The Greatest Wisdom Is to Lift Up God and Look Upon Him

The Greatest Wisdom Is to Lift Up God and Look Upon Him

Lingxin Shijiazhuang City, Hebei Province

The Picture of The Church of Almighty God | The Greatest Wisdom Is to Lift Up God and Look Upon Him

A few days ago, I read a passage from “The Way to Entering Into Reality” in Sermons and Fellowship on Entry Into Life (IV): “For example, now there is someone who has taken a wrong turn. Using this as a talking point to communicate the truth, how would you do it? … First, you should testify to the work of God, testify to how God saves mankind. Then, you can talk about whether the road he is on leads to God’s salvation, whether he can obtain the work of the Holy Spirit, and whether this is a road which God approves. So, first you testify to God’s work, and then testify to the road God is leading us down, that is, the road to salvation. Let him see God’s love and His salvation, and only then can he go on the right way.

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Eastern Lightning | Persecution and Adversity Helped Me to Grow Up

Persecution and Adversity Helped Me to Grow Up 

Baituo Dezhou City, Shandong Province

The Picture of The Church of Almighty God | Persecution and Adversity Helped Me to Grow Up

Before, I only knew that God’s wisdom is exercised based on Satan’s plots, that God is a wise God and that Satan will ever be God’s defeated foe in theory, but I had no understanding or knowledge of it based on actual experience. Later, only within an environment arranged by God did I gain some real experience of this aspect of the truth

I was at a meeting one afternoon, when suddenly the district leader’s partner hurriedly ran over to me and said, “Your mother has been taken by the great red dragon. Don’t go home for a while. The church will arrange a host family for you.” This news struck me like a bolt from the blue and shook me so much that I was suddenly stupefied: What? My mother has been taken by the great red dragon? How will the great red dragon torture her? Will she be able to endure it? I may never see my mother again. What should I do? Thinking these things, my heart was in torment and I couldn’t stop my tears. After the meeting finished, I was taken to my arranged host family and, after I was settled, my thoughts returned again to my mother. At home, I was closest to my mother. Although my non-believing father tried to force me to give up God, my elder sister ignored me because of my belief in God and all my other relatives abandoned me, I never felt lonely, because I still had my mother who also believed in God. Whether spiritually or physically, my mother always cared for me, doted on me, and helped me often. Whenever I had some problem I could always talk to her about it; you could say that she was my rock. Yet now the only one I could depend on had been taken by the great red dragon. I felt as though I had suddenly become an orphan, not knowing how to walk the road ahead, nor knowing who to go to when I came across difficulties. For the next few days, I cried all day long, lived in constant pain and felt very down. As I was living in this state, unable to free myself, God guided me from within: “Are you really willing to live always in darkness, allowing Satan to make a fool of you? And are you really not willing to understand God in His work and live in the light?” God’s guidance woke me from my pain. That’s right, I thought. Am I really going to always live like this in darkness, allowing Satan to make a fool of me? No, I can’t! This situation that has befallen me must surely hold the kindness of God. Afterward, I went before God many times to pray and to seek for God, asking God to enlighten me so that I could understand His will.

After a while, I discovered that I had started to enter into some of the truth that I had not previously understood or that I had been unable to put into practice. I used to be spoiled at home and food, clothing and having fun took up most of my time. My flesh could suffer no wrong and could not endure the slightest hardship. In the few days after I left home and was living with the host family, I could no longer do anything I wanted, could no longer do as I pleased like I had done at home. Gradually, my pampered nature and bad habits lessened, and I came to know that to have food and clothing in life is to be content. I also gained an insight into the essence of the flesh, never again to continue to pursue satisfaction of the flesh, and I came to know that seeking to satisfy God is the most important thing a creation can do. Before, when my mother was at home, no matter whether I had physical issues or problems in my life, I always depended on her and let her help me resolve them. When I came across problems, I didn’t pray to God, didn’t seek the truth, nor did I have a normal relationship with God. After my mother was taken away, I had no one I could depend on when I came across difficulties. I could only go before God more often to pray to Him, to eat and drink more of God’s words, to seek His will more often. Gradually, the place my mother had held in my heart grew smaller, while God’s place in my heart grew bigger. I felt that God could help me any time I needed, that I could not leave God even for one moment. Moreover, I also learned to rely on prayer and to rely on my pursuit of the truth to resolve my problems, and I tasted the feeling of peace, sureness and dependability that comes from having God with me. When I lived at home, although I knew that believers and non-believers were two kinds of people that were incompatible with each other, I still felt as though only my parents and my elder sister were my family, and I always saw my brothers and sisters in the church as outsiders, always feeling some distance between us. After God had used the environment to “drive” me out of my home, I was together with my brothers and sisters in my host family from morning till night, and felt their concern and care for me, their tolerance and understanding. We spoke the same language, shared the same aspirations and helped each other through life; from my heart, I felt that this was my only true family, that only my brothers and sisters in the church were my father, mother and siblings. There was no longer any estrangement between me and my brothers and sisters in the church, no distance, and I experienced the warmth that comes from having a large family. Through this environment with my brothers and sisters, I also learned how we could love each other, pardon each other and support each other through life, so that my normal humanity was recovered. This truth was what I could not put into practice before, when I lived at home and relied on meetings and sermons. After my mother was taken by the great red dragon and I was forced to leave home, in these exceptional circumstances and unbeknown to me, God wrought this truth within me and gradually deepened my understanding of it. In the wake of my entering into this truth, my heart that sought to love and satisfy God became ever stronger and my will to live my entire life for God became ever more resolute. The person I had been—who believed in God but had no purpose, who weakened whenever some problem came along—was undergoing a gradual change. What God bestowed on me really was more than I ever could have thought, and my heart became full of gratitude and praise for Him.

One day, during my spiritual devotions, I read God’s words that say: “In doing all this work, He has not only allowed humanity, who has been corrupted by Satan, to receive His great salvation, but also allowed them to see His wisdom, almightiness and authority, and in the end He will let humanity see His righteous disposition—punishing the wicked and rewarding the good. He has battled Satan to this very day and has never been defeated, for He is a wise God, and His wisdom is exercised based on Satan’s plots. … He still carries out His work in this same realistic manner today; in addition, as He carries out His work He also reveals His wisdom and almightiness …” (“You Should Know How the Whole of Humanity Has Developed to the Present Day” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). God’s words suddenly lit up my heart, and I couldn’t help but release a sigh from deep within: God really is a wise God! God’s deeds really are wonderful and unforeseen! This situation has today befallen me and, on the surface, it looks as though the great red dragon has taken my mother, taken away my only rock, made it hard for me to return home, tried in vain to use this to obstruct my belief in God and to make me cave in, or grow weak and give up by scaring me with its influence. But God’s wisdom is exercised based on the plots of Satan, and God used it to great effect. He sprung me out of my comfy nest and, through this environment, tempered my will, perfected my will to undergo suffering, trained me to have the ability to live independently, taught me how to live out normal humanity and how to be a real person; this truth was something that I had no way to understand, no way to obtain in an environment of ease and comfort. Through this environment, God wrought His truth and what He is in life inside me, so that not only did I not give up because of the persecution of the great red dragon but, on the contrary, I obtained the truth that God had bestowed on me and I was brought under God’s salvation. Furthermore, through the persecution of the great red dragon, I saw its savage, cruel face and its reactionary nature even more clearly. From my heart, I loathed it even more, and my heart that sought to love God became even stronger.

I give thanks to God! From this experience, I gained some practical understanding of God’s almightiness and sovereignty, and gained some practical experience of the fact that God’s wisdom is exercised based on the plots of Satan. I understood that everything that befalls that does not conform to man’s conceptions is the wise deed of God. No matter how Satan enforces its plots, God will ever be a wise God, and Satan will ever be God’s defeated foe. Understanding this, my will to follow God is now more resolute, and I am filled with faith for the road ahead!

Source: "Persecution and Adversity Helped Me to Grow Up" in Testimonies of Experience of Christ’s Judgment 

       Recommendation:  Eastern Lightning, The Church of Almighty God was founded by Almighty God personally

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Eastern Lightning | What Is It That Has Deceived My Spirit?

What Is It That Has Deceived My Spirit? 

Xu Lei Zaozhuang City, Shandong Province

The Picture of The Church of Almighty God | What Is It That Has Deceived My Spirit?

One day I received a notice about a meeting. Normally this is a happy event, but as soon as I thought about what a complete mess my own work had been in lately, I couldn’t help feeling worried. If my superior knew how I hadn’t finished any of my work, he would certainly have to deal with me, and may even replace me. What would I do then? The next day I went along to the meeting with a heavy heart. When I got there, I saw that my superior had not yet arrived, but some co-workers were there already. I thought: “I don’t know what state any of their work is in. At the last meeting, I heard them say how they’d pretty much done their work, and this time they must surely have finished it all. If they have finished all their work and it’s only me who is so bad, then I’m done for.” I was surprised then that, when we were together talking about our own work situations, many of my co-workers were saying how they hadn’t finished some parts of their work. When I heard this, my heart that had been so heavy before suddenly felt a lot lighter. I thought: “It turns out that no one has finished their work, not just me. No need to worry then. We can’t all be replaced.” The greater part of my uneasy feelings then disappeared in an instant.

Just as I was starting to get comfortable in my state of self-consolation, a passage in a fellowship from the above drifted into my mind: “If one brings worldly views into God’s family, then they are conceptions and they defy God. Many people have the same views on things as unbelievers. Because they have no truth within them, once they arrive at God’s family they use worldly views to view the work of God’s family, to comment on the matters of God’s family, with the result that they hold themselves back, causing themselves to always be weak and negative, to be unable to seek the truth or pay the price. Is this not created by their ignorance?” (“How to Know Man’s Conceptions and Judgments” in Sermons and Fellowship On Entry Into Life (III)). These words made me think of my reaction a moment ago. When I thought of how I hadn’t finished my work, my heart felt very heavy and I couldn’t stop worrying. But when I knew that my co-workers had also not finished their work, I felt immediately relieved, and thought with an easy conscience that it wasn’t just me whose work had not achieved anything. If our superior was to deal with us, then everyone would have their share. Since so many of us had not finished our work, our supervisor certainly couldn’t replace us all. Wasn’t this type of thinking dominated by Satan’s viewpoint: “It is not a sin if everyone does it”? Wasn’t I really using Satan’s viewpoint to measure the principles of the church’s work? I had applied Satan’s logical viewpoint to the church, used it to console myself, to indulge myself—but wasn’t I just harming myself? I was in fact so blind and ignorant! Thinking back, there were many times when I accepted the domination of this viewpoint of Satan’s to console myself. For a while, I lived in the flesh with no entry into life and, although worried about my own salvation, when I saw some brothers and sisters having also made no entry into the truth, I became free from anxiety and stopped giving myself a hard time. I thought that if so many people had not entered into life, then God couldn’t sift us all out, could He? I therefore lived in a laissez-faire state of self-indulgence, carrying no real burden for my own life. When I had not written any article for a long time and had feelings of self-condemnation, I would see others who also hadn’t written anything, and the condemnation in my heart would disappear. I would think: It’s no big deal to not write an article and, anyway, it’s not just me who hasn’t written one. When I never saw any result from my gospel work, I would feel anxious. But when I saw the gospel work of others having no result either, I would feel calm, thinking that everyone was like this, that it wasn’t just me who never brought anyone into the church. … At that time, I saw that the viewpoint of Satan—“It is not a sin if everyone does it”—had taken root in my heart so very deeply. Under the domination of this viewpoint, I was constantly indulging myself when performing my duties, wasn’t putting my all into them and wasn’t seeking the best possible outcome. It not only caused great loss to the work of the church, but also brought a great deal of loss to my own life. Because I had accepted the fallacious poison of Satan—“It is not a sin if everyone does it”—I had taken up no real burden in my work for the church, was always making do with half-hearted work and was not seeking any outcome; I had lost the conscience and reason that one of God’s creations should have. Because I had accepted the shackles of Satan’s viewpoint of “It is not a sin if everyone does it,” I was always just muddling along in the course of my following God. I had not considered my belief in God to be of any consequence at all, I did not seek the truth in earnest, did not care about or focus on my own entry into life; I had no objective to pursue, no direction in life. I just muddled along and did the bare minimum to get by. Only then did I see that I had been harmed so badly by Satan’s viewpoint of “It is not a sin if everyone does it,” and had completely lost the conscience, reason, integrity and dignity that a normal person should possess. Thinking carefully, I had been living within my own imagination and conceptions all the while, believing in “It is not a sin if everyone does it,” that if many people commit the sin then God will let us slip through the net and not hold anyone accountable, never thinking whether or not God would actually treat people this way. At that time, I couldn’t help thinking of God’s words, that say: “He who defies the work of God shall be sent to hell; any country that defies the work of God shall be destroyed; any nation that rises up to oppose the work of God shall be wiped from this earth, and shall cease to exist” (“God Presides Over the Fate of All Mankind” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). God’s words made me tremble with fear, as I saw that God’s disposition will not allow anyone to commit offense and that He will not base His decision on whether or not to destroy man on the number of sinners. Thinking back, the people in Noah’s day were sinful and promiscuous and God destroyed all that lived in that time apart from Noah’s family. His destruction of the city of Sodom was also like this. Now the people in the last days have reached several billion, a number far surpassing those in Noah’s day. But God has not set His law aside and shown mercy because there are too many sinners in the last days; for these people God has only hatred, punishment, detestation and rejection, using all kinds of natural calamities and man-made misfortunes to gradually wipe them out. In the end, apart from the few who are saved, God will utterly destroy all that are left. Only then did I see how little I had understood God’s disposition. I didn’t understand that God is a righteous, holy God who does not allow man to commit offense, to the extent that I had been confounded by Satan’s lies and had fallen into its cunning schemes. Today, if it had not been for God’s enlightenment, I would still be living in sin without thinking it was sin, in the end being punished by God without even knowing why I was to die—it really had been so dangerous!

I give thanks to God for His enlightenment that made me wake up from Satan’s deception and realize that “It is not a sin if everyone does it” was entirely a heretical fallacy of Satan. It was Satan’s cunning scheme to harm and ruin people. Moreover, I saw that God is righteous, that God’s disposition will not allow any offense, that God will base the final decision on people’s end on whether or not they have the truth, and that He will not show exceptional mercy on someone who has no truth. From today on, I wish to spare no effort in seeking the truth, in seeking to understand God, to base my view of all things on God’s words, to use God’s words as the standard by which I will make strict demands of myself, to abandon all the lies and deceptions of Satan, and to seek to be one who lives in reliance on the truth.

Source: "What Is It That Has Deceived My Spirit?" in Testimonies of Experience of Christ’s Judgment

Recommendation:  Eastern Lightning, The Church of Almighty God was founded by Almighty God personally

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