我感謝神對我這麽小信又小心眼的罪人之中的罪魁不斷地守約施慈愛。我感謝主耶穌了解我想要得到確據的奴仆心態。我在掙紮與痛苦之中被神引領開始看大衛鮑森的新舊約概覽和他的書Normal Christian Birth。我高興地發現原來聖經隻給人“重生”的確據,卻不給人得榮耀的確據。我們有了聖靈內住之後,就有做完全人的力量、智慧和自由,但我們仍然可以選擇順著聖靈散種還是順從肉體散種,我們可以一直住在神愛子的國度裏,過在地如同在天的生活,我們也可以仍然活在世俗之中,為了眼前的利益出賣神兒子的名分如同以掃一樣。我們重生不是為了得救而是為了成聖。而成聖是一生一世的過程。原來那些自信的人是對神憐憫和慈愛的自信;不自信的人是對自己如何選擇每一天生活來滿足神心意的敬畏。這兩種都是需要的,我們不能太自信以至於放縱了私欲,在重生之後仍做罪的奴仆;我們也不能太小信,不明白神對我們的愛是何等長闊高深,遠超過一切智慧所能測度的。讓我們常保守自己的心在基督的愛裏,懷著對永生神的敬畏做成我們得救的功夫。救恩是白白賜下的,但我們要用信心去接受;成聖的力量和得勝的應許也是白白賜下的,但我們要用信心的行為去領受。正如迦南是神給以色列的應許之地,他們還是要在信心之中順服神的帶領去攻城掠地,高唱得勝的樂章。我感謝天父按他的形象造我們;我感謝主耶穌道成肉身來回收我們這些虧缺了神的榮耀變為無用的罪人;我感謝聖靈來賜給我們新的生命,有能力來榮神益人完全恢複成神起初要造我們的本意。我知道在今後的日子我也還會有各樣的難處,有各種要學習的功課,但神與我們同在。最後用一首聖詩來勉勵基督裏的眾聖徒:“生命交給主做王,日複一日年複一年,高唱得勝的樂章。”
sheenwei 發表評論於
We do not exist for ourselves alone, and it is only when we are fully convinced of this fact that we begin to love ourselves properly and thus also love others. What do I mean by loving ourselves properly? I mean, first of all, desiring to live, accepting life as a very great gift and a great good, not because of what it gives us, but because of what it enables us to give to others. The modern world is beginning to discover, more and more, that the quality and vitality of a man's life depend on his own secret will to go on living. There is a dark force for destruction within us, which someone has called the death instinct. It is a terribly powerful thing, this force generated by our own frustrated self-love battling with itself. It is the power of a self-love that has turned into self-hatred and which, in adoring itself, adores the monster by which it is consumed.
It is therefore of supreme importance that we face and accept our own limitations. As long as we secretly adore ourselves, our own deficiencies will remain to torture us with an apparent defilement. But if we live for others, we will gradually discover that no one expects us to be as gods. we will see that we are human, like everyone else, that we all have weaknesses and deficiencies, and that these limitations of ours play a most important part in all our lives.It is because of them that we need others and others need us. We are not all weak in the same spots, and so we supplement and complete one another, each one making up in himself for the lack in another.
Only when we see ourselves in our true human context, as members of a race which is intended to be one organism and one body, will we begin to understand the positive importance not only of the success but of the failures and accidents in our lives. My successes are not my own. The way to them was prepared by others. The fruit of my labors is not my own: for I am preparing the way for the achievements of another. Nor are my failures my own. They may spring from failure of another, but they are also compensated for by another's achievement. Therefore the meaning of my life is not to be looked for merely in the sum total of my own achievements. It is seen only in the complete integration of my achievements and failures with the achievements and failures of my own generation, and society, and time.
Only when this truth is absolutely central do other doctrines fit into their proper context. Solitude, humility, self-denial, action and contemplation, the sacraments, the monastic life, the family, war and peace - none of these make sense except in relation to the central reality which is God's love living and acting in those whom He has incorporated in His Christ. Nothing at all makes sense, unless we admit that" No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main".
sheenwei 發表評論於
This matter of salvation is, when seen intuitively, a very simple thing. But when we analyze it, it turns into a complex tangle of paradoxes. We become ourselves by dying to ourselves within ourselves, but only in others, yet at the same time before we can go out to others we must first find ourselves. We must forget ourselves in order to become truly conscious of who we are. The best way to love ourselves is to love others, yet we cannot love others unless we love ourselves since it is written, "thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." But if we love ourselves in the wrong way, we become incapable of loving anybody else. And indeed when we love ourselves wrongly we hate ourselves; if we hate ourselves we cannot help hating others. Yet there is a sense in which we must hate others and leave them in order to find God. Jesus said:"If any man come to me and hate not his father and his mother and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple" (Luke 14:26). As for this "finding" of God, we cannot even look for Him unless we have already found Him, and we cannot begin to seek Him without a special gift of His grace, yet if we wait for grace to move us, before beginning to seek Him, we will probably never begin.
我感謝神對我這麽小信又小心眼的罪人之中的罪魁不斷地守約施慈愛。我感謝主耶穌了解我想要得到確據的奴仆心態。我在掙紮與痛苦之中被神引領開始看大衛鮑森的新舊約概覽和他的書Normal Christian Birth。我高興地發現原來聖經隻給人“重生”的確據,卻不給人得榮耀的確據。我們有了聖靈內住之後,就有做完全人的力量、智慧和自由,但我們仍然可以選擇順著聖靈散種還是順從肉體散種,我們可以一直住在神愛子的國度裏,過在地如同在天的生活,我們也可以仍然活在世俗之中,為了眼前的利益出賣神兒子的名分如同以掃一樣。我們重生不是為了得救而是為了成聖。而成聖是一生一世的過程。原來那些自信的人是對神憐憫和慈愛的自信;不自信的人是對自己如何選擇每一天生活來滿足神心意的敬畏。這兩種都是需要的,我們不能太自信以至於放縱了私欲,在重生之後仍做罪的奴仆;我們也不能太小信,不明白神對我們的愛是何等長闊高深,遠超過一切智慧所能測度的。讓我們常保守自己的心在基督的愛裏,懷著對永生神的敬畏做成我們得救的功夫。救恩是白白賜下的,但我們要用信心去接受;成聖的力量和得勝的應許也是白白賜下的,但我們要用信心的行為去領受。正如迦南是神給以色列的應許之地,他們還是要在信心之中順服神的帶領去攻城掠地,高唱得勝的樂章。我感謝天父按他的形象造我們;我感謝主耶穌道成肉身來回收我們這些虧缺了神的榮耀變為無用的罪人;我感謝聖靈來賜給我們新的生命,有能力來榮神益人完全恢複成神起初要造我們的本意。我知道在今後的日子我也還會有各樣的難處,有各種要學習的功課,但神與我們同在。最後用一首聖詩來勉勵基督裏的眾聖徒:“生命交給主做王,日複一日年複一年,高唱得勝的樂章。”