你们若不回转,变成小孩子的样式……(太十八3)
这话不但在我们初信之时十分真确,就是在我们生命的每一天,也要回转,向神作小孩子。我们若信赖自己的头脑过于神,他就要我们负责后果。我们的身体既在神安排下进入新的境况,就要让天然生命顺服圣灵的指挥。一次成功,并不等于第二次也可以成功。肉体生命与属灵生命的关系,是不断的回转,这是我们本性所不愿的。不管在什么环境下,神的灵始终不变,神的救恩也不变,但我们要“穿上新人”。我们每次不肯回转,神都要我们自己负责,因为我们的拒绝,是出于故意的顽梗。我们不要被肉体的生命管辖,必须让神掌管。
属灵生命的阻碍,是不肯经常回转悔改,我们用许多顽梗的藉口,在神的宝座前自傲地说:“我不肯。”我们尊崇独立固执,给它们错误的称号。神看作顽梗的软弱,我们却称之为力量。我们生命中还有许多地方未受管治的,这只有靠经常回转才可以达成。逐渐地,我们必然被圣灵收复所有失地。
祈祷◆噢,主啊,愿我能被你带进你与我同在的境地,从你的立场观看事情。今天早上,我要向你的百姓说话,噢,主啊,以你恩慈的灵重新膏立我。
December 28 Continuous Conversion
“Except ye be converted, and become as little children. . . .” Matthew 18:3
These words of Our Lord are true of our initial conversion, but we have to be continuously converted all the days of our lives, continually to turn to God as children. If we trust to our wits instead of to God, we produce consequences for which God will hold us responsible. Immediately our bodies are brought into new conditions by the providence of God, we have to see that our natural life obeys the dictates of the Spirit of God. Because we have done it once is no proof that we shall do it again. The relation of the natural to the spiritual is one of continuous conversion, and it is the one thing we object to. In every setting in which we are put, the Spirit of God remains unchanged and His salvation unaltered, but we have to “put on the new man.” God holds us responsible every time we refuse to convert ourselves, our reason for refusing is wilful obstinacy. Our natural life must not rule, God must rule in us.
The hindrance in our spiritual life is that we will not be continually converted, there are wadges of obstinacy where our pride spits at the throne of God and says – I won't. We deify independence and wilfulness and call them by the wrong name. What God looks on as obstinate weakness, we call strength. There are whole tracts of our lives which have not yet been brought into subjection, and it can only be done by this continuous conversion. Slowly but surely we can claim the whole territory for the Spirit of God.