6月23日 常经忧患
他……多受痛苦，常经忧患。（赛五十三3）
我们所经的忧患与主所经的不同；我们是忍受、经历，却与忧患没有密切的关系。我们从起头就不肯接受罪恶这个事实，对人生采取一种合乎理性的观点，以为人只要约束自己、教育自己，生命就能逐渐似神。可是日久便发觉有一种东西存在，是意想之外的，就是罪。它把我们一切筹算破坏了。罪使事物本末倒置，毫无道理可言。我们必须承认罪是一个事实，不是一种缺陷；罪是对神赤手空拳的反叛。在我生命中不是神死，就是罪死。新约的真理使我们面对这个问题。若罪在我里面掌权，神在我里面的生命就死了；若神在我里面掌权，罪在我里面就要死；除此之外，不可能有别的结果了。人滔天的大罪，就是把耶稣基督钉在十架上。神在世上的历史如何，你我的生命史上也必如何。我们必须承认，罪是人生苦痛忧患的因由。
祈祷◆噢，主啊，你是没有时间性的，因为“在你看来，千年如已过的昨日”；可是，对我这却截然不同。你弥补我那被腐败所吞蚀的年日，在基督耶稣里使我成为一个新造的人！求你接纳我对你的感恩。
June 23 Acquaintance With Grief
“A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.” Isaiah
53:3
We are not acquainted with grief in the way in which Our Lord was
acquainted with it; we endure it, we get through it, but we do not become
intimate with it. At the beginning of life we do not reconcile ourselves to the
fact of sin. We take a rational view of life and say that a man by controlling
his instincts, and by educating himself, can produce a life which will slowly
evolve into the life of God. But as we go on, we find the presence of something
which we have not taken into consideration, viz., sin, and it upsets all our
calculations. Sin has made the basis of things wild and not rational. We have
to recognize that sin is a fact, not a defect; sin is red-handed mutiny against
God. Either God or sin must die in my life. The New Testament brings us right
down to this one issue. If sin rules in me, God’s life in me will be killed; if
God rules in me, sin in me will be killed. There is no possible ultimate but
that. The climax of sin is that it crucified Jesus Christ, and what was true in
the history of God on earth will be true in your history and in mine. In our
mental outlook we have to reconcile ourselves to the fact of sin as the only explanation
as to why Jesus Christ came, and as the explanation of the grief and sorrow in
life.
