6月19日 热诚的事奉

你爱我吗？……你牧羊我的羊。（约二十一16）

耶稣并没有叫人追随祂的思想，而是要你看顾祂的羊，使他们因认识祂而得着滋养。我们把事奉的工作视作事奉主；但耶稣基督却视我们与祂的关系为事奉，而不是我们为祂所做的工作。做门徒，是基于对耶稣基督的忠诚，而不是由于服从一套信徒规条。“人到我这里来，若不爱我胜过……，就不能作我的门徒。”没有争议，也没有强逼，只直截了当地－－“你若做我的门徒，必须专心归我”。一个人被圣灵摸着了，就说：“我如今认识了耶稣是谁。”这就是专心归依的根源。

时至今日，我们已把信条代替了个人的信仰，所以致力于事工的人多，而一心归服耶稣基督的人却少。人不要归服耶稣，只想致力于他所创立的事工。他们只认耶稣为同志。主首先顺服的，是祂父的旨意，而不是人群的需要。他之所以救人，是顺服父神的必然结果。我若只致力于人群的事工，不久就会精疲力竭，落到爱心冷淡的地步；但若我爱耶稣基督，就是人把我当作地席，我仍要服侍他们。门徒生活的秘诀就是全心归依基督。那生命的特征是隐藏不露，就如一粒麦子落在地里死了，不久就萌芽生长，改变整个田园的景象（约十二24）。

祈祷◆愿祢感动我的灵，使它被祢所充满，直至涌溢。愿祢透过我的意念思想，直至我形成“在基督耶稣里的心怀意念”。

June 19 Service Of Passionate Devotion

“Lovest thou Me? . . . Feed My sheep.” John 21:16

Jesus did not say – Make converts to your way of thinking, but look after My sheep, see that they get nourished in the knowledge of Me. We count as service what we do in the way of Christian work; Jesus Christ calls service what we are to Him, not what we do for Him. Discipleship is based on devotion to Jesus Christ, not on adherence to a belief or a creed. “If any man come to Me and hate not . . . , he cannot be My disciple.” There is no argument and no compulsion, but simply – If you would be My disciple, you must be devoted to Me. A man touched by the Spirit of God suddenly says – “Now I see Who Jesus is,” and that is the source of devotion.

Today we have substituted credal belief for personal belief, and that is why so many are devoted to causes and so few devoted to Jesus Christ. People do not want to be devoted to Jesus, but only to the cause He started. Jesus Christ is a source of deep offence to the educated mind of today that does not want Him in any other way than as a comrade. Our Lord's first obedience was to the will of His Father, not to the needs of men; the saving of men was the natural outcome of His obedience to the Father. If I am devoted to the cause of humanity only, I will soon be exhausted and come to the place where my love will falter; but if I love Jesus Christ personally and passionately, I can serve humanity though men treat me as a door-mat. The secret of a disciple's life is devotion to Jesus Christ, and the characteristic of the life is its unobtrusiveness. It is like a corn of wheat, which falls into the ground and dies, but presently it will spring up and alter the whole landscape (John 12:24).