0920 生命的神圣诫命

0920 生命的神圣诫命

所以你们要完全,像你们的天父完全一样。《马太福音 5:48

我们的主在马太福音 5:38-48 中劝勉我们,行为上要对每个人慷慨大方。当心不可在你的属灵生活中按照你天然情感来生活。每个人都有天然的情感——我们喜欢某些人,我们不喜欢某些人。然而,我们绝不能让那些喜欢和不喜欢来主导我们的基督徒生活。「我们若在光明中行,如同神在光明中,就彼此相交。」(约翰一书 1:7),即使对那些我们没有好感的人也应如此。

我们的主在这里给我们的榜样不是好人的,甚至不是好基督徒的,而是神自己的榜样。「…要完全,像你们的天父完全一样。」换句话说,只需向别人展现神向你展现的即可。神会给你很多现实生活中的机会来证明你是否「完全,像你们的天父完全一样。」成为门徒意味着有意将自己与神对其他人的关心认同。耶稣说:「我赐给你们一条新命令,乃是叫你们彼此相爱;我怎样爱你们,你们也要怎样相爱。你们若有彼此相爱的心,众人因此就认出你们是我的门徒了。」(约翰福音 13:34-35)。

基督徒品格的真正表达不在于行善,而在于像神。如果神的灵改变了你的内在,你会在生活中展现神圣的特质,而不仅仅是好的人类特质。神的生命在我们里面表达其本身就是神的生命,而不是人类生命试图变得敬虔。基督徒生命的秘诀,乃超自然事物因神恩典的结果而在他里面成为自然,且这种体验在日常生活实际细节中变得明显,而不只是在与神亲密相交的时刻。当我们接触到那些造成困惑和混乱的事物时,我们会惊讶地发现,即使在其中心,我们也有能力保持奇异镇定。

来自章伯斯的智慧

没有任何生活状态是我们不能住在耶稣里的。无论我们被放置何处,我们都必须学会住在祂里面。《我们的辉煌遗产》

0920 The Divine Commandment of Life

…be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect. —Matthew 5:48

Our Lord’s exhortation to us in Matthew 5:38-48 is to be generous in our behavior toward everyone. Beware of living according to your natural affections in your spiritual life. Everyone has natural affections— some people we like and others we don’t like. Yet we must never let those likes and dislikes rule our Christian life. “If we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another” (1 John 1:7), even those toward whom we have no affection.

The example our Lord gave us here is not that of a good person, or even of a good Christian, but of God Himself. “…be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.” In other words, simply show to the other person what God has shown to you. And God will give you plenty of real life opportunities to prove whether or not you are “perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.” Being a disciple means deliberately identifying yourself with God’s interests in other people. Jesus says, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:34-35).

The true expression of Christian character is not in good-doing, but in God-likeness. If the Spirit of God has transformed you within, you will exhibit divine characteristics in your life, not just good human characteristics. God’s life in us expresses itself as God’s life, not as human life trying to be godly. The secret of a Christian’s life is that the supernatural becomes natural in him as a result of the grace of God, and the experience of this becomes evident in the practical, everyday details of life, not in times of intimate fellowship with God. And when we come in contact with things that create confusion and a flurry of activity, we find to our own amazement that we have the power to stay wonderfully poised even in the center of it all.

WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS

There is no condition of life in which we cannot abide in Jesus. We have to learn to abide in Him wherever we are placed. —Our Brilliant Heritage