12月27日
胜败所在
耶和华说：“以色列啊，你若回来归向我……”（耶四1）
争战的胜败决定于在神面前意志的隐秘处，而不是外在的世界。神的灵提醒我，催促我独自见神，在他面前作战。若不这样行，我每次必败。争战是一分钟还是一年，是在于我的决定，而不是神；但必须在神面前自己摔跤，断然弃绝主权。没有什么能打倒一个在神面前争战胜利的人。
我若说：“还是等到事情来到，再试试神吧！”我必发觉自己办不到。我要在神面前，独自在心灵的隐秘处，没有他人骚扰的地方，好好解决；然后放胆地出去，因为知道仗已经打赢了。若在那里打败，灾祸难处必然不绝临到，就如神的命令一样坚定。仗打不赢的道理，是我想先从外在世界去打；其实应该独自见神，在那里先打胜了，才可一次性解决问题。
对待其他人也是如此，要把他们推到意志的边缘－－完全归服的起点。有时候，神带我们来到一个顶点，就是生命的大分水线。从那一点，我们或是逐渐变得怠惰、毫不起劲地过著一种无大用处的信徒生活；或是为神的至高荣耀燃烧自己——竭诚为主。
祈祷◆噢，我的神，请你现在感动我。在其中一次改变生命的触动中，你确实从所有事物中清楚而具体地启示你自己；在那些灿烂的时刻中，我看见你、敬拜你，并赞叹你。
December
27 Where The Battle’s Lost And Won
“If
thou wilt return, O Israel, saith the Lord. . . .” Jeremiah 4:1
The battle
is lost or won in the secret places of the will before God, never first in the
external world. The Spirit of God apprehends me and I am obliged to get alone
with God and fight the battle out before Him. Until this is done, I lose every
time. The battle may take one minute or a year, that will depend on me, not on God;
but it must be wrestled out alone before God, and I must resolutely go through
the hell of a renunciation before God. Nothing has any power over the man who
has fought out the battle before God and won there.
If I say, “I
will wait till I get into the circumstances and then put God to the test,” I
shall find I cannot. I must get the thing settled between my self and God in
the secret places of my soul where no stranger intermeddles, and then I can go
forth with the certainty that the battle is won. Lose it there, and calamity
and disaster and upset are as sure as God’s decree. The reason the battle is
not won is because I try to win it in the external world first. Get alone with
God, fight it out before Him, settle the matter there once and for all.
In dealing
with other people, the line to take is to push them to an issue of will. That
is the way abandonment begins. Every now and again, not often, but sometimes,
God brings us to a point of climax. That is the Great Divide in the life; from
that point we either go towards a more and more dilatory and useless type of
Christian life, or we become more and more ablaze for the glory of God – My
Utmost for His Highest.
