Quotes from Watchman Mee

When the man who preaches the cross does not himself have the experience of the cross nor the spirit of the cross, he cannot dispense to others the life of the cross.  (Watchman Nee)

We cannot give others what we ourselves do not have If the cross does not become our life, we cannot give the life of the cross to others.  (Watchman Nee)

The failure of our work comes because we love to give the cross to others before we know whether or not we have the cross in ourselves. Those who are good at preaching to others must be good at preaching to themselves first. (Watchman Nee)

Although the message we preach is important, we must not stress the message too much and forget ourselves. We can gain some knowledge from books about the word of the cross which we preach. We can use our mind to look for many meanings in the Bible. However, all these are borrowed; they do not belong to us. Those who have clever minds are more dangerous than others. A preacher is in more danger than others, because all the studying, reading, researching and listening may be done for others and not for himself. (Watchman Nee)

What people lack is not good thoughts but life! (Watchman Nee)

We cannot give to others what we do not have. If we have life, we can give life to others. If what we have is only thoughts, we can only give thoughts to others. (Watchman Nee)

(Watchman Nee became a Christian in mainland China in 1920 at the age of 17 years. He was imprisoned by the communist government in 1952 where remained untill his death in 1972)