Firm Foundation Focus

In this episode, we continue through Watchman Nee's teaching on the law of the Spirit of life and begin looking more closely at the law of sin and death. Nee shows that our problem reaches much deeper than individual failures. The law of sin and death continually finds expression through the flesh, through all those familiar patterns by which we learned to meet our own needs independently from the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Nee then brings us to the Father's answer. One law is overcome by another law. Just as the life within a tree can lift paving stones that seem immovable, Holy Spirit brings the life of Christ into expression within us through the law of the Spirit of life. At the same time, Holy Spirit applies the reality of the Cross to the flesh, separating the son from the flesh by the law of the Spirit of life. The death side and the life side of the Cross work simultaneously together as Christ Himself becomes the source of our living.

About Alex

Alex is from the UK and he teaches and disciples across nations after years serving in Poland. His heart is the maturing of sons, believers growing into the fullness of Christ and revealing His life on earth. He serves within Firm Foundation, a work the Father is unfolding, joining partners who carry the same call. Through the Firm Foundation Focus podcast, Alex helps sons mature in Christ, discover the Father’s eternal purpose, and live Their way of life.

Check out the Firm Foundation website for more information ffdiscipleship.co.uk

In this episode, we begin exploring Watchman Nee's teaching on “The Law of the Spirit of Life” from Chapter 10 of The Normal Christian Life. Nee shows that the Christian life is governed by spiritual laws just as surely as the natural world is. The law of sin and death continually draws us back into self-reliance, while the law of the Spirit of life works through Holy Spirit to bring the life of Christ into expression within us.

We also spend time looking at the mind of the flesh and the mind of Christ. Drawing from Romans 8, 1 Corinthians 2, and Hebrews 12, we consider where weariness, discouragement, condemnation, and burnout really begin. The writer of Hebrews says, “Just think of Him,” because the mind of Christ never loses confidence in the Father. As we learn to turn our attention away from ourselves and toward Christ, we begin discovering the liberty Nee is describing throughout this chapter.

About Alex

Alex is from the UK and he teaches and disciples across nations after years serving in Poland. His heart is the maturing of sons, believers growing into the fullness of Christ and revealing His life on earth. He serves within Firm Foundation, a work the Father is unfolding, joining partners who carry the same call. Through the Firm Foundation Focus podcast, Alex helps sons mature in Christ, discover the Father’s eternal purpose, and live Their way of life.

Check out the Firm Foundation website for more information ffdiscipleship.co.uk

As we continue through Chapter 10 of The Normal Christian Life, we begin uncovering one of the biggest shifts in the Christian life: Christ Himself is the answer to every human need. Holy Spirit has not been given to help self improve itself, but to bring into expression the life of Christ within us. “He is our patience... He is our purity... He is the answer to every need.”

This episode also explores Nee’s line, “Christ my life is the secret of enlargement,” and what it means for Holy Spirit to enlarge the inward life of the believer so that Christ can increasingly be expressed through them. Drawing from Isaiah 54 and the enlarging of the tent, we look at how the Father widens our inward capacity before He entrusts greater territory outwardly.

About Alex

Alex is from the UK and he teaches and disciples across nations after years serving in Poland. His heart is the maturing of sons, believers growing into the fullness of Christ and revealing His life on earth. He serves within Firm Foundation, a work the Father is unfolding, joining partners who carry the same call. Through the Firm Foundation Focus podcast, Alex helps sons mature in Christ, discover the Father’s eternal purpose, and live Their way of life.

Check out the Firm Foundation website for more information ffdiscipleship.co.uk

In this opening episode of Walking in the Spirit, we begin working through Chapter 10 of The Normal Christian Life and move from the frustration of Romans 7 into the liberty of Romans 8. Many of us understood what it meant to be “in Christ,” while still trying to live the Christian life through self effort, natural strength, and the self life with its fierce independence. But this chapter begins unveiling another way altogether, walking in the Spirit.

In this episode we unpack the difference between being “in Christ” and actually walking “in the Spirit,” and begin looking at Galatians 5:17 in a completely different light. This is not a war between Holy Spirit and the new man. We are not our flesh. Holy Spirit has been given to deal with the flesh, while we learn what it means to remain hidden in Christ and depend upon the One who we are joined to in spirit.

Definition of the flesh: “Flesh is all of the ways, both good and evil, that I met my own needs, from my own resources, independently from Them (Father, Son and Holy Spirit).”

About Alex

Alex is from the UK and he teaches and disciples across nations after years serving in Poland. His heart is the maturing of sons, believers growing into the fullness of Christ and revealing His life on earth. He serves within Firm Foundation, a work the Father is unfolding, joining partners who carry the same call. Through the Firm Foundation Focus podcast, Alex helps sons mature in Christ, discover the Father’s eternal purpose, and live Their way of life.

Check out the Firm Foundation website for more information ffdiscipleship.co.uk

We finish Chapter 9 today by reading the final section, “Spiritually Receptive,” where Watchman Nee brings everything together around one confronting reality: brokenness opens a person to receive life from the rest of the Body. We look at how an unbroken intellect can leave a believer spiritually untouched for years, even while sitting faithfully in meetings, listening to teachings, and gathering knowledge, because the outward man is still resisting the inward flow of Christ through His people.

Alongside Nee’s reading, we continue drawing from Bonhoeffer’s Life Together, looking at the difference between humanly built Christian community and the actual life of the Body through the released spirit. We end with some very serious questions about what we are actually building together, whether we are truly receiving life from one another, and whether much of what we currently call church bears any resemblance to what the Father originally intended for His Son.

Questions at the end of the episode:

1. When we gather together, is it actually the Body of Christ expressing the life of the Head, or have we accepted something far below what the Father intended for His Son?
2. Have we built gatherings around personality, intellect, gifting, presentation, charisma, and preference, while the released spirit remains almost completely absent?
3. Are we truly receiving life from one another through the shared Spirit of Christ, or are we simply exchanging information, doctrines, opinions, and polished teachings?
4. When we listen to others speak, are we contacting the spirit, or are we sitting there inwardly analysing, evaluating, comparing, and measuring everything through self?
5. Has intellectual Christianity left us spiritually untouched while convincing us we are deeply mature?
6. Have we become so full of our own understanding, our own preferences, and our own conclusions, that there is almost no openness left in us to receive from the rest of the Body?
7. And honestly, when the Father truly gets what He has always wanted in His Son, a corporate expression of shared life through broken and open vessels, will much of what we currently call church even resemble it at all?

About Alex

Alex is from the UK and he teaches and disciples across nations after years serving in Poland. His heart is the maturing of sons, believers growing into the fullness of Christ and revealing His life on earth. He serves within Firm Foundation, a work the Father is unfolding, joining partners who carry the same call. Through the Firm Foundation Focus podcast, Alex helps sons mature in Christ, discover the Father’s eternal purpose, and live Their way of life.

Check out the Firm Foundation website for more information ffdiscipleship.co.uk

We continue through Chapter 9 of The Release of the Spirit, moving into Nee’s section on “Mutually Corporate,” where he shows that true Body life only becomes possible through brokenness. A person may be active in church life, deeply involved with people, and passionate about fellowship, and yet still remain inwardly closed because self is still protecting, preserving, reacting, and resisting. Nee shows that only the meek and broken can touch the shared inward life of the Body, because the released spirit becomes open to the common life of Christ flowing through His people.

Alongside Nee’s teaching, we also bring in Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s warnings from Life Together about “human” community and the danger of self trying to build Christian fellowship around its own expectations, ideals, and demands. Both men expose the same root issue: self ultimately resists the Father Himself. This episode looks at spiritual sensitivity within the Body, mutual inward awareness among broken sons, and why the outward man must be dealt with if we are going to live together from the mind of the Head rather than from self.

About Alex

Alex is from the UK and he teaches and disciples across nations after years serving in Poland. His heart is the maturing of sons, believers growing into the fullness of Christ and revealing His life on earth. He serves within Firm Foundation, a work the Father is unfolding, joining partners who carry the same call. Through the Firm Foundation Focus podcast, Alex helps sons mature in Christ, discover the Father’s eternal purpose, and live Their way of life.

Check out the Firm Foundation website for more information ffdiscipleship.co.uk

We continue through Chapter 9 of The Release of the Spirit, looking at spiritual receptivity and the openness that begins to appear when the outward man has truly been dealt with. Nee continues showing that a broken person becomes teachable, receptive, easy to help, and able to receive from others without resistance, defensiveness, or the constant need to protect themselves.

We gather together many of the hallmarks of meekness and brokenness from these sections, and continue looking at how the Father produces openness, honesty, fellowship, spiritual sensitivity, and receptivity in sons who are learning to live from Their shared life rather than from self.

About Alex

Alex is from the UK and he teaches and disciples across nations after years serving in Poland. His heart is the maturing of sons, believers growing into the fullness of Christ and revealing His life on earth. He serves within Firm Foundation, a work the Father is unfolding, joining partners who carry the same call. Through the Firm Foundation Focus podcast, Alex helps sons mature in Christ, discover the Father’s eternal purpose, and live Their way of life.

Check out the Firm Foundation website for more information ffdiscipleship.co.uk

We continue through Chapter 9 of The Release of the Spirit, looking at another quality of meekness, what Nee describes as being “highly sensitive.” This section focuses on spiritual awareness, responsiveness, and the ability to recognise what is happening around us because the soul is no longer dominating everything through self interest, opinion, reaction, and independence.

We talk about dullness, bulldozing ahead with our own ideas, missing what Holy Spirit is saying, and the difference between living from self awareness and living from oneness with Him. A meek son becomes receptive, aware, and responsive because Holy Spirit has worked this sensitivity into them over time through the dealings of the Father.

About Alex

Alex is from the UK and he teaches and disciples across nations after years serving in Poland. His heart is the maturing of sons, believers growing into the fullness of Christ and revealing His life on earth. He serves within Firm Foundation, a work the Father is unfolding, joining partners who carry the same call. Through the Firm Foundation Focus podcast, Alex helps sons mature in Christ, discover the Father’s eternal purpose, and live Their way of life.

Check out the Firm Foundation website for more information ffdiscipleship.co.uk

We begin Chapter 9 of The Release of the Spirit, ‘Meekness and Brokenness’, where Nee starts looking at the qualities found in a broken person. In this first section we talk about being approachable, accessible, open to fellowship, easy to talk with, and willing to receive instruction and correction. Nee shows that when the outward man has been dealt with, people no longer encounter walls, defensiveness, distance, and self preservation every time they come near us.

We also begin talking about confession, responsibility, openness with others, and what it means for a son to live openly before the Father and before people, because the self no longer needs to constantly manage its image.

Quote from The Blue Letter Bible: “Meekness toward God is that disposition of spirit in which we accept His dealings with us as good, and therefore without disputing or resisting. In the OT, the meek are those wholly relying on God rather than their own strength to defend against injustice. Thus, meekness toward evil people means knowing God is permitting the injuries they inflict, that He is using them to purify His elect, and that He will deliver His elect in His time (Isa 41:17, Luk 18:1–8). Gentleness or meekness is the opposite to self assertiveness and self interest. It stems from trust in God's goodness and control over the situation. The gentle person is not occupied with self at all. This is a work of the Holy Spirit, not of the human will (Gal 5:23).”

https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/g4239/kjv/tr/0-1/

About Alex

Alex is from the UK and he teaches and disciples across nations after years serving in Poland. His heart is the maturing of sons, believers growing into the fullness of Christ and revealing His life on earth. He serves within Firm Foundation, a work the Father is unfolding, joining partners who carry the same call. Through the Firm Foundation Focus podcast, Alex helps sons mature in Christ, discover the Father’s eternal purpose, and live Their way of life.

Check out the Firm Foundation website for more information ffdiscipleship.co.uk

We finish Chapter 3 with something very clear. There is a law in how the Father works, and prayer does not change what He is doing. Nee brings it right down to something we can all understand, if you put your hand in the fire, you will get burned. And in the same way, if I continue in independence, holding onto what is in my hand, there are consequences to that, and I can’t pray my way out of it. So the question begins to change, from asking Him to fix things, to recognising what He is doing and why.

And this brings us straight back to the same point we’ve been coming to all through this chapter, the inward man must come through the outward. If the outward man is still strong, still holding, still deciding, then what is within stays shut in, and there can be so much going on, and yet very little life. And so there comes a place where it is no longer more prayer, but agreement with Him, placing ourselves under His hand, and allowing Him to do what He has set out to do.

About Alex

Alex is from the UK and he teaches and disciples across nations after years serving in Poland. His heart is the maturing of sons, believers growing into the fullness of Christ and revealing His life on earth. He serves within Firm Foundation, a work the Father is unfolding, joining partners who carry the same call. Through the Firm Foundation Focus podcast, Alex helps sons mature in Christ, discover the Father’s eternal purpose, and live Their way of life.

Check out the Firm Foundation website for more information ffdiscipleship.co.uk