If you would test the character of anything, you only need to enquire whether that thing leads you to God or away from God.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of understanding the nature of things based on their relationship to God.
This quote by Watchman Nee suggests that the true essence of anything can be judged by its effect on our spiritual direction. If something draws us closer to God, it holds positive character, whereas if it pulls us away, it indicates a negative or flawed nature. This perspective invites us to evaluate experiences, relationships, and beliefs in terms of their alignment with spiritual growth.
In practice
This quote can be used in a sermon to encourage a congregation to assess their lives and choices in light of their relationship with God.
To remove warfare from a spiritual life is to render it unspiritual. Life in the spirit is a suffering way, filled with watching and laboring, burdened by weariness and trial, punctuated by heartbreak and conflict. It is a life utterly outpoured for the kingdom of God and lived in complete disregard for one's personal happiness.
Outside of Christ, I am only a sinner, but in Christ, I am saved. Outside of Christ, I am empty; in Christ, I am full. Outside of Christ, I am weak; in Christ, I am strong. Outside of Christ, I cannot; in Christ, I am more than able. Outside of Christ, I have been defeated; in Christ, I am already victorious. How meaningful are the words, "in Christ."
Overcoming sin, blessed though it surely is, is but the bare minimum of a believers experience. There is nothing astonishing in it. Not to overcome sin is what ought to astonish us.
How vainly shall we endeavor to repress crime by our barbarous punishment of the poorer class of criminals so long as children are reared in the brutalizing influences of poverty, so long as the bite of want drives men to crime.
Usually, if we hate, it is the shadow of the person that we hate, rather than the substance. We may hate a person because he reminds us of someone we feared and disliked when younger; or because we see in him some gross caricature of what we find repugnant in ourself; or because he symbolizes an attitude that seems to threaten us.
Then when dusk began to settle he would retrace his steps, back to his own world. And on the way home, a loneliness would always claim his heart. He could never quite get a grip on what it was. It just seemed that whatever lay waiting "out there" was all too vast, too overwhelming for him to possibly ever make a dent in.
Those wanderers must have looked on Earth, circling safely in the narrow zone between fire and ice, and must have guessed that it was the favourite of the Sun's children.
Being human means there's a wall-builder in each of us. Our minds naturally divide the world into me and not-me, us and them. For thousands of years, our sages have taught that we're all one, yet we still divide wherever we look.
This curious world we inhabit is more wonderful than convenient; more beautiful than it is useful; it is more to be admired and enjoyed than used.
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