Finally finished reading "The Normal Christian Life" by Watchman Nee this morning. Great book! I regret having read it so sporadically over the last several months. I began it in June & probably should have had it finished in June. While it was good, I would have retained it more reading it more systematically. Now I'm left with this desire to go back & re-read parts of it. Maybe another day. Too many books in the queue right now. Here's a final quote from the last chapter ... To get the full impact of what he is saying here, read the story of Mary anointing the feet of Jesus with perfume in Mark 14.

'Wheresoever the gospel shall be preached ... that also which this woman hath done shall be spoken of' (Mark 14:9).

Why did the Lord say this? Because the Gospel is meant to produce this. It is what the Gospel is for. The Gospel is not just to satisfy sinners. Praise the Lord, sinners will be satisfied! but their satisfaction is, may we say, a blessed by-product of the Gospel and not its primary aim. The Gospel is preached in the first place so that the Lord may be satisfied.

I am afraid we lay too much emphasis on the good of sinners and we have not sufficiently appreciated what the Lord has in view as His goal. We have been thinking how the sinner will fare if there is no Gospel, but that is not the main consideration. Yes, Praise God! the sinner has his part. God meets his need and showers him with blessings; but that is not the most important thing. The first thing is this, that everything should be to the satisfaction of the Son of God. It is only when He is satisfied that we shall be satisfied and the sinner will be satisfied. I have never met a soul who has set out to satisfy the Lord and has not been satisfied himself. It is impossible. Our satisfaction comes unfailingly when we satisfy Him first.

But we have to remember this, that He will never be satisfied without our 'wasting' ourselves upon Him. Have you ever given too much to the Lord? May I tell you something? One lesson some of us have come to learn is this, that in divine service the principle of waste is the principle of power. The principle which determines usefulness is the very principle of scattering. Real usefulness in the hand of God is measured in terms of 'waste.' The more you think you can do, and the more you employ your gifts up to the very limit (and some even go over the limit!) in order to do it, the more you find that you are applying the principle of the world and not of the Lord. God's ways with us are all designed to establish in us this other principle, namely, that our work for Him springs out of our ministering to Him. I do not mean that we are going to do nothing; but the first thing for us must be the Lord Himself, not His work.

I take it back... more quotes to follow. Just too many to choose from in this last portion of the book. I'll post them over the next few days for you all to think/meditate on.