0920 生命的神聖誡命
所以你們要完全，像你們的天父完全一樣。《馬太福音 5:48》
我們的主在馬太福音 5:38-48 中勸勉我們，行為上要對每個人慷慨大方。當心不可在你的屬靈生活中按照你天然情感來生活。每個人都有天然的情感——我們喜歡某些人，我們不喜歡某些人。然而，我們絕不能讓那些喜歡和不喜歡來主導我們的基督徒生活。「我們若在光明中行，如同神在光明中，就彼此相交。」（約翰一書 1:7），即使對那些我們沒有好感的人也應如此。
我們的主在這裡給我們的榜樣不是好人的，甚至不是好基督徒的，而是神自己的榜樣。「…要完全，像你們的天父完全一樣。」換句話說，只需向別人展現神向你展現的即可。神會給你很多現實生活中的機會來證明你是否「完全，像你們的天父完全一樣。」成為門徒意味着有意將自己與神對其他人的關心認同。耶穌說：「我賜給你們一條新命令，乃是叫你們彼此相愛；我怎樣愛你們，你們也要怎樣相愛。你們若有彼此相愛的心，眾人因此就認出你們是我的門徒了。」（約翰福音 13:34-35）。
基督徒品格的真正表達不在於行善，而在於像神。如果神的靈改變了你的內在，你會在生活中展現神聖的特質，而不僅僅是好的人類特質。神的生命在我們裡面表達其本身就是神的生命，而不是人類生命試圖變得敬虔。基督徒生命的秘訣，乃超自然事物因神恩典的結果而在他裡面成為自然，且這種體驗在日常生活實際細節中變得明顯，而不只是在與神親密相交的時刻。當我們接觸到那些造成困惑和混亂的事物時，我們會驚訝地發現，即使在其中心，我們也有能力保持奇異鎮定。
來自章伯斯的智慧
沒有任何生活狀態是我們不能住在耶穌里的。無論我們被放置何處，我們都必須學會住在祂裡面。《我們的輝煌遺產》
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