The Relationship Between the Testing of Our Faith and Overcoming

From the message called "The Proving of Faith" by Watchman Nee as recorded in The Overcoming Life. The entire book is available online at:

http://www.ministrybooks.org/watchman-nee-books.cfm

"Now let us consider the relationship between the testing of our faith and overcoming. God wants to test our faith in order to make sure that our faith is indeed faith. All genuine faith is long-lived. All short-lived faith is not faith at all. Genuine faith is always long-lived. It will believe after three days, a month, a year, ten years, or even fifty years. Genuine faith can withstand one obstacle, five obstacles, or ten obstacles. Genuine faith will believe after it is tested once, five times, or seven times. Any faith that is short-lived and that falls and evaporates with a slight shake is not faith at all. All faith is necessarily long-lived.

"In the Bible we see that overcoming is a matter of believing God's Word. God says that His Son is our life, our Head, our victory, our sanctification, and our power. We know that He has borne our burden and is responsible for all of our affairs. We know that He supplies us with endurance and meekness, and we know that He is supplying us within with everything that we need. Thank and praise the Lord! We know, and we believe. But such faith has to pass through the test.

"A brother said to me this morning, 'I have already let go and already believed. I should have overcome. But as I was riding home on a bicycle after the meeting yesterday, an old man knocked me down outside a department store. Although I did not say anything to him, I was angry within. What happened to me? I have let go, acknowledged that I cannot make it, and believed that Christ is my victory. Why did my anger come back to me? I thought that I would not be angry anymore.' Brothers and sisters, there are two reasons for this.

Victory Does Not Mean That We Are Changed

"After you have overcome and stopped sinning for a week, two weeks, three weeks, or even four or five weeks, you think that you have become good, that you have changed, and that you have matured. You may begin to appreciate yourself and boast in yourself. Therefore, God will give you a test and make you fail so that you will realize that you have not changed at all. If you can endure anything, it is not because you have changed but because you are exchanged. The Lord has endured in your place. If you think that you are changed, you will surely fail. You have to realize that if there is any endurance in you, it is Christ who is enduring for you. If there is any meekness in you, it is Christ who is being the meek One for you. If there is any holiness in you, it is Christ who is your holiness. No matter how long you have overcome, you are still you; you will always be you, and you will never change. Watchman Nee will always be Watchman Nee. After fifty years, he will still be Watchman Nee. Once grace leaves, the only thing that is left is just Watchman Nee. I thank and praise the Lord that victory is Christ and that it has nothing to do with me. I can still sin; I have not changed at all.

"A few missionaries from the China Inland Mission in Chefoo once asked me about the difference between a change and an exchange. I said that without grace Paul, John, and Peter would have been just sinners. Paul, John, and Peter would have been the same as any ordinary men if grace had been taken away from them. If we take grace away from a person, he becomes the same as the robbers and the prostitutes in the streets. Grace means Christ replacing us. This does not mean that I have any change in myself. One hymn has a line which says, 'Whene'er my heart is lifted up, / How very near I am to fall" (Hymns, #578). This is indeed true. Brothers and sisters, we have to realize that we are still the same; we have not changed at all."