“所以你们要把下垂的手，发酸的腿，挺起来。也要为自己的脚把道路修直了，使瘸子不至于歪脚，反得痊愈。。”（来12章12-13节）
这是神激励我们的话，叫我们挺起信心的手和祷告的腿来。我们的信心时常会疲惫，衰弱，疏懈；我们的祷告时常会失了能力和功效。
这节圣经真有能力，它似乎看出我们已经气馁，已经胆怯了——一点极小的试炼就会使我们沮丧，使我们惊骇；我们就会绕道而行，不敢面对面去对抗；我们会选择一条比较容易的路去走。
我们时常会用很多的方法去逃避试炼；当我们遇到了试我们为难的环境，多少次我们总是用“我现在还没有准备好”来推托，来闪避。啊！有多少需要我们牺牲的时候，需要我们顺服的时候，需要夺取耶利哥的时候，需要勇气去带领失丧的灵魂的时候，需要祷告的时候，或者当我们的疾病神已经医治了一半的时候，我们却绕道而行——拣选了别条路。
神说：“你们要把下垂的手…挺起来。”一直向大水走去，看啊，水便分开，红海成了干地，约旦河立起成垒：不要惧怕，神自会带领你进入胜利的。
Therefore, strengthen your listless hands and your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but be healed. (Heb 12:12-13)
This is God’s word of encouragement to us to lift up the hands of faith, and confirm the knees of prayer. Often our faith grows tired, languid, and relaxed, and our prayers lose their force and effectiveness.
The figure used here is a very striking one. The idea seems to be that we become discouraged and so timid that a little obstacle depresses and frightens us, and we are tempted to walk around it, and not face it: to take the easier way.
Perhaps it is some physical trouble that God is ready to heal, but the exertion is hard, or it is easier to secure some human help, or walk around in some other way.
There are many ways of walking around emergencies instead of going straight through them. How often we come up against something that appalls us, and we want to evade the issue with the excuse:
“I am not quite ready for that now.” Some sacrifice is to be made, some obedience demanded, some Jericho to be taken, some soul that we have not the courage to claim and carry through, some prayer that is hanging fire, or perhaps some physical trouble that is half healed and we are walking around it.
God says, “Lift up the hands that hang down.” March straight through the flood, and lo, the waters will divide, the Red Sea will open, the Jordan will part, and the Lord will lead you through to victory.
Don’t let your feet “be turned out of the way,” but let your body “be healed,” your faith strengthened. Go right ahead and leave no Jericho behind you unconquered and no place where Satan can say that he was too much for you. This is a profitable lesson and an intensely practical one. How often have we been in that place. Perhaps you are there today. "
—A. B. Simpson
Pay as little attention to discouragement as possible. Plough ahead as a steamer does, rough or smooth—rain or shine. To carry your cargo and make your port is the point.
--Maltbie D. Babcock
这是神激励我们的话，叫我们挺起信心的手和祷告的腿来。我们的信心时常会疲惫，衰弱，疏懈；我们的祷告时常会失了能力和功效。
这节圣经真有能力，它似乎看出我们已经气馁，已经胆怯了——一点极小的试炼就会使我们沮丧，使我们惊骇；我们就会绕道而行，不敢面对面去对抗；我们会选择一条比较容易的路去走。
我们时常会用很多的方法去逃避试炼；当我们遇到了试我们为难的环境，多少次我们总是用“我现在还没有准备好”来推托，来闪避。啊！有多少需要我们牺牲的时候，需要我们顺服的时候，需要夺取耶利哥的时候，需要勇气去带领失丧的灵魂的时候，需要祷告的时候，或者当我们的疾病神已经医治了一半的时候，我们却绕道而行——拣选了别条路。
神说：“你们要把下垂的手…挺起来。”一直向大水走去，看啊，水便分开，红海成了干地，约旦河立起成垒：不要惧怕，神自会带领你进入胜利的。
Therefore, strengthen your listless hands and your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but be healed. (Heb 12:12-13)
This is God’s word of encouragement to us to lift up the hands of faith, and confirm the knees of prayer. Often our faith grows tired, languid, and relaxed, and our prayers lose their force and effectiveness.
The figure used here is a very striking one. The idea seems to be that we become discouraged and so timid that a little obstacle depresses and frightens us, and we are tempted to walk around it, and not face it: to take the easier way.
Perhaps it is some physical trouble that God is ready to heal, but the exertion is hard, or it is easier to secure some human help, or walk around in some other way.
There are many ways of walking around emergencies instead of going straight through them. How often we come up against something that appalls us, and we want to evade the issue with the excuse:
“I am not quite ready for that now.” Some sacrifice is to be made, some obedience demanded, some Jericho to be taken, some soul that we have not the courage to claim and carry through, some prayer that is hanging fire, or perhaps some physical trouble that is half healed and we are walking around it.
God says, “Lift up the hands that hang down.” March straight through the flood, and lo, the waters will divide, the Red Sea will open, the Jordan will part, and the Lord will lead you through to victory.
Don’t let your feet “be turned out of the way,” but let your body “be healed,” your faith strengthened. Go right ahead and leave no Jericho behind you unconquered and no place where Satan can say that he was too much for you. This is a profitable lesson and an intensely practical one. How often have we been in that place. Perhaps you are there today. "
—A. B. Simpson
Pay as little attention to discouragement as possible. Plough ahead as a steamer does, rough or smooth—rain or shine. To carry your cargo and make your port is the point.
--Maltbie D. Babcock