The Normal Christian Life is Watchman Nee’s great Christian classic which develops the central theme of “Christ our life.” Drawing from key passages in Romans, Nee reveals the secret of spiritual vitality that should be the normal experience of every Christian. His emphasis on the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ contains fresh insights that have proven to be a blessing to many.
So, how can we live a normal Christian life? How do we enter into it? Of course, we must have been forgiven of our sins, that is, justified, and as a result, have peace with God; these are the indispensable foundations for a normal Christian life. But having truly established this foundation through our first act of faith in Christ, it is clear from the foregoing that we must move on to something more.
We live an unvictorious Christian life because we base our salvation on our own merits and not on the merits of Christ. It is His precious blood that cleanses us from all sin and reconciles us with God.
Satan continually accuses us of sin. And the reason we accept his accusations so quickly is that we are still hoping to have some righteousness of our own. But the basis of this hope is wrong. Satan has succeeded in making us look in the wrong direction. Therefore, he wins his argument, leaving us disarmed. But if we have learned to have no confidence in the flesh, we will never doubt that we sin, because the very nature of the flesh is to sin. Do you understand what I am saying? It is because we have not come to appreciate our true nature and accept how helpless we are, that we still harbor some hope in ourselves, with the result that, when Satan comes and accuses us, we collapse under it.
God can very well handle our sins; but He cannot handle a man who is under accusation, because that man is not trusting in the blood. The blood speaks in his favor, but he is listening to Satan; Christ is our Advocate, but we, the accused, align ourselves with the accuser. We have not recognized that we are unworthy of anything other than death, that, as we will see later, we are worthy of nothing more than being crucified.
