0810 圣徒的神圣苦难
…那照神旨意受苦的人要一心为善，将自己灵魂交与那信实的造化主…《彼得前书 4:19》
选择受苦意味着你一定有问题，但选择神的旨意——即使这意味着你会受苦——是完全不同的事情。没有一个正常、健康的圣徒会选择受苦；他只是选择神的旨意，就像耶稣一样样，无论这是否意味着痛苦。没有任何圣徒敢介入另一个圣徒生命中正在学习的受苦功课。
满足耶稣心意的圣徒会使其他圣徒为神变得坚强和成熟。但那些被用来强化我们的人从来都不是那些同情我们的人事实上，我们反而受到那些给我们同情的人的阻碍，因为同情只会使我们脆弱。没有人比那些与耶稣尽可能亲近和亲密的圣徒更了解圣徒了。如果我们接受另一位圣徒的同情，我们自然而生的感觉就是：「神对待我太过苛刻，使我的生活太艰难了。」这就是为什么耶稣说自怜是来自魔鬼的（见马太福音16:21-23）。我们必须对神的名誉宽大。我们很容易玷污神的品格，因为祂从不反驳；祂从不试图为自己辩护或证明自己正确。谨防认为耶稣在世生活时需要同情。祂拒绝人们的同情，因为以祂的大智慧，祂知道地上无人明白祂的目的（见马太福音16:23）。祂只接受天父和天使的同情（见路加福音15:10）。
根据世人的判断，看看神令人难以置信地浪费祂的圣徒；神似乎把祂的圣徒栽植在最无用的地方。然后我们说：「神想要我留在这里，因为我对祂如此有用。」然而，耶稣从来没有以祂如何或在哪里有最大用处来衡量祂的生命。神将祂的圣徒安置在他们能够给祂带来最大荣耀之处，而我们完全无法判断那可能是在哪里。
来自章伯斯的智慧
我们开始我们基督徒的生活是通过相信被告知要相信的事情，然后我们必须继续如此同化我们的信仰，以至于它们以一种回响神荣耀的方式产生结果。危险是在于我们越来越接受我们自己没有活出的信念。《改变像祂的样式》
0810 The Holy Suffering of the Saint
Let those who suffer according to the will of God commit their souls to Him in doing good… —1 Peter 4:19
Choosing to suffer means that there must be something wrong with you, but choosing God’s will— even if it means you will suffer— is something very different. No normal, healthy saint ever chooses suffering; he simply chooses God’s will, just as Jesus did, whether it means suffering or not. And no saint should ever dare to interfere with the lesson of suffering being taught in another saint’s life.
The saint who satisfies the heart of Jesus will make other saints strong and mature for God. But the people used to strengthen us are never those who sympathize with us; in fact, we are hindered by those who give us their sympathy, because sympathy only serves to weaken us. No one better understands a saint than the saint who is as close and as intimate with Jesus as possible. If we accept the sympathy of another saint, our spontaneous feeling is, “God is dealing too harshly with me and making my life too difficult.” That is why Jesus said that self-pity was of the devil (see Matthew 16:21-23). We must be merciful to God’s reputation. It is easy for us to tarnish God’s character because He never argues back; He never tries to defend or vindicate Himself. Beware of thinking that Jesus needed sympathy during His life on earth. He refused the sympathy of people because in His great wisdom He knew that no one on earth understood His purpose (see Matthew 16:23). He accepted only the sympathy of His Father and the angels (see Luke 15:10).
Look at God’s incredible waste of His saints, according to the world’s judgment. God seems to plant His saints in the most useless places. And then we say, “God intends for me to be here because I am so useful to Him.” Yet Jesus never measured His life by how or where He was of the greatest use. God places His saints where they will bring the most glory to Him, and we are totally incapable of judging where that may be.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
We begin our Christian life by believing what we are told to believe, then we have to go on to so assimilate our beliefs that they work out in a way that redounds to the glory of God. The danger is in multiplying the acceptation of beliefs we do not make our own. —Conformed to His Image, 381 L