Growth in Life

Why is our Christian growth stunted?

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“Question: How is it that after so many years of being a Christian, there does not seem to be any change in me? Why do I still lose my temper? Should we expect to improve?

Answer: I understand your problem. Day after day a mother takes care of her children, but she can see very little change in them. She does not do anything purposely to make them grow, but by feeding them properly and by regulating their behavior, exercise, and sleep, little by little they are changing. The time will come when they will be full-grown.

Why is our Christian growth stunted? It is from our failure to take in the Word. Our eating and drinking are deficient. If the main point of our meetings is guitar playing and singing the psalms, we may enjoy ourselves, but year after year there will be no change in us. Just as our human life requires that we eat, drink, sleep, and breathe, so for our spiritual life we must contact the Lord and take in His Word. Our meetings must also supply us with the solid food. The result will be transformation. We will change not by any outward doing but by the life supply dispensed into us from within.”

(Life Messages, vol. 1, chapter 16)

The most important thing is to live by the will and not by the emotions

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“Your emotions are unreliable. Indeed, they are like the waves. But you can abide peacefully by your will. What God wants to give is not a happy feeling every day. His purpose is for you to live by your will and your spirit. “I love the Lord, not because of what I feel, but because I want to love Him.” Just as we would read the Bible, pray, preach, and serve the Lord when we are joyful, in the same way we should read the Bible, pray, preach, and serve Him when we do not feel anything and our heart is as cold as ice. Please understand that the most important thing is to live by the will and not by the emotions. The most deceiving thing is for a person to take his feelings as an indicator of his spiritual life. From now on, please learn to exercise your will to control your whole being and your feelings. If God rewards you with feelings, thank Him. If He does not and you feel lost at heart, go on as usual. Until you have overcome your habit of living by your feelings, God cannot greatly use you. He needs solid vessels, those who do not change due to circumstances.”

(Collected Works of Watchman Nee, Vol. 7, pp 1106-1108)

Every difficulty is food for us

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Only do not rebel against Jehovah, nor should you fear the people of the land, for they are our bread. Their protection has been removed from them, and Jehovah is with us; do not fear them. (Num. 14:9)

“Every time you meet a difficulty, every time you find yourself in an impossible situation, ask yourself this question: Am I going to starve here, or am I going to eat? If you are relying on the Lord for victory and allow His overcoming life to be manifested in you, you will find fresh nourishment and increased vitality, and you will be fed once again. Bear in mind that people who do not eat well cannot grow into maturity. Our bread is not only the word of God, our meat is not only to do His will, our bread is also the Anakim — the difficulties that are in our way. Many people take the word of God as their bread and the doing of His will as their meat, but they have not eaten the Anakim. Many eat too little of the Anakim. The more we eat the Anakim, the stronger we will become. Caleb is a grand illustration of this. Because he accepted the Anakim as “bread,” he was still full of vitality at the age of eighty-five. His strength was the same at eighty-five as it was at forty. So many Anakim had been assimilated by him over the years that he had developed a constitution which showed no trace of age. This is also true in the spiritual realm. Some brothers and sisters have met few difficulties, but it is obvious that there are many weaknesses in their lives. They are weak before the Lord because they have not consumed enough Anakim. However, there are those who have met and overcome difficulty after difficulty, temptation after temptation; they are full of vigor because they have fed well on Anakim. We have to eat our difficulties and our temptation. Every difficulty and every temptation Satan puts in our way is food for us. This is a God-appointed means of spiritual progress. The sight of any trouble strikes terror into the heart of those who do not have faith, but those who trust Him say, “Here comes my food!” Praise and thank the Lord, all our trials, without exception, are bread for us. Every trial brings in growth after we have eaten of it. As we accept one trial after another, we are more and more richly nourished.”

(God’s Keeping Power [booklet], pp. 6-8)

Only broken vessels can be channels of living water

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“Christianity today exhorts people to improve their outward behavior, but what God pays attention to is far higher than this. God is not after a mere change in man’s outward behavior; rather, He desires man to have an inward transformation in life. He does not want us to merely change our outward living. He wants us to be broken in our inward disposition. The outward change of behavior gains the praises of man, but it cannot please God. What God desires and what pleases Him is not the improvement of our outward behavior but the transformation in life and the breaking of our inward disposition. Mere behavior improvement makes us good persons but not spiritual persons. In order to be spiritual, we need to be broken inwardly. Without being broken, without suffering any blows, and without passing through death, we can be persons who are whole but not persons who are full of life.

What others see in your outward behavior improvement is your morality but not your spirituality. Many times, just as your immorality can become your covering, so your morality can also become your covering. The unbelievers require us to have a high morality, which is reasonable and right. Yet God’s requirement in us is much higher than this. God requires that we be broken and crushed so that the Christ within us — the glorious Christ, the Christ of holiness– may be lived out through us.

…Christ does not need whole vessels; instead, He needs broken vessels. This is because only broken vessels can be channels of living water. Whole vessels can only be cisterns of dead water. The biggest problem today is that it is hard to find any wounds or scars in most Christians. Most of us do not have any wounds, scars, marks of death, or experiences of the cross. Even though we have been saved and truly have Christ’s life in us, this life has no way to come out. The reason is not that our behavior is too poor or too good but that we are too whole and too impregnable. Because we have no wounds, Christ has no way to be released from within us.

…No one who is a good vessel in God’s hand can be whole; rather, he must be full of scars and wounds. A certain sister may have believed in the Lord for over a decade, yet because her life has been easy and smooth, she has no wounds at all. She got married to a husband who is considerate, she gave birth to a son who is obedient, and she found a job that is easy and smooth. Everyone says that she is very fortunate; actually, it is not so. Many times the work that God carries out in someone who is truly in His hand is the work of breaking, smiting, and splitting. Jesus the Nazarene, the One who was the most acceptable to God, also experienced many sufferings while He was on the earth. He was called “a man of sorrows” (Isa. 53:3), and He was full of bruises and wounds. Hence, a person who is in God’s hand, if he is highly regarded or esteemed by God, will have many wounds as the result of God’s work in him. What kind of work is this? This is the work of breaking. If God favors us, His hand will work in us in many ways, and we will thus have many scars and wounds. These scars and wounds will become outlets for the flow of living water.”

(The Crucified Christ, chapter 1)

Featured

Old Way/ New Way

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 Old Way New Way
Caring for the meeting Caring for people
Being isolated in my home Opening my home to saints and /or visiting saints in their homes
Only staying in or thinking about my district/locality/state/country Blending, visiting, migration; praying for the Lord’s move all over the Earth; being Body-conscious
Being set, settled, and occupied Being open to migrate
Big meetings Twos and threes
Charismatic speakers Every member functioning
Scheduled activities / special events Everyday activities done together
Big Small
Meeting hall Homes
Individual spirituality Corporate building up
Criticizing the elders and/or other saints Being a pattern of the healthy church life
Spiritual giants Vital groups
Trying to become a five-talented member Investing my one talent
Regulating behavior Growing in the divine life
The principle of the tree: outward display, deeply rooted in the earth, a lodging place for birds (Matt. 13:32) The principle of the mustard seed: small, sojourning, good for food
Having meetings Wanting to be with the saints
Taking care of meetings Taking care of people (saints, new ones, unbelievers)
Hierarchy/clergy-laity Mutuality
One-directional working on a few “promising” ones Mutual caring among all
Top to bottom: having a top-down one-directional organized church structure Bottom to top: everyone actively initiating and functioning
Small to big: making one home meeting bigger and bigger Few to many: multiplying one home into many homes
Meeting once or twice a week Contacting saints regularly throughout the week (because I need them)
Dressing up and putting on a performance for the big meetings Being genuine with one another, getting to really know one another, loving one another
Brothers doing everything, sisters being left out (including husbands and wives) All members especially sisters functioning, couples and families serving together, brothers heading up and covering
Inviting new ones to our meetings and conferences Visiting new ones where they are, especially in their home
Only meeting with saints who are from my cultural background or language Being open to blend with all the saints
The 20% church life The 80% church life
Brothers being 2/3 of the saints Sisters being 2/3 of the saints
Looking to a “pastor” or leading brother to run the home meeting and give a teaching/message Every member functioning in mutuality in the homes, learning by asking and answering questions
Focusing only on college students All saints being cared for
Living to our children Living with the tabernacle (Christ and the church) as our center
Not letting others care for our children Caring for one another’s children so the sisters can make it to the meetings
Barrenness Corporate bearing of remaining fruit
Formulaic meetings (pray-eat-sing-read) Organic functioning of every member, following the leading and flow of the Spirit
Focusing on the Lord’s Day meetings Daily church life
Following our jobs Following the Lamb