Thoughts from The Normal Christian Life

I’ve been reading Watchman Nee’s The Normal Christian Life over the last month or so. I took a couple of weeks off my reading schedule to finish the sites for Catalyst. Now that the conference is over I picked it back up again to continue where I had left off.

The Normal Christian Life, in my opinion, is a must-read for all Christians. Nee has an incredible way of taking the truth of Scripture and fleshing it out in ways that are both common sense and profound at the same time. I’m constantly left with a feeling of amazement each time I pick it up.

I’m about halfway through, but thought I’d share some thoughts from the book to whet your appetite. Enjoy!

On the Blood of Christ…

But I want to ask myself, am I really seeking the way into the presence of God by the Blood [of Christ] or something else? ... I approach God through His merit alone, and never on the basis of my attainment. Never, for example, on the ground that I have been extra kind or patient today, or that I have done something for the Lord this morning. I have to come by way of the Blood every time. The temptation to so many of us when we try to approach God is to think that because God is dealing with us - because He has been taking steps to bring us into something more of Himself and has been teaching us deeper lessons of the Cross, He has thereby set before us new standards, and that only by attaining to those can we have a clear conscience before Him. No! A clear conscience is never based upon our attainment; it can only be based on the work of the Lord Jesus in the shedding of His Blood.

On the Cross of Christ…

The teaching of Romans is not that we are sinners because we commit sins, but that we sin because we are sinners. We are sinners by constitution rather than by action.

There are bad sinners and there are good sinners, there are moral sinners and there are corrupt sinners, but they are all alike sinners. We sometimes think that if only we had not done certain things all would be well; but the trouble lies far deeper than in what we do: it lies in what we are.

Our crucifixion can never be made effective by will or by effort, but only by accepting what the Lord Jesus did on the cross. Our eyes must be opened to see the finished work of Calvary. ... For God’s way of deliverance [from the sinful nature] is altogether different from man’s way. Man’s way is to try to suppress sin by seeking to overcome it; God’s way is to remove the sinner [because of us being crucified with Christ]. ... God’s way of delivering us from sin is not by making us stronger and stronger, but by making us weaker and weaker. ... God sets us from from the dominion of sin, not by strengthening our old man, but by crucifying him; not by helping him to do anything but by removing him from the scene of action.

On reckoning ourselves dead to sin…

What does reckoning mean? ‘Reckoning’ in Greek means doing accounts, book-keeping. Why does God say we are to reckon ourselves dead? Because we are dead. Let us keep the analogy of accounting. Suppose I have 15 shillings in my pocket, what do I enter in my account-book? Can I enter 14 shillings and sixpence or 15 shillings and sixpence? No, I must enter in my account-book that which is in fact in my pocket. Accounting is the reckoning of facts, not fancies. Even so, it is because I am really dead that God tells me to account it so. God could not ask me to put down in my account-book what was not true.

Reckoning is not a form of make-believe. It does not mean that, having found that I have only 12 shillings in my pocket, I hope that by entering 15 shillings incorrectly in my account-book such ‘reckoning’ will somehow remedy the deficiency. It won’t. ... God tell us to reckon ourselves dead, not that by the process of reckoning we may become dead, but because we are dead. He never told us to reckon what was not a fact.

Posted 10.12.2008

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