3月12日 撇弃一切

彼得就对他说:看哪,我们已经撇下所有的跟从你了……(可十28)

主的回答是说为他而撇下,而不是为了门徒自己能换得什么。当心别把商业贸易的精神掺入“撇下”里去——“我把自己给神,因为我要脱离罪,因为我要成圣。”这些都是与神和好的结果,却不是基督教信仰里的精神。“撇下”根本不是为任何东西。我们已经变得太商业化了,到神面前只是为得那一点什么,而不是为他本身。这好像是说:“主啊,我不要你,我要自己;我要自己洁净,充满圣灵;我要登上你的橱窗说:『看神为我做的一切。』”若我们为神撇下,为的是要得更多的,那么,我们的撇下便没有圣灵,只是可怜的商业自利。我们得上天堂,罪得赦免,合神使用,这些在真正的“撇下”里,绝不是原因。真正的撇下,乃是个人专诚的拣选耶稣基督自己。

当我们面对人际关系的屏障,耶稣的地位何在?我们多半遗弃他说:“不错,主,我听见你的呼召;但我母亲阻着去路,还有我的妻子,我的喜好,我无法前行。”耶稣说:“这样,你不能作我的门徒。”

撇下的考验总是与亲情有切肤之痛。越过它,神会尽所有去怀抱你撇下时所伤害的人。要当心撇下不可中途而废。我们多半只在异象中认识什么叫做撇下。

祈祷◆噢,主啊,求你使我的悟性与你圣灵的教导一同发出光辉。

March 12: Abandonment

“Then Peter began to say unto Him, Lo, we have left all, and have followed Thee. . . .” Mark 10:28

Our Lord replies in effect, that abandonment is for Himself, and not for what the disciples themselves will get from it. Beware of an abandonment which has the commercial spirit in it – “I am going to give myself to God because I want to be delivered from sin, because I want to be made holy.” All that is the result of being right with God, but that spirit is not of the essential nature of Christianity. Abandonment is not for anything at all. We have got so commercialized that we only go to God for something from Him, and not for Himself. It is like saying, “No, Lord, I don't want Thee, I want myself; but I want myself clean and filled with the Holy Ghost; I want to be put in Thy show room and be able to say – ‘This is what God has done for me.’” If we only give up something to God because we want more back, there is nothing of the Holy Spirit in our abandonment; it is miserable commercial self-interest. That we gain heaven, that we are delivered from sin, that we are made useful to God – these things never enter as considerations into real abandonment, which is a personal sovereign preference for Jesus Christ Himself.

When we come up against the barriers of natural relationship, where is Jesus Christ? Most of us desert Him – “Yes, Lord, I did hear Thy call; but my mother is in the road, my wife, my self-interest, and I can go no further.” “Then,” Jesus says, “you cannot be My disciple.”

The test of abandonment is always over the neck of natural devotion. Go over it, and God's own abandonment will embrace all those you had to hurt in abandoning. Beware of stopping short of abandonment to God. Most of us know abandonment in vision only.