9月22日 傳道者的主人

你們稱呼我夫子，稱呼我主，你們說的不錯，我本來是。（約十三13）

有一位主人與被人驅使，是兩回事。有一位主人，就是有一位比我更認識我的人；他比朋友更親密；他深入我內心的深處，叫我滿足；他解決我心思裡一切的困惑與疑難，叫我安穩。這就是主人的意思，不折不扣－－只有一位是我們的主人，就是基督。

主從不勉強人順服，也不會設計使我們做他要我做的。有時我寧願神管制我，迫我做某些事，可是他不會這樣；有時我又希望他不要管我，但他也不會這樣。“你們稱呼我夫子，稱呼我主”－－他果真是嗎？夫子和主，在我們的字彙中很少出現；我們喜歡用救主、使人成聖者、醫治者等字眼。唯一可以描寫有一位主人這經歷的字眼，就是愛，而我們對神所啟示的愛，認識又那麼少。這在我們對“順服”一詞的運用上，就可以看出來。在聖經中，順服是根據平等關係而言，就是兒子與父親的關係。我們的主並不是神的僕人，他是神的兒子。“他雖然為兒子，還是……學了順服。”若我們以為是被轄管，這就是我們並未有主人的明證；這種對耶穌的態度，與他所想望的關係相距實在太遠。他要我們與他的關係，應該是自然地以他為主人，只知道我們屬他、聽他的話。

祈禱◆噢，主啊，我懷著靈性上極之枯乾和貧乏的感覺，來到你面前；噢，主啊，為著你的名，求你激發我。我不會在你面前悲歎，卻會被你的靈所充滿。

September 22 The Missionary's Master

“Ye call me Master and Lord: and ye say well; for so I am.” John 13:13

To have a master and to be mastered is not the same thing. To have a master means that there is one who knows me better than I know myself, one who is closer than a friend, one who fathoms the remotest abyss of my heart and satisfies it, one who has brought me into the secure sense that he has met and solved every perplexity and problem of my mind. To have a master is this and nothing less – “One is your Master, even Christ.”

Our Lord never enforces obedience; He does not take means to make me do what He wants. At certain times I wish God would master me and make me do the thing, but He will not; in other moods I wish He would leave me alone, but He does not.

“Ye call me Master and Lord” – but is He? Master and Lord have little place in our vocabulary, we prefer the words Saviour, Sanctifier, Healer. The only word to describe mastership in experience is love and we know very little about love as God reveals it. This is proved by the way we use the word obey. In the Bible obedience is based on the relationship of equals, that of a son with his father. Our Lord was not God's servant, He was His Son. “Though He were a Son, yet learned He obedience . . .” If our idea is that we are being mastered, it is a proof that we have no master; if that is our attitude to Jesus, we are far away from the relationship He wants. He wants us in the relationship in which He is easily Master without our conscious knowledge of it, all we know is that we are His to obey.