4月24日 放纵的警告

然而不要因鬼服了你们就欢喜。（路十20）

作主工人的，世俗不会成为网罗，罪恶也不会成为陷阱，可是属灵的放纵则会。这就是说，承受现今宗教潮流的模式，只专注于属灵的成功。除了神的赞许，千万不要追逐别的事物。要“出到营外就了他去，忍受他所受的凌辱。”耶稣吩咐门徒不要为事奉的成功而欢欣，但这却偏偏是大多数人最庆幸的。我们的眼光是很商业化的——有多少人得救、成圣、于是就感谢神，因一切都办妥了。神的恩已立好根基，我们乃是在这根基上作工；我们不是去拯救灵魂，乃是叫他们作门徒。救恩与成圣是神无限恩典的工作；身为他的门徒，我们的工作就是要使人作门徒，直至他们全然顺服神。一个全然归神的生命，比一百个仅仅被圣灵唤醒的人，更为神所珍贵。作为神的工人，我们必须在属灵上繁殖同类的生命，这要成为我们作神工人的明证。

神既藉着恩典把我们带到更高的生活水平，我们就有责任使别人也达到这种水平。除非工人过的是与基督一样藏在神里面的生活，他势必成为惹人讨厌的独裁者，而不是一个在主里作门徒的人。我们不少人是独裁者，喜欢支配人，操纵聚会，唯我独尊。耶稣却从来没有这样对我们。主每逢提到作门徒，他便一定加一个“若”字，他从来不用强制的命令说“你必须”。作门徒是有选择的余地的。

祈祷◆我在多方面需要你！我赞美你，因为你让人寻见。主啊，让我寻见你；但惟有当你亲自来到，我才可以寻见你。

April 24 The Warning Against Wantoning

“Notwithstanding in this rejoice not, that the spirits are subject unto you.” Luke 10:20

As Christian workers, worldliness is not our snare, sin is not our snare, but spiritual wantoning is, viz.: taking the pattern and print of the religious age we live in, making eyes at spiritual success. Never court anything other than the approval of God, go “without the camp, bearing His reproach.” Jesus told the disciples not to rejoice in successful service, and yet this seems to be the one thing in which most of us do rejoice. We have the commercial view – so many souls saved and sanctified, thank God, now it is all right. Our work begins where God’s grace has laid the foundation; we are not to save souls, but to disciple them. Salvation and sanctification are the work of God’s sovereign grace; our work as His disciples is to disciple lives until they are wholly yielded to God. One life wholly devoted to God is of more value to God than one hundred lives simply awakened by His Spirit. As workers for God we must reproduce our own kind spiritually, and that will be God’s witness to us as workers. God brings us to a standard of life by His grace, and we are responsible for reproducing that standard in others.

Unless the worker lives a life hidden with Christ in God, he is apt to become an irritating dictator instead of an indwelling disciple. Many of us are dictators, we dictate to people and to meetings. Jesus never dictates to us in that way. Whenever Our Lord talked about discipleship, He always prefaced it with an “IF,” never with an emphatic assertion – “You must.” Discipleship carries an option with it.