Top 180 Watchman Nee Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “Good is not always God’s will, but God’s will is always good.”

— Watchman Nee

2. “The Christian experience, from start to finish, is a journey of faith.”

— Watchman Nee

3. “Separation to God, separation from the world, is the first principle of Christian living.”

— Watchman Nee

4. “I want nothing for myself; I want everything for the Lord.”

— Watchman Nee

5. “Outside Christ, I am empty; in Christ, I am full.”

— Watchman Nee

6. “We think of the Christian life as a ‘changed life’ but it is not that. What God offers us is an ‘exchanged life,’ a ‘substituted life,’ and Christ is our Substitute within.”

— Watchman Nee

7. “A Christian life is an unending engagement on the battlefield.”

— Watchman Nee

8. “A drowning man cannot be saved until he is utterly exhausted and ceases to make the slightest effort to save himself.”

— Watchman Nee

Featured in: Effort Quotes

9. “With complete consecration comes perfect peace.”

— Watchman Nee

10. “The cross grants us position, the Holy Spirit gives us experience.”

— Watchman Nee

11. “God will answer all our questions in one way and one way only. Namely, by showing us more of his Son.”

— Watchman Nee

12. “Why do so many Christians pray such tiny prayers when their God is so big?”

— Watchman Nee

13. “We must have a spirit of power towards the enemy, a spirit of love towards men, and a spirit of self-control towards ourselves.”

— Watchman Nee

14. “Our rest lies in looking to the Lord, not to ourselves.”

— Watchman Nee

15. “Just as the right relationship with Christ generates a Christian, so the proper relationship with the Holy Spirit breeds a spiritual man.”

— Watchman Nee

16. “God is not seeking a display of my Christ-likeness, but a manifestation of His Christ.”

— Watchman Nee

17. “People who are lazy, careless, doubtful-minded or arrogant need not expect God to reveal His secret or covenant to them.”

— Watchman Nee

18. “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.”

— Watchman Nee

Featured in: Strong Quotes

19. “Our old history ends with the Cross; our new history begins with the resurrection.”

— Watchman Nee

20. “To keep our hand on the plow while wiping away our tears – THAT is Christianity!”

— Watchman Nee

21. “I must first have the sense of God’s possession of me before I can have the sense of His presence with me.”

— Watchman Nee

Featured in: Firsts Quotes

22. “Our prayers lay the track down which God’s power can come.”

— Watchman Nee

23. “Baptism is an outward expression of an inward faith.”

— Watchman Nee

24. “The Christian faith begins not with a big DO but with a big DONE.”

— Watchman Nee

25. “We may be weak, but looking at our weakness will never make us strong.”

— Watchman Nee

Featured in: Strong Quotes

26. “The ‘flesh’ is too bad to be cleansed; it must be crucified.”

— Watchman Nee

27. “Lord, I am willing to break MY heart that I might satisfy THY heart.”

— Watchman Nee

28. “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.”

— Watchman Nee

29. “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.”

— Watchman Nee

30. “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.”

— Watchman Nee

31. “Satan can only attack us from the outside in. He may work through the lust and sensations of the body or through the mind and emotion of the soul, for those two belong to the outward man.”

— Watchman Nee

32. “The Blood deals with what we have done, whereas the Cross deals with what we are. The Blood disposes of our sins, while the Cross strikes at the root of our capacity for sin.”

— Watchman Nee

33. “Natural strength is what we receive from the hand of God as Creator. Spiritual strength is what we receive from God in grace.”

— Watchman Nee

34. “God will not give me humility, or patience, or holiness, or love as separate investments of His grace. He has given only one gift to meet our need, His Son Christ Jesus.”

— Watchman Nee

35. “Not until we take the place of a servant can He take His place as Lord.”

— Watchman Nee

36. “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?”

— Watchman Nee

37. “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.”

— Watchman Nee

38. “True spiritual life depends not on probing our feelings and thoughts from dawn to dusk but on ‘looking off’ to the Savior!”

— Watchman Nee

39. “Whatever the mind sets itself on is what the man walks after.”

— Watchman Nee

40. “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.”

— Watchman Nee

41. “Genuine spiritual knowledge lies not in wonderful and mysterious thoughts but in actual spiritual experience through union of the believer’s life with truth.”

— Watchman Nee

42. “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.”

— Watchman Nee

43. “Spiritual advancement is measured by faithful obedience.”

— Watchman Nee

44. “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.”

— Watchman Nee

45. “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.”

— Watchman Nee

46. “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.”

— Watchman Nee

47. “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.”

— Watchman Nee

48. “A person who wholly follows the Lord is one who believes that the promises of God are trustworthy, that He is with His people, and that they are well able to overcome.”

— Watchman Nee

49. “Faith in Christ makes one a regenerated believer; obedience to the Holy Spirit makes him a spiritual believer.”

— Watchman Nee

50. “God aims first to renew man’s darkened spirit by imparting life to it, because it is this spirit which God originally designed to receive His life and to commune with Him. God’s intent after that is to work out from the spirit to permeate man’s soul and body.”

— Watchman Nee