1月6日 敬拜

从那里他又迁到伯特利东边的山，支搭帐棚，西边是伯特利，东边是艾。他在那里又为耶和华筑了一座坛。（创十二8）

敬拜就是把神给你最好的献给他。凡是你最好的东西，当小心处理。你从神得了祝福，就要把它献回给神，作为爱的礼物。在神面前花时间好好地默想，以敬拜的虔诚行动，把那祝福献上给神，假若你把那东西留归自己，它必会变成属灵枯朽之物，正如储藏起来的吗哪一样。神绝不会容许你把属灵的事物留归己用，它必须归还给神，让神将之化为别人的祝福。

伯特利是与神相交的象徵，而艾是世界的意思，亚伯拉罕却搭营在两者之间。我们在外面为神作工有多少价值，是以我们私下与神相交程度的深浅来衡量的。匆忙仓卒当然是不对的，因为敬拜神的时间多的是；但平静无事的日子，也许会成为陷阱。我们支搭帐棚的所在，应该随时可与神有安静的相交，姑勿论我们与世界的接触有多频繁。属灵的生活中这三者总是一致的，他在忙碌中并不一定分为三个阶段——敬拜、等候、作工。有些人像属灵青蛙一般，跳跃而行，从敬拜跳到等候，又从等候跳到工作。神的心意是要三者同时并进。在主的生活中并不急躁。这是一种操练，我们不能一蹴而就。

祈祷◆主啊，我何其清楚工作和活动所引发的危险，是与安静和退隐危险等同，而祢是我唯一安稳的避难所。让我的一切都全然被祢占据。

January 6 Worship

“And he pitched his tent having Bethel on the west and Ai on the east: and there he builded an altar.” Genesis 12:8

Worship is giving God the best that He has given you. Be careful what you do with the best you have. Whenever you get a blessing from God, give it back to Him as a love gift. Take time to meditate before God and offer the blessing back to Him in a deliberate act of worship. If you hoard a thing for yourself, it will turn into spiritual dry rot, as the manna did when it was hoarded. God will never let you hold a spiritual thing for yourself, it has to be given back to Him that He may make it a blessing to others.

Bethel is the symbol of communion with God; Ai is the symbol of the world. Abraham pitched his tent between the two. The measure of the worth of our public activity for God is the private profound communion we have with Him. Rush is wrong every time, there is always plenty of time to worship God. Quiet days with God may be a snare. We have to pitch our tents where we shall always have quiet times with God, however noisy our times with the world may be. There are not three stages in spiritual life – worship, waiting and work. Some of us go in jumps like spiritual frogs, we jump from worship to waiting, and from waiting to work. God's idea is that the three should go together. They were always together in the life of Our Lord. He was unhasting and unresting. It is a discipline, we cannot get into it all at once.