Quotes from Watchman Nee

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.

power of the Holy Spirit is superabundant.

Suppose, for example, a brother has a brilliant but unbroken intellect. He may come to the meetings of a local church, but he is untouched. Unless he meets someone whose mind is sharper than his, he will not be helped. He will analyze the thoughts of the preacher and reject them as useless and meaningless. Months and years may pass by, and it is impossible for anything to touch his spirit. His spirit is stonewalled by his intellectual mind.

The soul is the seat of the affections, and what a great part of our decisions and actions is influenced by these! There is nothing deliberately sinful about them, mind you. It is just that there is something in us which can go out in natural affection to another person, and which, ungoverned by the Spirit, can influence wrongly our whole course of action.

If man's soul wills to obey God, it will allow the spirit to rule over the man as ordered by God. The soul, if it chooses, also can suppress the spirit and take some other delight as lord of the man.

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

How much in our prayers is self completely forgotten and the will of the Lord is alone the thing that is sought?

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.

The body element of the flesh, full of sin and lust, naturally cannot but express itself in many sins, much to the grief of the Holy Spirit.

She is doing this for Me. Real satisfaction is brought to the heart of God only when we are really, as people would think, wasting ourselves upon him. It seems as though we are giving too much and getting nothing—and that is the secret of pleasing God.

The whole question is; How precious is he to us now? If we do not think much of him, then of course to give him anything at all, however small will seem to us a wicked waste. But when he is really precious to our souls nothing will be too good, nothing too costly for him; everything we have, our dearest, our most priceless treasure, we shall pour out upon him, and we shall not count it a shame to have done so.

We do not see that prayer is the asking of God to fulfill His needs.