I’m teaching an adult Sunday school class on growing in spiritual maturity. I was eager to teach the class for several reasons, not the least of which was because I hoped that by preparing to teach on spiritual maturity I myself would grow greatly. I’ve been a Christian for about 28 years and most of my Christian life has been spent as an spiritual baby, with some years spent in outright rebellion to God.
A few years ago, when I turned fifty, I realized it was long past time for me to change. Now I yearn to live the Christian life that Jesus calls us to live. It seems somewhat ironic to me that Watchman Nee refers to the life I want to live as “the normal Christian life.”
On page 56 of Watchman’s book The Normal Christian Life he said “Our first step is to seek from God a knowledge that comes by revelation–a revelation, that is to say, not of ourselves but of the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ on the Cross.”
This type of knowledge can only come by the work of the Holy Spirit. It is the type of knowledge that Paul is referring to in Ephesians 1:16-19.
Ephesians 1:16-19 (ESV) I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, 17that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, 18having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, 19and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe,
Watchman Nee, A.W. Tozer, and Andrew Murray all write about this kind of knowledge in a way that makes me want to experience it, too. The question is, do I want it more than anything else in life?