0917 试探有何益处？
你们所遇见的试探，无非是人所能受的…《哥林多前书 10:13》
今天试探一词对我们而言已经意味着不好的事，我们往往以错误的方式使用这个词。试探本身不是罪，它只是我们作为人类必然会遇到的事情。不被试探就意味着我们已经可耻到被蔑视之下了。然而，我们中的许多人遭受了本不该有的试探之苦，仅仅是因为我们拒绝让神将我们提升到一个更高的境界，在那里我们将面临另一种试探。
一个人的内在本质，他这个人的内住灵性部分所拥有的，决定了他在外面会受到怎样的试探。试探符合受试探者的真实本质，并揭示他本质的可能性。每个人实际上都决定或设定了他自己所受试探的层次，因为试探将根据他内在控制的本质程度而临到他。
试探临到我，提示着实现我最高目标的 一条可能捷径——它并未引导我朝向我所理解的恶，而是朝向我所理解的善。试探是让我一时困惑的事，而我不知道那事是对还是错。当我屈服于它时，我就将情欲当作神，而试探本身就成为证据，证明只是我自己的惧怕阻止我更早地陷入罪恶。
试探不是我们能逃避的；事实上，它对于一个人全方位生活是不可少的。要小心，别以为你受的试探是无人像你一样——你所经历的是人类共同的遗产，不是前所未有的。神不救我们脱离试探——祂在其中扶持我们（见希伯来书 2:18 和希伯来书 4:15-16）。
来自章伯斯的智慧
我们可以通过其祂方式了解神的属性，但我们只能在基督的十字架中了解天父的心。《至善—祢伟大的救赎》
0917 Is There Good in Temptation?
No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man… —1 Corinthians 10:13
The word temptation has come to mean something bad to us today, but we tend to use the word in the wrong way. Temptation itself is not sin; it is something we are bound to face simply by virtue of being human. Not to be tempted would mean that we were already so shameful that we would be beneath contempt. Yet many of us suffer from temptations we should never have to suffer, simply because we have refused to allow God to lift us to a higher level where we would face temptations of another kind.
A person’s inner nature, what he possesses in the inner, spiritual part of his being, determines what he is tempted by on the outside. The temptation fits the true nature of the person being tempted and reveals the possibilities of his nature. Every person actually determines or sets the level of his own temptation, because temptation will come to him in accordance with the level of his controlling, inner nature.
Temptation comes to me, suggesting a possible shortcut to the realization of my highest goal— it does not direct me toward what I understand to be evil, but toward what I understand to be good. Temptation is something that confuses me for a while, and I don’t know whether something is right or wrong. When I yield to it, I have made lust a god, and the temptation itself becomes the proof that it was only my own fear that prevented me from falling into the sin earlier.
Temptation is not something we can escape; in fact, it is essential to the well-rounded life of a person. Beware of thinking that you are tempted as no one else— what you go through is the common inheritance of the human race, not something that no one has ever before endured. God does not save us from temptations— He sustains us in the midst of them (see Hebrews 2:18 and Hebrews 4:15-16).
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
We can understand the attributes of God in other ways, but we can only understand the Father’s heart in the Cross of Christ. –The Highest Good—Thy Great Redemption, 558 L