9月18日 他的试探与我们的试探

因我们的大祭司，并非不能体恤我们的软弱，他也曾凡事受过试探，与我们一样，只是他没有犯罪。（来四15）

未重生之前，我们唯一的试探是雅各所说的：“各人被试探，乃是被自己的私欲牵引诱惑的。”可是重生之后，便被提升到另一范围的试探，就是面对主所受的试探。主耶稣受的试探对我们并不吸引，在人性中全无地位。主的试探与我们的试探是两个完全不同的领域，直等到我们重生了，成为他的弟兄。主耶稣受的试探不是人的试探，乃是“神成为人”的试探。我们重生之后，神的儿子在我们里面成形，他在我们的肉身生命中，面对他昔日在地上所面对的。撒旦并不引诱我们去做坏事，乃是要我们失去神藉重生放进我们里面的生命，就是在神手中成为贵重合用的潜能。它并不是要引诱人犯罪，乃是要改变人的观点。惟有圣灵才可以侦察出这是魔鬼的试探。

试探是外在势力对人的考验，要攻击人性中所拥有的。这就解明了主耶稣所受的试探。耶稣受洗之后，接受了除去世人罪孽的责任，神的灵就立即把他放在魔鬼的考验场里。不过他没有被打倒，他经过试探，却没有犯罪，仍然保持他人格的完整。

祈祷◆噢，主啊，对于与你一同守望、与你一同经历试探的意义，我所了解的是何等肤浅。愿你在今天早上吸引我靠近你，以你的大能使我专注于你，直至我的生活言谈只为了你。

September 18 His Temptation And Ours

“For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.” Hebrews 4:15

Until we are born again, the only kind of temptation we understand is that mentioned by St. James – “Every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.” But by regeneration we are lifted into another realm where there are other temptations to face, viz., the kind of temptations Our Lord faced. The temptations of Jesus do not appeal to us, they have no home at all in our human nature. Our Lord's temptations and ours move in different spheres until we are born again and become His brethren. The temptations of Jesus are not those of a man, but the temptations of God as Man. By regeneration the Son of God is formed in us, and in our physical life He has the same setting that He had on earth. Satan does not tempt us to do wrong things; he tempts us in order to make us lose what God has put into us by regeneration, viz., the possibility of being of value to God. He does not come on the line of tempting us to sin, but on the line of shifting the point of view, and only the Spirit of God can detect this as a temptation of the devil.

Temptation means the test by an alien power of the possessions held by a personality. This makes the temptation of Our Lord explainable. After Jesus in His baptism had accepted the vocation of bearing away the sin of the world, He was immediately put by God's Spirit into the testing machine of the devil, but He did not tire, He went through the temptation “without sin,” and He retained the possessions of His personality intact.