赤誠追尋神

If the devil finds us uninterested in evil, then he'll try to get us to focus on our unworthiness and inability. In my own pursuit of God, I often become preoccupied with ME!

It was easy to think that being constantly aware of my faults and weakness was humility. It's not! If I'm the main subject, talking incessantly about my weakness, I have entered into the most subtle form of pride! True brokenness causes complete dependency on God.

I struggled for many years with self-evaluation. Somehow I had developed the notion that this was how I could become holy – by showing tremendous concern for my own motives.

The main problem was that I never found anything good in me. It always led to discouragement, which led to doubt, and eventually took me to unbelief. By being sold on my own unrighteousness, the enemy has disengaged me from effective service.

After many years of trying, I discovered I was not the Holy Spirit. I cannot convict and deliver myself of sin. It brought me to pray in the following manner:

"Father, you know that I don't do so well when I look inward, so I'm going to stop. I am relying on You to point out to me the things that I need to see.

I promise to stay in Your Word. You said that Your Word was a sword – so please use it to cut me deeply. Expose those things in me that are not pleasing to You. But in doing so, please give me the grace to forsake them.

I also promise to come before You daily. Your presence is like a fire. Please burn from me those things that are unpleasing to You. Melt my heart until it becomes like the heart of Jesus. Be merciful to me in these things.

I also promise to stay in fellowship with Your people. You said that iron sharpens iron. I expect You to anoint the "wounds of a friend" to bring me to my senses when I'm being resistant toward You.

Please use these tools to shape my life until Jesus alone is seen in me. I believe that You have given me Your heart and mind. By Your grace I am a new creation. I want that reality to be seen that the name of Jesus would be held in highest honor."

It's easy to see my weakness, my propensity toward sin, and my inability to be like Jesus. Confessing this truth requires no faith at all! On the contrary, to do as Paul commanded in Romans 6:13, to consider myself dead to sin, I must believe God!

Therefore, in your weakest state declare, "I AM STRONG!" Agree with God regardless of how you feel and discover the power of resurrection. Without faith it's impossible to please Him. The first place that faith must be exercised is in our own standing with God.

It is true that without Christ, we are nothing. But I'm not without Him, and I never will be again! Wouldn't it honor Him more if we believed that He actually did a good enough job in saving us, and that we really are saved? Doesn't it honor Him more when His children no longer see themselves only as sinners saved by grace, but now as heirs of God?

The boldness we need is not self-confidence, but the confidence that the Father has in the work of His Son in us. At some point we must rise up to the higher call of God and stop saying things about ourselves that are no longer true. It's no longer a question of heaven or hell. It's only a question of how much of hell's thinking I will allow into this heavenly mind of mine.

．～．～．～．～．

開始了新的對一以後．．．起初都幾心寒．．．

就如牧師曾說，人很容易以自己井底之蛙的程度來釐定：信仰應該是這樣的了；我的信仰都算不錯的了．．．直到有人在你面前把真理活畫出來，才察覺基督徒的生命原來可以更美麗、更真實、更似神。

感謝神，在這「恩典、恩典」的快車道時期，神賜予額外的恩典與信心，讓我放下自己的怕壓力、多愁善感、自我定罪．．．不錯，靠著自己，我是軟弱的；但當我倚靠神，我可以滿有信心盼望地「說」，按著領袖所給的方向與榜樣去長大。

說，我會放下個人感受，以榮神益人成為處事的原則！
說，我會擴展愛心容量，用心去愛人，去事奉！
說，我會成為一個負責任的領袖！

冇錯，赤誠一定會快高長大的！