Sacrifice of Praise

"Through Him then let us offer a sacrifice of praise to God continually." - Hebrews 13:15

Praise of God is Satan's target. I do not say he does not oppose prayer; for you only have to start praying to God and sure enough, he intervenes. Yet even more does he assault the praises of God's children. He would gladly exert all his strength to prevent God receiving one word of praise, for if prayer is frequently a battle, praise is victory. At the sound of it Satan flees. I discovered this during the first two years of my Christian life, and have not ceased to rejoice in the peace of heart it has brought me.

Let us not, however, make the mistake of equating praise with joyfulness. Look at the Scriptures. It was out of the pressure upon his people that God drew forth so many of the songs that there delight us. He does not measure praise merely by its exuberance. For in its nature praise is sacrifice. Not only must we exalt His name when we stand on the summit and view the promised land; we must learn also to compose psalms of confidence in Him when we walk through the valley of the shadow. This is praise in truth.

The Joyful Heart (Watchman Nee 主僕倪柝聲弟兄)
Read the Scriptures: Hebrews 13

Broken by God

"Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation." - Habakkuk 3:18

When the Galilean boy brought his bread to Jesus, what did Jesus do with it? He broke it. God will always break what is offered to Him. He breaks what He takes, then blesses and uses it to meet men's needs.

Is not this true to your experience and mine? You give yourself to the Lord, and at once everything goes so badly wrong that you are tempted to find fault with His ways. To persist in such an attitude is to be broken, yes indeed, but to what purpose? You have gone too far for the world to use you, but you have not gone far enough for God. This is the tragedy of many a Christian. Do we want Him to use us? Then day by day let us go on giving to Him, not finding fault with His methods, but accepting His handling of us with praise and expectation.

A Table In The Wilderness (by Watchman Nee 主僕倪柝聲弟兄)
Read the Scriptures: Habakkuk 3; Matthew 4:13-21

Wait On The Lord

"In returning and rest shall ye be saved; in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength." - Isaiah 30:15

Desire for haste bespeaks an emotional nature. Emotion is usually hasty. It is extremely hard for the hasty Christian to wait on the Lord, to know His will and knowing it, to walk a step at a time in that will. Indeed we who are His own are incapable of following the Spirit until our emotions are truly yielded to the cross. We need first to learn there the "patience of Jesus Christ," for let us remember that out of a hundred impatient actions, scarcely one is in the will of God.

Because He knows the impetuosity of our nature, God frequently uses our fellow workers, brethren, family, or environment to put the brake on us. For God never performs anything hurriedly; consequently, He will rarely entrust His power to the impatient

「你們得救在乎歸回安息；你們得力在乎平靜安穩」賽30：15

衝動、急躁乃是人的天性。人的情緒常常是急率的。性急的基督徒很難等候神，明白祂的旨意；或在明白之後，很難遵照神的旨意，一步步按部就班地行。的確，屬神的人，除非先讓其情緒接受十字架的對付，否則不可能順從聖靈行事。我們必須先在十字架上學習「耶穌基督的忍耐」。讓我們切記，在一百樁缺乏耐心的草率行動裏，很少有一樁是合乎神旨意的。

因為神知道我們性情的衝動，所以祂屢次用我們的同工、弟兄、家人及環境來作我們的煞車工具。神行事從不匆忙，因此祂很少將祂的能力託付給急躁的人。


The Joyful Heart (by Watchman Nee 主僕倪柝聲弟兄)
Read the Scriptures: Isaiah 30

Ministry in the Spirit (靈裏的事奉)

"我的食物就是遵行差我來者的旨意，作成祂的工。" - 約4：34

屬靈的事奉，最奇妙的特性之一，就是它能使投身其中的人煥發更新。就拿主耶穌在敘加井旁的經歷作例子。祂在雅各井旁，像撒瑪利亞婦人要水喝，那時祂真的是又饑又渴。然而祂對這個罪人之關切，使祂暫時忘卻自己的需要，祂顧不得口乾舌燥，而與她深入長談，透過這段談話，祂把生命之水傾注到她乾渴的靈魂中。不久門徒返回，看到主耶穌精神爽朗的樣子，十分驚訝，私下彼此對問說，莫非有人拿甚麼東西給祂吃了麼？當然，真正的秘訣乃在於主將生命之水次給那撒瑪利亞婦人喝之後，祂自己的乾渴也得著滿足了。靈裏的生命及靈裏的事奉，常常都是這個樣子。

"My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me, and to accomplish His work." - John 4:34

A wonderful feature of spiritual ministry is that it refreshes the one who engages in it. Take, for example, the incident of Jesus at the well of Sychar. He was genuinely thirsty when He asked the woman for a drink, but in His concern for her as a needy sinner He ignored His own condition. Instead He engaged her in a conversation that ministered the water of life to her soul.

Then the disciples returned. To their surprise, the Lord looked so refreshed that they began to ask one another where this provision had come from. The answer was, of course, that in giving another to drink of the living water, He Himself had found His own thirst satisfied. Life in the Spirit and ministry in the Spirit are always like this.

The Joyful Heart (by Watchman Nee)
Read the Scriptures: John 4:1-34

Bring in the Light

"And the light shineth in the darkness; and the darkness apprehended it not." - John 1:5

There is a great danger today of concentrating attention on questions of dark things and making them the subject of conversation. We invite darkness by discussing it, seeking to deal with it, or even thinking about it. The Christian must learn in this to set aside everything that is negative and be occupied with the positive.

Darkness cannot be driven out of the world, but light can swallow it up. The reverse is never true. There is no such thing as darkness swallowing up light. Light is light wherever it is, even under a bushel. Let me repeat: here even in this dark world, light is light. All the world's darkness cannot extinguish it, but must itself retreat before even the glow of a tiny candle. When you meet darkness, it is absurd to dispel it. Just bring in the light.

The Joyful Heart (by Watchman Nee)

Read the Scriptures: John 1:1-5