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經文：「主的僕人不可爭競；只要溫溫和和地待衆人，善於教導，存心忍耐。」（提後2:24） 神要磨塑我們，除去我們本性中如同頑石一般的堅固性格；使我們對基督的靈有深刻認識以後，就能前所未有地看見，在這個黑暗邪惡的世代，溫和的品格是多麼的難能可貴。 這種聖靈的恩典並非偶然地臨到我們身上；如果我們認識不清又不去選擇，不從我們的思想中培養發展，那麽這樣的溫和就永遠不會深入我們的本性，成為我們的行爲。 因為在恩典中每前進一步，必須先要領會，然後懇切禱告，才能得到。 很少人願意經歷苦難，然而完全的溫和卻來自苦難。所以想要培養生命中的溫和，必須先與基督同死，因爲十字架就包含了所需的苦難。這是真正的擘開和破碎，也就是使自己經過悲痛，勝過本性中的剛硬，轉而成爲溫和。 直到今日有許多所謂的成聖，僅僅是心理和邏輯上的，並不是屬靈上的，那些就只是杜撰與僞裝的成聖。這樣的人在心理上把自己放在祭壇上，然後自我認定祭壇能使祭物成聖，因此在邏輯上斷定他已經成聖。所以後來就到處信口開河地高談神學理論，謬言神的深奧。 這樣的人由於先天的惡性並未改變，亞當的硬心沒被磨碎，內心沒有與客西馬尼的歎息一同跳動，也沒有真正各各他釘死的記號，因而就不可能成爲柔和、親切、溫和、勝利、滿溢、得勝的生命；那彷彿像在春天早晨，從空墳墓中流出的基督復活的生命。 「衆人也都蒙大恩。」（徒4:33） 新譯｜荒漠甘泉讀書會
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When God conquers us and takes all the flint out of our nature, and we get deep visions into the Spirit of Jesus, we then see as never before the great rarity of gentleness of spirit in this dark and unheavenly world. The graces of the Spirit do not settle themselves down upon us by chance, and if we do not discern certain states of grace, and choose them, and in our thoughts nourish them, they never become fastened in our nature or behavior. Every advance step in grace must be preceded by first apprehending it, and then a prayerful resolve to have it. So few are willing to undergo the suffering out of which thorough gentleness comes. We must die before we are turned into gentleness, and crucifixion involves suffering; it is a real breaking and crushing of self, which wrings the heart and conquers the mind. There is a good deal of mere mental and logical sanctification nowadays, which is only a religious fiction. It consists of mentally putting one's self on the altar, and then mentally saying the altar sanctifies the gift, and then logically concluding therefore one is sanctified; and such an one goes forth with a gay, flippant, theological prattle about the deep things of God. But the natural heartstrings have not been snapped, and the Adamic flint has not been ground to powder, and the bosom has not throbbed with the lonely, surging sighs of Gethsemane; and not having the real death marks of Calvary, there cannot be that soft, sweet, gentle, floating, victorious, overflowing, triumphant life that flows like a spring morning from an empty tomb. --G. D. W. "And great grace was upon them all" (Acts 4:33). ｜ Mrs. Charles Cowman
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