NIV
靈修
新聞
貼圖
為教會
The foregoing remarks serve as preparatory to the prayer itself. We have come to the Father with the prayer for the Holy Spirit. We have invoked the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Now we begin to pray.First, we pray to God the Father, thanking Him for all the blessings of this life. We acknowledge our entire dependence and impotence, and express our trust in His love and care for us. We wait before Him until we have the assurance that He sees and hears us. Then we direct our prayer to the Lord Jesus, and ask for grace to abide in Him always, for without Him we can do nothing. We look to Him as our Lord, our Preserver, our Life, and give ourselves into His keeping for the day. We give utterance to our faith in His infinite love, and the reality of His pres¬ence with us.
Lastly, we pray to the Holy Spirit. We have already prayed to Him for guidance. We now ask Him to strengthen us in the faith, that what we have asked of the Father and the Son may be truly wrought in us. He is the Dispenser of the power and gifts of the Father and of the Lord Jesus; all the grace we need must be the result of the working of the Spirit within us.
Our text says: "We serve God in the Spirit, we glory in the Lord Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh." We have no power to do the thing that is good. We count on the Lord Jesus, through the Holy Spirit, to work within us. Let us take time to think and meditate on these things. It will help to strengthen our faith if we repeat the text of Gal. v. 22, asking God to grant these fruits in our lives. As we surrender ourselves wholly, we shall have boldness by faith to accept the working of the Holy Spirit in our hearts.
A solace for sick saints. They have grown faint, and they fear that they shall never rise from the bed of doubt and fear; but the Great Physician can both remove the disease and take away the weakness which has come of it. He will strengthen the feeble. This He will do in the best possible way, for it shall be "in Jehovah." Our strength is far better in God than in self. In the LORD it causes fellowship, in ourselves it would create pride. In ourselves it would be sadly limited, but in God it knows no bound.
The act of prayer teaches us our unworthiness, which is a very salutary lesson for such proud beings as we are. If God gave us favours without constraining us to pray for them we should never know how poor we are, but a true prayer is an inventory of wants, a catalogue of necessities, a revelation of hidden poverty. While it is an application to divine wealth, it is a confession of human emptiness. The most healthy state of a Christian is to be always empty in self and constantly depending upon the Lord for supplies; to be always poor in self and rich in Jesus; weak as water personally, but mighty through God to do great exploits; and hence the use of prayer, because, while it adores God, it lays the creature where it should be, in the very dust. Prayer is in itself, apart from the answer which it brings, a great benefit to the Christian. As the runner gains strength for the race by daily exercise, so for the great race of life we acquire energy by the hallowed labour of prayer. Prayer plumes the wings of Gods young eaglets, that they may learn to mount above the clouds. Prayer girds the loins of Gods warriors, and sends them forth to combat with their sinews braced and their muscles firm. An earnest pleader cometh out of his closet, even as the sun ariseth from the chambers of the east, rejoicing like a strong man to run his race. Prayer is that uplifted hand of Moses which routs the Amalekites more than the sword of Joshua; it is the arrow shot from the chamber of the prophet foreboding defeat to the Syrians. Prayer girds human weakness with divine strength, turns human folly into heavenly wisdom, and gives to troubled mortals the peace of God. We know not what prayer cannot do! We thank thee, great God, for the mercy-seat, a choice proof of thy marvellous lovingkindness. Help us to use it aright throughout this day!
In the second epistle to Timothy, first chapter, and ninth verse, are these words—“Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling.” Now, here is a touchstone by which we may try our calling. It is “an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace.” This calling forbids all trust in our own doings, and conducts us to Christ alone for salvation, but it afterwards purges us from dead works to serve the living and true God. As he that hath called you is holy, so must you be holy. If you are living in sin, you are not called, but if you are truly Christs, you can say, “Nothing pains me so much as sin; I desire to be rid of it; Lord, help me to be holy.” Is this the panting of thy heart? Is this the tenor of thy life towards God, and his divine will? Again, in Philippians, 3:13, 14, we are told of “The high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” Is then your calling a high calling? Has it ennobled your heart, and set it upon heavenly things? Has it elevated your hopes, your tastes, your desires? Has it upraised the constant tenor of your life, so that you spend it with God and for God? Another test we find in Hebrews 3:1—“Partakers of the heavenly calling.” Heavenly calling means a call from heaven. If man alone call thee, thou art uncalled. Is thy calling of God? Is it a call to heaven as well as from heaven? Unless thou art a stranger here, and heaven thy home, thou hast not been called with a heavenly calling; for those who have been so called, declare that they look for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God, and they themselves are strangers and pilgrims upon the earth. Is thy calling thus holy, high, heavenly? Then, beloved, thou hast been called of God, for such is the calling wherewith God doth call his people.
I had a bed of asters last summer, that reached clear across my garden in the country. Oh, how gaily they bloomed. They were planted late. On the sides were yet fresh blossoming flowers, while the tops had gone to seed. Early frosts came, and I found one day that that long line of radiant beauty was seared, and I said, "Ah! the season is too much for them; they have perished"; and I bade them farewell. 
When we consider Abraham, we indeed observe a man of altars and offering. This is firstly evident by his obedience to the command of the Lord to go forth from his country and his father’s house. At Shechem, the Lord appeared to Abraham and promised to give the land to his descendants. Abraham responded by building an altar. The right and proper response to the promises of God is to build an altar and of course, to make offering. Without a heart for offering and obedience, it is unlikely that Abraham would have apprehended the promises of the Lord. Abraham is commended by the words of the Lord when He said, ‘I know Abraham, that he will command [teach] his children after him’.
Abraham was indeed a man after God’s own heart. In all ways, Abraham gave and offered. The account of Mt Moriah is a well known Bible story. If Abraham had not comprehended the scope of offering, he would not have found the faith to offer Isaac. He was willing to offer his son as a burnt offering upon the mountain of the Lord, in the very same place where David was later to build his altar. It may appear that David was disobeying the command of the Lord by building this altar apart from the tabernacle. However, he built in the very place that the temple would later be constructed. Every initiative within the will of God is established this way. This is also true in the New Testament where the church was established when the disciples brought their offerings and laid them at the apostles’ feet.
Paul was absolutely certain that God ‘is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of
the mystery which has been kept secret for long ages past’. At first glance,
the words ‘my gospel’ seem to be a little precocious. However, it is quite apparent that Paul received this gospel directly from Christ Himself. It was the revelation of the mystery which had been kept hidden for long ages past. He likewise wrote to the church in Rome, ‘According to my gospel, God will judge the secrets of men through Christ Jesus’. Paul recognised the authority, veracity and power of this gospel. It can equip
us for a lifetime of priestly service in the Lord’s house. And finally, it will
bring all our works to judgement, by which we receive an abundant entry into His eternal kingdom.
Writing to the Thessalonians to comfort them in their affliction and
persecutions, Paul said these things were an ‘indication of God’s righteous judgement so that you will be considered worthy of the kingdom of God’. The Lord has allowed the wicked to pour out the lifeblood of the righteous. They think that they are making an offering before the Lord, but they are deceived. Anyone who is driven by malice and wickedness does not understand the gospel of the glory. This gospel is the testimony of God. Jesus humbled Himself and poured out His soul to the death. Nevertheless, we know that He was delivered into the hands of wicked
men. This has been the case from the beginning, when Cain was filled with
hatred toward his brother and poured out his blood. However, the blood of Abel, like the blood of all the innocent righteous, still speaks.
The way we deal with stress will determine whether it has a positive or negative effect upon us. An elite athlete will purposely ‘stress’ their body to train themselves to compete at an ever-increasing level. When external pressures come upon us, it is right and proper that we rise to the occasion. Stress and pressure is training us. However, stress becomes negative when it crosses over to anxiety. We all experience external pressure upon us. And from time to time, we will all feel stressed. This will be either positive or negative. When we become anxious and fearful, it is always negative. We will never find rest. Anxiety eats away our capacity to move forward in faith. Anxiety will end up being the biggest influence in the way that we make plans. And anxiety will lead us away from wise counsel and direction. Consequentially, there will always be a reason why we don’t obey the Lord as He is directing our steps. Pressure, stress, and anxiety can war against our capacity to go forward. The children of Israel found grace in the wilderness. There was a particular miraculous grace that compensated for the fact that they were transitioning from Egypt to something completely new. When a person becomes a Christian, they are similarly experiencing a huge transition in their life. There will be times when we will all experience periods of transition, and there will be a compensating grace to answer our stress and pressure. As we move forward and as we mature, the Lord will expect more and more from us. And so it seems, as life continues and we encounter various impediments, that God is less and less involved. He is not less involved. He is leaving room for our faith in adversity.
Blood is associated with the work of priests. This is the work that Paul was urging believers to do when he said, ‘By the mercies of God ... present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.’ Can you see that there is a connection between the mercies of God, the provision of His blood, making acceptable offering, doing the will of God, and inheriting your sonship? The key, of course, is that we can only serve acceptably as priests of our living sacrifice because of the precious blood of the Lamb. So, how do we access the blood? Our most obvious point of access to the precious blood of Jesus is at the communion table. Jesus said, ‘He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him.’ When we eat and drink the communion elements, we are committing to live by His eternal life. The evidence of this commitment is that we abide, or live, in Christ and obey every word that proceeds from God. As Jesus said, ‘The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life’. Furthermore, to abide in Christ is to participate in the fellowship of His body.
