本週屬靈操練 (2-18-2007)

 

精典詩歌欣賞—— 復興你工作,主! (Revive Thy Work, O Lord )

「耶和華阿,我聽見你的名聲,就懼怕。耶和華阿,求你在這些年間復興你的工作,在這些年間使你的工作顯明出來,在發怒的時候以憐恤為念。」(哈三2)

此詩說出今日在教會中許多愛主聖徒所共有的期盼。我們實在需要一個新的復興。復興這一個字在希伯來文就是 haya。這是一個聯於生命的字。它也可以繙作「甦醒」,或是繙作「救活」。復興的不應只是工作的振興,更是我們得生命及生命的變化。復興必定是由裏到外、由生活到事奉。願神的兒女都一同檢點、痛悔、奉獻,讓主愛再焚燒,主話再被高舉。

詩歌介紹請參考—— 復興你工作,主!

 

作者 密德蘭 (Albert Midlane1825-1909)

 

 一    復興你工作,主!向你聖徒顯現;求你用權發命監督,讓你兒女檢點。

(副    復興你工作,主!我們現今等候;但願正當我們俯伏,你就顯現能手

二 復興你工作,主!求你感動教會,為著罪惡,憂傷痛悔,好讓你顯作為。

三 復興你工作,主!啟示你的寶貴;但願你愛在人心內, 好像復燃死灰。

四 復興你工作,主!祝福你的話語;但願你道所有真理, 到處被人高舉。

五 復興你工作,主!證明你的得勝;但願你民起來戰爭,使敵權勢潰崩。

六 復興你工作,主!賜下當初權能;願其榮耀全歸你名,祝福則歸我們。

Revive Thy work, O Lord, Thy mighty arm make bare;
Speak with the voice that wakes the dead,  And make Thy people hear.

Revive Thy work, O Lord, Disturb this sleep of death;
Quicken the smold’ring embers now By Thine almighty breath.

Revive Thy work, O Lord, Create soul-thirst for Thee;
And hungering for the Bread of Life O may our spirits be.

Revive Thy work, O Lord, Exalt Thy precious Name;
And, by the Holy Ghost, our love For Thee and Thine inflame.

Revive Thy work, O Lord, Give Pentecostal showers;
The glory shall be all Thine own, The blessing, Lord, be ours.

 

本週『每日讀經』

 

 讀經請參考—— 中文和合本聖經查詢系統  http://springbible.fhl.net

 

馬可福音 主要的話──耶穌基督是僕人

 

祂的話與祂的工作(四1至六6

  二月十八日    120        比喻

  二月十九日    2134       比喻

                          3541       神蹟

  二月廿日        120         神蹟

  二月廿一日    2143       神蹟

  二月廿二日    16           神蹟

 

祂感力的擴充(六7至八26

                          729         著十二門徒

  二月廿三日    3056       著十二門徒

  二月廿四日    130         著十二門徒

  二月廿五日    31至八26    著十二門徒

 

 

禱告的操練——「恆切禱告」

 

「恆切禱告」這是一種爭戰的禱告。聖經但以理書十章1~3節「波斯王古列第三年,有事顯給稱為伯提沙撒的但以理,這事是真的是指著大爭戰,但以理通達這事,明白這異象。當那時我但以理悲傷了三個七日,美味我沒有喫,酒肉沒有入我的口,也沒有用油抹我的身,直到滿了三個七日。」

 

「恆切禱告」是以嚴謹的心、敏銳的靈,仔細體察神旨意,然後與聖靈密切同工,藉著「恆切禱告」得勝每個當下屬靈的爭戰

(摘自大光「讀經日程——禱告篇」)

 

讓我們學習這樣的禱告

 

願一切被造的都來讚美你,你的僕人也因感謝而歡欣。你的言語真實,使我們配受憐憫;你的幫助信實,我們的心全然投靠你。神啊,你的能力在軟弱的人身上顯得完全;這些人不關心自己,卻一心尋求永恆的事物。你將真理引往得勝之路。求你使我知道你的道路,行在你的真理中。神啊,求你為我敞開希望之門,使我出黑暗入光明。你既沒有使我中年亡故,就求你保守我的靈魂,不讓我的腳滑跌。求你賜我愛的工作,祝福我的手工作昌盛。求你使我不死,直到完成你的旨意,然後才歡然進入安息。阿們。(魏洛倫)

神我們的主啊,凡信靠你的人都得穩妥。你無論引領我們到哪裡,我們都願意去,因為你的道路是完全的智慧與仁愛。我們雖然走過幽谷,你的亮光仍照入我們的心靈,引領我們安然度過憂苦的黑夜。你是我們的朋友,在天地間我們無所需求,因為你是一切投靠你之人的安慰、幫助與保障。主啊,我們是屬你的,讓我們永不離棄你。我們願意從你手中接受一切,決不發怨言;因為你所行的都是正確的。求你的旨意成為我們的心意,使我們不怕兇惡及死亡,因此萬事都互相效力,使我們得益處。主啊,求你保守我們在你的愛與真理之中,以你的亮光安慰我們,以你的聖靈引導我們。阿們。(魏斯1738~1805年)

 摘自 讓我們學習這樣的禱告

珠璣語錄——祈禱的人

"你的有用与否,完全在于你是否有圣洁的生活,因為你的講章不過是一兩個鐘頭的事,但是你的生活卻時時在發生講道。如果撒但能使一個傳道人愛人的稱贊,愛美食、愛安逸与享樂,他便已經毀坏了他的工作。你要專心祈禱,從父神那里得到你講道時所用的經文、字句及思想。馬丁路德把每日最好的三個鐘頭用在祈禱上。”--麥克世

我們不斷的費心力尋求各种新方法、新計划、新組織,藉以推進教會的工作,發揮福音的效果。今天的潮流極易使人只注意計划与組織,而忽略了個人。但父神在他的計划中,卻是注意"人”的質素過于任何其他的事物。他作工的方法是藉著那些合用的人。教會尋求更合用的方法,而父神尋求更合用的人。"有一個人名叫約翰,是從神那里差來的。”基督降世以前預備時期的一切都可以歸納于約翰身上。保羅指出,那些將福音的基礎堅立于世上之人之所以能成功,是在于他們的品格。福音的榮耀与效果与那些傳福音的人有密切的關系。神說"耶和華的眼目遍察全地,要顯大能幫助向他心存誠實的人”(代下16:9)。他的意思就是說,他需要合用的人。以他們為器皿,藉其將他的權能運行在世上。這是机器時代的人所容易忘記的一個重要而急切的真理。忽略了這真理,更使神的工作受到極大的損害,正如世界因缺少陽光而受到損害一樣,黑暗、混亂、死亡是必然的結果。

今天的教會所需要的,不是更多与更好的机械式的新組織与新方法,而是圣靈所能使用的人--在祈禱上有能力的人。圣靈的能力不是藉方法流出的,乃是藉著人;他不是降臨于方法中,乃是降臨于人身上;他不是膏抹計划,乃是膏抹人--祈禱的人

Men of Prayer Needed

Study universal holiness of life. Your whole usefulness depends on this, for your sermons last but an hour or two; your life preaches all the week. If Satan can only make a covetous minister a lover of praise, of pleasure, of good eating, he has ruined your ministry. Give yourself to prayer, and get your texts, your thoughts, your words from God. Luther spent his best three hours in prayer.”  Robert Murray McCheyne

WE are constantly on a stretch, if not on a strain, to devise new methods, new plans, new organizations to advance the Church and secure enlargement and efficiency for the gospel. This trend of the day has a tendency to lose sight of the man or sink the man in the plan or organization. God's plan is to make much of the man, far more of him than of anything else. Men are God's method. The Church is looking for better methods; God is looking for better men. “There was a man sent from God whose name was John.” The dispensation that heralded and prepared the way for Christ was bound up in that man John. “Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given.” The world's salvation comes out of that cradled Son. When Paul appeals to the personal character of the men who rooted the gospel in the world, he solves the mystery of their success. The glory and efficiency of the gospel is staked on the men who proclaim it. When God declares that “the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him,” he declares the necessity of men and his dependence on them as a channel through which to exert his power upon the world. This vital, urgent truth is one that this age of machinery is apt to forget. The forgetting of it is as baneful on the work of God as would be the striking of the sun from his sphere. Darkness, confusion, and death would ensue.

What the Church needs to-day is not more machinery or better, not new organizations or more and novel methods, but men whom the Holy Ghost can use men of prayer, men mighty in prayer. The Holy Ghost does not flow through methods, but through men. He does not come on machinery, but on men. He does not anoint plans, but men of prayer.

. 摘自祈禱出來的能力 白邦茲 (E.M.Bounds)著

屬靈書籍推薦——《祈禱出來的能力》白邦茲著

《祈禱出來的能力》是一本充滿屬靈"能力”的書,藤近輝牧師在翻譯該書時,深受感動并建立了更有力量的禱告生活。他見證說:"我曾經在一連几個禮拜的時間,一直在極度充滿的狀態之下,心靈里充滿了禱告,常常有一連兩個小時的禱告,在鎖住的房間里,感動的熱淚不斷地在流著,圣靈里的高峰与贊美的喜樂,象浪潮一樣一陣一陣的泛濫,禱告是涌出來的,迸出來的,但是室外的人听不見什么,最多知道我是在關門安靜禱告。我心里充滿了主的愛与得胜,講道有新的能力,似乎心里充滿了要傳的信息,涌流出來。我毫無怀疑地相信是被圣靈充滿。這一切的來源只是因為我正在翻譯《祈禱的能力》那一本書,書中句句話語打動著我的心,我就在跪下禱告時,進入了這种充滿的狀態,一連一兩個月的時間。

 

    甚麼是導致今天我們心靈乾渴、事奉無力的主因?很多時候,我們會在營營役役的生活中跌倒,會在沈重繁忙的事奉中枯乾,遺忘了那得力之鑰匙──禱告。若不藉著禱告,我們絕對無法攀上靈程的高峰。《祈禱出來的能力》是一本我常重溫,又屢獲提醒,屢感得力的好書。本書提醒我們「禱告的人是個向上的人,不禱告的人就向下滑跌 。」

 

《祈禱出來的能力》── 節錄

Prayer Heroes: Edward McKendree Bounds (1835-1913)

, ". . . every preacher who does not make prayer a mighty factor in his own life and ministry is weak as a factor in God's work and is powerless to project God's cause in this world."

EDWARD McKENDREE BOUNDS was born in Shelby County, Missouri, on August 15, 1835. He received a common school education at Shelbyville and at the age of twenty-one was admitted to the bar. Bounds practiced law until age twenty-four when he received a call to preach the gospel. The Civil War erupted while Bounds was serving as a pastor in Brunswick, Missouri, and he was taken as a prisoner of war because he refused to take the oath of allegiance to the Federal Government. He finally secured a release and served as chaplain of the Fifth Missouri Regiment until he was captured and held as prisoner at Nashville, Tennessee. After the war he served as pastor of churches in Tennessee and Alabama. He married Emmie Barnette who died ten years later. Then he married Hattie Barnette and together they had five children. Later he became editor of the St. Louis Christian Advocate. He spent the last seventeen years of his life with his family in Washington, Georgia. He died August 24, 1913. Just before he died, he wrote these lines to his friend, Homer W Hodge: "When he is ready, I am ready; I long to taste the joys of the heavenlies."

For almost a century Edward McKendree Bounds's books on prayer have been classic works, stimulating and inspiring Christians to become prayer warriors. A forceful writer and very deep thinker, Bounds spent the last seventeen years of his life reading, writing, and praying. He rose at 4 A.m. daily for many years, and was indefatigable in his study of the Bible. As breathing is a physical reality to us, so prayer was a reality for Bounds. He took the command, "Pray without ceasing," almost as literally as animate nature takes the law of the reflex nervous system, which controls our breathing. Because Bounds so diligently practiced what he preached, he was able to capture the essence of prayer, and his works live on to call today's Christians to higher discipleship and an energetic prayer life.

Books On Prayer by E. M. Bounds:

  • Power Through Prayer

  • Prayer and Praying Men

  • Purpose In Prayer

  • The Essentials of Prayer

  • The Necessity of Prayer

  • The Possibilities of Prayer

  • The Reality of Prayer

  • The Weapon of Prayer

請參考瑪波羅教會中文網站 英文古典著作 SERIES ON Prayer--EDWARD M. BOUNDS


 

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