3月7日 不朽的喜乐

然而靠着爱我们的主，在这一切的事上，已经得胜有余了。（罗八37）

保罗列举许多的事情，似乎会把圣徒与神的爱隔开；但奇特的是，没有任何事物可以将圣徒与神的爱隔绝。这些事可以而且实际的进入人的事奉操练中，隔开了神，叫个人的生命与神分开。但是，绝没有一样能插入神的爱与圣徒的心灵中间。我们信仰的基石，就是神在加略十架上彰显出来那高深莫测、奇妙无比的爱，这爱是我们永远不配得的。保罗说正因为这缘故，我们在这一切事上已经得胜有余，成为超然的得胜者；在那似乎要把我们制服的事上，获得无比的喜乐。

游泳者所惧怕的波涛，对滑浪者却是驾浪凌空的赏心乐事。应用在我们的身上，这些事——患难、困苦、逼迫——在我们里面却生出喜乐来；这些事不是我们争斗的物件、藉着他，我们在这一切困扰里面已经得胜有余。不是“尽管”有这些也得胜，乃是置身其中仍然得胜。信徒从来不会因为“徒有”患难，就体会主里的喜乐，乃是由于在患难之中而体会到的。保罗说：“我在患难中格外喜乐。”

不绝的喜乐，并非建筑在短暂的事上，乃是在神永不改变的爱上。人生的经历不论是可怕的或是单调的，都无法影响神的爱，这爱是在我们的主基督耶稣里的。

祈祷◆主啊，为着如今在我生命中的喜乐——妻儿之爱、所教的学生、圣灵的恩惠——我赞美你。它们所带来的喜乐和福气，是何等奇妙！

March 7: Undaunted Radiance

“Nay, in all these things, we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us.” Romans 8:37

Paul is speaking of the things that might seem likely to separate or wedge in between the saint and the love of God; but the remarkable thing is that nothing can wedge in between the love of God and the saint. These things can and do come in between the devotional exercises of the soul and God and separate individual life from God; but none of them is able to wedge in between the love of God and the soul of the saint. The bedrock of our Christian faith is the unmerited, fathomless marvel of the love of God exhibited on the Cross of Calvary, a love we never can and never shall merit. Paul says this is the reason we are more than conquerors in all these things, super-victors, with a joy we would not have but for the very things which look as if they are going to overwhelm us.

The surf that distresses the ordinary swimmer produces in the surf-rider the super-joy of going clean through it. Apply that to our own circumstances, these very things – tribulation, distress, persecution, produce in us the super-joy; they are not things to fight. We are more than conquerors through Him in all these things, not in spite of them, but in the midst of them. The saint never knows the joy of the Lord in spite of tribulation, but because of it – “I am exceeding joyful in all our tribulation,” says Paul.

Undaunted radiance is not built on anything passing, but on the love of God that nothing can alter. The experiences of life, terrible or monotonous, are impotent to touch the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.