看哪,我们上耶路撒冷去。(路十八31)

在主耶稣的生命中,耶路撒冷是他成就父神旨意的顶峰。“我不求自己的意思,只求那差我来者的意思。”在救主的一生中,这是他唯一最大的关注。路途上所遇的一切,不论忧喜成败,从不使他偏离这个目标。“他就定意向耶路撒冷去。”

最重要的是知道上耶路撒冷去,是要完成神的计划,而不是我们自己的计划。很自然的,雄心是出于我们自己;但在信徒的生命中,应该没有自己的目标。今天太多人提出自己为基督而作的决定--我们决志作基督徒,我们决定做这做那——但新约带出的,却是神自己的催逼。

“不是你们拣选了我,是我拣选了你们。”我们并不是有意识地进入神的计划,乃是在不知不觉中进到神的计划里去。我们根本不知道神怎样筹算,而且一日比一日模糊。神的目标似乎总是达不到,因为我们太短视,看不见他的目标。初信之时,我们对神的计划有自己的想法——“我应该到某处某处。”“神呼召我作这特别的工作。”于是,我们去了,做了,但神的催逼依然存在。我们所作的工算不得什么,与神的催逼比较,不过是平台架而已。“耶稣带着十二个门徒。”他不住地带领着我们,我们还有许多未进入之地。

祈祷◆噢,主啊,我来到你面前;无论自觉或非自觉地,我怀着极大的需要靠近你。求你为着你的荣耀高举我、带领我、充满我,使我能和谐地配合你的计划和旨意。

August 3: The Big Compelling Of God

“Behold, we go up to Jerusalem.” Luke 18:31

Jerusalem stands in the life of Our Lord as the place where He reached the climax of His Father’s will. “I seek not Mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent Me.” That was the one dominating interest all through our Lord’s life, and the things He met with on the way, joy or sorrow, success or failure, never deterred Him from His purpose. “He steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem.”

The great thing to remember is that we go up to Jerusalem to fulfil God’s purpose, not our own. Naturally, our ambitions are our own; in the Christian life we have no aim of our own. There is so much said today about our decisions for Christ, our determination to be Christians, our decisions for this and that, but in the New Testament it is the aspect of God’s compelling that is brought out. “Ye have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you.” We are not taken up into conscious agreement with God’s purpose, we are taken up into God’s purpose without any consciousness at all. We have no conception of what God is aiming at, and as we go on it gets more and more vague. God’s aim looks like missing the mark because we are too short sighted to see what He is aiming at. At the beginning of the Christian life we have our own ideas as to what God’s purpose is – ‘I am meant to go here or there,’ ‘God has called me to do this special work’; and we go and do the thing, and still the big compelling of God remains. The work we do is of no account, it is so much scaffolding compared with the big compelling of God. “He took unto Him the twelve,” He takes us all the time. There is more than we have got at as yet.