0830 有用还是有关系？
不要因鬼服了你们就欢喜，要因你们的名记录在天上欢喜。 《路加福音 10:20》
耶稣基督这里是在说：「不要因你为我做的成功服事而欢喜，而要因你与我的正确关系而欢喜。」在基督徒的工作中，可能落入的一个陷阱是为成功的服事而欢喜——为神使用了你而欢喜。然而，如果你与耶稣基督有正确的关系，你将永远无法完全衡量神将通过你所做的事。如果你保持与祂有正确的关系，那么不管你的情况如何，或无论你每天遇到什么人，祂都会继续通过你倾倒「活水的江河」（约翰福音7:38）。实际上正是由于祂的恩慈，祂不让你知道这一点。一旦你通过救赎和成圣与神建立正确的关系，要记住，无论你的处境如何，你都是被神都安置在其中。神会使用你的生命对所处环境的反应来实现祂的目的，只要你继续「…在光明中行，正如神在光明中一样。」（约翰一书 1:7）
我们今天的趋势是强调服事；要谨防那些根据某人的有用性而请求帮助的人。如果你以有用性为试验，那么耶稣基督就是有史以来最大的失败者。对于圣徒来说，方向和引导是来自神本身，而不是以圣徒的有用性来衡量的。是神通过我们所做的工作才算数，而不是我们为祂所做的工作。我们的主在一个人生命中所关注的，就是那个人与神的关系——这对天父来说是非常有价值的。耶稣正在「领许多的儿子进荣耀里去…」（希伯来书 2:10）
来自章伯斯的智慧
真诚意味着外表和实际完全一致。《登山宝训研究》
830 Usefulness or Relationship?
Do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven. —Luke 10:20
Jesus Christ is saying here, “Don’t rejoice in your successful service for Me, but rejoice because of your right relationship with Me.” The trap you may fall into in Christian work is to rejoice in successful service— rejoicing in the fact that God has used you. Yet you will never be able to measure fully what God will do through you if you have a right-standing relationship with Jesus Christ. If you keep your relationship right with Him, then regardless of your circumstances or whoever you encounter each day, He will continue to pour “rivers of living water” through you (John 7:38). And it is actually by His mercy that He does not let you know it. Once you have the right relationship with God through salvation and sanctification, remember that whatever your circumstances may be, you have been placed in them by God. And God uses the reaction of your life to your circumstances to fulfill His purpose, as long as you continue to “walk in the light as He is in the light” (1 John 1:7).
Our tendency today is to put the emphasis on service. Beware of the people who make their request for help on the basis of someone’s usefulness. If you make usefulness the test, then Jesus Christ was the greatest failure who ever lived. For the saint, direction and guidance come from God Himself, not some measure of that saint’s usefulness. It is the work that God does through us that counts, not what we do for Him. All that our Lord gives His attention to in a person’s life is that person’s relationship with God— something of great value to His Father. Jesus is “bringing many sons to glory…” (Hebrews 2:10).
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Sincerity means that the appearance and the reality are exactly the same. Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, 1449 L