"Theological Accounting...................."

The deeper I get into Watchman Nee, the more I remember why my former decision not to pursue any further collection of his works. It had nothing to do with him failing to set a good meal in front of me; merely that, having eaten his main course, I found his theology more apt to appeal to this modern “name it and claim it” bunch. He speaks of our needing “revelation from God” before we, as believers, can begin to grasp the truth of our being, “in Christ, “dead from sin”, seeing the term “reckon” much like “faith”, a gift from on high, not something that we, ourselves, accomplish. He loses me, however, when he seemingly sees such deliverance as a permanent condition in which we walk. Ignoring his admission to the “old man” being a problem yet within us and acknowledging that our humanity is no match for the flesh, he but counts “Spiritual enlightenment” as an answer to the whole issue. My eyes have been opened, many times in my seventy years, though, and it has been my experience that “epiphanies”, in whatever form they come, are merely “educational steps forward” in which what you think you’ve learned is always subject to future re-evaluation. Truth is always much more than our personal claim of possessing it. As far as I’m concerned, a man can tell himself all he wants that a verse of Scripture pronounces him free of who and what he is in his Adamic nature; but I want more than just my own determination of where I stand in Him on a daily basis. Grace is a fountain found at the foot of the Cross, a river of living water available unto us via the Holy Ghost, an assurance we can find and know each time we choose to return to that sacred altar established within the depth of our existence. He, alone, confirms my salvation, again and again as I fall at His feet and seek rest……

"Kingdom of God........................."

”Life, too often, makes no sense, leaves us with nowhere to go, and speaks to us of our own worthlessness in the whole affair.”


Our visits to the Youth Detention Center the last two Sundays have been rewarding. Only once in ten years were we ever cancelled on arrival due to bad behavior on the inside necessitating a lock-down. On occasion, our “congregation” is a mixture wherein some, in one way or another, carry a visible negative attitude. For the last few months the female portion of those incarcerated have refused to attend. Three-fourths of these kids are always newly placed, the facility merely a holding site through which they pass for minor offences, only a handful looking at serious time, their future already determined by the courts; and therefore, with our schedule permitting just a bi-monthly opportunity to share, we must “re-introduce” ourselves with each encounter. To most of them we are but another group, another denominational dogma, and, from their perspective, perhaps no more than another Bible-thumping finger-in-their-face threatening them with hell and damnation if they don’t mend their ways. We go, then, asking Christ to go with us, knowing His presence makes the difference, believing He, alone, is the key to a “connection” wherein what we say and what we do speaks to their heart. Our individual testimonies yesterday somehow all intertwined, pointing to the words above and a resurrected Savior who makes good on that which He promises us, assurance in all that comes to us. The Spirit was in our midst throughout, faces displaying evidence that hearts were receiving the seed being sown. We finished, as always, with prayer; but, as the guards led them back to other units, the one woman with us was once again invited to join the girls for individual ministering and the rest of us received two young men who were allowed to come forward. One wanted to find forgiveness from his family; the other, a boy no more than sixteen or seventeen years old, sought hope that his infant child might likewise be able to give grace to its father for not being there.

"Repetition..............................."

Our Wednesday evening Bible study found us in the middle of Romans, Chapter Six, examining just what the apostle meant by “sin” no longer having “dominion” over us. Strange, isn’t it, how words can be linked in such a way so as to be perceived in opposite understanding by those who read them, even words within “THE” Word. It’s why I love a class wherein people can express themselves without a demand for all to agree, opinions received without rebuke, usually not adopted to any great extent, but taken in, nonetheless, for later reviewing with the Holy Ghost. Watchman Nee puts the subject of “sin” in terms of those “committed before conversion to Christ” and those that are yet “a principle working within us”; or, as I might put it, having my past washed “white as snow” in no way changed my ability to make a mess as I go. Few there are, I think, who will deny that being true. Where we differ is in our cure for the post-conversion condition. Some preach they recognize yet possessing a capacity to “miss the mark”, but counter their admission with a claim of no longer “having a desire” to do so, as if that, in itself, is enough to sanctify and set them apart from error. Others own up to their nature still being, even in Christ, Adamic in its actions, but simply profess a belief that water baptism, or membership in a church, or some other denominational tenet guarantees their salvation regardless of their lifestyle. I suspect that when the above author speaks of a man knowing peace with God, but none with himself, he overlooks these two groups and is talking to those who have not forgotten that, while the Blood may well deal with “what we have done”, it remains the Cross that “speaks to what we are”. Indeed, it is the “door within”, the veil that separates us from the holy place, and the key to our hearts being “sprinkled from a evil conscience”. The “old man” no longer rules over me only in as much as I march him on a daily basis to Golgotha and surrender him to the One who took my place……

"Responsibility.............................."

Watchman Nee was born in China in 1903, was converted to Christianity at the age of eighteen, spent the last twenty years of his life in a Communist prison cell being persecuted for his faith, and authored many books wherein his theology is yet quite worthy, in my opinion, for study. A friend came to me Sunday evening at church with a question about a thought brought forth by the preacher in something he was reading. As best as this old man can recall a day later, Tony was questioning the idea, not of “flesh” being both good and bad, but of a need for us to crucify it regardless. For a few moments there, before the service started, we talked but came to no real conclusion in the matter. Last night and again this morning, then, I’ve been re-visiting the one volume I own of Nee’s writing and find myself trying to recall what it was about his words that caused me to “move on” so long ago. In a second perusal of these first few chapters, he has my mind chewing on a good meal, his reasoning that Jesus “died instead of us for our forgiveness”, but “lives instead of us for our deliverance” closely resembling my own view of the Gospel! Indeed, when he rephrases that in terms of Christ being “a substitute on the Cross who secures our forgiveness and a substitute within who secures our victory”, he has me here, a few decades down the road, wanting to shout unto him “Amen!” When he states that “the Blood deals with what we have done, whereas the Cross deals with what we are” and he separates “sin” into the two aspects of “what I have done” and “what I yet am”, speaking of how “the former touches my conscience, but the latter, my life”, he paints, for me, this walk as I have found it to be. So, while I didn’t have an answer for Tony last night, it occurs to me now that what we were a bit perplexed about could merely be a perspective wherein we fail to recognize that no matter how “saintly” we think ourselves to have become in this, in spite of whatever we accomplish in our ministry, our outreach, our interaction with others, it all still falls short of “holiness”, our vanity always in need of being nailed to the tree.

"Parsing.............................."

Watchman Nee was born in China in 1903, was converted to Christianity at the age of eighteen, spent the last twenty years of his life in a Communist prison cell being persecuted for his faith, and authored many books wherein his theology is yet quite worthy, in my opinion, for study. A friend came to me Sunday evening at church with a question about a thought brought forth by the preacher in something he was reading. As best as this old man can recall a day later, Tony was questioning the idea, not of “flesh” being both good and bad, but of a need for us to crucify it regardless. For a few moments there, before the service started, we talked but came to no real conclusion in the matter. Last night and again this morning, then, I’ve been re-visiting the one volume I own of Nee’s writing and find myself trying to recall what it was about his words that caused me to “move on” so long ago. In a second perusal of these first few chapters, he has my mind chewing on a good meal, his reasoning that Jesus “died instead of us for our forgiveness”, but “lives instead of us for our deliverance” closely resembling my own view of the Gospel! Indeed, when he rephrases that in terms of Christ being “a substitute on the Cross who secures our forgiveness and a substitute within who secures our victory”, he has me here, a few decades down the road, wanting to shout unto him “Amen!” When he states that “the Blood deals with what we have done, whereas the Cross deals with what we are” and he separates “sin” into the two aspects of “what I have done” and “what I yet am”, speaking of how “the former touches my conscience, but the latter, my life”, he paints, for me, this walk as I have found it to be. So, while I didn’t have an answer for Tony last night, it occurs to me now that what we were a bit perplexed about could merely be a perspective wherein we fail to recognize that no matter how “saintly” we think ourselves to have become in this, in spite of whatever we accomplish in our ministry, our outreach, our interaction with others, it all still falls short of “holiness”, our vanity always in need of being nailed to the tree.

"Stirred........................"

About two chapters into a Kathleen Norris work entitled “A Marriage, Monks, and a Writer’s Life: Acedia & me”, I came across an admission she makes about a place in her earlier years where she was “consuming books rather than reading them”. It was intended as an illustration of just one of the areas where boredom had taken her in her existence, so much in her daily routine seemingly repetitive and without purpose. A page or so afterward, however, she points to those religious recluses within a monastery who claim that the tedium in their never-ending circular course of scheduled tasks and prayers is actually their “way to God”. I am left with an assumption that the brothers, in so defining their efforts, simply speak in terms of such being their means of “connecting with that which Christ has provided”; and, at the same time, find myself considering just how much the human thought process, the sum total of “who-we-are-on-the- inside”, regardless of how one expresses that (there being a variety of choices), plays out in our journey. Spirit? Soul? Heart? The Bible declares that, as Christians, we possess “the mind” of our Savior; and some might see that as our being no more than “like-minded”, our own resolve set to align with His as we determine it for ourselves through the Word. From my perspective, though, I find what He brings to us via the Cross is the Resurrection, the reality of the Holy Ghost, a divine identity with whom we might “go in the way”. His presence is an anchorage, indeed a connection between heaven and earth, a “navigational corrective device” to assist us in our stumble down the path. Ennui and discouragement are merely part of what comes to us when we tend to either dismiss Him altogether, or reduce Him to a set of religious rules designed to make us holy……

"Cleansing................................"

I listened to Fox News last night as Rick Santorum answered Greta Van Susteren’s questions about his religious views, she concerned not only as to how his own Catholic beliefs would be handled in the White House, but also curious as to how he would address the crude attempt at humor recently put forth by one of his supporters. The Presidential hopeful stood his ground, pointing to his record as evidence that holding office did not mean requiring all others to believe as he does; and then, while admitting to his friend’s poor choice of words, he refused to serve him up to be crucified. From my perspective, he maintained his integrity throughout the conversation, looking public opinion and the Press right in the face and speaking straight from his heart. I like him. Can he beat Obama? I don’t know; but he appears to me an honest politician. Surely that’s an oxymoron if ever there was one, our government down through the years having pretty well convinced us that holding office in D.C. equates to possessing little or no ethics. I’d sure love to be convinced otherwise, though; and, while I’ve not seen a whole lot in the last three years or so to convince me that “change” in any way meant sweeping out the corruption entrenched in our nation’s capitol, this country yet means enough to me that I dare to hope……