7月21日 进天国的门

虚心的人有福了。（太五3）

当心不要把主教师的身分放在第一位。耶稣基督若光是一位教师，他所作的无非是设立了一些我无法达到的标准来戏弄我。若根本是无法达到的理想，介绍给我有何用？我不知道反更妙。要我清心，要我连非份内的事也作，要我完全归向神，可是我却无力达到，告诉我这些有何益处？若要基督的教训对我真有意义，而不是引至绝望的空理想，我就必须以耶稣基督为救主。我在神的灵里重生后，就晓得耶稣基督来不是单为教导；他更要使我成为他所教导的。救恩是主耶稣能够把他的性情放进任何人里面。而神所给的一切标准，都是根据主耶稣的性情而定。

对一个未有新生命的人，登山宝训只会带来绝望，这正是主耶稣的用意。因为我们若仍然自以为义，自高自傲，以为自己可以实践主的教训，神就会任由我们，让难处揭露我们的无知，叫我们像叫化子一般来亲就他，接受他的施予。“心灵贫乏的人有福了。”这是天国的第一原则。主耶稣国度的基石是贫穷，不是产业；不是决志接受耶稣基督，而是完全无能为力的：“我不知从何着手。”那时耶稣说：“你有福了。”这就是门，我们往往要花好长时间才相信自己真的贫穷！若知道自己贫穷，就是已经来到耶稣基督作工的道德前线。

July 21 The Gateway To The Kingdom

“Blessed are the poor in spirit.” Matthew 5:3

Beware of placing Our Lord as a Teacher first. If Jesus Christ is a Teacher only, then all He can do is to tantalize me by erecting a standard I can not attain. What is the use of presenting me with an ideal I cannot possibly come near? I am happier without knowing it. What is the good of telling me to be what I never can be – to be pure in heart, to do more than my duty, to be perfectly devoted to God? I must know Jesus Christ as Saviour before His teaching has any meaning for me other than that of an ideal which leads to despair. But when I am born again of the Spirit of God, I know that Jesus Christ did not come to teach only: He came to make me what He teaches I should be. The Redemption means that Jesus Christ can put into any man the disposition that ruled His own life, and all the standards God gives are based on that disposition.

The teaching of the Sermon on the Mount produces despair in the natural man – the very thing Jesus means it to do. As long as we have a self-righteous, conceited notion that we can carry out Our Lord's teaching, God will allow us to go on until we break our ignorance over some obstacle, then we are willing to come to Him as paupers and receive from Him. “Blessed are the paupers in spirit,” that is the first principle in the Kingdom of God. The bedrock in Jesus Christ's kingdom is poverty, not possession; not decisions for Jesus Christ, but a sense of absolute futility – I cannot begin to do it. Then Jesus says – Blessed are you. That is the entrance, and it does take us a long while to believe we are poor! The knowledge of our own poverty brings us to the moral frontier where Jesus Christ works.