The Normal Christian Life By Watchman Nee [Summary] 

Main Summary: The Normal Christian Life by Watchman Nee reveals that Christianity is not about trying harder but about Christ living His life in us. Through the Blood and Cross, God deals with both our sins and our sinful nature, calling us to know, reckon, and walk in the Spirit—a life of complete dependence on Christ.

Lessons You’ll Learn From This Post 

• The Blood of Christ
• The Cross of Christ
• The Path of Progress Knowing
• The Path of Progress: Reckoning
• The Divide of the Cross
• The Path of Progress: Presenting Ourselves to God
• The Eternal Purpose
• The Holy Spirit
• The Meaning and Value of Romans Seven
• The Path of Progress: Walking in the Spirit
• One Body in Christ
• The Cross and the Soul Life
• The Path of Progress: Bearing the Cross
• The Goal of the Gospel

Also read Are You a Christian or a Disciple by Edward N Gross [Summary] Pt1

The Blood of Christ wholly satisfies God.

The Blood of Christ

● The normal Christian life is defined by Paul in Galatians 2:20 as “no longer I, but Christ” living His life in me.

● God has only one answer to every human need—His Son, Jesus Christ.

● The Son of God died in our place for forgiveness, and He lives in our place for deliverance.

● Our problem is twofold: we have committed sins, and we have a sin nature within us.

● The Blood of Christ deals with what we have done (our sins), while the Cross deals with what we are (our sinful nature).

● The Blood is primarily for God’s satisfaction, not for our feelings or emotions.

● God sees the Blood and is satisfied, which is the foundation of our forgiveness.

● Our conscience is cleansed when we accept God’s valuation of the Blood, not when we try to feel its value subjectively.

● We must approach God always based on the Blood, never based on our own attainment or feelings.

● The Blood also answers Satan’s accusations against us before God.

● When Satan accuses us, we must point to the Blood, not to our own good conduct.

● The Blood cleanses us from every sin—big or small, conscious or unconscious.

● God is for us because of the Blood, so no accusation can stand against us.

● Our victory over Satan’s accusations comes through faith in the Blood, not through self-examination.

Bondage to sin came by birth; deliverance from sin comes by death—and it is just this way of escape that God has provided.

The Cross of Christ

● The Blood deals with what we have done, but the Cross deals with what we are.

● We are not sinners because we commit sins; we commit sins because we are sinners by nature.

● Our sinfulness comes from our heredity in Adam, not merely from our behavior.

● In Adam, we receive everything that is of Adam; in Christ, we receive everything that is of Christ.

● God has put us into Christ—we do not need to try to get in, because we are already in Him.

● When Christ died on the Cross, all of us died in Him, because we were included in His death.

● Our crucifixion is not future but past—it happened when Christ was crucified.

● The Lord Jesus died not only to shed His Blood for atonement, but also that we might die in Him.

● Christ’s death is both substitutionary (He died instead of us) and inclusive (we died with Him).

● As the “last Adam,” Christ gathered up all that was in Adam and took it to judgment and death.

● As the “second Man,” Christ rose as the Head of a new race of men.

● Our deliverance from sin comes through death—not by trying to kill ourselves, but by recognizing that God has dealt with us in Christ.

● God’s way of deliverance is not making us stronger, but crucifying our old man and removing him from action.

● Baptism symbolizes our union with Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection.

● We were buried with Christ through baptism, signifying that our old life has ended.

● God has done everything—our part is to believe and accept what He has already accomplished.

Also read Releasing Your Potential by Myles Munroe [Summary]

Our old history ends with the Cross; our new history begins with the resurrection.

The Path of Progress: Knowing

● The normal Christian life requires four steps: Knowing, Reckoning, Presenting ourselves to God, and Walking in the Spirit.

● Our death with Christ is a historic fact, not something we need to pray for or wait to experience.

● Just as we received forgiveness by accepting Christ’s finished work, we receive deliverance by accepting our crucifixion with Him.

● We do not need to ask God to crucify us—He has already done it in Christ.

● Our crucifixion is not future but past; it happened when Christ died nearly two thousand years ago.

● Knowing comes first—we must have divine revelation of what God has already done in Christ.

● This knowledge is not intellectual understanding but an opening of the eyes of our heart.

● When God reveals that we are in Christ, nothing can shake our assurance of that fact.

● The Cross goes to the root of our problem—it deals not just with our sins but with the sin-producing factory within us.

● God has not done half the work and left the other half undone; He has dealt with both our sins and our sinful nature.

● You enter the normal Christian life when you see you are already a branch in the Vine, not when you try to become one.

● We do not need to work to die or wait to die—we simply need to recognize what the Lord has already done.

● Revelation transforms prayer into praise; when we see what God has done, we stop asking and start thanking.

● Our old man has been crucified once and for all, and he can never be un-crucified.

● The finished work of Christ really has gone to the root of our problem and dealt with it completely.

Reckoning is not a form of make-believe… God tells us to reckon ourselves dead, not that by the process of reckoning we may become dead, but because we are dead.

The Path of Progress: Reckoning

● Reckoning must be based on knowledge of divinely revealed fact, or faith has no foundation.

The mindset on the flesh is death, but the mindset on the Spirit is life and peace.

● The order is crucial: “Knowing this… reckon”—knowing comes before reckoning.

● Trying to reckon without knowing leads to struggle and defeat.

● Reckoning is like bookkeeping—we enter in our account what is actually true.

● God does not ask us to reckon what is not a fact; we reckon because we are dead, not to become dead.

● Revelation leads spontaneously to reckoning.

● Faith always says, “God has done it,” not “God can” or “God will.”

● Reckoning and faith are practically the same thing—accepting God’s facts.

● Sin is not eradicated; it is still present, but we can be delivered from its power.

● The “body of sin” is unemployed because the slave who served sin has been put to death.

● Faith “substantiates” Divine facts—it makes them real in our experience.

● We must believe God’s truth regardless of how convincing Satan’s arguments appear.

● Our experience must not determine what we believe; God’s Word must determine our experience.

● We are dead not in ourselves but in Christ—we look to Him, not within ourselves.

● God’s basic principle is not to give us something new but to lead us into what He has already done in Christ.

● All true spiritual experience means discovering a fact in Christ and entering into that.

● Abiding in Christ is the way of deliverance—God works out in us what is true in Him.

● Our attention must be fixed on Christ, not on ourselves or our experience.

● Faith in objective facts makes those facts true subjectively in our lives.

Also read Love The Way to Victory by Kenneth Hagin [Summary] 

Reckoning is not a form of make-believe… God tells us to reckon ourselves dead, not that by the process of reckoning we may become dead, but because we are dead.

The Divide of the Cross

● There are two creations in Scripture: the old creation in Adam and the new creation in Christ.

● Satan has become “the prince of this world” and dominates the old world-system.

● Nothing of the old creation can be transferred to the new creation.

● Our fitness for God’s kingdom depends on which creation we belong to—not on whether we are good or bad.

● “That which is born of the flesh is flesh”—improvement cannot change its nature.

● God could not bring us as we were into His purpose, so He first did away with us by the Cross.

● The Cross is the greatest negative in the universe—it wipes out everything not of God.

● The resurrection is the greatest positive—it brings into being all God will have in the new sphere.

● The Cross ends all that belongs to the first regime; resurrection introduces all that pertains to the second.

● Baptism is associated with salvation—it signifies our exit from the world-system into God’s kingdom.

● In baptism, we testify that we have died and are buried with Christ, ending one creation.

● Baptism is not a means to death but a declaration that we have already died.

● God has crucified us; we must consent to be consigned to the tomb through baptism.

● Between the old world and the new world, there is a tomb.

● Our union with Christ in death is so intimate that His death and ours cannot be separated.

● Resurrection imparts to us a new life—Christ’s life is “grafted” into us.

● New birth is the reception of a life we did not possess before—a Divine life becomes our life.

● God has cut off the old creation by the Cross and brought in a new creation by resurrection.

● Our glorying is that through the Cross the old world has been crucified to us and we to the world.

Holiness is not the eradication of something evil within. No, we become holy by being separated unto God.

The Path of Progress: Presenting Ourselves to God

● Consecration is the presenting of ourselves to God as those alive from the dead.

● We do not consecrate our old man or natural faculties to God—He has condemned them to the Cross.

● The “presenting” is the outcome of knowing our old man is crucified and reckoning ourselves dead.

● Resurrection makes consecration possible—death has cut off what cannot be consecrated.

● Presenting ourselves means regarding our whole life and all our members as belonging wholly to the Lord.

● Holiness is not the eradication of something evil within, but being separated unto God.

● True consecration is giving ourselves to the will of God, not to Christian work.

● We must be willing to be either generals or gatekeepers, as God assigns.

● Our wills must go to the Cross—we must give ourselves over wholly to the Lord.

● Giving ourselves to God means no reservations and no controversy with Him.

● God will break everything offered to Him—He takes what we give and breaks it before blessing it.

● The sense of God’s possession of us brings the sense of His presence with us.

● We become God’s slaves not only by His purchase but by our voluntary presentation.

● God takes us seriously when we give ourselves to Him—we must mean what we say.

● After we give ourselves to the Lord, He begins to break what was offered to Him.

● The tragedy of many Christians is being too far for the world to use, but not far enough for God to use.

● Consecration is an initial fundamental act, followed by daily giving to Him.

● We must accept with praise even what the flesh revolts against.

● True consecration means acknowledging in everything His ownership and authority over us.

Holiness is not the eradication of something evil within. No, we become holy by being separated unto God.

The Eternal Purpose

● God’s purpose in creation and redemption can be summed up as “the glory of God” and “the glory of the children of God.”

● The result of sin is that we forfeit God’s glory; the result of redemption is that we are qualified again for glory.

● God’s objective was to make His Son the firstborn among many brethren, all conformed to His image.

● The Lord Jesus was God’s only begotten Son, but God wanted Him to become the first begotten through having many children.

● God cannot do without us, and we cannot do without Him.

● The story of the prodigal son is not about what the son suffered but about what the Father lost.

● The Father sent the Son so that the only begotten might become the first begotten with many brethren.

● Like a grain of wheat, the Lord Jesus fell into the earth and died, and from that one grain many grains have sprung.

● By His death and resurrection, many brethren have been brought into God’s family.

● God put two trees in the garden: the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

● Adam was created morally neutral and had to choose between dependence on God and independent development.

● The tree of life represents God Himself—the source and goal of life.

● Adam chose the tree of knowledge and thereby took up independent ground apart from God.

● Adam’s choice brought death because it involved complicity with Satan and thwarted God’s purpose.

● The Cross terminates the first creation and brings in a new creation in Christ.

● The last Adam became a life-giving Spirit, now receivable by all.

● We possess more than Adam ever had—we receive Divine life through new birth.

● God wants sons who shall be joint heirs with Christ in glory.

● The life we have today is the same life God has—the precious “gift of God.”

● We have been made partakers of the very life of God Himself through redemption.

Because the Lord Jesus died on the Cross, I have received forgiveness of sins; because the Lord Jesus rose from the dead, I have received new life; because the Lord Jesus has been exalted to the right hand of the Father, I have received the outpoured Spirit.

The Holy Spirit

● The Holy Spirit is the vitalizing power of effective Christian life and service.

● The Spirit is given in two aspects: outpoured (upon us) and indwelling (within us).

● The Spirit was poured out because the Lord Jesus was exalted to the right hand of God.

● The outpouring of the Spirit has no relation to our merits, but only to the merits of Christ.

● Because Jesus died, we have forgiveness; because He rose, we have new life; because He is exalted, we have the outpoured Spirit.

● Pentecost proves the Lordship of Jesus Christ—the Spirit was poured out to show He is Lord.

● The purpose of Pentecost is not to prove how great we are, but to prove the greatness of the Son of God.

● We receive the Spirit the same way we receive forgiveness—by faith in what Christ has already done.

● Prayer for the Spirit should turn to praise when we see He has already been given.

● The conditions for receiving the Spirit are repentance and baptism.

● When we fulfill the conditions, we are entitled to both forgiveness and the gift of the Holy Spirit.

● The outward manifestations of the Spirit’s coming may vary widely among believers.

● “This is that”—Peter said this, not to show duplication of experiences, but to show they are of the same order.

● We must not make “speaking in tongues” or any other manifestation a requirement for receiving the Spirit.

● God remains free to work as He wills and to give whatever evidence He pleases.

● The Spirit indwelling is the subject of Romans 8—Christ as effective Ruler within our lives.

● We need revelation to know that God Himself, through the Holy Spirit, has taken up residence in our hearts.

● The Holy Spirit is a Person, not merely an influence.

● The remedy for unspirituality is knowing who dwells within us.

● Having the Spirit within means having the living God within.

The old life of trying to please God by our efforts must be crucified. The new life of walking in the Spirit must take its place.

The Meaning and Value of Romans Seven

● Romans 7 describes the experience of a sincere believer trying to please God in his own strength.

● The law reveals our weakness and inability to fulfill God’s requirements.

● The “I” in Romans 7 is the natural man—redeemed but still trying to do good by his own power.

● The law is holy, just, and good, but it cannot make us holy, just, or good.

● Our problem is not with the law but with ourselves—we are carnal, sold under sin.

● The very effort to do good brings sin to life and increases our struggle.

● What we want to do, we do not do; what we hate, we do—this is the experience of the defeated Christian.

● The law is not the solution—it exposes the problem and drives us to Christ.

● Deliverance comes not by struggle but by dying to the law through the body of Christ.

● We are united to Christ in His death, freeing us from the law’s claim over us.

● In Christ, we are “dead to the law” and can now serve in newness of spirit.

● The old life of trying to please God by our efforts must be crucified.

● True holiness does not come from trying harder but from relying on the indwelling Spirit.

● The “law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus” sets us free from “the law of sin and death.”

● Romans 7 shows the failure of the flesh; Romans 8 shows the victory of the Spirit.

● God never intended us to fight sin in our own strength—we are to yield to the Spirit.

● The struggle in Romans 7 is necessary for us to learn our utter helplessness.

● Only when we stop trying in our own strength can we walk in the Spirit.

● Victory comes when we cease from our own labors and depend wholly on Christ.

● The law demands, but the Spirit supplies what the law requires.

The Christian life is not a ‘changed life,’ but an ‘exchanged life,’ and Christ is our Substitute within.

The Path of Progress: Walking in the Spirit

● The four key terms in Romans 5-8 are “in Adam,” “in Christ,” “in the flesh,” and “in the Spirit”.
● Being “in Christ” is our position, but walking “in the Spirit” makes that position real in our daily experience.
● Living in the flesh means acting from our own natural resources and strength inherited from Adam.
● Living in the Spirit means trusting the Holy Spirit to do in us what we cannot do ourselves.
● The flesh and the Spirit are contrary to one another, and the Spirit fights the battle against the flesh on our behalf.
● When we refuse to act from ourselves, the Holy Spirit is free to overcome the flesh in us.
● God’s way of victory is not trying harder but trusting Christ to live His life through us.
● We do not need patience, humility, or love as separate gifts—we need Christ, who is all these things in us.
● The Christian life is not a “changed life” but an “exchanged life”—Christ living His life in us.
● The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set us free from the law of sin and death.
● A “law” is something that operates consistently and without exception, like gravity.
● The law of sin and death operates in us whenever we try to please God in our own strength.
● The law of the Spirit of life is a higher law that overcomes the law of sin and death, just as life in a seed overcomes gravity.
● Willpower alone cannot produce genuine Christian living—it only leads to frustration and failure.
● When we yield to the Holy Spirit, He produces in us spontaneously what we could never force ourselves to be.
● Walking in the Spirit means subjection to the Spirit’s leadership and initiative in our lives.
● The Spirit of God within us is a living Person, not merely an influence, and He desires to direct every detail of our lives.
● As we obey the Holy Spirit, He fulfills in us all that the Law required but could never produce.
● The Holy Spirit imparts to us all that Christ has accomplished for us through His finished work.
● True Christian living is not forced effort but natural, spontaneous fruit borne by the Spirit.

God does not blame me for being an individual, but for my individualism. His greatest problem is not the outward divisions and denominations that divide His Church but our own individualistic hearts.

One Body in Christ

● Christian experience follows a pattern: first revelation, then faith, then experience.
● Revelation always precedes faith—we must see what God has done before we can believe it.
● Experience usually has two phases: a crisis (a “wicket gate”) and a continuous process (a “narrow path”).
● Justification begins with revelation of Christ’s atoning work, followed by repentance and faith, then a walk of maintained fellowship.
● Deliverance from sin follows the same pattern: knowing, reckoning, and presenting ourselves to God.
● The gift of the Holy Spirit comes through seeing Christ exalted, leading to both His outpouring and indwelling.
● The cross of Christ is one divine work with four aspects: the Blood for sins, the Cross for the flesh, the Life of Christ imparted, and the working of death in the natural man.
● The first two aspects are remedial, undoing the work of sin and the devil.
● The last two aspects are positive, bringing us into something Adam never possessed.
● In Genesis 2, Adam’s sleep prefigures Christ’s death—not for sin, but for the creation of the Church.
● Eve was created from Adam, just as the Church is created from Christ.
● Adam’s sleep was not for Eve’s sin but for her existence—this shows an aspect of Christ’s death beyond atonement.
● Christ loved the Church and gave Himself for her, not merely to save sinners but to create His Bride.
● The Church is not just saved sinners but a divine creation in Christ, viewed from God’s eternal purpose.
● The body of Christ is not an illustration but a fact—we are actually one Body in Christ.
● No believer is self-sufficient; we need the help and gifts of other members.
● Prayer together brings in the help of the Body, and we cannot get through alone.
● God’s greatest problem is not outward divisions but our own individualistic hearts.
● The Cross must end our independence and teach us our need for the Body.
● When we see we are members of one Body, jealousy, competition, and private work will cease.
● The Body of Christ in glory will express nothing of fallen man but only the image of Christ.
● We are more than conquerors through Christ because we stand together as His Body.
● Sin, self-reliance, and individualism were Satan’s master-strokes, but the Cross has undone them.

God does not mind—in fact He intends—that we should have a soul. But what God has set Himself to do is to reverse something… living by the soul.

The Cross and the Soul Life

● The work of the Cross has two results: release of Christ’s life through the Spirit, and the daily “bearing of the cross” to bring the natural man into subjection.
● God’s purpose from the beginning was to have a race of men with His life, who would defeat Satan and fulfill His purposes.
● Adam was created with a spirit for communion with God, a body for the material world, and a soul as his personality.
● Adam was created perfect but not yet perfected—he needed to receive God’s life.
● Adam’s choice of the tree of knowledge overdeveloped his soul—emotion, mind, and will—apart from God.
● After the Fall, man began to live by his soul instead of by the Spirit.
● God is now pruning the uncontrolled development of the soul in believers.
● Natural energy is simply what we can do and what we are of ourselves, apart from God.
● Many Christians change their interests but not their source of power—they still rely on natural abilities.
● Anything we can do without prayer and dependence on God comes from natural life and is suspect.
● Origin determines destination—what is of the flesh will never become spiritual.
● Self-knowledge does not come through self-examination but through God’s light.
● “In Thy light shall we see light”—God’s revelation brings true knowledge of ourselves.
● The entrance of God’s Word gives light and understanding to the simple.
● Light cleanses, sterilizes, and kills what should not be there.
● When God’s light shines, we see mixture and impurity in ourselves.
● True self-knowledge comes when God flashes Himself upon us, as with Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Paul.
● The question of sins is superficial; the question of the soul-life is the root issue.
● God is seeking a people whose very breath is dependent upon Him.
● The pruning work of the Cross must touch the very life of the man, not merely his sins.
● Only a thorough understanding of the Cross can bring us to true dependence on God.
● Christ Himself said, “I can of myself do nothing”—this is the pattern for all servants.

God must bring us to a point… where, through a deep and dark experience, our natural power is touched and fundamentally weakened, so that we no longer dare trust ourselves.

The Christian life is not a ‘changed life,’ but an ‘exchanged life,’ and Christ is our Substitute within.

The Path of Progress: Bearing the Cross

● No one can be a true servant of God without knowing the principle of death and resurrection.
● Even the Lord Jesus Himself served on this basis—He was baptized before His ministry began, taking the ground of death and resurrection in figure.
● The Lord Jesus acted not from Himself but in complete dependence on the Father, saying, “The Son can do nothing of Himself.”
● Satan’s temptation was to get Jesus to act from His own soul-life, but He absolutely repudiated such action.
● All work done by believers must likewise be on the ground of death and resurrection.
● The Holy Spirit contains all the values of Christ’s death, resurrection, and exaltation and mediates them to us.
● Aaron’s rod that budded proves that resurrection marks God-recognized ministry.
● There is a difference between dealing with the flesh and dealing with the soul-life in service.
● Many servants build twelve feet of wall and then pull down fifteen feet themselves because something remains undealt with by the Cross.
● The Cross has borne us; now we must bear it daily in a subjective, inward process.
● The soul is not crucified to be eliminated but brought into death so natural endowments serve the Spirit.
● Natural affections can secretly divert us from God’s pathway—the Cross must deal with them.
● The soul’s desire for self-preservation must be silenced by the Cross.
● When we truly like the will of God, we have passed a crucial test.
● Even legitimate activities can pin us down if our heart goes out to them.
● The rapture call will reveal where our heart’s true treasure lies.
● The grain of wheat must die to bear fruit—this is the secret of ministry.
● Our soul-life envelops and confines the new life within us like a husk.
● Death and resurrection must remain an abiding principle of our lives.
● God may bring us through a “dark night” where our natural power is crippled.
● Like Jacob at Peniel, our natural strength must be touched so we no longer dare trust ourselves.
● Once our back is broken, we will yield ever after to the slightest touch from God.
● True servants have learned to have no confidence in the flesh and to serve in the Spirit.
● Paul’s ministry was spiritual because he served “in my spirit in the gospel of His Son.”

In Divine service the principle of waste is the principle of power. The principle which determines usefulness is the very principle of scattering.

The Goal of the Gospel

● Mary anointing Jesus with costly ointment is a prophetic picture of true devotion to the Lord.
● The Lord ordained that Mary’s act should always accompany the preaching of the Gospel throughout the whole world.
● Waste means giving more than is necessary—the world says serving the Lord is wasteful.
● From the world’s perspective, pouring out anything on Jesus is a waste of a useful life.
● The disciples also thought Mary’s act was wasteful—they valued usefulness above devotion.
● Christians often measure service by tangible results and visible usefulness.
● The Lord’s first concern is not our ceaseless activity but our position at His feet.
● The Gospel is preached first of all so that the Lord Himself may be satisfied.
● When we set out to satisfy the Lord, we will certainly be satisfied ourselves.
● The principle of waste is the principle of power in Divine service.
● Real usefulness in God’s hand is measured in terms of “waste”—giving too much to Him.
● The Lord waits to hear us say, “Lord, I do not mind about that. If I can only please Thee, it is enough.”
● Mary anointed Jesus “beforehand” for His burial—there is a time factor in devotion.
● In the age to come we will love Him more, but we can pour out our all upon Him today.
● Only Mary succeeded in anointing the Lord—the other women came too late after His resurrection.
● The question for us is: What am I doing to the Lord today?
● When we see His worth, nothing is too costly, nothing too precious for Him.
● Mary “did what she could”—she kept nothing in reserve for a future day.
● The Lord looks for a life laid at His feet, not merely effort and energy in service.
● Breaking the flask fills the house with fragrance—suffering and brokenness release Christ’s fragrance.
● Those who have been broken by the Lord carry impressions of God to others.
● Creating hunger in others is more foundational than preaching to them.
● People scent Christ in those who have suffered and yielded everything to Him.
● The Gospel’s goal is producing a condition that satisfies the heart of God.
● It is a blessed thing to be wasted for the Lord—to pour out everything for Him.
● The Lord grants us grace to learn how to please Him as our supreme aim.
● When pleasing Him is our aim, the Gospel has achieved its end.

Friend, stop striving and start resting. God has already done everything in Christ. Your part is simply to know it, believe it, reckon it true, and walk in the Spirit. Let this revelation dawn, and begin living the normal Christian life today.

Finally, here is a question we’d love you to answer.

Do you truly know that you died with Christ two thousand years ago, or are you still praying for something God has already done?

We would love to hear from you. Please leave your answer and comment in the comment box below.

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