得救、重生和成圣

我有很长一段时间的挣扎-就是没有得救的确据。那时候我在的那间教会经常在出队三福的时候或者给人受洗之前问这样的问题：“如果主耶稣现在回来，你有把握和他一同坐席吗？” 或是“如果今天你死了，你有把握上天堂吗？” 这样的问题总是让我不自在！我没有把握但我有盼望！那个时候我看到很多会友信心满满地回答：“确信”， 我真是落入百般的试探当中。

• 首先我会怀疑自己是否做得特别不好所以没有信心；
• 然后又担心神是否没有拣选我所以没把握；
• 最后又愤愤不平别人为什么那么有信心。

我知道自己每天有多少时间花在寻找这个问题的答案上。有一段时间被圣灵充满说方言就是得救的确据之说深得我心。
第一、这种现象确实超自然；
第二、圣经中多次提起；
第三、很多人求都得到了。

• 所以我立即投身在寻求这项得救确据的火热之中。我读经、祷告、默想、认罪、禁食、哭泣、请人代祷、参加各种灵恩聚会、读有关圣灵的书籍......经过40天的刻苦己心，神怜悯了我，我经历了我梦寐以求的神迹，说了各种稀奇古怪的话，身边的朋友都为我高兴，我得了圣灵的印记，说了方言，有了永生的确据！然而我所在的教会却反对提倡追求灵恩，把说方言甚至想成是邪灵的作为。每次听到牧师讲保护教会，坚决抵制灵恩派的渗透工作的讲话时，我都感到心虚，好像自己是个卧底的特务似的。终于承受不了这种压力，我投奔了朋友的教会。体会了3个月大喊大叫，大哭大笑的激情崇拜，我觉得很没安全感：
• 3个月没有领过一次圣餐
• 强调独一真神，反对三位一体
• 太强调身体的感觉和反应：所有的见证都是圣灵充满了谁，谁说方言了
  我回不了过去的教堂，也不喜欢新的教堂。最搅扰我的事-我还是无法面对同样的问题：“你有100%的把握会进天堂吗？”我总是拒绝回答。“应该会把” 我心里想。我口里承认、心里相信、奉父、子、灵的名受洗归在耶稣基督的名下，每天读经祷告，每周去教堂敬拜，有自己的团契小组，凡事都喜欢求问神，现在还说了方言，我应该具备了重生得救的全部条件：
  

1. 上帝怜悯了我们，赐下救恩的福音
2. 我是蒙了大恩的女子，听到了这福音，而且是完备的福音
3. 我的心对神的怜悯和审判起了敬畏、渴慕、爱恋之情，我开始懊悔自己在不认识神的时候，所犯下的死行；
4. 在忏悔和祷告中我也开始相信神在基督的宝血中完全接纳了我，赐给我儿子的名分和权柄；
5. 我在水洗之中向众人表明我相信自己归入基督的死，也进入基督复活的新生命；
6. 神也认可我对他福音的回应，赐下基督的灵，带我进入神的国度
7. 我的生命也开始慢慢地改变，人生观价值观完全和以前不一样了，时间和金钱的分配和使用也不一样了

可是，为什么没有百分百的把握呢？为什么常常沮丧呢？为什么还是常常软弱呢？为什么一小群自称非常爱主的姊妹聚在一起的时候，我常常会觉得非常不舒服呢？觉得别人的骄傲和自己的自义都常常让我受伤呢？为什么心里还是有黑暗呢？-争竞的心、私欲、抱怨、浮躁。我清清楚楚看到各样的罪在自己身上和周围姊妹身上一一显露。我常常用主的话语：“你们要用谦卑束腰，彼此顺服”来约束自己，但心里的痛苦却与日俱增，现在我甚至盼望神带领我到美国去，换一个全新的环境，遇到一群真正的圣徒来教导我如何做主的门徒和使女。
在主的孩子之间产生隔阂，真是让神担忧，也让人愁烦。小组聚会需要很大的智慧。每个人的性格、背景、对圣经的熟悉程度、当前的处境、家人情况都不一样，每个人到聚会中寻求的虽然都是神的同在但在具体的情感和理性上又都很不同。小组聚会的头在传统教会中总是由教会任命。在教会以外的小组多是自发组成。我现在的小组就是一群对主狂热的姊妹组成的。但是这个时候谁来做头，往往是性格强势的姊妹。但是性格越强的姊妹，往往在主手中是最需要磨造的，己都很强的。难怪主说：“你们中间要做头的要做众人的仆人” 我们中间有一位姊妹信主时间最长，家里面积最大，属灵书籍最多，我们喜欢到她家里聚会，她也喜欢做我们的小组长。但我真的不喜欢她带领我们的方式。有一次她说六一一教会的先知给她一个预言说：“她将要把一群关在铁笼子里的人释放出来” 而她当时分享的口气和环顾我们的眼神好像是我们就是那等待她释放的囚犯。我的骄傲让我立即觉得很受冒犯。除了主耶稣，谁能释放别人呢？类似的事件不断发生。刚开始聚会的时候，我刚刚说方言，很兴奋就盼望大家能一起用方言祷告，这位姊妹很严厉地制止我们这么做。她说：“我们要用悟性祷告直到不由自主说方言” 可是这次她从香港回来后，却每次在别人用悟性祷告的时候，她在边上用方言祷告，并告诉我们要用方言为别人做警醒祷告。我直觉告诉我，她在之前根本不能说方言，就不让别人说。这次回香港得到这个恩赐，就要把自己提高到成为别人守护天使的地位上。好像别人祷告之中也带有邪恶似的。我一直勉强自己去她家聚会，有3个原因：

1. 我最亲爱的姊妹在里面，而且盲目崇拜这位姊妹，称她为神仙姐姐；
2. 我喜欢借书看，这位姊妹家有很多好书。虽然很多她并没有读过。提到借书，我又有意见，每次想借的书，她还不肯，说一定要在神面前祷告过之后才能知道那本书适不适合我们看。我最不喜欢看到人高抬自己到这样的地步。
3. 我实在不知道哪里还有狂热爱主的姊妹的聚会地点。

我感谢神对我这么小信又小心眼的罪人之中的罪魁不断地守约施慈爱。我感谢主耶稣了解我想要得到确据的奴仆心态。我在挣扎与痛苦之中被神引领开始看大卫鲍森的新旧约概览和他的书Normal Christian Birth。我高兴地发现原来圣经只给人“重生”的确据，却不给人得荣耀的确据。我们有了圣灵内住之后，就有做完全人的力量、智慧和自由，但我们仍然可以选择顺着圣灵散种还是顺从肉体散种，我们可以一直住在神爱子的国度里，过在地如同在天的生活，我们也可以仍然活在世俗之中，为了眼前的利益出卖神儿子的名分如同以扫一样。我们重生不是为了得救而是为了成圣。而成圣是一生一世的过程。原来那些自信的人是对神怜悯和慈爱的自信；不自信的人是对自己如何选择每一天生活来满足神心意的敬畏。这两种都是需要的，我们不能太自信以至于放纵了私欲，在重生之后仍做罪的奴仆；我们也不能太小信，不明白神对我们的爱是何等长阔高深，远超过一切智慧所能测度的。让我们常保守自己的心在基督的爱里，怀着对永生神的敬畏做成我们得救的功夫。救恩是白白赐下的，但我们要用信心去接受；成圣的力量和得胜的应许也是白白赐下的，但我们要用信心的行为去领受。正如迦南是神给以色列的应许之地，他们还是要在信心之中顺服神的带领去攻城掠地，高唱得胜的乐章。我感谢天父按他的形象造我们；我感谢主耶稣道成肉身来回收我们这些亏缺了神的荣耀变为无用的罪人；我感谢圣灵来赐给我们新的生命，有能力来荣神益人完全恢复成神起初要造我们的本意。我知道在今后的日子我也还会有各样的难处，有各种要学习的功课，但神与我们同在。最后用一首圣诗来勉励基督里的众圣徒：“生命交给主做王，日复一日年复一年，高唱得胜的乐章。”

[sheenwei]

We do not exist for ourselves alone, and it is only when we are fully convinced of this fact that we begin to love ourselves properly and thus also love others. What do I mean by loving ourselves properly? I mean, first of all, desiring to live, accepting life as a very great gift and a great good, not because of what it gives us, but because of what it enables us to give to others. The modern world is beginning to discover, more and more, that the quality and vitality of a man's life depend on his own secret will to go on living. There is a dark force for destruction within us, which someone has called the death instinct. It is a terribly powerful thing, this force generated by our own frustrated self-love battling with itself. It is the power of a self-love that has turned into self-hatred and which, in adoring itself, adores the monster by which it is consumed.
It is therefore of supreme importance that we face and accept our own limitations. As long as we secretly adore ourselves, our own deficiencies will remain to torture us with an apparent defilement. But if we live for others, we will gradually discover that no one expects us to be as gods. we will see that we are human, like everyone else, that we all have weaknesses and deficiencies, and that these limitations of ours play a most important part in all our lives.It is because of them that we need others and others need us. We are not all weak in the same spots, and so we supplement and complete one another, each one making up in himself for the lack in another.
Only when we see ourselves in our true human context, as members of a race which is intended to be one organism and one body, will we begin to understand the positive importance not only of the success but of the failures and accidents in our lives. My successes are not my own. The way to them was prepared by others. The fruit of my labors is not my own: for I am preparing the way for the achievements of another. Nor are my failures my own. They may spring from failure of another, but they are also compensated for by another's achievement. Therefore the meaning of my life is not to be looked for merely in the sum total of my own achievements. It is seen only in the complete integration of my achievements and failures with the achievements and failures of my own generation, and society, and time.
Only when this truth is absolutely central do other doctrines fit into their proper context. Solitude, humility, self-denial, action and contemplation, the sacraments, the monastic life, the family, war and peace - none of these make sense except in relation to the central reality which is God's love living and acting in those whom He has incorporated in His Christ. Nothing at all makes sense, unless we admit that" No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main".

[sheenwei]

This matter of salvation is, when seen intuitively, a very simple thing. But when we analyze it, it turns into a complex tangle of paradoxes. We become ourselves by dying to ourselves within ourselves, but only in others, yet at the same time before we can go out to others we must first find ourselves. We must forget ourselves in order to become truly conscious of who we are. The best way to love ourselves is to love others, yet we cannot love others unless we love ourselves since it is written, "thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." But if we love ourselves in the wrong way, we become incapable of loving anybody else. And indeed when we love ourselves wrongly we hate ourselves; if we hate ourselves we cannot help hating others. Yet there is a sense in which we must hate others and leave them in order to find God. Jesus said:"If any man come to me and hate not his father and his mother and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple" (Luke 14:26). As for this "finding" of God, we cannot even look for Him unless we have already found Him, and we cannot begin to seek Him without a special gift of His grace, yet if we wait for grace to move us, before beginning to seek Him, we will probably never begin.