……有福了。（太五3-10）
初读主耶稣的话时，但觉平平无奇，于是不自觉地拋诸脑后。例如八福就似乎只是一套温和优美的观念，是为那些超世闲逸，无用的人而设的，对于我们所居住的这个冷酷、平凡的世界，并无实际用场。可是，不久我们就会发现，八福其实有圣灵的炸药，当碰到生活环境的引发线，就会爆炸。圣灵会提醒人八福中的某一项，我们就会说：“多令人震惊的一句话呀！”我们就得决定，是否愿意接受这因我们肯顺服而在我们所处环境中产生的属灵上的重大动荡。这就是神的灵做工的方式。我们不需要重生来在生活中应用登山宝训。按字面意义来解释登山宝训是小孩的玩意；当圣灵将我们主的话语应用到我们的处境中时，圣灵的解释才是圣徒的严谨工作。
耶稣的教训与我们看事的常理大不相同，开始的时候会令人浑身不舒服。当圣灵把主的话应用在我们实际环境中，我们便要慢慢学习，依从主耶稣的观念来做事及说话。登山宝训不是一套规条，而是生活的写照，就是当我们顺服圣灵时所活出的生命。
祈祷◆主啊，最近我感到晦暗而不明朗，好像你正在带领我进入一个真理的范畴，是我前所未到过的。主啊，高举我，直至我看见你；支持我，直至我完成你的计划。
July 25: Am I Blessed Like This?
“Blessed are . . .” Matthew 5:3-10
When we first read the statements of Jesus they seem wonderfully simple and unstartling, and they sink unobserved into our unconscious minds. For instance, the Beatitudes seem merely mild and beautiful precepts for all unworldly and useless people, but of very little practical use in the stern workaday world in which we live. We soon find, however, that the Beatitudes contain the dynamite of the Holy Ghost. They explode, as it were, when the circumstances of our lives cause them to do so. When the Holy Spirit brings to our remembrance one of these Beatitudes we say – ‘What a startling statement that is!’ and we have to decide whether we will accept the tremendous spiritual upheaval that will be produced in our circumstances if we obey His words. That is the way the Spirit of God works. We do not need to be born again to apply the Sermon on the Mount literally. The literal interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount is child’s play; the interpretation by the Spirit of God as He applies Our Lord’s statements to our circumstances is the stern work of a saint.
The teaching of Jesus is out of all proportion to our natural way of looking at things and it comes with astonishing discomfort to begin with. We have slowly to form our walk and conversation on the line of the precepts of Jesus Christ as the Holy Spirit applies them to our circumstances. The Sermon on the Mount is not a set of rules and regulations: it is a statement of the life we will live when the Holy Spirit is getting His way with us.