将各样的计谋,各样阻拦人认识神的那些自高之事,一概攻破了。(林后十5)
从罪得释放,并不等于从人性中得释放。人性中有些东西(例如偏见),圣徒要不顾,才能毁灭;有些东西要靠强力,就是神属天的能力来拆毁;而另外有些东西则不用争战,我们只管站住,静静观看神的拯救。任何理论或观念,若阻碍了对神的认识,就必须立志靠神的能力去拆毁,而不是靠肉体的努力或妥协(林后十4)。
惟有当我们的性情被神改造,进入成圣的经验里去,这一场争战才可开始。这场仗不是向罪打,我们永无法与罪对抗:耶稣基督的救赎已对付了罪。争战在于把天然生命转为属灵生命,这不是容易的,神也不想把这事变得容易。这事的作成,是要经过一连串的道德选择。神并没有让我们在品格上变得圣洁,乃是叫我们无罪,然后我们需要透过一连串的道德选择,把这无罪转变成为圣洁的品格。这些选择往往不断与我们天然生命的盘踞点,及那些阻拦我们认识神的堡垒对抗。我们一回头,就会在神的国里一事无成;或者,我们可以决意拆毁这些东西,让耶稣多得一个儿子进到荣耀里去。
祈祷◆噢,主啊,愿这天成为一个完全属乎你这位王的日子。感动我们,噢,主啊,让我们在属灵和物质上的一切生活,都可以配合你的计划。只要是出于你的感动,一切都会变得美好。
September 8: Do It Yourself
“Casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God.” 2 Corinthians 10:5
Deliverance from sin is not deliverance from human nature. There are things in human nature, such as prejudices, which the saint has to destroy by neglect; and other things which have to be destroyed by violence, i.e., by the Divine strength imparted by God’s Spirit. There are some things over which we are not to fight, but to stand still in and see the salvation of God; but every theory or conception which erects itself as a rampart against the knowledge of God is to be determinedly demolished by drawing on God’s power, not by fleshly endeavour or compromise (v. 4).
It is only when God has altered our disposition and we have entered into the experience of sanctification that the fight begins. The warfare is not against sin; we can never fight against sin: Jesus Christ deals with sin in Redemption. The conflict is along the line of turning our natural life into a spiritual life, and this is never done easily, nor does God intend it to be done easily. It is done only by a series of moral choices. God does not make us holy in the sense of character; He makes us holy in the sense of innocence, and we have to turn that innocence into holy character by a series of moral choices. These choices are continually in antagonism to the entrenchments of our natural life, the things which erect themselves as ramparts against the knowledge of God. We can either go back and make ourselves of no account in the Kingdom of God, or we can determinedly demolish these things and let Jesus bring another son to glory.