10月19日 被忽视的秘密

我的国不属这世界。 (约18:36)

如今主耶穌基督很大的敌人,是我们对实际事工的观念,它不从新约圣经而来,而是从这世界的系统而来,在支持各种活动上付出了无穷的精力,几乎没有了与神同在的个人关系。把重点放在了错误的事情上。耶穌说:“ 神的国来到不是眼所能见的。因为 神的国就在你们心里。”(路17:20-21)它是一个隐藏的、不明显的事物。一个活跃的基督徒工人经常活在商店的橱窗里。其实,只有内心的最深处才展现出生命的力量。

我们必须除去现在所处的宗教时代的精神灾祸,在主的生命里,并没有那种我们热崇的事工活动所出现的拥挤和匆促,作主门徒的要象他的主一样。耶穌基督的国度里最中心的事,是与他的个人关系,而不是对人的外在贡献。

这所圣经训练学院的力量,不在于实际的活动。它全部的力量在于这个事实:将你浸透在神的里面。你根本不知道神要如何安排你的环境,也不知道你要在国内或者国外遭遇怎样的压力,如果你浪费你的时间、精力在过于活跃的活动上,而不是沉浸在关于神的救赎的伟大基要真理上,当压力来时你就会被折断。但是,如果花时间沉浸在神的里面,切实地在神里面扎根,那么无论发生什么,你都将保持对他的忠诚。

October 19 The Unheeded Secret

“My kingdom is not of this world.” John 18:36

The great enemy to the Lord Jesus Christ in the present day is the conception of practical work that has not come from the New Testament, but from the systems of the world in which endless energy and activities are insisted upon, but no private life with God. The emphasis is put on the wrong thing. Jesus said, “The kingdom of God cometh not with observation, for lo the kingdom of God is within you,” a hidden, obscure thing. An active Christian worker too often lives in the shop window. It is the innermost of the innermost that reveals the power of the life.

We have to get rid of the plague of the spirit of the religious age in which we live. In Our Lord's life there was none of the press and rush of tremendous activity that we regard so highly, and the disciple is to be as His Master. The central thing about the kingdom of Jesus Christ is a personal relationship to Himself, not public usefulness to men.

It is not its practical activities that are the strength of this Bible Training College, its whole strength lies in the fact that here you are put into soak before God. You have no idea of where God is going to engineer your circumstances, no knowledge of what strain is going to be put on you either at home or abroad, and if you waste your time in over-active energies instead of getting into soak on the great fundamental truths of God's Redemption, you will snap when the strain comes; but if this time of soaking before God is being spent in getting rooted and grounded in God on the unpractical line, you will remain true to Him what ever happens.