0424 对追求灵性成功的警告
不要因鬼服了你们就欢喜……《路加福音 10:20》
对我们基督工人来说，世俗并不是最危险的陷阱；罪也不是最危险的陷阱。我们落入的陷阱是过度渴望属灵的成功；也就是，成功是由我们现在活的这个宗教时代所设定的形式来衡量和模仿的。永远不要寻求除了神的认可之外任何事物，并且总是要愿意「出到营外，就了祂去，忍受祂所受的凌辱。」（希伯来书13:13）。在路加福音 10: 20 中，耶稣告诉门徒不要因事奉成功而欢喜，然而这似乎是我们大多数人所真的引以为乐的事。我们有个商业化的观点——我们计算有多少灵魂得救和成圣，我们感谢神，然后我们就认为一切都好。但是，我们的工作只有在神的恩典奠定了基础的地方才开始的；我们的工作不是拯救灵魂，而是使他们作门徒。救恩和成圣是神至高无上恩典的工作，而我们作为祂的门徒，我们的工作就是使别人的生命成为门徒，直到他们完全降服于神。对神来说，一个完全献身于神的生命，比一百个仅仅被祂的灵唤醒的生命更有价值。我们作为神的工人，就必须在属灵上繁衍自己的同类，而那些人的生命就是神对我们作为祂的工人的见证。神通过祂的恩典使我们提升到生命的标准，我们是有责任在别人身上复制同样的标准。
除非工人过着「与基督一同藏在神里面」的生活（歌罗西书3:3），否则他很容易成为令人恼火的独裁者，而不是一个积极、活泼的门徒。我们许多人都是独裁者，将我们的欲望强加于个人和群体之上。但耶稣从未以那种方式迫使我们，每当我们的主谈到作门徒时，他总是以「如果」作为开头，从来不用强制或教条式的陈述——「你必须」；作门徒是带有一个选择性的。
来自章伯斯的智慧
我是越来越爱上作为圣洁的神？还是爱上一个和蔼可亲的存在者（存在者说：「哦，好吧，罪并不那么重要」）的概念？《真的门徒》
0424 The Warning Against Desiring Spiritual Success
Do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you… —Luke 10:20
Worldliness is not the trap that most endangers us as Christian workers; nor is it sin. The trap we fall into is extravagantly desiring spiritual success; that is, success measured by, and patterned after, the form set by this religious age in which we now live. Never seek after anything other than the approval of God, and always be willing to go “outside the camp, bearing His reproach” (Hebrews 13:13). In Luke 10:20, Jesus told the disciples not to rejoice in successful service, and yet this seems to be the one thing in which most of us do rejoice. We have a commercialized view— we count how many souls have been saved and sanctified, we thank God, and then we think everything is all right. Yet our work only begins where God’s grace has laid the foundation. Our work is not to save souls, but to disciple them. Salvation and sanctification are the work of God’s sovereign grace, and our work as His disciples is to disciple others’ lives until they are totally yielded to God. One life totally devoted to God is of more value to Him than one hundred lives which have been simply awakened by His Spirit. As workers for God, we must reproduce our own kind spiritually, and those lives will be God’s testimony to us as His workers. God brings us up to a standard of life through His grace, and we are responsible for reproducing that same standard in others.
Unless the worker lives a life that “is hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3), he is apt to become an irritating dictator to others, instead of an active, living disciple. Many of us are dictators, dictating our desires to individuals and to groups. But Jesus never dictates to us in that way. Whenever our Lord talked about discipleship, He always prefaced His words with an “if,” never with the forceful or dogmatic statement— “You must.” Discipleship carries with it an option.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Am I becoming more and more in love with God as a holy God, or with the conception of an amiable Being who says, “Oh well, sin doesn’t matter much”? –Disciples Indeed, 389 L