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The Normal Christian Life

I included a couple of excerpts from Watchman Nee’s Christian classic book below. Although not specifically about house church it is highly recommended.

When the Galilean boy brought his bread to the Lord, what did the Lord do with it? He broke it. God will always break what is offered to him. He breaks what he takes, but after breaking it he blesses and uses it to meet the needs of others. After you give yourself to the Lord, he begins to break what was offered to him. Everything seems to go wrong, and you protest and find fault with the ways of God. But to stay there is to be no more than just a broken vessel-no good for the world because you have gone too far for the world to use you, and no good for God either because you have not gone far enough for him to use you. You are out of gear with the world, and you have a controversy with God. This is the tragedy of many a Christian.

My giving of myself to the Lord must be an initial fundamental act. Then, day by day, I must go on giving to him, not finding fault with his use of me, but accepting with praise even what the flesh finds hard. That way lies true enrichment.

I am the Lord’s, and now no longer reckon myself to be my own but acknowledge in everything his ownership and authority. That is the attitude God delights in, and to maintain it is true consecration. 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. Whatever he ordains for me is sure to be the very best, for nothing but good can come to those who are wholly his.

May we always be possessed by the consciousness that we are not our own.

Regarding Mary anointing Jesus (Mark 14:6-8)

Of Mary the Lord said: “She hath done what she could.” What does that mean? It means that she had given up her all. She had kept nothing in reserve for a future day. She had lavished on him all she had; and yet on the resurrection morning she had no reason to regret her extravagance. And the Lord will not be satisfied with anything less from us than that we too should have done “what we could.” By this, remember, I do not mean the expenditure of our effort and energy in trying to do something for him, for that is not the point here. What the Lord Jesus looks for in us is a life laid at his feet, and that in view of his death and burial and of a future day. His burial was already in view that day in the home in Bethany. Today it is his crowning that is in view, when he shall be acclaimed in glory as the Anointed One, the Christ of God. Yes, then we shall pour out our all upon him! But it is a precious thing-indeed it is a far more precious thing to him-that we should anoint him now, not with material oil but with something costly, something from our
hearts.

That which is merely external and superficial has no place here. It has already been dealt with by the Cross, and we have given our consent to God’s judgment upon it and learned to know in experience its cutting off. What God is demanding of us now is represented by that flask of alabaster: something mined from the depths, something turned and chased and wrought upon, something that, because it is so truly of the Lord, we cherish as Mary cherished that flask, and we would not, we dare not break it. It comes now from the heart, from the very depth of our being; and we come to the Lord with that, and we break it and pour it out and say: “Lord, here it is. It is all yours, because you are worthy!”- and the Lord has got what he desired. May he receive such an anointing from us today.

Watchman Nee, The Normal Christian Life