1031 信心的考验
你们若有信心，像一粒芥菜种…你们没有一件不能作的事了。《马太福音 17:20》
我们有这种观点，认为神会因我们的信仰而奖赏我们，在最初阶段可能如此，但我们并未通过信心赚取任何什么——信心把我们带入与神的正确关系中，并给神机会作工。然而，神经常必须釜底抽薪地打破你作为祂圣徒的经验，让你直接与祂自己接触。神要你明白，那是一种信心的生活，而不是一种情感上享受祂祝福的生活。你信心生活的早期是非常狭隘和激烈，围绕着少量的经验，其中的情感和信心一样多，充满了阳光和甜蜜。然后神收回了祂可见的祝福，教导你「凭信心行事」（哥林多后书 5:7）。现在你对祂是更有价值，远超从前你随着激动见证感到开心的那些日子。
信心的本质必须经过测试和考验，信心真正的考验不是我们觉得难以信靠神，而是神的性情必须在我们自己心中被证明是值得信赖的。信心要被转化为现实，就必须经历不间断的孤立时刻。永远不要将信心的考验与日常生活纪律操练混为一谈，因为很多我们称之为信心的考验，是活着无可避免的结果。正如圣经所教导的，信心是对神的信心，它与一切抵触神的事相抗衡——这种信心说：「无论神做什么，我都会忠于神的本性。」整本圣经中信心最伟大的至高表现就是——「祂虽杀我，我必信靠祂…」（约伯记13:15）。
来自章伯斯的智慧
我们面临当神温柔时我们严厉，当神严厉时我们温柔的危险。《神的爱—无敌安慰的信息》
1031 The Trial of Faith
If you have faith as small as a mustard seed…nothing will be impossible for you. —Matthew 17:20
We have the idea that God rewards us for our faith, and it may be so in the initial stages. But we do not earn anything through faith— faith brings us into the right relationship with God and gives Him His opportunity to work. Yet God frequently has to knock the bottom out of your experience as His saint to get you in direct contact with Himself. God wants you to understand that it is a life of faith, not a life of emotional enjoyment of His blessings. The beginning of your life of faith was very narrow and intense, centered around a small amount of experience that had as much emotion as faith in it, and it was full of light and sweetness. Then God withdrew His conscious blessings to teach you to “walk by faith” (2 Corinthians 5:7). And you are worth much more to Him now than you were in your days of conscious delight with your thrilling testimony.
Faith by its very nature must be tested and tried. And the real trial of faith is not that we find it difficult to trust God, but that God’s character must be proven as trustworthy in our own minds. Faith being worked out into reality must experience times of unbroken isolation. Never confuse the trial of faith with the ordinary discipline of life, because a great deal of what we call the trial of faith is the inevitable result of being alive. Faith, as the Bible teaches it, is faith in God coming against everything that contradicts Him— a faith that says, “I will remain true to God’s character whatever He may do.” The highest and the greatest expression of faith in the whole Bible is— “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him” (Job 13:15).
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
We are in danger of being stern where God is tender, and of being tender where God is stern. The Love of God—The Message of Invincible Consolation, 673 L