『……你們蒙恩……要為基督受苦。』(腓一章二十九節)
神開辦了一個嚴謹的學校。校中很多課,都是要在悲傷中費力研究的。裴克斯特(Richard Baxter)說,『哦,神阿,我感謝你,因為你給了我五十八年的訓練』;他的困難變成他的勝利。
我們的天父所開辦的這個學校,不久就要結束了;我們能受訓練的日期,也一天一天減少了。讓我們要畏縮難學的課,和逃避教鞭的懲罰了。如果我們能高高興興地忍耐到底,直到在榮耀中學成畢業的話,我們一定會覺得冠冕更美麗,天堂更可愛了。-克勒(Theodore L. Cuyler)
世上最精細的瓷器,都至少經火燒過三次,有的還不止三次。德瑞斯登(Dresden)的瓷器,總是燒三次的。為甚麼瓷器要經過強烈的猛火呢?一次應當夠了;兩次應當夠了。不,瓷器必須燒過三次,然後其上的金色和紅色才會更加美麗和牢固。
人生也根據這個同樣的原則。試煉一次,兩次,三次地臨到我們;感謝主,靠著祂的恩典,這些美麗的顏色會永久存留在我們的身上了。-梅爾(CortlandMyers)
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“Unto you it is given…to suffer.” (Phil. 1:29)
God keeps a costly school. Many of its lessons are spelled out through tears. Richard Baxter said, “O God, I thank Thee for a bodily discipline of eight and fifty years”; and he is not the only man who has turned a trouble into triumph.
This school of our Heavenly Father will soon close for us; the term time is shortening every day. Let us not shrink from a hard lesson or wince under any rod of chastisement. The richer will be the crown, and the sweeter will be Heaven, if we endure cheerfully to the end and graduate in glory. --- Theodore L. Cuyler.
The finest china in the world is burned at least three times, some of it more than three times. Dresden china is always burned three times.
Why does it go through that intense fire? Once ought to be enough; twice ought to be enough. No, three times are necessary to burn that china so that gold and the crimson are brought out more beautiful and then fastened there to stay.
We are fashioned after the same principle in human life. Our trials are burned into us once, twice, thrice; and by God’s grace these beautiful colors are there and they are there to stay forever. --- Cortland Myers.
Earth’s fairest flowers grow not on sunny plain,
But where some vast upheaval rent in twain
The smiling land…
After the whirlwind’s devastating blast,
After the molten fire and ashen pall,
God’s still small voice breathes healing over all.
From riven rocks and fern-clad chasms deep,
Flow living waters as from hearts that weep,
There in the afterglow soft dews distill
And angels tend God’s plants when night falls still,
And the Beloved passing by that way
Will gather lilies at the break of day.
--- J. H. D.
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