12月7日
悔改
依著神的意思忧愁，就生出没有后悔的懊悔来，以致得救。（林后七10）
对罪的自责，这些话说的最贴切：“我的罪，我的罪啊，落在你身上，我的救主，多悲痛！”认罪是一个人最罕有的打击，那是认识神的门槛。耶稣基督说圣灵来，是叫人为罪自责；当圣灵唤醒人的良心，叫他面对神的时候，使他不安的，不是与人的关系，而是与神的关系－－“我向你犯罪，惟独得罪了你，在你眼前行了这恶。”认罪、赦免和圣洁三者奇妙的交织著，只有蒙赦罪的人，才成为圣洁。他蒙赦免的证据，是因着神的恩典，以致前后判若两人。悔改总叫人承认：“我犯了罪。”一个人肯这样忠心表示，就是神作工的最大明证。若非这样，那就只不过是因犯错事而生的懊悔，是鄙屑自己的一种反射作用罢了。
进入神的国度，是借着悔改的苦痛，刺透人自以为是的高贵良善；然后圣灵来了，在人里面开始创造神儿子的生命。新生命的表彰，是明明的悔改，与不知不觉的成圣，绝不会有相反表现的。基督信仰的基石是悔改。严格来说，人无法自己悔改，悔改是神的礼物。古代清教徒就常求“眼泪的恩赐”。所以什么时候你不再觉得悔改的好处，就是在黑暗里了。试省察自己，是否已忘记了怎样知错。
祈祷◆噢，主啊，借着你的圣灵和恩典，我的内心产生和孕育了极大的渴望－－愿我能适当地赞美你。
December
7 Repentance
“For
godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation.” 2 Corinthians 7:10
Conviction
of sin is best portrayed in the words –
“My sins, my
sins, my Saviour,
How sad on
Thee they fall.”
Conviction
of sin is one of the rarest things that ever strikes a man. It is the threshold
of an understanding of God. Jesus Christ said that when the Holy Spirit came He
would convict of sin, and when the Holy Spirit rouses a man’s conscience and
brings him into the presence of God, it is not his relationship with men that
bothers him, but his relationship with God – “against Thee, Thee only, have I
sinned, and done this evil in Thy sight.” The marvels of conviction of sin,
forgiveness, and holiness are so interwoven that it is only the forgiven man
who is the holy man, he proves he is forgiven by being the opposite to what he
was, by God’s grace. Repentance always brings a man to this point: I have
sinned. The surest sign that God is at work is when a man says that and means
it. Anything less than this is remorse for having made blunders, the reflex
action of disgust at himself.
The entrance
into the Kingdom is through the panging pains of repentance crashing into a
man’s respectable goodness; then the Holy Ghost, Who produces these agonies,
begins the formation of the Son of God in the life. The new life will manifest
itself in conscious repentance and unconscious holiness, never the other way
about. The bedrock of Christianity is repentance. Strictly speaking, a man
cannot repent when he chooses; repentance is a gift of God. The old Puritans
used to pray for “the gift of tears.” If ever you cease to know the virtue of
repentance, you are in darkness. Examine yourself and see if you have forgotten
how to be sorry.
