0106 敬拜
从那里他又迁到伯特利东边的山，支搭帐棚。西边是伯特利，东边是艾。他在那里又为耶和华筑了一座坛，求告耶和华的名。《创世纪12:8》
敬拜就是将神所赐予你的，把最好的奉献给祂。要小心处理你所有的最好的；每当你从神那里得到祝福，要将它作为爱的礼物献给祂。花时间在神面前默想，在有意地敬拜中，将这份祝福奉献回去给祂。如果你为自己存留这祝福，它将变成灵性上的枯干腐烂，就像储存的吗哪一样（参见出埃及记16:20）。神绝不允许你将属灵祝福完全留给你自己，那必须还给祂，好让祂能使用成为他人的祝福。
伯特利象征与神的相交，艾是世界的象征，亚伯兰在两者之间「支搭帐棚」。我们为神公开事奉的恒久价值，是以我们私下与神相交与合一的深度来衡量。每一次匆忙进出的敬拜，都是错误的——我们总有足够的时间来敬拜神。专门安排几天的安静时间，可能是个陷阱，它分散了每日与神安静相交的需要。这就是为什么不管世界多么喧嚣，我们必须在其中「支搭帐棚」，以便能够时常与神有安静相交之处。属灵生命并不存在三个层面中——敬拜、等候和作工。然而，我们有些人似乎像灵性青蛙一样，从敬拜跳到等候，从等候跳到作工。神认为这三者应该是合而为一。在我们的主的生活中，它们总是合而为一，完美和谐的。这是一种必须培养的操练；它不会在一夜之间发生。
来自章伯斯的智慧
耶稣基督总是不屈服于我对自己权利的要求。我们的主关于门徒训练的所有教导中，唯一一个必要要素就是舍弃、没有计算、没有任何自我利益的痕迹。《真的门徒》
0106 Worship
He moved from there to the mountain east of Bethel, and he pitched his tent with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east; there he built an altar to the Lord and called on the name of the Lord. —Genesis 12:8
Worship is giving God the best that He has given you. Be careful what you do with the best you have. Whenever you get a blessing from God, give it back to Him as a love-gift. Take time to meditate before God and offer the blessing back to Him in a deliberate act of worship. If you hoard it for yourself, it will turn into spiritual dry rot, as the manna did when it was hoarded (see Exodus 16:20). God will never allow you to keep a spiritual blessing completely for yourself. It must be given back to Him so that He can make it a blessing to others.
Bethel is the symbol of fellowship with God; Ai is the symbol of the world. Abram “pitched his tent” between the two. The lasting value of our public service for God is measured by the depth of the intimacy of our private times of fellowship and oneness with Him. Rushing in and out of worship is wrong every time— there is always plenty of time to worship God. Days set apart for quiet can be a trap, detracting from the need to have daily quiet time with God. That is why we must “pitch our tents” where we will always have quiet times with Him, however noisy our times with the world may be. There are not three levels of spiritual life— worship, waiting, and work. Yet some of us seem to jump like spiritual frogs from worship to waiting, and from waiting to work. God’s idea is that the three should go together as one. They were always together in the life of our Lord and in perfect harmony. It is a discipline that must be developed; it will not happen overnight.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Jesus Christ is always unyielding to my claim to my right to myself. The one essential element in all our Lord’s teaching about discipleship is abandon, no calculation, no trace of self-interest. —Disciples Indeed