This blog is NOT for Baby Christians.....

I love to read books and I am always trying to find new books to read that really help me with my spiritual walk.  One book in particular that I am speaking about is "Spiritual Authority" by Watchman Nee.  This book is not easy to follow, the context of it is really hard to get a grasp of.  If you are an early christian then this book would not be the best to start with.  If you are a mature christian and you are looking for something more challenging that will get you to that "next level" then this would be a perfect pick!!! I was going to pull a few concepts from the book that really get your  mind running.  Three Requirements for a Delegated Authority:  1) He must know that all authority comes from God. There is no authority except from God; and those that exist are set up by God (Romans 13:1 Darby) He himself is not the authority, nor can anyone make of himself an authority.  His opinions, ideas and thoughts are no better than those of others.  They are utterly worthless.  Only what comes from God constitutes authority and commands man's obedience.  A delegated authority is to represent God's authority, never to assume that he too has authority.  (from the book)
  Now this basically spoke volumes to me because we read the bible and hear what the person in authority has to say (God) and we still live our lives the way we want to.  Maybe we will even pick bits and pieces of the bible and still carry on with our way of thinking.  If we truly are followers of God then he is our source to follow fully and to follow under his authority.  When I say this I mean FULLY SURRENDER!!!! It seems like we can read Gods word and be like "wow, that sounds great, wish i could live that way, but............."  Here we are assuming that we have authority as well.  There can only be ONE leader not two.  Let this sink into your head for a moment.  Re-read it over and over, I had to.  Now number 2) He must Deny himself.  This is not to imply that before he can be used by God he must be reduced to having no opinion, no thought, and no judgement.  Not at all.  It merely means that the man must be truly broken; his cleverness and his opinions and his thoughts  must all be broken.  Those who are naturally talkative, opinionated, and self conceited need a radical dealing , a basic bending.  (from the book)
We hear this in church and think in our life we have been "truly broken and denied ourselves" but the truth is this is something that has to keep happening over and over.  There is a "start" of this process but it is continuous.  The only way it will be over is when we are no longer here on earth.  So DAILY we need to deny ourselves and follow Christ.  This goes in exact opposite with our flesh, because we naturally think of our own needs first and quench them first because we have our own thoughts, opinions, morals, views, etc.  This is where step one comes into place, we need to go under his authority and follow it and then step two says to deny ourselves.  Before we can be true followers of Christ he has to truly break us, to get our attention.  We have to see that we cannot do it alone and that we need him in our lives daily!!!!  This is a daily thing, it is for days we feel great and for days when we don't feel like doing it.  Now last step 3) He must constantly keep in fellowship with the Lord.   Those who are Gods delegated authority need to maintain close fellowship with God.  There must be not only communication but communion.  Anyone who offers opinions freely and speaks in the name of the Lord carelessly is far away from God.  Those who are near to God have a godly fear; they know how defiling it is to carelessly express their own opinions.  (from book)
So now that we know the last and final step how do we apply this?  It is actually easy....are you ready?...... MAKE TIME!!!!  We all have schedules where we make time for people, activities, working out, date nights, etc.  If we truly love our savior then we make time for him because we need to be in constant fellowship with him. We NEED to hear what he has to say to us, and we need to lay our burdens on him.  We mess up every single day, so we need him daily.  We are always going to be asking for forgiveness because we are daily sinners, minute by minute sinners.

    This material is ALOT to take in, this is a process where you need to train your mind on how to think, feel, etc.  This does not come naturally, so this is something you need to pray to God about to remind you this, to always keep him first, then that way you will always be under his covering.