3月30日 对神柔顺还是刚硬？

他见无人拯救、无人代求，甚为诧异。（赛五十九16）

不少人祷告半途而废，对神硬心，是由于对祷告只有一种情感上的兴趣。“我们有祷告呀！”听起来很不错。读点关于祷告的书，知道祷告很有益——使思想安静、灵性高升。可是，以赛亚却暗示说，神对这种祷告的观念大感惊奇。

敬拜与代求必须同时进行，两者是缺一不可的。代求是我们催逼自己去体会主耶稣对所代求的人迫切的心情。但多少时候，我们不是敬拜神，而是在堆砌祷词。我们到底在敬拜，还是与神争论？——“我看不出你（神）有什么办法。”这明明就不是敬拜。一旦看不见神，我们就变得硬心主观。我们把所求的事，仍在神宝座之前，并指明要他怎样做。我们不是在敬拜，也没有寻求主基督的心意。向神硬心，对人也必然没有怜悯。

我们向神敬拜，是否提升到有主的心，使我们能为别人代求？我们是否与神活在圣洁的关系上？还是刚硬武断？“无人真正好好地代求。”那么，你就做那代求的人吧！敬拜神，活在圣洁的关系里；投入真正的代求工作里。要记住：代求是一种工作，是需要一切能力的工作。然而，传讲福音会遇到许多意想不到的困难和陷阱，代祷却不会。

祈祷◆噢，主啊，我的灵魂将安息在你这位世界的创造者，以及那位在我里面创造生命的主耶稣基督里。噢，求你赐下圣灵的能力，让我更完全地敬拜你。

March 30 Holiness V. Hardness Towards God

“And He . . . wondered that there was no intercessor.” Isaiah 59:16

The reason many of us leave off praying and become hard towards God is because we have only a sentimental interest in prayer. It sounds right to say that we pray; we read books on prayer which tell us that prayer is beneficial, that our minds are quieted and our souls uplifted when we pray; but Isaiah implies that God is amazed at such thoughts of prayer.

Worship and intercession must go together, the one is impossible without the other. Intercession means that we rouse ourselves up to get the mind of Christ about the one for whom we pray. Too often instead of worshipping God, we construct statements as to how prayer works. Are we worshipping or are we in dispute with God – “I don’t see how You are going to do it.” This is a sure sign that we are not worshipping. When we lose sight of God we become hard and dogmatic. We hurl our own petitions at God’s throne and dictate to Him as to what we wish Him to do. We do not worship God, nor do we seek to form the mind of Christ. If we are hard towards God, we will become hard towards other people.

Are we so worshipping God that we rouse ourselves up to lay hold on Him so that we may be brought into contact with His mind about the ones for whom we pray? Are we living in a holy relationship to God, or are we hard and dogmatic?

“But there is no one interceding properly” – then be that one yourself, be the one who worships God and who lives in holy relationship to Him. Get into the real work of intercession, and remember it is a work, a work that taxes every power; but a work which has no snare. Preaching the gospel has a snare; intercessory prayer has none.