2月28日 现在你们信吗?

因此我们信……耶稣说,现在你们信吗?(约十六30-31)

“现在我们信。”耶稣说:“你们信吗?时候将到……你们要分散……留下我独自一人。”许多基督的工人留下主独自一人,凭自己的责任感去作工,或凭自己的判断觉得需要而做;这是因为缺少复活主的生命,与神失去了亲密的关系,只倚仗自己信仰上的知识(箴三5-6)。这个不涉及罪恶,也与刑罚无关;只是当发现这事成为我们认识基督的障碍,带来何等的困惑、愁苦、难处,就必然蒙羞抱愧,痛悔地回转。

我们必须更深切地投靠主耶稣复活的生命,养成一种习惯,在一切事情上不断寻求他的指引。可是我们往往会作出合常理的决定,然后才求神赐福。但他无法赐福,因为这事不属他国度的事,而且脱离现实。我们若凭责任感行事,就是坚立了一个标准与耶稣基督敌对。我们自视为“超人”,说:“这件事我要这样那样做。”我们把责任感放在宝座上,代替了主复活的生命。神没有叫我们行在良心或责任感的光中,乃是行在神的光中,正如神行在光中一样。出于责任感的工作,可以言之成理,持之有故;但出于顺服主的工作,没有别的解释——单单出于顺服。正因如此,圣徒容易被人嘲讽和误会!

祈祷◆噢,主啊,当我醒来,仍与你在一起。愿你以大能的复活生命,激发我的血肉之躯;愿你藉着不断涌入的能力,在这一刻唤醒我。

February Do Ye Now Believe?

“By this we believe . . . Jesus answered, Do ye now believe?” John 16:30-31

Now we believe. Jesus says – Do you? The time is coming when you will leave Me alone. Many a Christian worker has left Jesus Christ alone and gone into work from a sense of duty, or from a sense of need arising out of his own particular discernment. The reason for this is the absence of the resurrection life of Jesus. The soul has got out of intimate contact with God by leaning to its own religious understanding. There is no sin in it, and no punishment attached to it; but when the soul realizes how he has hindered his understanding of Jesus Christ, and produced for himself perplexities and sorrows and difficulties, it is with shame and contrition he has to come back.

We need to rely on the resurrection life of Jesus much deeper down than we do, to get into the habit of steadily referring everything back to Him; instead of this we make our common-sense decisions and ask God to bless them. He cannot, it is not in His domain, it is severed from reality. If we do a thing from a sense of duty, we are putting up a standard in competition with Jesus Christ. We become a “superior person,” and say – “Now in this matter I must do this and that.” We have put our sense of duty on the throne instead of the resurrection life of Jesus. We are not told to walk in the light of conscience or of a sense of duty, but to walk in the light as God is in the light. When we do anything from a sense of duty, we can back it up by argument; when we do anything in obedience to the Lord, there is no argument possible; that is why a saint can be easily ridiculed.