經文: 「不要愛世界和世界上的事。人若愛世界，愛父的心就不在他裡面了。」— (聖經·約翰壹書 2章15節)
從始祖亞當受迷惑、墮落，罪就跟著來到世界，也就是屬世的靈進入人心，我們以為這不過是人性的弱點；其實不然，那就是罪，是離棄生命、背叛上帝的罪。
不選擇上帝的生命，就是選擇死亡；因為死亡就是沒有上帝的同在，沒有上帝的生命。我們靈魂內在的生命，本質上就是從上帝而來的生命，為的是要彰顯上帝的性情、榮美。
說穿了，各種宗教及各樣救贖的方法，最終的目的就是除掉肉體血氣老我的舊生命，代之以屬天的新生命，使之能在我們心中燃起神聖愛火，燒盡今生的驕傲、眼目，及肉體的情慾。這些都不是上帝起初造人時所附帶的，而是亞當犯罪墮落時引起的，因此屬世的靈不只是一種罪而已，而且是一種離開上帝的面，失去上帝同在的一種真正「死」的狀態。
屬世的靈就是一種與上帝為敵的心態，是墮落的本質，帶來「靈魂的死」的悲慘狀態；因此，我們要警醒察驗各樣的靈，進而抵擋對抗屬世的靈，因為屬世的人不明白屬靈的事，所有真實的知識都和生命有關，若超過這範圍，都是想像的遊戲，都是虛空的幻影。
當主談到這世界和這世界的王及這世界的靈時，特別強調世界的王恨惡上帝和屬祂的教會，也鄭重提醒門徒們不要被這世界所同化。「人若愛世界，愛父的心就不在他裡面了。」(約翰壹書 二15)我們必須降服在聖靈之下，分辨是非抵擋邪惡，明白這世界的靈常常迷惑人心，叫人不跟隨耶穌；願弟兄姐妹們常儆醒，隨時隨地讓上帝得勝，讓撒但失敗。
—《 神 的 心 意 》
(每日靈修 8月29日)
作者：慕安德烈
編輯：榮華興
(圖片版權屬「Arise Church HK」所有，在此僅供分享福音用途。)
『A worldly spirit 』
Scripture: “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” — (1 John 2:15)
“From what has been said of the first state and fall of man it plainly follows that the sin of all sin, or the heresy of all heresies, is a worldly spirit. We are apt to consider this temper only as an infirmity, but it is indeed the great Apostasy from God and the Divine Life.
“Choose any life but the life of God and heaven, and you choose death; for death is nothing else but the loss of the life of God. The spirit of the soul is in itself nothing else but a spirit breathed forth from the life of God, and for this only end that the life of God, the nature of God, the working of God, the tempers of God, might be manifested in it.
“Hence it is that all the religion of fallen man, all the methods of our redemption, have only this one end, to take from us that strange and earthly life we have gotten by the Fall, and to kindle again the life of God and heaven in our souls. ‘All that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father,’ is not that life that we had from God by creation, but is of this world, is brought into us by our fall from God into the life of this world, and therefore a worldly spirit is not to be considered as a single sin, but as a state of real death to the kingdom of life and God in our souls.
“Hold this, therefore, as a certain truth, that the heresy of all heresies is a worldly spirit. It is the whole nature and misery of our fall, and keeps up the death of our souls. Of all things, therefore, detest the spirit of this world, or there is no help; you must live and die an utter stranger to all that is Divine and heavenly. For a worldly, earthly spirit can know nothing of God. All real knowledge is Life, or a living sensibility of the thing that is known; as far as our life reaches, so far we understand and know, and no further. All after this is only the play of our imagination amusing itself with the dead pictures of its own ideas.”
When our Lord spoke of the world, its prince, and its spirit, He ever laid stress on its hatred of Him and His Church. And so His Apostles, too, warned most earnestly against being conformed to the world. “If a man love the world, the love of the Father is not in Him.” We need to yield ourselves to the Holy Spirit from heaven to discover the evil and the danger of the spirit of the world, to give us the victory over it, and to fill us with the life of heaven.
— God’s Best Secrets by Andrew Murray
「 29 August 」
