倒要欢喜，因为你们是与基督一同受苦。（彼前四13）
如果你要蒙神使用，你便要经历许多事；不是为你本身而遭遇，乃是要把你造成神手中合用的器皿，使你明白别人心里的景况，以致不会因所遇见的感到诧异。“唉，我不能应付那个人。”为什么不能？神让你有足够的机会在他面前学习这功课，只是你故意避开，认为这样花时间太愚蠢了。
基督受的苦不是普通人的苦，他乃是按神的旨意受苦，不是从我们个人的角度受苦。只有当我们与基督有关系的时候，才会明白神对待我们的用意。基督文化的一部分，就是要明白神的目的。在教会历史中，人们倾向于逃避与主一同受苦相关联；人总是想用自己的捷径，以求完成神的使命。神的道路却总是受苦的路，而且是漫长的受苦之路。
我们有分于基督的受苦吗？我们肯不肯让神把个人的野心除掉？肯不肯藉生命的改变，把个人的志向毁掉？这不是说可以完全明白为何神领我们这样走：这样会叫我们成为属灵的自大者。经历受苦时，我们从未意识到神让我们经历的，我们会或多或少有点误解；过后却全恍然大悟，说：“看，神为我束上带子，我竟然不知道！”
祈祷◆主啊，愿那些在肉身上担负重压的人，能藉着你的支持来继续承担。愿你使他们能避免敌人的严苛对待，愿主的喜乐能奇妙地成为他们的力量。
November 5: Partakers Of His Sufferings
“Rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings.” 1 Peter 4:13
If you are going to be used by God, He will take you through a multitude of experiences that are not meant for you at all, they are meant to make you useful in His hands, and to enable you to understand what transpires in other souls so that you will never be surprised at what you come across. Oh, I can’t deal with that person. Why not? God gave you ample opportunity to soak before Him on that line, and you barged off because it seemed stupid to spend time in that way.
The sufferings of Christ are not those of ordinary men. He suffered “according to the will of God,” not from the point of view we suffer from as individuals. It is only when we are related to Jesus Christ that we can understand what God is after in His dealings with us. It is part of Christian culture to know what God’s aim is. In the history of the Christian Church the tendency has been to evade being identified with the sufferings of Jesus Christ; men have sought to procure the carrying out of God’s order by a short cut of their own. God’s way is always the way of suffering, the way of the “long, long trail.”
Are we partakers of Christ’s sufferings? Are we prepared for God to stamp our personal ambitions right out? Are we prepared for God to destroy by transfiguration our individual determinations? It will not mean that we know exactly why God is taking us that way, that would make us spiritual prigs. We never realize at the time what God is putting us through; we go through it more or less misunderstandingly; then we come to a luminous place, and say – “Why, God has girded me, though I did not know it!”