10月19日
被忽視的秘密
我的國不屬這世界。
(約18:36)
如今主耶穌基督很大的敵人,是我們對實際事工的觀念,它不從新約聖經而來,而是從這世界的系統而來,在支持各種活動上付出了無窮的精力,幾乎沒有了與神同在的個人關係。把重點放在了錯誤的事情上。耶穌說:“ 神的國來到不是眼所能見的。因為 神的國就在你們心裡。”(路17:20-21)它是一個隱藏的、不明顯的事物。一個活躍的基督徒工人經常活在商店的櫥窗裡。其實,只有內心的最深處才展現出生命的力量。
我們必須除去現在所處的宗教時代的精神災禍,在主的生命裡,並沒有那種我們熱崇的事工活動所出現的擁擠和匆促,作主門徒的要象他的主一樣。耶穌基督的國度裡最中心的事,是與他的個人關係,而不是對人的外在貢獻。
這所聖經訓練學院的力量,不在於實際的活動。它全部的力量在於這個事實:將你浸透在神的裡面。你根本不知道神要如何安排你的環境,也不知道你要在國內或者國外遭遇怎樣的壓力,如果你浪費你的時間、精力在過於活躍的活動上,而不是沉浸在關於神的救贖的偉大基要真理上,當壓力來時你就會被折斷。但是,如果花時間沉浸在神的裡面,切實地在神裡面紮根,那麼無論發生什麼,你都將保持對他的忠誠。
October
19 The Unheeded Secret
“My
kingdom is not of this world.” John 18:36
The great
enemy to the Lord Jesus Christ in the present day is the conception of
practical work that has not come from the New Testament, but from the systems
of the world in which endless energy and activities are insisted upon, but no
private life with God. The emphasis is put on the wrong thing. Jesus said, “The
kingdom of God cometh not with observation, for lo the kingdom of God is within
you,” a hidden, obscure thing. An active Christian worker too often lives in
the shop window. It is the innermost of the innermost that reveals the power of
the life.
We have to
get rid of the plague of the spirit of the religious age in which we live. In
Our Lord's life there was none of the press and rush of tremendous activity
that we regard so highly, and the disciple is to be as His Master. The central
thing about the kingdom of Jesus Christ is a personal relationship to Himself,
not public usefulness to men.
It is not
its practical activities that are the strength of this Bible Training College,
its whole strength lies in the fact that here you are put into soak before God.
You have no idea of where God is going to engineer your circumstances, no
knowledge of what strain is going to be put on you either at home or abroad,
and if you waste your time in over-active energies instead of getting into soak
on the great fundamental truths of God's Redemption, you will snap when the
strain comes; but if this time of soaking before God is being spent in getting
rooted and grounded in God on the unpractical line, you will remain true to Him
what ever happens.