The Law and Grace1

 The Law and Grace

Feb 7, 2025

In the book of Romans, Paul talks a lot about the law (Torah). Now this is understandable as he was a Jew and was educated in one of the finest schools of the Pharisees, so he was an expert in the law. But the question is, how does the Old Testament law (Torah) apply to Christians?

Romans 10:4

4 For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.

In Romans 10, Paul is talking about salvation for the Jews and how it is that anyone can live a righteous life. It is this context that he says “Christ is the end of the law”, but this is qualified, “for righteousness to everyone who believes (in Christ)”. He is not sayingthat the law has ended, but that it is not applicable as a way to righteousness for one who believes in Christ. He clarifies this thought in his letter the Galatians where he compares the law to a tutor.

Galatians 3:24

24 Therefore the Law has becomeour tutor to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith.

In this passage, Paul explains that the law is beneficial to us in that it teaches us to distinguish right from wrong. By studying the law we can determine what is acceptable to the Lord and what is offensive to HIm. What the law can not do is save us. It can show us the way, lead us to Christ, but then we must be justified by faith.

Another exposition of the law is found in Romans 8. 

Romans 8:1-4

1 Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you freefrom the law of sin and of death. 3 For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, 4 so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

In this passage, Paul uses a different word. In chapter 10, he used telos to speak of the end of the law. Here he uses another word for end, (plēroō) which is translated “fulfilled” in the NASB. Thus he explains that the law has ended for us because Jesus fulfilled all of the requirements of the law. That is, the blood sacrifice required for the atonement for sins was provided by Christ on the cross. Therefore, there is no further need for blood sacrifices. We appropriate this atonement by faith and apply it in our lives by walking in the Spirit. The thing that the law could not do is provide us the power to live by the requirements it specified. It is only the power of the Holy Spirit that can give us that power to live it a way that pleases the Lord.

So we are back to Watchman Nee’s four points, Know, Reckon, Present yourself to God, and Walk in the Spirit. This provides us guidance on how to be saved by grace and then go on to live a holy life by faith. I pray that this helps you to understand more of what it means to live a “Normal Christian Life”, and to walk in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Live with Him (Soar like an Eagle )

 Live with Him

February 6, 2025

Romans 6:8-11

8 Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, 9 knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him. 10 For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. 11 Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

We’ve been looking at Romans and considering the matter of how to live the “Normal Christian Life”, as Watchman Nee puts it. We’ve talked about several aspects of this such as knowing, reckoning, presenting and walking but there is also the matter of the law and how it applies to the Christian walk. Paul discusses this in chapter 7.

Romans 7:1, 4

1 Ordo you not know, brethren (for I am speaking to those who know the law), that the law has jurisdiction over a person as long as he lives?

…

4 Therefore, my brethren, you also were made to die to the Law through the body of Christ, so that you might be joined to another, to Himwho was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God.

So what does this mean? Is the law active and applicable to us or not? One way to look at it is to consider natural law such as the law of gravity. Everything with mass  on the earth is subject to the law of gravity. It  will fall towards the center of the earth at a constant rate of acceleration if unrestrained. (That is 9.8 cm/sec² if you are a science nerd like me) This is true , so how do birds fly? The answer is that there is that there is another law, the law of aerodynamics, which supersedes the law of gravity when applied correctly. When a bird uses its wings and the wind it can soar above the earth. Interestingly, the Hebrews uses the same word for wind and spirit. (h7307. רוּחַ ruach; breath, wind, spirit). When the eagles mount up on the wind (Isa 40:31) they are using the power of the wind and the aerodynamic properties of their wings to soar into the heavenlies. If they were to cease using their wings, they would fall like any other matter. It is only when they obey the superior law of aerodynamics that they can defy the law of gravity. 

In the same way, when we live by the law of the Spirit, which is the law of life, we can overcome the law of sin and death. The old law does not vanish, but we are not governed by it as long as we obey the superior law of the Spirit. So, in a sense, walking in The Spirit is actually flying in the Spirit! We are like eagles that can mount up on wings and soar in the Spirit, but if we cease to rely on the life of the new man and the power of the Spirit, we can still fall to the ground like an Eagle who has lost the ability to fly. So as Paul says “we are dead to the law”. The law is not dead but our new man is not subject to the old law. So take heart and be like the eagles.

Isaiah 40:31

31 Yet those who wait for the LORD

Will gain new strength;

They will mount up with wings like eagles,

They will run and not get tired,

They will walk and not become weary.

Walk by Faith

 Walk by Faith

Feb 2, 2025

2 Corinthians 5:7

7for we walk by faith, not by sight—

Hebrews 11:1

1 Nowfaith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

One the comments on my previous blog was to remind me that we walk by faith, not by sight. This is absolutely correct, but doesn’t contradicts my previous comments about needing to have a vision in order to walk by the Spirit.  These are two types of sight. The first point in walking by the Spirit is that you must have a spiritual vision to know which direction you are supposed to go. The Corinthian and Hebrews verses are saying something different. Faith is based on things that we don’t see with our physical eyes. That doesn’t mean that the things we have faith for are any less real, it is just that we can’t yet see them in the physical realm. Watchman Nee points out that the word translated as “assurance” in this version can be translated as “substantiating”. This means that our faith in something that we can not see brings it into physical reality. The fact is already real, but we can’t see it until it is substantiated.

So walking by faith and walking by the Spirit are really aspects of the same thing. When the Spirit gives us a vision of what is to be and directs us in the way we should go, we have to walk in faith that this spiritual vision, which starts out as a hope, will become manifest in our lives as we follow the directions of the Spirit to bring this vision into reality.

An example of this would be if the Lord gives you a vision of having a healing ministry. Walking in the Spirit says that you need to start by taking a step of faith by preparing yourself, getting the proper training, and doing whatever else is needed to establish a ministry. As you continue to walk in faith, and follow the guidance of the Spirit, you will begin to have opportunities to pray for healing and if you are faithful to the vision, you will then begin to see people healed. The people being healed were unseen when you began, but they were seen in your vision of the ministry that the Lord into which the Lord was calling you. Eventually, the results, or fruit, will be seen by everyone, so the healing are both seen and unseen, depending on the time. By faith, hope in things that are unseen, can become seen.

Note also, that the second step of walking by faith, taking a step, usually involves something unseen. This step may even contradict what you think of as a logical step in the right direction. It is a step in faith. Let me give you an example from my own life. Way back when, just after we were married, we had a vision to minister to the broken hearted. We were receiving training and setting up a household in Pittsburgh. We bought a house which was older and began to fix it up. Shortly after that, we were called to move to Alabama. Now the logical conclusion was that purchasing a house in Pittsburgh was contradictory to the call to move to Mobile. However, as the Lord continued to move we continued to fix up the Pittsburgh house while planning to move to Alabama. As it turned out, after a year of home remodelling, we were able to sell the Pittsburgh house at such a profit that it paid for the move to Mobile. It didn’t seem to make sense at the time. We could not see it in the natural, but in the Lord’s plan it all worked out for the best and we were able to sit under some of the most anointed leaders of the time in Mobile, AL. The unseen became seen and the Lord’s plan worked out even when it didn’t make sense to us.

So I urge you to walk in the Spirit and to walk by faith. Both are aspects of fulfilling your plan and purpose for doing all that the Lord has ordained for your life.

Walk by the Spirit

 Walk by the Spirit

February 1, 2025

Romans 8:3-4

3 For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offeringfor sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, 4 so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

Galatians 5:16, 25

16 ButI say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh.

…

25 If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.

The fourth step in Watchman Nee’s plan for living “The Normal Christian Life” is walking in the Spirit.  So what does it mean to walk by the Spirit? I will break it down into four steps: 1) Seeing, 2) Hearing, 3) Stepping  out, and 4) Keep walking.

First of all is seeing. You must have a vision of where you are going or you’re just wandering around aimlessly. 

Proverbs 29:18 (NASB95)

Where there is no vision, the people are unrestrained, But happy is he who keeps the law.

We are talking about walking in the Spirit, so this is not talking about your natural eyes, but your spiritual eyes. You need to have a vision of the plan and purpose for your life so that you know which direction to go. Also, keeping a distant goal in sight allows you to walk in a straight line. When I was young, my father taught me to pick out a fence post a half mile away and drive straight for it in order to plow a straight furrow. Anytime you take your eye off of the goal, you tend to drift and wander, so you need to have a vision and keep it in sight to walk in the Spirit.

Secondly, you need to hear. By this I am referring to hearing the voice of God.

John 10:27

27 Mysheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me;

Now in the matter of walking in the Spirit, the first principle of hearing God is being willing to obey. When the sheep hear His voice they follow Him. In fact, the Greek word for obedience in Romans 1:5 is hupakoe, which literally means “to hear under”. So in scripture, hearing and obeying are integrally tied together. So when you commit to obey the voice of God and you begin to walk in the Spirit, you will hear the voice of the Spirit telling you “this it the way, walk in it.” (Isaiah 30:21)

The Third step is to take a step of faith. As the saying goes, “A journey of a hundred miles starts with a single step.” You cannot walk in the Spirit without taking that first step. Now when I was a young Christian, I associated this with the gifts of the Spirit. We would say that if the Lord gives your a word to speak, then you need to have the courage to step out and give it. Now this is all well and good, but as I have been considering how to walk in the Spirit for over fifty years, the fruit of the Spirit has taken on more significance. This leads us to the forth step.

The forth step involves endurance.

Hebrews 12:1b

… let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set beforeus,

It is when we keep walking, running the race that is set before us, that we see the fruit of the Spirit manifested in our lives. And note that the word here is singular. When the Holy Spirit coming into your lives and we begin to follow Him and walk in His ways, His character manifests as fruit in our lives. Now it appears in multiple forms; love, joy, peace, etc. but it is the fruit of the one Holy Spirit. There is only one savior that died for our sins and only one Spirit that raised Him from the dead, and us with Him.

Therefore, receive the vision for your life so you know which way to go. Listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit so you know exactly what to do. Then step out and do it. And then keep doing it as long as the day is called today until the Lord calls you home so you may finish the race and claim the prize.

Present Yourself to God

 Present Yourself to God

January 31, 2025

Yesterday we were considering Watchman Nee’s four steps to living the Normal Christian Life: Knowing, Reckoning, Presenting yourself, and Walking in the Spirit. Today we will explore the  third point, Presenting yourself to God.

Romans 6:12-13

12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, 13 and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sinas instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.

Romans 6:16

16 Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, eitherof sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness?

Romans 6:19

19 I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity andto lawlessness, resulting in further lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification.

Romans 12:1- 2

1 Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is yourspiritual service of worship. 2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.

Of Watchman Nee’s four steps, this is the easiest one to understand. To Present yourself means just what it says. Give yourself, dedicate yourself, separate your self unto service to God. This is also called consecration, which is the process of becoming Holy. And being consecrated, or being holy, simple means to to separated unto God. So understanding the concept of presenting oneself is not hard, but doing it is an entirely different matter.

Nee emphasizes that the presenting yourself must follow the Knowing and Reckoning so that you know that your old man is dead and you consider your new man alive to God, so that what you are presenting is not your old man, but your new resurrected man. The old man is not capable to serving God, but the new man, by it’s very nature is designed to be used by God for HIs service. The other word used throughout these passages is “bond servant”, which is a servant who is wholly dedicated to lifetime service to his master because he loves him. This is the essence of what it means to present yourself to God for obedience, as a bond servant. As we consider our lives to be dead to sin and alive in Christ, we abide in Him, and acknowledge that our entire being belongs to Him, and we dedicate ourselves to serve Him.

Finally, we realize that we cannot serve the Lord in our own strength, but we have to rely on Him totally for his strength and guidance. The first part of this is abiding in the vine and the later part is walking in the Spirit which we will consider next time. So until then, consider what it means to present yourself to God and serve Him in every way. THis is the way to fulfill the purpose for which you were created.

Reckoning

 Reckoning

January 30, 2025

Yesterday we were considering Watchman Nee’s four steps to living the Normal Christian Life: Knowing, Reckoning, Presenting yourself, and Walking in the Spirit. Today we will explore the second point, Reckoning.

Romans 6:11 (KJV)

11 Likewise reckonye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Romans 6:10-11 (NASB)

10 For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. 11 Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to Godin Christ Jesus.

Watchman Nee explains that the Greek word translated “Recon” or “Consider” (g3049. λογίζομαι logizomai) is an accounting term that means to consider as fact, or make a proper accounting of a fact. He says that accounting is the only endeavor in which humans can be perfect. If you have $20 in your pocket and someone gives you a dollar, you now have $21; no more, no less. In the same way he states that when Paul says you should reckon yourself dead to sin, that that is an act of faith in which you acknowledge the fact that you are indeed dead to sin. It’s easier to say than to understand or to do. What he is basically saying is that freedom from sin comes from accepting the truth that your old self died on the cross with Christ, and no accusation from the enemy can cancel that fact. This death is a death to the old nature in ourselves that has a propensity to sin. Becoming alive to God is to come into a new nature, a new life in Christ.

He discusses the implications of this in detail, so I will only be able to provide a summary here. One analogy that he uses to explain the new nature is to state that the nature of wood is to float. If you place it in water, it will naturally float, because it’s nature is to float. That is like our new life in Christ whose nature is to not sin. It is not that it is impossible to sin, but it is not in the new life’s nature to sin. Back to the wood block; it can be forced to sink if you grab It with your hand and force in under water. That is like giving into temptation and giving into sin. It is not in your new nature to sin, but it is possible to force (or allow) yourself to sin.

According to Watchman Nee, the secret of resisting temptation, living according to your new nature, and not giving into sin, is to abide in Christ. Jesus taught on this as recorded in John 15:

John 15:4

4 Abide inMe, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me.

As the life of the branch comes from receiving sap from the main trunk, so our life comes from being attached and receiving sustenance from Christ. This process starts with “reckoning” where we, by faith, consider that we are in fact dead in Christ, and we then live for Him when we abide in Him, remaining attached to Him and receiving new life continually. 

The Biblical term for this is “sanctification”. This literally means “to become holy” or “to be separated unto God”. Sanctification is often misinterpreted to mean keeping a set of rules in your own strength, but Nee teaches that this is entirely backward. In the world, progress comes from becoming stronger and stronger, but in the Kingdom of God, success in sanctification comes from becoming weaker and weaker. In fact, we can only be truly successful in living the normal Christian life when we reckon ourselves dead to sin. It doesn’t make sense to our rational mind, which is why it takes faith “to Know” and “to Reckon”. 

This is certainly an incomplete explanation, so I urge you to study Romans yourself and also to read “The Normal Christian Life” by Watchman Nee. Once you understand what is taught there,  you will be on your way to living a successful and “normal” Christian life.