Author: Billy Conrad

October 21

That the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ, — 1 Peter 1:7

Scripture reading: 1 Peter 1

Some of you wonder what is up when you are not healed in a moment. God never breaks His promise. The trial of your faith is “much more precious than gold.”

God wants to destroy the power of the Devil. He wants to move you so that in the face of hardships, you will praise the Lord. “Count it all joy” (James 1:2). You have to take a leap today; you have to leap into the promises. You have to believe that God never fails you; you have to believe it is impossible for God to break His word. He is “from everlasting to everlasting” (Psalm 90:2).

Forever and ever, not for a day,
He keepeth His promise forever;
To all who believe,
To all who obey,
He keepeth His promise forever.

There is no variableness with God, no “shadow of turning” (James 1:17). He is the same. He manifests His divine glory.

Jesus said to Mary and Martha, “If you would believe you would see the glory of God” (John 11:40). We must understand that there will be times of testing, but they are only to make us more like the Master. He was “in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15). He endured all things. He is our example.

Oh, that God would place us in an earnest, intent position in which flesh and blood have to yield to the Spirit of God! We will go forward; we will not be moved by our feelings.

Suppose that a man who is prayed for today receives a blessing, but tomorrow he begins murmuring because he does not feel exactly as he wants to feel. What is he doing? He is replacing the Word of God with his feelings. What a disgrace! Let God have His perfect work.

Thought for today: God has you on this earth for the purpose of bringing out His character in you.

10月21日

你们的信心虽比暂时会坏的金子更宝贵，却要经过火的考验，结果可在耶稣基督显现的时候，得着称赞、荣耀和尊贵。——彼得前书1:7

经文阅读：彼得前书 1

你们中有些人会想，当你没有瞬间得医治时，这是怎么回事。上帝从不违背祂的应许。你信心的试炼“远比金子宝贵。”

上帝想要摧毁魔鬼的力量。他想要感动你，让你在面对困难时仍然赞美主。“遇到各种试炼时，都要以为大喜乐”（雅各书 1:2）。你今天必须迈出一步；你必须跳进神的应许里。你必须相信上帝永远不会让你失望；你必须相信上帝不可能违背自己的话。他是“从亘古到永远的”（诗篇 90:2）。

永远永远，不止一天，
他永远遵守他的承诺；
对所有信他的人，
对所有顺从他的人，
他永远遵守他的承诺。

神没有变化，也没有“转动的影子”（雅各书 1:17）。他始终如一，他显明自己的神圣荣耀。

耶稣对马利亚和马大说：“你若信，就必看见神的荣耀”（约翰福音11:40）。我们必须明白，会有试炼的时刻，但它们只是为了让我们更像主。他在各方面都受过试探，与我们一样，只是没有罪（希伯来书4:15）。他忍受了一切。他是我们的榜样。

哦，但愿上帝让我们置身于一个认真的、专注的状态，在那里血肉必须屈服于上帝的灵！我们会向前走；我们的感受不会动摇我们。

假设今天有人为一个人祈祷，他得到了祝福，但明天他开始抱怨，因为他感觉不到自己想要的那种感觉。他在做什么呢？他在用自己的感受代替神的话。真丢脸！让神完成祂完美的工作吧。

今日思考：上帝让你来到这个世界，是为了在你身上显现祂的品格。

October 20

Count it all joy when you fall into various trials. — James 1:2

Scripture reading: 1 Timothy 6

Let the Spirit cover you so that you may be intensely earnest about the deep things of God. You should be so aligned with the Spirit that your will, your mind, and your heart are centered in God so that He may lift you into the pavilion of splendor where you hear His voice—lift you to the place where the breath of the Almighty can send you to pray and send you to preach, the Spirit of the Lord being upon you.

You are at God‘s banquet, a banquet at which you are never separated from Him and He multiplies spiritual blessings and fruit in your life. It is a banquet where you have to increase with all increasing, where God has for you riches beyond all things—not fleshly things, not carnal things, but spiritual manifestations, gifts, fruits of the Spirit, and beautiful beatitudes, the blessing of God always being upon you. (See 2 Corinthians 9:10–11.)

Are you ready to enter into this glorious place where you no longer live for yourself? God will take over your life and send you out to win thousands of people to Christ, so that they also may enter into eternal grace.

No person is ever able to talk about victory over temptation unless he goes through it. All the victories are won in battles.

Tens of thousands of people in Europe, America, and in other parts of the world wear badges to show they have been in battle, and they rejoice in it. They would be ashamed to wear such badges if they had not been in battle. The battle is what gives them the right to wear the badge.

It is those who have been tried to the utmost who can come out and tell you a story about it. It was only James and Peter and Paul, those who were in the front lines of the battle, who told us how we have to rejoice in our trials because wonderful blessings will come out of them. It is in the trials that we are made.

Thought for today: It is those who have been in the fight who can tell about the victories.

10月20日

你们遇到各种试炼的时候，都要以为是快乐。——雅各书 1:2

经文阅读：提摩太前书 6 章

让圣灵覆盖你，这样你就能对神的深奥之事充满热切。你应该与圣灵保持高度一致，让你的意志、思想和心都以神为中心，这样祂就能把你提升到辉煌的殿堂，在那里你能听到祂的声音——把你带到那个全能者的气息能引导你去祷告、去传道的地方，愿主的灵在你身上。

你正身处上帝的盛宴之中，在这场盛宴里你永远不会与祂分离，祂会在你的生命中不断增添属灵的祝福和果实。这是一场你必须随着一切成长而不断增长的盛宴，上帝为你准备的富足超越一切——不是肉体的东西，也不是世俗的东西，而是属灵的显现、恩赐、圣灵的果子，以及美好的福乐，上帝的祝福永远与你同在。（参见哥林多后书 9:10–11）

你准备好进入这个辉煌的地方，在这里你不再为自己而活吗？上帝将掌管你的生命，并派你出去将成千上万的人带到基督面前，让他们也能进入永恒的恩典。

没有人能谈论战胜诱惑，除非他亲自经历过。所有的胜利都是在战斗中赢得的。

在欧洲、美洲以及世界其他地方，成千上万的人佩戴徽章来显示他们曾经参战，而且为此感到自豪。如果他们没有参战，佩戴这样的徽章会让他们感到羞愧。正是战斗赋予了他们佩戴徽章的权利。

只有那些经历过极限考验的人，才能站出来告诉你他们的故事。只有詹姆斯、彼得和保罗，也就是战斗最前线的人，告诉我们在试炼中也要喜乐，因为美好的祝福将会从中诞生。正是在试炼中，我们才得以成长。

今天的感想：只有经历过战斗的人才能谈论胜利。

October 19

Where there is no vision, the people perish. — Proverbs 29:18 KJV

Scripture reading: Acts 26:1–29

We must see the face of the Lord and understand His workings. There are things that God says to me that I know must take place. It does not matter what people say. I have been face-to-face with some of the most trying moments of men‘s lives, times when it made all the difference if I kept the vision and held fast to what God had said. A man must have immovable faith, and the voice of God must mean more to him than what he sees, feels, or what people say. He must have an originality born in heaven, transmitted or expressed in some way. We must bring heaven to earth.

At the end of Ephesians 3 are words that no human could ever think or write on his own. This passage is so mighty, so of God when it speaks about His being able to do all things “exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think” (v. 20). The mighty God of revelation! The Holy Spirit gave these words of grandeur to stir our hearts, to move our affections, to transform us altogether. God has never put anything up on a pole where you cannot reach it. He has brought His plan down to man, and if we are prepared, oh, what there is for us! I feel sometimes that we have just as much as we can digest. Yet such divine nuggets of precious truth are held before our hearts that it makes us understand that there are yet heights and depths and lengths and breadths of the knowledge of God stored up for us. (See Ephesians 3:17–19.) We might truly say,

My heavenly bank, my heavenly bank,
The house of God‘s treasure and store.
I have plenty in here; I‘m a real millionaire.

Thought for today: It is wonderful to never be poverty-stricken anymore, to have an inward knowledge of God‘s riches that are stored up, nugget upon nugget—weights of glory, expressions of the invisible Christ to be seen by men.

10月19日

没有异象，百姓就放肆。——《箴言》29:18

经文阅读：使徒行传 26:1–29

我们必须见到主的面，理解祂的作为。有些事是上帝对我说的，我知道必须发生。人们怎么说并不重要。我曾与一些人生命中最艰难的时刻面对面，那些时刻，如果我保持异象，坚持上帝所说的话，就会有巨大的不同。一个人必须有坚不可摧的信心，上帝的声音对他来说必须比他所看到的、感觉的或别人说的更重要。他必须拥有一种源自天堂的独创性，并以某种方式传达或表达出来。我们必须把天堂带到地上。

在以弗所书第三章的结尾，有一些话是没有人类能够凭自己的思想或写作能力写出来的。这段经文非常有力，非常属于上帝，当它谈到祂能够成就一切“超过我们所求所想的”（第20节）时。启示中的全能上帝！圣灵赐下这些宏伟的话语，是为了激动我们的心，打动我们的情感，完全改变我们。上帝从未把任何东西放到我们够不着的高度。祂把祂的计划带到人面前，如果我们准备好了，哇，我们有多少收获啊！我有时感觉我们得到的知识刚好足以消化。然而，这样神圣而珍贵的真理碎片不断展现在我们心前，让我们明白，上帝的知识仍有高低、长短、深浅，正为我们储存着。（参见以弗所书3:17–19）我们可以真诚地说,

我的天上银行，我的天上银行，
神的财富和宝藏之家。
我在这里有很多； 我是真正的百万富翁。

今日思考：永远不再贫穷是多么美好啊，内心拥有对上帝宝藏的认知，一块接一块——荣耀的重担，无形基督的显现，让人们可见。

October 18

His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue. — 2 Peter 1:3

Scripture reading: 2 Peter 1:2–17

On the Day of Pentecost, it was necessary that the disciples received not only the fire but also the rushing wind, the personality of the Spirit in the wind. (See Acts 2:1–4.) The manifestation of the glory is in the wind, or breath, of God.

The inward man receives the Holy Spirit instantly with great joy and blessedness. He cannot express it. Then the power of the Spirit, this breath of God, takes of the things of Jesus (see John 16:14–15) and sends forth as a river the utterances of the Spirit. Again, when the body is filled with joy, sometimes so inexpressible, the canvas of the mind has great power to move the operation of the tongue to bring out the very depths of the inward heart‘s power, love, and joy to us. By the same process, the Spirit, which is the breath of God, brings forth the manifestation of the glory.

Let us look at a few passages in the Bible that pertain to the glory. The first is Psalm 16:9: “Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoices.” Something has made the rejoicing bring forth the glory. It was because the psalmist‘s heart was glad.

The second one is Psalm 108:1: “O God, my heart is steadfast; I will sing and give praise, even with my glory.” You see, when the body is filled with the power of God, then the only thing that can express the glory is the tongue. Glory is presence, and the presence always comes by the tongue, which brings forth the revelations of God. God first brings His power into us. Then He gives us verbal expressions by the same Spirit, the outward manifestation of what is within us. “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks” (Matthew 12:34).

Virtue has to be transmitted, and glory has to be expressed. Therefore, The Holy Spirit understands everything Christ has in the glory and brings through the heart of man God‘s latest thought. The world‘s needs, our manifestations, revivals, and all conditions are first settled in heaven, then worked out on the earth. We must be in touch with God Almighty in order to bring out on the face of the earth all the things that God has in the heavens. This is an ideal for us, and may God help us not to forsake the reality of holy communion with Him, of entering into private prayer so that publicly He may manifest His glory.

Thought for today: By filling us with the Holy Spirit, God has brought into us this glory so that out of us may come forth the glory.

10月18日

他的神圣力量通过使我们认识那召我们按荣耀和美德而来的他，把一切与生命和虔诚有关的事都赐给了我们。——彼得后书 1:3

经文阅读：彼得后书 1:2–17

五旬节那天，门徒们不仅需要接受火，还需要接受呼啸的风，也就是风中圣灵的个性。（参见使徒行传 2:1-4）荣耀的显现就在神的风，或者说气息中。

内在的人立刻以极大的喜乐和福乐领受圣灵。他无法表达出来。然后圣灵的力量，这上帝的气息，取耶稣的事物（见约翰福音16:14-15）并像河流一样发出圣灵的言语。同样，当身体充满喜乐，有时是无法形容的喜乐时，心灵的画布就有很大的力量驱动舌头的运作，把内心深处的力量、爱和喜乐展现给我们。通过同样的过程，圣灵，即上帝的气息，显现出荣耀。

让我们来看几段与荣耀有关的圣经经文。第一段是诗篇16:9：“因此我的心快乐，我的荣耀也欢喜。”有些事情让喜乐带出了荣耀。那是因为诗人的心是快乐的。

第二个是诗篇 108:1：“上帝啊，我的心坚定；我要歌唱并赞美，即使凭着我的荣耀。”你看，当身体充满了上帝的能力时，唯一能表达荣耀的就是舌头。荣耀就是同在，而同在总是通过舌头显现出来，带出上帝的启示。上帝先把祂的能力带到我们里面，然后祂通过同一位圣灵赐给我们口头的表达，这是我们内在的外在显现。“心里充满的，口里就说出来”（马太福音 12:34）。

美德需要传递，荣耀需要表达。因此，圣灵明白基督在荣耀中所有的一切，并通过人的心带来上帝的最新思想。世界的需要、我们的彰显、复兴以及所有情况，首先在天上得到解决，然后才在地上实现。我们必须与全能的上帝保持联系，才能在地上展现上帝在天上所拥有的一切。这是我们的理想，愿上帝帮助我们不放弃与祂的圣洁交通的真实经历，进入私人祷告，以便在公开场合彰显祂的荣耀。

今日的思考：通过用圣灵充满我们，上帝将这荣耀带入我们，使荣耀能从我们里面显现出来。