Amazing Grace by Watchman Nee Read Free Book Online

narratives are one
hundred percent factual or even almost factual. What, then, is the one undertaking
in the world which is most accurate? Is it not that of accounting? For example,
two plus two is four. This accounting or reckoning is certain, for no one can declare
that two plus two is three and be believed. No, the mathematical equation, two
plus two equals four, can never be said to be less or more. For those in kindergarten
the reckoning of two plus two being four is true just as it is for the college
students in the world.   Not because a
person has a doctor’s degree can that one credibly say that two plus two is
five. Hence, accounting or reckoning is one of the most exact activities in the
world.
    Here God has accounted us as having died, for we were
already dead. Just as you cannot say four is the answer to two plus two unless the
answer is truly four, so you cannot reckon yourselves as dead unless you are
truly dead. Suppose you are an accountant in a store. What can you do if the
account shows a loss of twenty thousand dollars? You can only report such an
amount as a loss. You cannot enter such an amount into the account book as being
an earning of twenty thousand dollars.
Whatever is recorded in the account ledger must be exactly whatever has been
the loss or gain. Hence, when God reckons us to be dead, it means precisely
that—that we have really died. Only real death can be reckoned as being dead.
You cannot reckon yourselves as being dead if you have not yet died.
    The call in the Bible for us to reckon is a call for us
to experience faith. How do we reckon? We reckon by faith. We now know that
when the Lord was crucified, He had brought our old man with Him to be
crucified as well. This hopeless, sinful and defiled you was crucified with Him too. If you still consider yourselves as alive and not dead,
let me tell you, this is because you have no faith.

Believe
God’s Word, Not One’s Feeling
    I often sense that what believers lack most is faith. We
know the truth, but we lack experience. This is due to our lack of faith
(Hebrews 4:2b). If there is living faith, all will be real. Without faith,
truth remains truth and you remain you but there is no connection between the
two. Yet with the exercise of faith, all the Biblical truths will become your
experience. God has declared you are dead in Christ Jesus, you believe that
declaration of fact, and so you are really truly dead.
    Two years ago a foreign missionary came to see me. She
was a sister in the Lord and had a few children. She said to me: “Mr. Nee, I am
really at my wits’ end. If one of my children cries I can bear it, but when
another also cries, I lose my patience. My patience can only endure one, not
two of them, crying. I lose my temper, Mr. Nee, so what can I do? I continue to
see myself as really still alive, I not having died. This is the reason for my failures.
Had I truly died, everything would be fine. Is that not so?” I answered her with
a smile, saying: “Where in Scripture does God tell you that you died in yourself?
God has never said that. What He has said
is that you died in Christ . If your eyes only see yourself,
you shall see that you are indeed very much alive. But if you see Christ, you
will see that you truly did die.”
    Many Christians know the truth of co-death, but they
still look at themselves and therefore feel themselves to be alive. God has
never said that upon your hearing the truth of co-death and looking at yourself
that you will therefore see yourself as dead. Such would be according to
feeling, not according to faith. Faith is looking to Christ and not at oneself.
Faith is seeing oneself in Christ, not seeing oneself in himself. Believers should
never look at themselves; they should always view themselves as being in
Christ.
    Satan will continually tempt you by telling you that you
are alive. How do you know you are alive? You know it in yourself. Satan therefore
tempts you to look at yourself. He deceives