1月6日 敬拜
從那裏他又遷到伯特利東邊的山，支搭帳棚，西邊是伯特利，東邊是艾。他在那裏又爲耶和華築了一座壇。（創十二8）
敬拜就是把神給你最好的獻給他。凡是你最好的東西，當小心處理。你從神得了祝福，就要把它獻回給神，作爲愛的禮物。在神面前花時間好好地默想，以敬拜的虔誠行動，把那祝福獻上給神，假若你把那東西留歸自己，它必會變成屬靈枯朽之物，正如儲藏起來的嗎哪一樣。神絕不會容許你把屬靈的事物留歸己用，它必須歸還給神，讓神將之化爲別人的祝福。
伯特利是與神相交的象徵，而艾是世界的意思，亞伯拉罕卻搭營在兩者之間。我們在外面爲神作工有多少價值，是以我們私下與神相交程度的深淺來衡量的。匆忙倉卒當然是不對的，因爲敬拜神的時間多的是；但平靜無事的日子，也許會成爲陷阱。我們支搭帳棚的所在，應該隨時可與神有安靜的相交，姑勿論我們與世界的接觸有多頻繁。屬靈的生活中這三者總是一致的，他在忙碌中幷不一定分爲三個階段——敬拜、等候、作工。有些人像屬靈青蛙一般，跳躍而行，從敬拜跳到等候，又從等候跳到工作。神的心意是要三者同時幷進。在主的生活中幷不急躁。這是一種操練，我們不能一蹴而就。
祈禱◆主啊，我何其清楚工作和活動所引發的危險，是與安靜和退隱危險等同，而禰是我唯一安穩的避難所。讓我的一切都全然被禰占據。
January 6 Worship
“And he pitched his tent having Bethel on the west and Ai on the east:
and there he builded an altar.” Genesis 12:8
Worship is giving God the
best that He has given you. Be careful what you do with the best you have.
Whenever you get a blessing from God, give it back to Him as a love gift. Take
time to meditate before God and offer the blessing back to Him in a deliberate
act of worship. If you hoard a thing for yourself, it will turn into spiritual
dry rot, as the manna did when it was hoarded. God will never let you hold a
spiritual thing for yourself, it has to be given back to Him that He may make
it a blessing to others.
Bethel is the symbol of
communion with God; Ai is the symbol of the world. Abraham pitched his tent
between the two. The measure of the worth of our public activity for God is the
private profound communion we have with Him. Rush is wrong every time, there is
always plenty of time to worship God. Quiet days with God may be a snare. We
have to pitch our tents where we shall always have quiet times with God,
however noisy our times with the world may be. There are not three stages in
spiritual life – worship, waiting and work. Some of us go in jumps like
spiritual frogs, we jump from worship to waiting, and from waiting to work.
God’s idea is that the three should go together. They were always together in
the life of Our Lord. He was unhasting and unresting. It is a discipline, we
cannot get into it all at once.
