12月30日 我们一切的美德

我的泉源都在你里面。（诗八十七7）

我们的主从不修补天然美德，他乃是从里面重新再造。“穿上新人”，意思是你要给肉体的生命穿上与新生命相配的衣服。神种在我们里头的生命，会萌发本身的美德，不是亚当的，乃是主耶稣的。你成圣以后，会叫你对天然美德，并个人一切力量的信心枯萎，直至你学会怎样从主耶稣复活的泉源中支取生命。你若正经历那干涸的阶段，就得感谢神。

神在我们里面作工的征象，就是败坏我们对天然德行的信念，因为那些本不是神应许的，不过是他初造人时所剩余的品质。我们总是抓住天然品德，而神却不住要我接驳到主耶稣的生命去，他的美德是无法用天然德行来比较的。最可悲的是事奉神的人，一味仗赖从遗传而得的品质，这些并不是神恩典所赐下的。神不会建立并改变天然的德行，因为天然德行不能达到耶稣万分之一的心意。任何天然的爱、忍耐、清洁，都不可能达到他的要求。只有把肉体生命的每一部分配合神放在我们里头的生命，他才能透过我们彰显主耶稣的美德。而我们所有的一切美德也只是他的。

祈祷◆噢，主啊，你是永远的活井，我所有清新的泉源都在你里面。我来到你面前；愿你大能的生命在我里面涌现，真正地流入我的身体和心灵中。

December 30 “And Every Virtue We Possess”

“All my fresh springs shall be in Thee.” Psalm 87:7 (P.B.V.)

Our Lord never patches up our natural virtues, He re-makes the whole man on the inside. “Put on the new man,” i.e., see that your natural human life puts on the garb that is in keeping with the new life. The life God plants in us develops its own virtues, not the virtues of Adam but of Jesus Christ. Watch how God will wither up your confidence in natural virtues after sanctification, and in any power you have, until you learn to draw your life from the reservoir of the resurrection life of Jesus. Thank God if you are going through a drying-up experience!

The sign that God is at work in us is that He corrupts confidence in the natural virtues, because they are not promises of what we are going to be, but remnants of what God created man to be. We will cling to the natural virtues, while all the time God is trying to get us into contact with the life of Jesus Christ which can never be described in terms of the natural virtues. It is the saddest thing to see people in the service of God depending on that which the grace of God never gave them, depending on what they have by the accident of heredity. God does not build up our natural virtues and transfigure them, because our natural virtues can never come anywhere near what Jesus Christ wants. No natural love, no natural patience, no natural purity can ever come up to His demands. But as we bring every bit of our bodily life into harmony with the new life which God has put in us, He will exhibit in us the virtues that were characteristic of the Lord Jesus.

“And every virtue we possess
Is His alone.”