0629 最严格的纪律训练
若是右手叫你跌倒，就砍下来丢掉，宁可失去百体中的一体，不叫全身下入地狱。《马太福音 5:30》
耶稣并没有说每个人都必须砍掉自己的右手，而是说在你与祂同行路上，「如果你的右手叫你犯罪」，那么最好「就砍下」。有很多事情是完全合法的，但如果你想专注于神，你就不能做这些事情。你的右手是你拥有的最好东西之一，但耶稣说，如果它妨碍你遵守祂的诫命，那么，就「砍掉它」。这里所教导的原则是人类有史以来最严格的纪律或教训。
当神借着重生改变你，借着属灵的重生赐你新的生命时，你的生命最初就有残废的特征。有一百零一件事情是你不敢做的——这些事情对你来说是罪，并且那些真正了解你的人也会认为是罪。但你周围不属灵的人会说：「做那个有什么错？你是多么荒谬啊！」从来没有一个圣徒最初不曾经历过残废的生活，然而，残废地进入生命，但在神眼中是可爱的，好过在人眼中看起来可爱，但在神眼中是跛脚的。首先，耶稣基督通过祂的灵必须禁止你做很多事，那些对其他人来说可能完全是正当的，但却不适合你的事情。然而，请注意不要用你的限制去批评别人。
基督徒的生命最初是残缺的生命，但在马太福音 5: 48中，耶稣向我们描绘了一副完全而圆满的生活图景——「所以你们要完全，像你们的天父完全一样。」
来自章伯斯的智慧
自然地说，没有什么比衰败更能让我们迅速丧失信心了——身体美丽的衰退、自然生命的衰退、友谊的衰退、关系的衰退，所有这些都使人心灰意冷；但保罗说，当我们信靠耶稣基督时，这些事情就不会令我们沮丧，光明会透过它们而来。《帮助之地》
0629 The Strictest Discipline
If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell. —Matthew 5:30
Jesus did not say that everyone must cut off his right hand, but that “if your right hand causes you to sin” in your walk with Him, then it is better to “cut it off.” There are many things that are perfectly legitimate, but if you are going to concentrate on God you cannot do them. Your right hand is one of the best things you have, but Jesus says that if it hinders you in following His precepts, then “cut it off.” The principle taught here is the strictest discipline or lesson that ever hit humankind.
When God changes you through regeneration, giving you new life through spiritual rebirth, your life initially has the characteristic of being maimed. There are a hundred and one things that you dare not do— things that would be sin for you, and would be recognized as sin by those who really know you. But the unspiritual people around you will say, “What’s so wrong with doing that? How absurd you are!” There has never yet been a saint who has not lived a maimed life initially. Yet it is better to enter into life maimed but lovely in God’s sight than to appear lovely to man’s eyes but lame to God’s. At first, Jesus Christ through His Spirit has to restrain you from doing a great many things that may be perfectly right for everyone else but not right for you. Yet, see that you don’t use your restrictions to criticize someone else.
The Christian life is a maimed life initially, but in Matthew 5:48 Jesus gave us the picture of a perfectly well-rounded life— “You shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.”
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
There is nothing, naturally speaking, that makes us lose heart quicker than decay—the decay of bodily beauty, of natural life, of friendship, of associations, all these things make a man lose heart; but Paul says when we are trusting in Jesus Christ these things do not find us discouraged, light comes through them. –The Place of Help