The Life That Wins - Watchman Nee (excerpt)
Victory should be the Christian's normal experience and defeat should be abnormal. According to the biblical standard, it is deemed to be strange if you do not overcome, and reckoned as common when you do overcome.
If your experience is different from that spelled out in the Scriptures, then you are in need of full salvation. Your being saved is a fact, but you have not obtained salvation in fullness.
Victory is actually a remedial facet of salvation. At the time of our being saved, something was missing - yet not on God's part. He never gives us a salvation that lets us live a wandering life. He wants us to have full salvation. He wants us to experience His victory in our lives. Hence, it is the experience of victory that is the remedial facet of salvation.
Victory is Christ Himself and has nothing to do with you or me.
Victory is a GIFT, not a reward. What is a gift? It is something that is freely given to you/ That which you earn through work is a reward. (See 1 Cor 15:57)
Only when one comes to realize the vanity of his works and the failure of his life is one then ready to acceept the victory that is already his in Christ.
Under the law, God requires man to work for Him. What, then, is being under grace? It denotes God working for man. If we work for God, sin will reign over us; but if we let Him work for us, we rest in His victory.
True victory in the Christian's walk is an expressed life, not a suppressed one. An expressed life shows forth what has ALREADY been obtained.
How do we obtain Christ as our victory? On the subtraction side, it is the experience - "it is no longer I who live" (Gal 2:20). On the addition side, it is "Christ lives in me" (v.20).
If your experience is different from that spelled out in the Scriptures, then you are in need of full salvation. Your being saved is a fact, but you have not obtained salvation in fullness.
Victory is actually a remedial facet of salvation. At the time of our being saved, something was missing - yet not on God's part. He never gives us a salvation that lets us live a wandering life. He wants us to have full salvation. He wants us to experience His victory in our lives. Hence, it is the experience of victory that is the remedial facet of salvation.
Victory is Christ Himself and has nothing to do with you or me.
Victory is a GIFT, not a reward. What is a gift? It is something that is freely given to you/ That which you earn through work is a reward. (See 1 Cor 15:57)
Only when one comes to realize the vanity of his works and the failure of his life is one then ready to acceept the victory that is already his in Christ.
Under the law, God requires man to work for Him. What, then, is being under grace? It denotes God working for man. If we work for God, sin will reign over us; but if we let Him work for us, we rest in His victory.
True victory in the Christian's walk is an expressed life, not a suppressed one. An expressed life shows forth what has ALREADY been obtained.
How do we obtain Christ as our victory? On the subtraction side, it is the experience - "it is no longer I who live" (Gal 2:20). On the addition side, it is "Christ lives in me" (v.20).
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