Author: Billy Conrad

September 27

I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly. — John 10:10

Scripture reading: John 10:1–18

God has a plan for us in this life of the Spirit, this abundant life. Jesus came so that we might have life. Satan comes to steal and kill and destroy (John 10:10), but God has abundance for us—full measure, pressed down, shaken together, overflowing, abundant measure (Luke 6:38). This abundance is God filling us with His own personality and presence, making us salt and light and giving us a revelation of Himself. It is God with us in all circumstances, afflictions, persecutions, and trials, girding us with truth. Christ the Initiative, the Triune God, is in control, and our every thought, word, and action must be in line with Him, with no weakness or failure. Our lives are “hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3). When He who is our life is manifested, we will also “appear with Him in glory” (v. 4).

For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.…For we who are in this tent groan, being burdened, not because we want to be unclothed, but further clothed, that mortality may be swallowed up by life. Now He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who also has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. (2 Corinthians 5:1, 4–5)

God‘s Word is a tremendous word, a productive word. It produces what it is—power. It produces Godlikeness. We get to heaven through Christ, the Word of God; we have peace through the blood of His cross. Redemption is ours through the knowledge of the Word. I am saved because God‘s Word says so: “If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved” (Romans 10:9).

If I am baptized with the Holy Spirit, it is because Jesus said, “You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you” (Acts 1:8). We must all have one thought—to be filled with the Holy Spirit, to be filled with God.

The Holy Spirit has a royal plan, a heavenly plan. He came to unveil the King, to show the character of God, to unveil the precious blood of Jesus. Because I have the Holy Spirit within me, I see Jesus clothed for humanity. He was moved by the Spirit, led by the Spirit. We read of some who heard the Word of God but did not benefit from it because faith was lacking in them (Hebrews 4:2). We must have a living faith in God‘s Word, a faith that is quickened by the Spirit.

Thought for today: Our God is a God of might, light, and revelation, preparing us for heaven.

September 26

From now on, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer. — 2 Corinthians 5:16

Scripture reading: Matthew 16:1–19

To no longer know any man according to the flesh is a great thing. Beloved, we will no longer know any man along natural lines. From this moment, we will know everything only on a spiritual basis. Conversation must be spiritual. We can get distracted after we have had a really good meal; instead of no longer knowing any man according to the flesh, so that everything is in spiritual fellowship and union, we lower the standard by talking about natural things.

If you ride with me on a train, you will have to pray or testify. If you don‘t, you will hear a whole lot of talk that will lower the anointing, bring you into a kind of bondage, and make you wish you were riding in another part of the train. But if you break in and have a prayer meeting, you will turn the whole thing around. Go in and pray until you know everybody has been touched by it.

If you go out to dinner with anybody today, don‘t get sidetracked by listening to a long story about the state of their businesses. You must know only one Man now, and that is Christ, and He hasn‘t any business. Yet He is Lord over all businesses. Live in the Spirit, and all things will work together for good to you (Romans 8:28). If you live for your businesses, you will not know the mind of the Spirit. However, if you live in the heavenly places, you will cause your businesses and all things to come out of their difficulties, for God will fight for you.

I won‘t enter into anything that is lower than spiritual fidelity. When I am preaching spiritually anointed thoughts, I must see that I lift my people into a place where I know the Spirit is leading me to know Jesus.

Suppose you know Jesus. What do you say? That He lost out? No, He didn‘t. But a great deal was put upon Him by the people who said,

Is this not the carpenter‟s son? Is not His mother called Mary? And His brothers James, Joses, Simon, and Judas? And His sisters, are they not all with us? Where then did this Man get all these things? (Matthew 13:55–56)

They said, “He is only an ordinary man. He was born the same way we all were. You see Him. So what is He?”

You will never get anything that way. He wasn‘t an ordinary man if He was born out of the “loins of Abraham” (Hebrews 7:5). Two sons were born to Abraham: Isaac and Ishmael. One was the son of promise, the other wasn‘t. But Isaac, the son of promise, got the blessings. Isaac was a type of Christ. You can never enter into God‘s conditions in any way but the spiritual way.

For a time, a cloud overshadowed Jesus because of His ancestry. With the Jews, it overshadows Him today because the veil is over their eyes; but the veil will be lifted. (See 2 Corinthians 3:14-16.) With the Gentiles, the veil is already lifted.

We see Him as the Incarnation, as the Holy One of God, as the Son of God, as the “only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). We see Him as the Burden-Bearer, as our Sanctifier, as our Cleanser, as our Baptizer. Know no man according to the flesh, but see Him! As we behold Him in all His glory, we will rise; we cannot help but rise in the power of God.

Know no man according to the flesh. People want holiness. People want righteousness. People want purity. People have an inward longing to be clothed with the Spirit.

May the Lord lead you to the supply of every need, far more than you can “ask or think” (Ephesians 3:20). May the Lord bless you as you are led to dedicate yourself afresh to God this very day.

Thought for today: You will draw people if you refuse to be contaminated by the world.

September 25

Lord, I pray, please let Your ear be attentive to the prayer of Your servant. — Nehemiah 1:11

Scripture reading: Nehemiah 1

Nehemiah mourned, fasted, and prayed until his humility and yieldedness before God brought the same thing that God‘s Word brings to us: it dissolved him. It brought everything of his old nature into a dissolved place where he went right through into the presence of God.

Now Nehemiah was the cupbearer for the Persian king Artaxerxes. The moment the king saw Nehemiah‘s sad expression, he asked, “What is the matter with you, Nehemiah? I have never seen your countenance changed like this.” (See Nehemiah 2:1–2.) Nehemiah was so near almightiness before the king that he could pray and move the heavens and move the king and move the world until Jerusalem was restored.

He mourned. When we reach a place where the Spirit takes us to see our weaknesses, our depravity, our failings; when we mourn before God; we will be dissolved. In the dissolving, we will be clothed with our house from heaven. We will walk in white; we will be robed with a new robe, and this “mortality [will] be swallowed up by life” (2 Corinthians 5:4).

Beloved, Christ can bring every one of us, if we will, into a wholehearted dependency where God will never fail us but we will reign in life. We will travail and bring forth fruit; for Zion, when she travails, will make the house of hell shake.

Will we reach this place? Our blessed Lord reached it. Every night He went alone and reached ideals and walked the world in white. He was clothed with the Holy Spirit from heaven.

Daniel entered into the same negotiations with heaven through the same inward aspiration. He groaned and travailed until for three weeks he shook the heavens and moved Gabriel to come. Gabriel passed through all the regions of the damned to bring the message to him.

There was something so beautiful about the whole thing that even Daniel, in his most holy, beautiful state, became as corruption before the presence of Gabriel. And Gabriel strengthened Daniel by his right hand and lifted him up and gave him the visions of the world‘s history that are to be fulfilled. (See Daniel 9–12.)

You cannot get into life except through death, and you cannot get into death except by life. For the natural life to be swallowed up, there must be nothing there but helplessness until the life of Christ strengthens the natural life. Yet instead of the natural life being strengthened, the spiritual life comes forth with abounding conditions.

Thought for today: The only way to go into fullness with God is for the life of Christ to swallow up the natural life.

September 24

For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. — 2 Corinthians 5:1 KJV

Scripture reading: Revelation 3

The power of God can so dwell in us that it can burn up everything that is not spiritual and dissolve it to the perfection of beauty and holiness that Jesus has. Jesus was perfectly dissolved in regard to everything in His human nature, and He lived in the Spirit over everything else. As He is, so we have to be. (See 1 John 4:17.)

We shouldn‘t be troubled in the flesh. Was Jesus troubled in the flesh? Didn‘t He go forth with perfect victory? It is impossible for any avenue of flesh, or anything that you touch in your natural body, to be helpful. Even your eyes have to be sanctified by the power of God so that they strike fire every time you look at a sinner, and the sinner will be changed.

We will be clothed with a robe of righteousness in God so that wherever we walk, there will be a whiteness of effectiveness that will bring people to a place of conviction of sin. You say, “There are so many things in my house that would have to be thrown out the window if Jesus came to my home.” I pray that we could understand that He is already in the house all the time. Everything ought to go out the window that couldn‘t stand His eyes on it. Every impression of our hearts that would bring trouble if He looked at us ought to go forever.

You ask, “What are we to do?” We are to be “swallowed up by life” (2 Corinthians 5:4). The great I AM in perfect holiness isn‘t just an example, but He clothes us with His own nature.

It is impossible for us to subdue kingdoms (see Hebrews 11:33), impossible for the greater works to be accomplished (see John 14:12), impossible for the Son of God to be making sons on earth except as we stand exactly in His place.

Thought for today: There isn‘t a place in Scripture that God doesn‘t mean for us to possess and which He won‘t take us into.

September 23

Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him. — Romans 6:8

Scripture reading: Romans 6

The apostle Paul could see that if he had any communion with flesh and blood, he couldn‘t go forward in the Lord. (See Galatians 1:15–17.) It was even necessary for Jesus‘ flesh and blood ties to be put in this context. Jesus said,

“Who is My mother and who are My brothers?” And He stretched out His hand toward His disciples and said, “Here are My mother and My brothers! For whoever does the will of My Father in heaven is My brother and sister and mother.” (Matthew 12:48–50)

Flesh and blood were nothing to Jesus. God brought Him into the world as a seed of life. To Him, that obedient believer was His mother, that servant of God was His brother, that follower of Christ was His sister. But this is a higher ideal; this takes spiritual knowledge.

Let us look at another example of dying to self taken from Jesus‘ life. In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus faced His suffering from two different standpoints. His human nature instantly cried out, “If it is possible, let this cup pass from Me” (Matthew 26:39). The next moment, he was saying, with His divine nature, “Nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will” (v. 39). He also said, “But for this purpose I came to this hour” (John 12:27). His human nature had no more choices left. He was off to face the cross.

When God the Holy Spirit brings us to see these truths, we will deny ourselves for the sake of the Cross. We will deny ourselves of anything that would cause our brother to stumble. We will die to all fleshly indulgences, lest we should miss the great swallowing up by life (2 Corinthians 5:4). We will not even mention or ever pay attention to anything along natural lines.

If we will allow God to govern us, He will lift us up into a higher state of grace than we have ever been in before. If believers could take hold of this spiritual power, they could withstand any ridicule that comes their way. When are we distracted and disturbed? When we don‘t reach the ideals in the Spirit. When we reach the ideals in the Spirit, what does it matter?

One reason for the trouble in churches today is people‘s murmuring over the conditions they are in. The Bible teaches us not to murmur (John 6:43). If you reach that standard, you will never murmur anymore. God will be purifying you all the time and lifting you higher, and you will know you are not of this world (John 15:19).

If you want to stay in the world, you cannot go on with God. If you are not of this world, your position in this life will have little effect on you. Yet you will know that everything will work for your good (Romans 8:28) if you climb the ladder of faith with God. God will keep the world in perfect order and give you success in the end.

But God cannot work for you; you are so involved in the world that He cannot get your attention. How can someone get into this divine order when he is torn between two things: God and the world? He cannot let himself go and let God take him.

I maintain that, by the grace of God, we are so rich, we are so abounding, we have such a treasure-house, we have such a storehouse of God, we have such an unlimited faith to share in all that God has, for it is ours. We are the cream of the earth; we are the “precious fruit of the earth” (James 5:7). God has told us that all things will work together for our good (Romans 8:28). God has said that we will be the “children of the Highest” (Luke 6:35 KJV) and that we will be the “salt of the earth” (Matthew 5:13). God has declared all this in His Word.

How am I to have all the treasures of heaven and all the treasures of God? Not by getting my eyes on the things that are seen, for they will fade away. I must get my eyes on the things that are not seen, for they will remain as long as God reigns.

But now a change is taking place. I read in the Scriptures: “That you may be married to another; to Him who was raised from the dead, that we should bear fruit to God” (Romans 7:4).

You are joined to Another; you belong to Another. God has changed you. Is it a living fact? If it is only words, it will end there. But if it is a spiritual fact, and you reign in it, you will say, “Thank God, I never knew I was so rich!”

Thought for today: You will never reach God‘s blessings if you are holding on to the lower things of this world; they will keep you down.

September 22

For when I am weak, then I am strong. — 2 Corinthians 12:10

Scripture reading: 2 Corinthians 12:1–10; 13:5–9

I must understand how mortality can be “swallowed up” (2 Corinthians 5:4). I must know how the old body, the old tendencies to the fallen nature, may be swallowed up. There is a verse we must come to. It would serve us to look at it now: “Always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body” (2 Corinthians 4:10).

What is this “dying of the Lord”? It is dying to desire. In the measure that we look to one another for our help, we lose faith in God. If you rely upon any man or woman, upon any human assistance, to help you, you fall out of the greater purpose God has for you.

You must learn that no earthly source can ever assist you in this. You are going to this realm of life only by mortality being swallowed up by life: “And the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God” (Galatians 2:20). It is a process of dying and living.

This life I am speaking about absolutely ravishes you. It absolutely severs you from earthly connections. It absolutely disjoins you from all earthly help. And I can understand this word now more than ever: “You have not yet resisted to bloodshed, striving against sin” (Hebrews 12:4).

The great striving to the point of bloodshed—blood being the very essence of life—we have not yet resisted to that degree, but we will. I know the Scripture says we have not, but I know it means that we have not arrived there yet. But thank God, we are in it in a measure.

Thought for today: You cannot get into life except through death to self

September 21

For we who are in this tent groan, being burdened, not because we want to be unclothed, but further clothed, that mortality may be swallowed up by life. — 2 Corinthians 5:4

Scripture reading: 2 Corinthians 5

I believe that, first, we must all grasp the truth that we are not our own (1 Corinthians 6:19). In the second place, we belong to a spiritual order; we don‘t belong to the earth. And not only that, but our minds and our bodies—our whole position through the eternal Spirit—always have to be on the ascending position.

In this transforming condition, we may, by the power of the Spirit, as God gives us revelation, be lifted up into a very blessed state of fellowship with God, of power with God. And in that place of power with God, we will have power over everything else, for to have all power over the earth, we must first have power with God.

We know that we are heavenly citizens. We know that we have to exit this earth and have been preparing for our exit. Yet while we are on earth, we must live in the place where we groan over everything that binds us from being loosed from the world.

What will hold me? Association will hold me in this present world. I must hold every earthly relationship at a distance—and you know it is as natural to have earthly associations as it is to live. It must never tie me or bind me. It must never have any persuasion over me. Hear what the Scripture says, “Being conformed to His death” (Philippians 3:10).

What does it mean to conform to the death of Jesus? It leads me to that death of separation to God, of yieldedness, of exchange, where God takes me to Himself and leaves the old nature behind. “While we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen” (2 Corinthians 4:18).

Then I may grasp some idea of what it will mean if I die to myself. I want us to see, by the grace of God, that the dissolving of our earthly bodies (see 2 Corinthians 5:1 KJV) is a great thought. There is a position in God that we must clearly understand: “Not because we want to be unclothed, but further clothed, that mortality may be swallowed up by life.”

While mortality is necessary, it is a hindrance. While mortality has done a great deal to produce everything we see, it is a hindrance if we live with only it in mind. It is a helpful position if we live over it.

Thought for today: To descend is to be conformed. To ascend is to be transformed.

September 20

But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all. — 1 Corinthians 12:7

Scripture reading: 1 Corinthians 12:1–11

We must never transgress because of liberty. What I mean is this: it would be wrong for me to take opportunities just because the Spirit of the Lord is upon me. But it would be perfectly justifiable if I clearly allow the Spirit of the Lord to have His liberty with me. However, we are not to behave inappropriately in our liberty, for the flesh is more extravagant than the Spirit.

The Spirit‘s extravagances are always for edification, strengthening character, and bringing us all more into conformity with the life of Christ. But fleshly extravagances always mar these things and bring the saints into a place of trial for the moment. As the Spirit of the Lord takes further hold of a person, we may get liberty in it, but we are tried through the manifestations of it.

I believe we have come to a liberty of the Spirit that is so pure it will never bring a frown of distraction over another person‘s mind. I have seen many people who were in the power of the Spirit, but they exhibited a manifestation that was not foundational or even helpful. I have seen people under the mighty power of the Holy Spirit who have waved their hands wildly and moved on the floor and gone on in such a state that no one could say the body was not under the power. However, there was more natural power than spiritual power there, and the natural condition of the person, along with the spiritual condition, caused the manifestation. Though we know the Spirit of the Lord was there, the manifestation was not something that would elevate or please the people or grant them a desire for more of that. It wasn‘t an edification of the Spirit.

If there are any here who have those manifestations, I want to help you. I don‘t want to hurt you. It is good that you should have the Spirit upon you; people need to be filled with the Spirit. But you never have a right to say you couldn‘t help doing this, that, or the other manifestation.

No manifestation of the body ever glorifies the Lord except the tongue. If you seek to be free in the operation of the Spirit through the mouth, then the tongue, which may be under a kind of subconscious control by the Spirit, brings out the glory of the Lord, and that will always bring edification, consolation, and comfort.

No other manifestation will do this. Still, I believe that it is necessary to have all these other manifestations when someone is filled with the Spirit for the first time. When the Spirit is there, the flesh must find some way out, and so, through past experience, we allow all these things at the beginning. But I believe the Holy Spirit brings a sound condition of mind, and the first thing must pass away so that the divine position may remain.

And so there are various manifestations, including kicking and waving, that take place at the incoming of the Holy Spirit, when the flesh and the Spirit are in conflict. One must decrease and die, and the other must increase and multiply. Consequently, when you come to understand this, you are in a place of sound judgment and know that now the Holy Spirit has come to take you on with God.

When the Holy Spirit is allowed full reign over the operation of human life, He always works out of divine wisdom. And when He gets perfect control of a life, the divine source flows through so that all the people may receive edification in the Spirit. If you act foolishly after you have had wisdom taught you, nobody will give you much leeway.

“We then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak” (Romans 15:1 KJV). Some who come to church services know nothing about the power of the Holy Spirit. They get saved and are quickened, and after the Spirit comes upon them, you will see all these manifestations. In love and grace, you should bear with them as newborn babes in the Spirit and rejoice with them because that is only a beginning to an end. The Lord wouldn‘t want us to be anything but “strong in the Lord and in the power of His might” (Ephesians 6:10) to help everyone around us.

Thought for today: Liberty is beautiful when we never use it to satisfy ourselves but use it in the Lord.