八月二十三日[mp3_embed playlst=”/downloading/audio/evening/08/0823.mp3″]
经文: 使基督因你们的信，住在你们心里。（以弗所书三：17）
我们信徒应当不断地有耶稣在我们前面激起我们对祂的爱，并增加我们对祂的认识。所有基督徒应该像基督身旁的学生一样，成为耶稣学院的勤奋学者，下决心在十字架的教训中获得学位。为了常常接近耶稣，心中必须充满祂，涨满祂的爱以至流出来。使徒祈求说：“使基督住在你的心里。”请看他竟愿意耶稣如此接近他！没有东西比在你心中的东西更接近你了。“祂可以住在”，不是偶尔经过造访，或是在你家暂度一宿。“使祂住在你们心里”，住在家中最好的房间中；不单单是默想中，乃是你心的激情里。我们对基督的爱不是那种迸发片刻就在黑暗中只剩几星余烬的爱，而是藉神圣的燃料不断燃烧的爱。唯有藉信心才能达到这种爱的境界。信心必须坚强，不然爱不能热烈。花的根必须健康，不然不能结出美丽的花朵。信心是百合之根，爱才是百合的花朵。那稣不能成为你心所爱，除非紧握着祂，使祂成为你心中的信仰。你的爱若渐冷淡，你的信心必渐枯萎。
Evening, August 23
Scripture: “That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith.”(Ephesians 3:17)
Beyond measure it is desirable that we, as believers, should have the person of Jesus constantly before us, to inflame our love towards him, and to increase our knowledge of him. I would to God that my readers were all entered as diligent scholars in Jesus’ college, students of Corpus Christi, or the body of Christ, resolved to attain unto a good degree in the learning of the cross. But to have Jesus ever near, the heart must be full of him, welling up with his love, even to overrunning; hence the apostle prays “that Christ may dwell in your hearts.” See how near he would have Jesus to be! You cannot get a subject closer to you than to have it in the heart itself. “That he may dwell”; not that he may call upon you sometimes, as a casual visitor enters into a house and tarries for a night, but that he may dwell; that Jesus may become the Lord and Tenant of your inmost being, never more to go out.
Observe the words－that he may dwell in your heart, that best room of the house of manhood; not in your thoughts alone, but in your affections; not merely in the mind’s meditations, but in the heart’s emotions. We should pant after love to Christ of a most abiding character, not a love that flames up and then dies out into the darkness of a few embers, but a constant flame, fed by sacred fuel, like the fire upon the altar which never went out. This cannot be accomplished except by faith. Faith must be strong, or love will not be fervent; the root of the flower must be healthy, or we cannot expect the bloom to be sweet. Faith is the lily’s root, and love is the lily’s bloom. Now, reader, Jesus cannot be in your heart’s love except you have a firm hold of him by your heart’s faith; and, therefore, pray that you may always trust Christ in order that you may always love him. If love be cold, be sure that faith is drooping.