The Chinese church leader and Christian teacher who worked in China during the 20th century. In 1922, he initiated church meetings in Fuzhou. He is considered the father of the House Church movement in China.
During his thirty years of ministry, Nee published many books expounding the Bible. He established churches throughout China and held many conferences to train Bible students and church workers.
Following the Communist Revolution, Nee was persecuted and imprisoned for his faith and spent the last twenty years of his life in prison. He said, “When the Lord called me to serve Him, the prime object was not for me to hold revival meetings so that people may hear more Scriptural doctrines nor for me to become a great evangelist. The Lord revealed to me that He wanted to build up local churches in other localities to manifest Himself, to bear testimony of unity on the ground of local churches so that each saint may perform his duty in the Church and live the Church life. God wants not merely individual pursuit of victory or spirituality but a corporate, glorious Church presented to Himself.”
“In June 1972, we got a notice from the labor farm that my granduncle had passed away. My eldest grandaunt and I rushed to the labor farm. But when we got there, we learned that he had already been cremated. We could only see his ashes… Before his departure, he left a piece of paper under his pillow, which had several lines of big words written in a shaking hand. He wanted to testify to the truth which he had even until his death, with his lifelong experience. That truth is—”Christ is the Son of God who died for the redemption of sinners and resurrected after three days.
This is the greatest truth in the universe. I die because of my belief in Christ. Watchman Nee.” When the officer of the labor farm showed us this paper, I prayed that the Lord would let me quickly remember it by heart… My granduncle had passed away. He was faithful until death. With a crown stained with blood, he went to be with the Lord. Although Nee did not fulfill his last wish, to come out alive to join his wife, the Lord prepared something even better—they were reunited before the Lord.”
— Watchman Nee’s grandniece, Watchman Nee: A Seer of the Divine Revelation in the Present Age.”
Nesbit published approximately 40 books for children, including novels, collections of stories and picture books. Collaborating with others, she published almost as many more.
Nesbit was “the first modern writer for children”: Nesbit “helped to reverse the great tradition of children’s literature inaugurated by Lewis Carroll, George MacDonald and Kenneth Grahame, in turning away from their secondary worlds to the tough truths to be won from encounters with things-as-they-are, previously the province of adult novels.” Briggs also credits Nesbit with having invented the children’s adventure story. Noël Coward was a great admirer of hers and, in a letter to an early biographer Noel Streatfeild, wrote “she had an economy of phrase, and an unparalleled talent for evoking hot summer days in the English countryside.”
Among Nesbit’s best-known books are The Story of the Treasure Seekers (1899) and The Wouldbegoods (1901), which both recount stories about the Bastables, a middle-class family that has fallen on (relatively) hard times. The Railway Children is also known from its adaptation into a 1970 film version. Gore Vidal called the time-travel book, The Story of the Amulet one in which “Nesbit’s powers of invention are at their best.” Her children’s writing also included numerous plays and collections of verse.
Who was Dorothy Sayers:
She is best known for her mysteries, a series of novels and short stories set between the First and Second World Wars that feature English aristocrat and amateur sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey, which remain popular to this day. However, Sayers herself considered her translation of Dante’s Divine Comedy to be her best work. She is also known for her plays, literary criticism, and essays.
She was a member of a literary society called the Inklings, which included Owen Barfield, CS Lewis, and JRR Tolkien.
Her very influential essay The Lost Tools of Learning has been used by many schools in the US as a basis for the classical education movement, reviving the medieval trivium subjects (grammar, logic, and rhetoric) as tools to enable the analysis and mastery of every other subject. Sayers also wrote three volumes of commentaries about Dante, religious essays, and several plays, of which The Man Born to Be King may be the best known.
It starts first thing every day—what you put your hands on. Where does the intuition come from to know what to respond to through the day? For instance, I’m making sure the news is not something I put my hands on through the computer, first thing each morning. Matter of fact, I’ve been fasting the news, and it feels great!
Most of us are familiar with the thought of having spiritual ears to hear what God is saying and spiritual eyes to see from a religious perspective. But what about the things we touch every day?
He spoke:
Do you want to take a step further into the inner courts with Me? Consider what the Holy Spirit would say to you about what you touch every day.
The whole point of sanctification isn’t to make you a perfect human. It is to draw you into unity with Me. Keep seeking My face; never give up. Don’t be discouraged by failures, regrets, or seemingly insurmountable odds. I am mighty in battle and the Lord of Hosts. Give yourself entirely to Me, and We can share the victory over the enemy and the spoils.
Take your hands and move out some of the things in your life you are wasting your time on. I’m not into sacrifices, except on this one instance. Offer me the sacrifice of clean hands and a pure heart.
“For My people have committed two evils. They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water” (Jer. 2:13).
“Depart, depart, go out from there, touch no unclean thing; go out of the midst of her; be clean, you who bear the vessels of the Lord” (Is. 52:11).
All of us have those random, troubling dreams and thoughts. Sometimes I wonder where a dream originated. How could I have such an evil feeling about someone? Our heart is accurately portrayed by the Psalmist when he says, “The heart is desperately wicked.”
Our dilemma is that we can do nothing about our heart. We can’t change it, purify it, or redirect its passions. We urgently need a savior.
He spoke:
I see every corridor of your heart. The Holy Spirit will purify the uncharted regions of your heart that you don’t even know exist.
If the Holy Spirit could only cleanse the conscious part of your life, you would have no hope. But He also has power over your unconscious dreams and imaginations. You just need to ask.
I am God from the early morning to the late night. I am God over all things. I hold all things together. I am the one who completes all things.
My blood cleanses you from all sin. I reserve a place of sanctity in the Holy Spirit where your body, mind, and soul thrive in unspotted integrity and agreement.
“May the very God of peace sanctify you completely. And I pray to God that your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thess. 5:23).
“But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin” (1 John 1:7).
There are elements in the Christian life that mark it with beauty and wellbeing. They make a person fit for being a blessing to others in this world. They are the attitudes that call forth heroic virtues of the life of faith. Nothing shows more nobility of character that the spirit of daring and perseverance which battles major difficulties and conquers. So should we who are Christians be able to face the difficulties we meet in prayer. The blessings that others need must be called down from heaven in persevering, believing prayer.
These are the marks of a true intercessor:
• An understanding of the need of those who don’t know Christ
• A Christlike love
• An awareness of personal inadequacy
• Faith in the power of prayer
• Courage to persevere in spite of refusal
• The assurance of an abundant reward
These are the qualities that change a Christian into an intercessor.
