Quote:
Originally Posted by MikhailianInception
Personally, Watchman Nee is my favourite Christian writer of all time. His books The Normal Christian Life and The Overcoming Life have really helped reveal Christ in me (Galatians 1:15-16). However, the people in the Lord's Recovery also read Andrew Murray, Charles Spurgeon, Madame Guyon, Count Zinzendorf, D.L. Moody, Martin Luther, Bernard of Clairvaux, George Muller, R.A. Torrey, Hudson Taylor, John Bunyan, M.E. Barber, and A.W. Tozer (solid men and women of God). My guess is I think they're experiencing the genuine Christ in some way through reading these authors. Of course, they don't just read these books apart from the Bible. Am I wrong about this? I learned to rest in Christ through this movement's teachings, and I'm sure some of the other Christians here have as well, right? I am just curious about this..
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Bernard of Clairvaux
On CCEL:
"What is love? In his text On Loving God, St. Bernard surveys the four types of love that Christians experience as they grow in their relationship with God: loving one's self, selfish love, loving God as God, and loving one's self in God. St. Bernard reminds us that not only did God give us life, but He gave us Himself. For indeed, "God deserves to be loved very much, yea, boundlessly, because He loved us first, He infinite and we nothing, loved us, miserable sinners, with a love so great and so free." St. Bernard reminds us that we are indebted to God for his love and His sacrifice. Not only should we love God because it is what He deserves, but also because loving God does not go without reward. Loving God is to our advantage. The Lord rewards those who love Him with the blessed state of the heavenly Fatherland, where sorrow and sadness cannot enter. St. Bernard's medieval prose is poetic and full of clever imagery. His work is as beautiful as it is knowledgeable."
Review on Goodreads:
"There is so much in here to take in... so much that assists with one's understanding of the relationship between God and self. I will certainly be reading this one again! Quick and easy read for those who are trying to love God more. Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, pray for us!"
The problem I have with this orientation is that the focus is on us v/v God. Notice the reviewer: "the relationship between God and self". We rely on our feelings, and our judgments of our behaviours. But we are ephemera, dust. How can we measure? How does ephemera assess itself?
Yet when I see Jesus in the Gospels, when I see him discussed and collectively pursued in Acts, when I see Paul reaching out to the gentiles with news of this Saviour, my focus is drawn to him. He is the overcoming One. He is the King, enthroned. He is interceding for us, even always living to intercede for us. The Father hears his intercessions. I focus resolutely on him. Not on my focus. On him.
Watchman Nee and Witness Lee commercialized and institutionalized this introspective fixation, and it led people hither and yon. Talk about winds of teaching! Think how much ink was spilled in the "Recovery" on "The Church". I heard teen-aged girls, with an emotional hitch in their voice, tell everyone how much they loved the Church. But the Church should focus on him, not on the Church. The Body should focus on the Head, not on itself. Look at the monstrous "Queen" in the Apocalypse, eye-ing her garlands and gilded cup. No! Look at him! Only at him!
There is only one way home to the Father. And it is him. There is no other way.
(Please understand that I have nothing against Bernard of Clairvaux, Madame Guyon, Father Fenelon, or Watchman Nee for that matter. I have just come to realise over time that the only trustworthy experiences are those of Jesus Christ, plainly revealed in scripture. Trust nothing else.)