2月26日 对耶稣的低估

先生没有打水的器具。(约四11)

“神所说的一切奇妙我很钦仰,但他休想我能在生活里真正行出来!”论到主耶稣本身的美德,往往叫我们有一种敬虔的优越感。“你的理想甚高,令我们心悦诚服,但一涉及实际事物,就行不通了。”我们各人对耶稣或多或少总有这样的想法。当我们向人讲说与神立约,人家会好奇地问:“你的钱从哪里来?你怎么应付生活?”因而使我们对耶稣发生质疑。有时这种疑虑会发自我们本身,对主说这件事他也许难以应付。“说信靠主是不错的,但人总要生活的啊,耶稣连打水的器具也没有,他怎样供应我们?”你要留心里面那敬虔的虚伪说:“我不怪主耶稣,只怪自己。”人从来不会怪责自己;我们无能为力的地方,自己知得很清楚,但不满意主的却很多。对他能做而我们所不能的,我们会觉得有损自尊。

当我省察自己,才发现神对任何事物都能应付自如,这样,不满就油然而生,因为我的自卑感在作祟。若真的是这样,要来到神面前承认:“主,我对你有误会,我未能放下自己,去信任你的智慧;我没有离开自我的悟性,去相信你的全能。”

祈祷◆噢,主啊,我怀着何等的释然投向你。我对你的需要真是数之不尽,而在那奇异的释放和喜乐中,我发现我所需要的,就只有你。

February 26 Inferior Misgivings About Jesus

“Sir, Thou hast nothing to draw with.” John 4:11

“I am impressed with the wonder of what God says, but He cannot expect me really to live it out in the details of my life!” When it comes to facing Jesus Christ on His own merits, our attitude is one of pious superiority – Your ideals are high and they impress us, but in touch with actual things, it cannot be done. Each of us thinks about Jesus in this way in some particular. These misgivings about Jesus start from the amused questions put to us when we talk of our transactions with God – Where are you going to get your money from? How are you going to be looked after? Or they start from ourselves when we tell Jesus that our case is a bit too hard for Him. It is all very well to say “Trust in the Lord,” but a man must live, and Jesus has nothing to draw with – nothing whereby to give us these things. Beware of the pious fraud in you which says – I have no misgivings about Jesus, only about myself. None of us ever had misgivings about ourselves; we know exactly what we cannot do, but we do have misgivings about Jesus. We are rather hurt at the idea that He can do what we cannot.

My misgivings arise from the fact that I ransack my own person to find out how He will be able to do it. My questions spring from the depths of my own inferiority. If I detect these misgivings in myself, let me bring them to the light and confess them – “Lord, I have had misgivings about Thee, I have not believed in Thy wits apart from my own; I have not believed in Thine almighty power apart from my finite understanding of it.”