「看哪，撒但想要得著你們，好篩你們像麥子一樣。但我已經為你祈求，叫你不至於失了信心。」－路加福音22:31-32
在所有信心的試驗中，被人拋棄，恐怕是最大的試驗了；而當這把離棄的利箭射入骨髓時，我們就知道這人生命是否不朽。
當卸下了舒適享受的鎧甲，將自己坦露在主驚駭的擊打中，若還能死裡逃生，那就真是信心了。
真實的信心必須受到磨練，在七倍加強的爐火中受鍛鍊。能受到這般試煉的人是有福的！
－司布真
保羅說：「當守的信仰我已經守住了」（提摩太後書4:7）。保羅失去了生命，他們奪去了他的氣息，卻奪不去他的信心。
這位偉大的外邦使徒，只因著三件事而喜樂：「那美好的仗我已經打過了，當跑的賽程我已經跑盡了，當守的信仰我已經守住了。」
除了這些以外，其他的事物又算得了什麼呢？他跑完了賽程，贏得了獎賞；他為世人所稱頌，也為神所紀念。
我們能否也像他這樣，拋棄萬事，只為贏得基督？為什麼我們不能和他一樣，向著真理絕對呢？
啊，因為他計算的方法和我們的不同；他算為損失的，我們卻算作贏得。
我們若要戴上保羅所戴的冠冕，就得先擁有並持守他那樣的信心。
"And the Lord said . . . Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat; but I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not" (Luke 22:31, 32).Our faith is the center of the target at which God doth shoot when He tries us; and if any other grace shall escape untried, certainly faith shall not. There is no way of piercing faith to its very marrow like the sticking of the arrow of desertion into it; this finds it out whether it be of the immortals or no. Strip it of its armor of conscious enjoyment, and suffer the terrors of the Lord to set themselves in array against it; and that is faith indeed which can escape unhurt from the midst of the attack. Faith must be tried, and seeming desertion is the furnace, heated seven times, into which it might be thrust. Blest the man who can endure the ordeal!--C. H. Spurgeon.
Paul said, "I have kept the faith," but he lost his head! They cut that off, but it didn't touch his faith. He rejoiced in three things--this great Apostle to the Gentiles; he had "fought a good fight," he had "finished his course," he had "kept the faith." What did all the rest amount to? St. Paul won the race; he gained the prize, and he has not only the admiration of earth today, but the admiration of Heaven. Why do we not act as if it paid to lose all to win Christ? Why are we not loyal to truth as he was? Ah, we haven't his arithmetic. He counted differently from us; we count the things gain that he counted loss. We must have his faith, and keep it if we would wear the same crown.
