有人强逼你走一里路,你就同他走二里。(太五41)
除非主在我们身上行超然的工作,否则他教导中所要求的那种关系是不可能的。主耶稣要求门徒在遇到暴虐不平时,不可有丝毫的怨恨,即使藏在内心也不可。无论怎样的热诚,也受不住主耶稣加在工人身上的考验。只有一件事可以,就是与他有密切的关系,经历过他洁净的磨坊,以致只有一个心志留存--“我在此任神差派往何方。”别的东西都可以消失,但与主的关系绝对不可。
登山宝训不是一套理想。它陈述了我内心要发生的事:就是当主改变我,把他自己的性情放在我里面时所要成就的光景。只有耶稣基督才能达成登山宝训。
我们若要作主的门徒,就必须使我们超自然地成为门徒;若死持作门徒的存心,就必不能作门徒。“我拣选了你们。”这是神恩典开始的方式。这个催迫是我们无法逃避的,我们可以不听命,但我们断不能产生这个催迫。整个图画已被神超自然的恩典完成,我们却无法追溯他的工作是从哪里开始的。我们主塑造门徒的工作是超自然的,完全不是建基于任何天然的能力。神不会叫我们做人力容易达成的事,他只叫我们做那些凭恩典才能应付裕如的事,而十字架也总是循这个途径而来。
祈祷◆噢,主啊,为着那环绕我、使我犹如在天堂的圣徒祈祷,我赞美你。为着那透过你的救赎而临到我的无言恩典,我称颂你。
September 25: The “Go” Of Relationship
“And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain.” Matthew 5:41
The summing up of Our Lord’s teaching is that the relationship which He demands is an impossible one unless He has done a supernatural work in us. Jesus Christ demands that there be not the slightest trace of resentment even suppressed in the heart of a disciple when he meets with tyranny and injustice. No enthusiasm will ever stand the strain that Jesus Christ will put upon His worker, only one thing will, and that is a personal relationship to Himself which has gone through the mill of His spring-cleaning until there is only one purpose left – I am here for God to send me where He will. Every other thing may get fogged, but this relationship to Jesus Christ must never be.
The Sermon on the Mount is not an ideal, it is a statement of what will happen in me when Jesus Christ has altered my disposition and put in a disposition like His own. Jesus Christ is the only One Who can fulfil the Sermon on the Mount.
If we are to be disciples of Jesus, we must be made disciples supernaturally; as long as we have the dead set purpose of being disciples we may be sure we are not. “I have chosen you.” That is the way the grace of God begins. It is a constraint we cannot get away from; we can disobey it, but we cannot generate it. The drawing is done by the supernatural grace of God, and we never can trace where His work begins. Our Lord’s making of a disciple is supernatural. He does not build on any natural capacity at all. God does not ask us to do the things that are easy to us naturally; He only asks us to do the things we are perfectly fitted to do by His grace, and the cross will come along that line always.