The basis for a Christian's experience is Romans 6:6. All we have to do is to allow God's Spirit to show us how our old man is crucified. Then we should lay hold of God's Word and believe that we are dead to sin. After this, we should live as if we are already dead. Even when temptations come and tell us that we have not died, we should still believe more in what God has done than in our feelings and experience. If we do this, experience will follow. We should note that God's fact does not become real by doing this. Rather, we do this because God's fact is already real.

   If our old man has not died, we could pray and ask Him to crucify it. But if the crucifixion is an accomplished fact and we still ask God to accomplish it again, then there is nothing more to say except that we are entirely lacking in faith. May we have greater faith before God. I admit that if I had not personally passed through my sickness in the past three years, I would not have known what faith is. In many places I have seen many dear brothers. But I have seldom seen a person who believes in God. What is faith? Faith is believing that whatever God has said means exactly what He has said. It is believing that everything is according to God's Word. God has said that the old man is dead. This means that our old man is dead. It is a fact that our old man is dead. A fact is something that God has accomplished through Christ. No one can say anything more about it. God sent His Son to accomplish everything for us and told us, through the Bible, what He accomplished. Now what He has accomplished is finished; God can do nothing more, and we should do nothing more than accept it before Him with a humble heart and believe that His Ward is real. May our hardened hearts and evil hearts of unbelief be removed so that we will receive God's grace.

   Many people do not realize the importance of faith. They think that obedience is more important. Actually, faith and obedience are equally important in the Bible and on our spiritual journey. Faith comes first, then obedience. A man must have faith before he can obey. If a man wants to obey before he believes, he is a "wretched man" indeed.

   We must have faith because facts only require our faith. Faith is the only means of turning facts into experience. God's facts are almost exclusively in Christ. This means that God's facts can only become facts in Christ. Since God's facts are in Christ, we believe in Christ and are joined to Him, we can experience God's accomplished facts in Christ. We must remember that apart from Christ, these things are no longer real. They are only real in Christ. Being in Christ means we are joined to Christ. This happened when we were saved. Although many people are in Christ, they do not abide in Christ. They do not exercise their faith to stand on the position that God has given them in Christ. Consequently, they lose the realization of God's fact...

[The Collected Works of Watchman Nee: Volume 9, The Present Testimony (2), THE NEW COVENANT (1) pp.328-330]