Author: Billy Conrad

February 21

Silver and gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk. — Acts 3:6

Scripture reading: Acts 3:1–16

Peter and John were helpless and uneducated. They had no college education; they had only some training in fishing. But they had been with Jesus. To them had come a wonderful revelation of the power of the name of Jesus. They had handed out the bread and fish after Jesus had multiplied them. They had sat at the table with Him, and John had often gazed into His face. Jesus often had had to rebuke Peter, but He had manifested His love to him through it all. Yes, He loved Peter, the wayward one. Oh, He‘s a loving Savior! I have been wayward and stubborn. I had an unmanageable temper at one time, but how patient He has been. I am here to tell you that there is power in Jesus and in His wondrous name to transform anyone, to heal anyone.

If only you will see Him as God‘s Lamb, as God‘s beloved Son, upon whom was laid “the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:6). If only you will see that Jesus paid the whole price for our redemption so that we might be free. Then you can enter into your purchased inheritance of salvation, of life, and of power.

Poor Peter and John! They had no money. I don‘t think there are many who are as poor as Peter and John were. But they had faith; they had the power of the Holy Spirit; they had God. You can have God even though you have nothing else. Even if you have lost your character, you can have God. I have seen the worst men saved by the power of God.

Thought for today: He will lead you into nothingness, but when you are in nothingness, you will be in power. He will lead you into weakness, but when you are in weakness, God will be with you in might. Everything that seems weak from a human perspective will be under the control of divine power.

2月21日

我银子金子都没有，只把我所有的给你：奉拿撒勒人耶稣基督的名，起来行走。——使徒行传 3:6

经文阅读：使徒行传 3:1–16

彼得和约翰既无助又未经教育。他们没有大学学历；他们只有一些捕鱼的训练。但他们曾与耶稣同在。对他们来说，耶稣的名字带来了奇妙的启示。他们曾在耶稣分饼和鱼之后分发过食物。他们曾与耶稣一同坐在桌旁，约翰常常凝视着祂的面容。耶稣常常不得不斥责彼得，但在这一切过程中，祂向他显露了爱。是的，祂爱彼得，这个任性的人。哦，祂是一个充满爱的救主！我曾经也任性固执，有过无法控制的脾气，但祂却是多么耐心啊。我在这里要告诉你们，耶稣和祂奇妙的名字有改变任何人、治愈任何人的力量。

如果你能把祂看作上帝的羔羊，上帝所爱的儿子，身上承担了“我们众人的罪孽”（以赛亚书 53:6），那该多好啊。如果你能明白耶稣为我们的救赎付上了全部代价，使我们能够得自由。那么，你就可以进入你所购得的救恩、生命和能力的产业了。

可怜的彼得和约翰！他们一分钱都没有。我认为没有多少人像彼得和约翰那样穷。但他们有信心；他们有圣灵的力量；他们有上帝。即使你一无所有，你也可以拥有上帝。即使你失去了品格，你也可以拥有上帝。我见过最坏的人被上帝的力量拯救。

今日思考：他会引领你进入虚无，但当你处于虚无时，你将掌握力量。他会引领你进入软弱，但当你处于软弱时，上帝将以无限的力量与你同在。从人类的角度看似软弱的一切，都会在神的掌控之下。

February 20

The LORD will guide you continually. — Isaiah 58:11

Scripture reading: Isaiah 59:1–2, 16–21

I told the people that I would not eat anything that night. When I got to bed, it seemed as if the Devil tried to place on me everything that he had placed on that poor man on the sickbed. When I awoke in the middle of the night, I had a cough and all the weakness of a man with tuberculosis. I rolled out of bed onto the floor and cried out to God to deliver me from the power of the Devil. I shouted loud enough to wake everybody in the house, but nobody was disturbed. God gave the victory, and I got back into bed again as free as I had ever been in my life. At five o‘clock the Lord awakened me and said, “Don‘t break bread until you break it around My table.” At six o‘clock He gave me these words: “And I will raise him up” (John 6:40). I elbowed the fellow who was sleeping in the same room. He said, “Ugh!” I elbowed him again and said, “Do you hear? The Lord says that He will raise him up.”

At eight o‘clock they said to me, “Have a little refreshment.” But I have found prayer and fasting the greatest joy, and you will always find it so when you are led by God. When we went to the house where Lazarus lived, there were eight of us altogether. No one can prove to me that God does not always answer prayer. He always does more than that. He gives “exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think” (Ephesians 3:20).

I will never forget how the power of God fell on us as we went into that sick man‘s room. As we made a circle around the bed, I got one brother to hold the sick man‘s hand on one side, and I held the other, and we each held the hand of the person next to us. I said, “We are not going to pray; we are just going to use the name of Jesus.” We all knelt down and whispered that one word, “Jesus! Jesus! Jesus!” The power of God fell, and then it lifted. Five times the power of God fell, and then it remained. But the man in the bed was unmoved. Two years previously, someone had come along and had tried to raise him up, and the Devil had used his lack of success as a means of discouraging Lazarus. I said, “I don‘t care what the Devil says. If God says He will raise you up, it must be so. Forget everything else except what God says about Jesus.”

A sixth time the power fell, and the sick man‘s lips began moving, and the tears began to fall. I said to him, “The power of God is here; it is yours to accept.” He said, “I have been bitter in my heart, and I know I have grieved the Spirit of God. Here I am, helpless. I cannot raise my hands or even lift a spoon to my mouth.” I said, “Repent, and God will hear you.” He repented and cried out, “O God, let this be to Your glory.” As he said these words, the power of the Lord went right through him.

I have asked the Lord to let me never tell this story except the way it happened, for I realize that God can never bless exaggerations. As we again said, “Jesus! Jesus! Jesus!” the bed shook, and the man shook. I said to the people who were with me, “You can all go downstairs now. This is all God. I‘m not going to assist him.” I sat and watched that man get up and dress himself. We sang the doxology as he walked down the steps. I said to him, “Now tell what has happened.”

It was soon told everywhere that Lazarus had been raised up. People came from all over to see him and to hear his testimony. God brought salvation to many. Right out in the open air, this man told what God had done, and as a result, many were convicted and converted. All this occurred through the name of Jesus, “through faith in His name” (Acts 3:16). Yes, the faith that comes by believing in Jesus gave this sick man perfect soundness in the presence of them all.

Thought for today: The living God has chosen us for His divine inheritance, and it is He who is preparing us for our ministry, so that it may be of God and not of man.

2月20日

耶和华必时常引导你。——以赛亚书 58:11

经文阅读：以赛亚书 59:1–2, 16–21

我告诉大家那天晚上我什么都不吃。上床后，似乎魔鬼试图把他加在那个病床上可怜人的一切，都加在我身上。半夜醒来时，我咳嗽不断，感觉像个患结核病的虚弱人。我从床上滚到地板上，向上帝呼求，求祂将我从魔鬼的权势下拯救出来。我大声呼喊，足以吵醒屋里所有的人，但没人被惊扰。上帝赐下了胜利，我重新上床，感觉比生命中任何时候都自由。早上五点，主叫醒我，并说，“不要吃饼，直到你在我的桌前吃过。”早上六点，祂给了我这段话：“我必叫他复活”（约翰福音6:40）。我轻轻碰了碰同房的那个人。说：“呃！”我又碰了碰他，说：“你听见了吗？主说祂必叫他复活。”

八点钟他们对我说：“吃点东西吧。”但我发现祷告和禁食是最大的喜乐，当你受到神的引导时，你也会一直这样发现。当我们去拉撒路居住的房子时，我们一共有八个人。没有人能向我证明神不会永远回应祷告。他总是做得更多。他赐给我们的是“超过我们所求所想的丰盛” （以弗所书 3:20）。

我永远不会忘记，当我们走进那个病人的房间时，上帝的能力降临在我们身上的情景。当我们围成床边的圈时，我让一位弟兄握住病人的一只手，我握住另一只手，我们每个人还握住了旁边人的手。我说：“我们不是要祈祷；我们只是要使用耶稣的名字。”我们都跪下，轻声念着那一个词，“耶稣！耶稣！耶稣！”上帝的能力降临，然后又离开。上帝的能力降临了五次，然后才停留。但床上的那个人没有反应。两年前，有人曾来试图让他复活，而魔鬼利用这次失败来打击拉撒路。我说：“我不管魔鬼说什么。如果上帝说祂会让你复活，那就一定会实现。忘掉其他的一切，只记住上帝对耶稣的应许。”

第六次电力中断时，病人的嘴唇开始动了，眼泪也开始流下。我对他说：“神的能力来了，它是属于你的，你可以接受。”他说：“我心中充满苦涩，我知道我伤害了神的灵。我在这里，毫无帮助，我抬不起手，甚至连勺子送到嘴边都做不到。”我说：“悔改吧，神会听的。”他悔改并呼喊道：“哦神，愿这一切荣耀归于你。”当他说出这些话时，主的能力直接贯穿了他。

我已经祈求主，让我只以事情发生的方式讲述这个故事，因为我明白上帝永远不会祝福夸张。当我们再次说“耶稣！耶稣！耶稣！”时，床在摇晃，那个人也在颤抖。我对和我在一起的人说：“你们现在都可以下楼了。这完全是上帝的作为。我不会去帮他。”我坐在那里，看着那个人站起来并自己穿好衣服。当他走下台阶时，我们唱了荣耀诗。我对他说：“现在说说发生了什么。”

很快到处都传开了，一个人名叫拉撒路的人已经复活了。人们从四面八方赶来见他，听他的见证。神将救恩带给了许多人。就在公开的场合，这个人讲述了神所做的事，因此，许多人受到了良心的感动并归向了神。所有这些都是通过耶稣的名发生的，“因信他的名”（使徒行传 3:16）。是的，那因信耶稣而来的信心，使这个病人在众人面前完全恢复了健康。

今日思考：永生的神拣选了我们作为祂的属灵产业，并且是祂在预备我们进行事工，使我们的事工是出于神，而非出于人。

February 19

The LORD will guide you continually. — Isaiah 58:11

Scripture reading: Isaiah 58:1–14

One day while in Wales, I went up onto a mountain to pray. As I spent the day in the presence of the Lord, His wonderful power seemed to envelop and saturate me.

Two years before this time, two young men from Wales had come to our house. They were just ordinary lads, but they became very zealous for God. They came to our mission and saw some of the works of God. They said to me, “We would not be surprised if the Lord brings you down to Wales to raise our Lazarus.” They explained that the leader of their church was a man who had spent his days working in a tin mine and his nights preaching; the result was that he had collapsed and contracted tuberculosis. For four years he had been a helpless invalid, having to be fed by others.

As I was on the mountaintop that day, the Lord said to me, “I want you to go and raise Lazarus.” I told the brother who had accompanied me about this word from the Lord, and when we got down to the valley, I wrote a postcard. It read, “When I was up on the mountain praying today, God told me that I was to go and raise Lazarus.” When we arrived at the place, we went to the man to whom I had addressed the postcard. He looked at me and asked, “Did you send this?” “Yes,” I replied. He said, “Do you think we believe in this? Here, take it.” And he threw the card at me.

The man called a servant and said, “Take this man and show him Lazarus.” Then he said to me, “The moment you see him, you will be ready to go home. Nothing will keep you here.” Everything he said was true from a human standpoint. The man was helpless. He was nothing but a mass of bones with skin stretched over them. There was no life to be seen. Everything in him spoke of decay.

I said to him, “Will you shout? You remember that at Jericho the people shouted while the walls were still up. God has a similar victory for you if you will only believe.” But I could not get him to believe. There was not an atom of faith there.

It is a blessed thing to learn that God‘s Word can never fail. Never listen to human plans. God can work mightily when you persist in believing Him in spite of discouragement from the human standpoint. When I got back to the man to whom I had sent the postcard, he asked, “Are you ready to go now?” I replied, “I am not moved by what I see. I am moved only by what I believe. I know this: no man looks at the circumstances or relies on his feelings if he believes. The man who believes God has his request.”

There were difficult conditions in that Welsh village, and it seemed impossible to get the people to believe. “Ready to go home?” I was asked. But a man and a woman there asked us to come and stay with them. I said to the people, “I want to know how many of you people can pray.” No one wanted to pray. I asked if I could get seven people to pray for the poor man‘s deliverance. I said to the two people we were to stay with, “I will count on you two, and there is my friend and myself. We need three others.” I told the people that I trusted that some of them would awaken to their privilege and come in the morning and join us in prayer for the raising of Lazarus.

Thought for today: It will never do to give way to human opinions. If God says a thing, you have to believe it.

2月19日

耶和华必时常引导你。——以赛亚书 58:11

经文阅读：以赛亚书 58:1–14

有一天，我在威尔士的时候，爬上了一座山去祈祷。当我整天与主同在时，祂奇妙的力量似乎笼罩并充满了我。

就在两年前，有两个来自威尔士的年轻人来到我们家。他们只是普通的小伙子，但他们对上帝变得非常热心。他们来到我们的传教所，看到了上帝的一些作为。他们对我说：“如果主带你去威尔士复活我们的拉撒路，我们也不会感到惊讶。” 他们解释说，他们教会的领袖是一个白天在锡矿工作、晚上布道的人；结果，他体力透支并感染了结核病。四年来，他一直是一个无法自理的病人，需要别人喂养。

那天我在山顶上时，主对我说：“我希望你去复活拉撒路。”我把主的话告诉了陪伴我的弟兄，当我们下到山谷时，我写了一张明信片，上面写着：“今天我在山上祷告时，上帝告诉我去复活拉撒路。” 当我们到达那个地方时，我们去了我写明信片寄给的人那里。他看着我问：“这是你寄的吗？”“是的，”我回答。他说：“你以为我们会相信这个吗？拿去吧。”说完，他把明信片扔向我。

那个人叫来了一个仆人，说：“带这个人去给他看拉撒路。”然后他对我说：“当你看到他的时候，你就准备好回家了。没有什么会阻止你留下。”从人的角度来看，他说的每一句话都是真的。那人无助不堪。他只是一堆覆盖着皮肤的骨头。看不出任何生命迹象。他的一切都显示出衰败。

我对他说：“你会大喊吗？你记得在耶利哥，人们在城墙还未倒塌时就已经喊叫。如果你愿意相信，神也会为你带来类似的胜利。”但是我无法让他相信。那里没有一个那里的信仰之原子。

得知神的话语永不落空是一件有福的事。永远不要听从人的计划。当你坚持信靠神，尽管从人的角度看可能令人气馁时，神就能大能地作为。当我回到我寄明信片给的那个人那里时，他问：“你现在准备好走了吗？”我回答说：“我不被眼前所见所动，只有我所信靠的才会感动我。我知道这一点：如果一个人有信心，他不会只看环境或依赖自己的感受。那个信靠神的人，他的请求已经得到。”

在那个威尔士村庄的条件很艰苦，看起来几乎不可能让人们相信。“准备回家了吗？”有人问我。但那里有一个男人和一个女人邀请我们去他们家住。我对人们说：“我想知道你们中有多少人会祈祷。”没有人愿意祈祷。我问是否能找到七个人为那个可怜的人祈求解救。我对那两位我们要住的主人说：“我会依靠你们两位，还有我的朋友和我自己。我们还需要另外三个人。”我告诉人们，我相信他们中会有人意识到自己的特权，明天早晨来加入我们，为拉撒路的复活祈祷。

今日思考：绝不能屈从于人的意见。如果上帝说了一件事，你就必须相信它。

February 18

Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow. — Philippians 2:9–10

Scripture reading: Philippians 2:1–13

There is power to overcome everything in the world through the name of Jesus. “There is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).

Six people went into the house of a sick man to pray for him. He was a leader in the Episcopal Church, and he lay in his bed utterly helpless. He had read a little tract about healing and had heard about people praying for the sick. So he sent for these friends, who, he thought, could pray “the prayer of faith” (James 5:15). He was anointed according to James 5:14, but because he had no immediate manifestation of healing, he wept bitterly. The six people walked out of the room, somewhat crestfallen to see the man lying there in an unchanged condition.

When they were outside, one of the six said, “There is one thing we could have done. I wish you would all go back with me and try it.” They all went back and got together in a group. This brother said, “Let us whisper the name of Jesus.” At first, when they whispered this worthy name, nothing seemed to happen. But as they continued to whisper “Jesus! Jesus! Jesus!” the power began to fall. As they saw that God was beginning to work, their faith and joy increased, and they spoke the name louder and louder. As they did so, the man rose from his bed and dressed himself. The secret was just this: those six people had gotten their eyes off the sick man and were taken up with the Lord Jesus Himself. Their faith grasped the power in His name. Oh, if people would only appreciate the power in His name, there is no telling what would happen.

Thought for today: Through the name of Jesus and through the power of His name, we have access to God.

2月18日

因此，神把他升为至高，又赐给他那超乎万名之上的名，叫一切在天上的、地上的和地底下的，因为耶稣的名，人人都要屈膝。——腓立比书 2:9–10

经文阅读：腓立比书 2:1–13

通过耶稣的名，有力量克服世界上的一切。“除他以外，别无拯救，因为在天下人间，没有赐下别的名，我们可以靠着得救”（使徒行传 4:12）。

六个人走进一个生病的人的房子为他祈祷。他是圣公会的一位领袖，躺在床上完全无助。他读过一本关于治愈的小册子，也听说过有人为病人祈祷。所以他叫来了这些朋友，他认为他们能够祈祷“信心之祷”（雅各书 5:15）。他按雅各书 5:14接受了膏抹，但因为没有立刻显现出康复的迹象，他痛哭不已。六个人走出房间时，有些沮丧地看到那个人仍然躺在那里，情况没有任何改变。

当他们在外面的时候，六个人中的一个说：“有一件事我们本可以做。我希望你们都跟我一起回去尝试。”他们都回去了，并聚在一起。这个弟兄说：“让我们低声念耶稣的名字。”起初，当他们低声念这个宝贵的名字时，似乎没有任何反应。但当他们继续低声念“耶稣！耶稣！耶稣！”时，那力量开始显现。当他们看到神开始工作时，他们的信心和喜悦也增加了，他们越念越响亮。就在这时，那人从床上起来，自己穿好衣服。秘密就在于此：这六个人把视线从病人身上转开，全心投入到主耶稣本身。他们的信心抓住了他名字里的力量。啊，如果人们能真正理解他名字里的力量，不可想象会发生什么奇迹。

今日思考：通过耶稣的名，并借着祂名字的力量，我们可以接近神。