engage it.

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#89. Mere mental assimilation of these truths cannot withstand temptation, however. The revelation of God is positively essential. The Spirit of God must reveal how we are in Christ and how we are united with Him in one.

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

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#91. 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.

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#92. Baptism is an outward expression of an inward faith.

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#93. To secure one's freedom the Christian must experience God's light which is God's truth.

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#94. Without this heart attitude it is exceedingly difficult for us to accept the circumcision of the flesh. Every affection, desire, thought, knowledge, intent, worship, and work of the flesh must go to the cross.

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

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#96. Take this as the secret of Christ's life in you: His Spirit dwells in your innermost spirit. Meditate on it, believe in it, and remember it until this glorious truth produces within you a holy fear and wonderment that the Holy Spirit indeed abides in you.

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#97. True revelation of the fact of the Spirit's indwelling will revolutionize the life of any Christian.

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

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#99. If you perform your part, God will fulfill His. And once you put off specifically, you should just as thoroughly believe that God will renew your mind, despite the fact you know not how.

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#100. True spiritual life depends not on probing our feelings and thoughts from dawn to dusk but on 'looking off' to the Savior!

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