0430 自发的爱
爱是恒久忍耐，又有恩慈……《哥林多前书 13:4》
爱不是事先筹划好的，它是自发的；也就是说，它以非凡的方式爆发出来。保罗对爱的描述并没有任何精确的确定性。我们不能通过说「现在我绝对也不会有任何邪恶的念头，我会相信耶稣要我相信的一切」来预先确定我们的思想与行动。不，爱的特质是自发性。我们不是刻意将耶稣的话放在眼前作为我们的标准，但当祂的灵对我为所欲为时，我们就会根据祂的标准生活，甚至我们都没有意识到。当我们回头看时，我们会惊讶地发现我们对自己的情感多么漠不关心，这正是真正自发的爱存在的明证。我们里面神的生命所涉及的一切事物的本质，只有当我们经历过且已成为我们的过去时，它才能被辨识出来。
爱的源泉在神里面，而不在我们里面。认为神的爱是自然而然地在我们心中，是我们本性的结果，这种想法是荒谬的。祂的爱之所以在那里，只是因为「所赐给我们的圣灵，将神的爱浇灌在我们心里。」（罗马书5:5）
如果我们试图向神证明我们有多么爱祂，那是我们真不爱祂的确切标志。我们爱祂的证据是我们爱的绝对自发性，从在我们里面祂的本性自然流露出来的。当我们回顾过去时，我们将无法确定为什么我们做了某些事情，但我们可以知道，我们是根据在我们里面祂爱的自发本质来做的。神的生命以这种自发的方式展现出来，因为祂爱的泉源是在圣灵里。
来自章伯斯的智慧
我们可能对神的观念像把熔化的铅倒入专门设计的模具中，那是极具危险性的，当它冷却凝固后，我们就把它扔到不同意我们观点的宗教人士的头上。《真的门徒》
0430 Spontaneous Love
Love suffers long and is kind… —1 Corinthians 13:4
Love is not premeditated– it is spontaneous; that is, it bursts forth in extraordinary ways. There is nothing of precise certainty in Paul’s description of love. We cannot predetermine our thoughts and actions by saying, “Now I will never think any evil thoughts, and I will believe everything that Jesus would have me to believe.” No, the characteristic of love is spontaneity. We don’t deliberately set the statements of Jesus before us as our standard, but when His Spirit is having His way with us, we live according to His standard without even realizing it. And when we look back, we are amazed at how unconcerned we have been over our emotions, which is the very evidence that real spontaneous love was there. The nature of everything involved in the life of God in us is only discerned when we have been through it and it is in our past.
The fountains from which love flows are in God, not in us. It is absurd to think that the love of God is naturally in our hearts, as a result of our own nature. His love is there only because it “has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit…” (Romans 5:5).
If we try to prove to God how much we love Him, it is a sure sign that we really don’t love Him. The evidence of our love for Him is the absolute spontaneity of our love, which flows naturally from His nature within us. And when we look back, we will not be able to determine why we did certain things, but we can know that we did them according to the spontaneous nature of His love in us. The life of God exhibits itself in this spontaneous way because the fountains of His love are in the Holy Spirit.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
It is perilously possible to make our conceptions of God like molten lead poured into a specially designed mould, and when it is cold and hard we fling it at the heads of the religious people who don’t agree with us. Disciples Indeed, 388 R