The Secret of Happy Life

The Secret of Happy Life

Xiangyi

An employed laborer, lately married, enjoyed a conjugal affection and had cute children. But he had to journey to and fro for supporting his family, feeling perplexed by the uncertainties of his life.

A white-collar worker, middle-aged, lived an affluent life, yet he still worked overtime and was busy with social activities for promotion and a pay increase, so he failed to go home on time after work. He was exhausted both mentally and physically and indescribably painful.
A wealthy man, having entered old age, was respectable in the presence of others. However, he had to face his children’s scramble for his property after returning home. He could hardly feel any happiness in his twilight years.

Different life situations bring man different life experiences, which are accompanied with different troubles and bitterness. Everyone longs for perfection, wanting both family togetherness and success in career, and hoping for not only fame and fortune but also the fulfillment in heart. With varied discontent and regret of life, one day, the three, encountered each other.
The employed laborer envied the white-collar worker’s stable job; the white-collar worker envied the wealthy man’s success in career; the wealthy man was envious of the employed laborer’s harmonious family. They, complaining of the disappointments of life, vowed to strive hard to change their fate by their own hands and gain the happy life.

More than ten years later, the employed laborer led a rich life but no longer returned home on time from work. Instead, he was engaged in the social occasions only concerned with eating, drinking, and the pursuit of pleasure. The white-collar worker became a successful boss. Nevertheless, he had to be wary of someone’s scheming for his property all the time, always feeling empty and lonely in the depths of his heart. The wealthy man had passed away, with his children just placing flower baskets before his grave on the anniversary of his death.
Actually, aren’t many of us one of the employed laborer, the white-collar worker or the wealthy man? In the time of poverty, we yearn to live in comfort. After being comfortably off, we desire to be exceedingly wealthy. But after that, we fall into the deeper emptiness of the heart.

The swallow departs in autumn and still returns in spring. The grass withers in winter but grows again with the spring breeze. However, our life once lost is never regained. We attempt to change our fate within several years, over ten years or decades. In the limited time, we strive for money, position, emotion, or anything else, that, we think, will make us happy once we get it. But in the end, we have to admit: Money can buy the luxury material comforts but cannot buy the tranquility of the heart; position may temporarily satisfy our vanity but cannot conceal our inner loneliness; emotion may maintain our fleshly relationships for the moment but only can accompany us through our limited life.

One day, I accidentally saw these words on a spiritual book, “From the moment you come crying into this world, you begin to perform your duty. You assume your role in the plan of God and in the ordination of God. You begin the journey of life. Whatever your background and whatever the journey ahead of you, none can escape the orchestration and arrangement that Heaven has in store, and none are in control of their destiny….” “Regardless of whether you are able to recognize the deed of God, and irrespective of whether you believe in the existence of God, there is no doubt that your fate lies within the ordination of God, and there is no doubt that God will always hold sovereignty over all things.”

“When one has no God, when one cannot see Him, when one cannot clearly recognize God’s sovereignty, every day is meaningless, worthless, miserable. Wherever one is, whatever one’s job is, one’s means of living and the pursuit of one’s goals bring one nothing but endless heartbreak and irrelievable suffering, such that one cannot bear to look back. Only when one accepts the Creator’s sovereignty, submits to His orchestrations and arrangements, and seeks true human life, will one gradually break free from all heartbreak and suffering, shake off all the emptiness of life.”

These thought-provoking words made me suddenly understand the secret of happy life: One’s birth, growing up, family and the occupation he pursues all rest in the Creator’s hand. No one can control his own fate and only God is the Master of our fate and our sole reliance. God has made suitable arrangements for everyone’s life. If we don’t worship God in our limited time but try to cast off God’s sovereignty and satisfy our own ambition and desire, we will just waste time and life, and what we will get are emptiness and bitterness. Then how can we have happiness?

Many Christians know the story of Job in the Bible. Job sought to know and worship God among all things of God’s creation during his lifetime, so God gave him good-looking children, great wealth, lots of servants and a mountain of sheep and cattle. However, comfortably as Job lived, he didn’t worry about the gains and losses of his wealth but almost devoted all his effort to worshiping God in his daily life. The Bible says, “And it was so, when the days of their feasting were gone about, that Job sent and sanctified them, and rose up early in the morning, and offered burnt offerings according to the number of them all: for Job said, It may be that my sons have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts. Thus did Job continually” (Job 1:5). Job worried that his sons had sinned and opposed God, so he urged them to offer sacrifices to God. From this we can see Job indeed practiced the right way of life of fearing God and shunning evil. Even though he was tempted by Satan afterward: He lost all his children and wealth; even his whole body was covered with sore boils; he suffered ridicule by his wife and friends, he still witnessed Jehovah God’s name, “Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither: the LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD” (Job 1:21). From his words we know that the reason why Job continued to praise God as before when losing wealth, fame, gain, children, and even falling into the plight of nearly losing his life is because he firmly believed that “Human fate is ordained by Heaven,” and that in one’s life, his lifespan, being poor or wealthy are all ruled and arranged by God. Thus Job could face God’s sovereignty and arrangements calmly and didn’t think of blessings or disaster. As a result, after overcoming the temptations of Satan, he got twice as much blessing as he had before from God: He had better children, double property and prolonged life, and most importantly, he gained the peace and tranquility of the heart due to walking in the way of fearing God and shunning evil. Job spent the latter half of his life amid God’s care and blessings and was no longer attacked and disturbed by Satan, gaining freedom completely. This was God’s greatest blessing to him.

If you are still worrying and complaining about your less favorable life, have you ever thought: Once we who do not revere God in our heart or accept God’s word as our life have enough wealth to squander at will, can we control ourselves not to indulge in the trap of feasting and revelry? Money, beauty, fame, gain and various excitements of flesh will make us lost in the whirlpool of sin and unable to extricate ourselves. Similarly, if you exhaust all your efforts to jockey for position because you are unwilling to be ordinary, have you ever thought: Once we who do not have any place for God in our heart hold a high position and win attention and exaltation, will we not abuse power for personal gain or consider ourselves to be ones with a high and mighty position? Gradually, we will lose all our integrity and true friends, and around us are just all sorts of “masks,” only putting on a performance when the occasion arises. Is such life what we want?

In fact, everyone will face many of Satan’s temptations in the course of his life: money, fame, gain, knowledge, position and power. All can tempt one to depart from the way of truth of fearing God and shunning evil. The reason that many believers in God are often trapped in Satan’s temptations and esteem evil is because they lack the fear of God, that is, they do not regard it as the most important thing to believe in God, follow God’s words and practice the truth. Many believers only focus on outward labor or having good behaviors or observing religious rituals. However, very few people spend more time in quieting themselves before God, opening their hearts up to Him, earnestly pondering and practicing God’s words. In truth, if we, like Job, are really not entangled by money, fame, fortune and other external things from now on, and whatever comes along, we don’t do it blindly by our own preferences, desire and imaginations but pray to God to seek His will, accept His inspection and spend every day according to His guidance and the requirements of His words, then we will come to realize that living in accordance with God’s words and taking the truth as the foundation of our existence and our life, we will live more and more peacefully and confidently in righteousness, gain God’s blessings and satisfy Him. This is the secret of happy life.

Recommended:
A Symphony of My Fate
I Have Found the True Path of Life
Obeying God and Shaking Off Pain and Emptiness

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Treating Gains and Losses Composedly

Treating Gains and Losses Composedly

Ma Na    the United States

During a person’s life, facing success and failure is unavoidable. There are many people who are happy when they have success, and who are frustrated and pained when they face failure. There are even many people who stake all their efforts in wanting to reach a point at which all their hopes are fulfilled, but things are often not how people would like them to be. Because of this, many people think that this life is not as they want it to be. Previously, I also always relied on my own ability in the work I did, and all that I got from that was the pain of failure. But afterward, through experiencing some things, my perspective had a bit of a transformation: Tranquility in success, and calmness in failure—obeying the sovereignty and arrangements of God is the best, and one can also be liberated and free in life that way.

Because I stood out in the realm of sports, there was one time that I represented my school in participating in a city-wide sprinting competition. Before, when I took part in sports at school, I always won every gold medal in the sprint event. So I was full of confidence about this race, and showed disdain for all others just as if I were some great sports hero. In my training before the race, I was undisciplined, and thought to myself: Anyway, with my ability it’s all but guaranteed that I will win the trophy, and the race is simply running, that’s it. But mom always said to me: “The most important thing isn’t what place you get; what’s most important is learning to rely on God and being able to experience God’s work. Entrust everything to God, for only by obeying God’s sovereignty will you be able to be calm and liberated. If you rely on yourself, you will certainly fail.” In theory, I knew that what my mom said was right, but I thought in my heart: “God is the one true God who created the universe and everything in it. Does God need to be bothered about a competition as small as this?” Besides, the result of this competition isn’t of any concern at all, since the prize was essentially something I could have just reached out my hand and taken.”

In the blink of an eye, the day of the competition had arrived. I strode into the stadium and saw athletes who had come from a variety of school districts, each of them rubbing their hands together with anticipation, eager to give it a shot. Looking at their professional and matching uniforms, and the orderly and disciplined way they did their warm-up movements, it made me nervous about a competition for the first time. This was especially so when I saw there were some physiques which were clearly far beyond those of the athletes in our age group, and just their legs were a great deal more developed than mine. When I found out that I was to compete together with them, the confidence that “I have the power to pull up the mountains and the might that surpasses the world; I will bravely seize first place and will not give up” as well as the “primeval power” stored in my body vanished without a trace in an instant. But at that time I already could not back out, and I could only summon up my resolve and enter the playing field. There were eight teams altogether in the men’s 100 meters sprint, and in the first round only the top two members of each team would qualify to go to the semifinals. Finally, the eight athletes with the best results would compete for the trophy, for second place, and other prizes. I was placed in group seven, and looking at the other athletes in my group, they all had dark skin and a sturdy build, and this made me feel the greatest kind of pressure for the first time. The first six teams had already finished running, and soon it was our turn to take the field. With a nervous heart, I took my place on the track. At that moment, I realized that in doing my warm-up exercises I still had not stretched. Flustered, I quickly stretched a few muscles, but there was already not enough time for me to get ready, so I put my feet into the starting marks, and stretched my palms out over the line, and waited for the referee to call out. “Everyone…on your mark…get set…” In the few seconds waiting for the sound of the starting gun, it was like a century had passed. The sun was scorching my skin and my fingers were aching from supporting my body, but what I felt most deeply was the unforgettable anxiety and sound of my heartbeat. My coach once said that anxiety before a match can help one’s performance, but I felt like this kind of anxiety would be fatal for me. It was as if the whole world was calm, and the only thing I could hear was the beating of my heart as it went “thump thump, thump thump…” At last, the starting gun sounded, and instinctively I shifted my legs, moved my arms, and charged forward. But somehow, a tendon in my left thigh seemed to be intentionally making things difficult for me. I clearly felt that my steps lacked that grace and fleet-footedness that I had had before on the racetrack. Soon I saw in my field of vision that two athletes alongside me had passed me by several lengths, and I quickly became agitated. I sprinted forward with all my might but I couldn’t catch up to them. Usually, I was the only one passing people, so how could it be that there were others beating me? In that moment, the confidence I had before the match collapsed and disappeared in an instant. Looking back, I have no idea how I finished running the remaining few dozen meters. I just remember that after running I immediately gathered up my things and left the field.

Because I got third place in my team, there was no way for me to continue on to compete in the semifinals. I was enveloped in frustration and dismay, and sat alone on the bleachers lost in thought, thinking back over every scene of when I entered the field. I complained to myself about why I hadn’t prepared better and had been beaten by them like that. At the same time, I also blamed God somewhere deep in my heart, and thought: “God! Why, when I believe in You, did I not receive any special care from You? How did You let me be eliminated in the first round? …” After feeling depressed for some time, I suddenly thought of what my mom had said to me that morning: “The result isn’t the most important thing; what is most important is to learn to obey God…” Yes! God requires people to obey Him in their faith. Now, my reproachful heart faded away in a flash, and I sat on the bleachers thinking: I didn’t get any of the prizes I had originally expected, so hadn’t I come here today in vain? Actually, that’s not entirely so. Looking at it from another perspective, being able to come and participate in the municipal track and field competition broadened my perspective and gave me some more life experience. Wasn’t all of this arranged by God, and wasn’t it God who added character to my journey in life? What’s even more important is that this experience caused me to understand the true meaning of God’s statement: “If you rely on your knowledge and ability in your undertakings, then you shall always be a failure.” Isn’t all of this quite a rare benefit? Isn’t it all God’s blessing for me? So I whispered to God in my heart: “God! Even though this result today went against my expectations, and I suffered a bit of a loss, I’m still grateful to You and want to obey You. I know that everything You arrange is good, and it is only because I don’t know You that I came up with misunderstandings and complaints about You. I was wrong.” In a few short phrases, even though it wasn’t in the form of a prayer, it still made my heart tranquil and there was a great deal of calm and steadiness in my heart.

The fantastic thing was that when my heart was willing to obey, the environment around me also changed, and God’s words truly came to fruition: “Any and all things, living or dead, will shift, change, renew, and disappear according to God’s thoughts. This is how God rules over all things” (“God Is the Source of Man’s Life”). Before long, a student ran by and said to me, “Your name showed up on the semifinals board.” After I heard it, I simply didn’t believe it. I hurriedly ran over to see the results. I discovered to my surprise that I had broken through third place on the team on an exception and entered the semifinals! (Later, I learned that the athlete who got first place had participated in another competition, he had been disqualified from taking part in the semifinals.) I was very tranquil in my heart, because I became clearly aware that all this was ordered by God. In the following races, I learned to look up to God and entrusted the results of the match to God. I obeyed God’s sovereignty and in the end obtained fifth place.

At that time, the results of the competition already were not the most important thing to me. What was important was that after the experience my faith in God increased greatly. I clearly came to know that if a person relies on one’s own strength in his struggles, he is bound to face defeat. The sovereignty and arrangement of everything is in the hands of God. As long as one maintains dependence on God and keeps inside himself a heart that obeys God in all that he does, he can remain calm and tranquil in the face of success and defeat. He can also receive God’s blessing. It is just as God’s word says: “Because people do not recognize God’s orchestrations and God’s sovereignty, they always face fate defiantly, with a rebellious attitude, and always want to cast off God’s authority and sovereignty and the things fate has in store, hoping in vain to change their current circumstances and alter their fate. But they can never succeed; they are thwarted at every turn. This struggle, which takes place deep in one’s soul, is painful; the pain is unforgettable; and all the while one is frittering away one’s life. …when you truly understand that everything God has planned for and decided for you is a great benefit, and is a great protection, then you feel your pain gradually lighten, and the whole of you become relaxed, free, liberated” (“God Himself, the Unique III”). Looking back on myself before and after the competition, when I didn’t know God’s sovereignty and wanted to rely on my own strength to strive for first place, there was a disparity between what I expected and the results that showed up. I had an indescribable pain in my heart; but when I realized that God is the sovereign of everything, and when I wanted to obey God, I understood God’s intention by seeking to figure it out and my viewpoint also changed. I no longer lived within the pain of losing the prize and the glory, but instead had a real understanding and experience of God’s word through this defeat. I gained something that was true, and obtained relaxation and liberation in my heart. After this, I practiced obedience to God in many matters, and discovered more and more that when I myself obey God, even if sometimes things didn’t actually turn out how I wanted, I still had in my heart a totally different kind of feeling of tranquility and liberation. Even more so in victory and defeat, I tasted God’s authority and sovereignty for myself and saw God’s marvelous deeds. I felt deeply that obeying God was truly precious!

The word of God says: “At all times God wields His authority, shows His might, continues His management work as always; at all times He rules all things, provides for all things, orchestrates all things, just as He always did. No one can change this. It is fact; it has been the unchanging truth since time immemorial! … All things under God’s arrangements and sovereignty obey natural laws, and if you resolve to let God arrange and dictate everything for you, you should learn to wait, you should learn to seek, you should learn to submit. This is the attitude that every person who wants to submit to God’s authority must take, the basic quality that every person who wants to accept God’s sovereignty and arrangements must possess” (“God Himself, the Unique III”).

“That you can submit to each day’s environment that God prepares and each day of life He gives you, letting Him lead you, that you can most happily and peacefully live in His presence, allow Him to lead you, and are able to submit to His sovereignty. If you have this kind of attitude, you will then come to see without conscious effort that all this is under God’s command” (“A Person Can Live Life With Dignity Only by Submitting to and Revering God”). The more I experienced, the more I have learned that obeying God is a most excellent endeavor, much better than all subjects in school. It is what is most worthy of every person learning and entering into carefully. No matter if the things a person encounters are great or small, they are all under the sovereignty of God’s authority. No matter if you can feel it, God is with us controlling everything. As long as we can have faith in God’s sovereignty in everything we encounter, and can obey all that God controls and arranges, we will be able to see that everything God arranges for us is for the best. We will be able to calmly confront all people and things that we are faced with, and live happily in the presence of God. Thanks be to God! All honor and glory be unto God!

Recommended:
The Losses and Gains in the Meetings
My Painful Experience of Struggling Against Fate
Blessed Through Illness: Experiencing God’s Love

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What Does the Name “Jesus” Mean?

What Does the Name “Jesus” Mean?

Focus on God’s Names: Mystery Series of Jehovah, Jesus and the Almighty:
Episode II—What Does the Name “Jesus” Mean?

In the last fellowship, we shared the origin and meaning of God’s name “Jehovah.” Afterward, we received letters from some brothers and sisters in the Lord enquiring: “Since the name of Jehovah God will endure forever, it should be perpetuated onward. But, why did God’s name change to ‘Jesus’ in the Age of Grace? Is there any deeper significance that lies herein?” Presumably most brothers and sisters want to seek the truth of this question. So, today let’s fellowship about the reason why God took the name of Jesus instead of Jehovah in the Age of Grace and the meaning of the name of Jesus.

As is known to all, God’s deeds are immeasurable. Neither any of God’s names can represent God fully, nor can it express what God has and is. God originally has no name and He is called God. It is because God needs to guide, redeem and rescue mankind and He does different works that He takes different names in different ages. As we all know, the Old Testament of the Bible records that Jehovah God decreed the laws and commandments to lead man in their lives. So that they realized that God would bless them if they abided by the laws and commandments, or they would be condemned and cursed by God. Jehovah God expressed the disposition of wrath and curse. At the end of the Age of Law, people couldn’t keep the law, so they were in the danger of being condemned and executed under the law. In order to redeem the entire human race, God was incarnated for the first time to do the work of redemption under the name of the Lord Jesus. Provided that man prayed to Him to confess their sins and repent, they could be forgiven of their sins and enjoy the abundant grace bestowed upon them by God. The New Testament of the Bible records that the Lord Jesus was full of love and mercy, which precisely represents the disposition God expressed in the Age of Grace. It can be seen that when doing different works, God expresses His different dispositions and His names change accordingly, which is the principle of His work that is always new and never old.

For example, when someone works as a teacher in a school, people call him teacher. When he has a new job in a factory one day, others will be unfit to call him teacher when they encounter him. For teaching is his former work and teacher is his former Appellation. So it is most suitable to call him a master worker in accordance with his present work. Therefore, with God’s work always progressing forward, His disposition and what He has and is are unceasingly revealed to us. At the same time, God’s name changes according to the needs of His work.

However, no matter how God’s name alters, His disposition and substance will never change, much less the aims of His work. Like a passage of God’s words says: “‘Jehovah’ is the name that I took during My work in Israel, and it means the God of the Israelites (God’s chosen people) who can take pity on man, curse man, and guide the life of man. It means the God who possesses great power and is full of wisdom. ‘Jesus’ is Emmanuel, and it means the sin offering that is full of love, full of compassion, and redeems man. He did the work of the Age of Grace, and represents the Age of Grace, and can only represent one part of the management plan. That is to say, only Jehovah is the God of the chosen people of Israel, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, the God of Moses, and the God of all the people of Israel. And so in the current age, all the Israelites apart from the tribe of Judah worship Jehovah. They make sacrifices to Him on the altar, and serve Him wearing priests’ robes in the temple. What they hope for is the reappearance of Jehovah. Only Jesus is the Redeemer of mankind. He is the sin offering that redeemed mankind from sin. Which is to say, the name of Jesus came from the Age of Grace, and existed because of the work of redemption in the Age of Grace. The name of Jesus existed to allow the people of the Age of Grace to be reborn and saved, and is a particular name for the redemption of the whole of mankind. And so the name Jesus represents the work of redemption, and denotes the Age of Grace. The name Jehovah is a particular name for the people of Israel who lived under the law. In each age and each stage of work, My name is not baseless, but holds representative significance: Each name represents one age. ‘Jehovah’ represents the Age of Law, and is the honorific for the God worshiped by the people of Israel. ‘Jesus’ represents the Age of Grace, and is the name of the God of all those who were redeemed during the Age of Grace” (“The Savior Has Already Returned Upon a ‘White Cloud’” in the Word Appears in the Flesh).

Now we are more able to comprehend that God’s name in each age has the extraordinary significance, containing His disposition, the principle of His work and the work He does in that age. If people cannot understand the meaning of God’s names, they will be unlikely to have a knowledge of God, and then they will merely have a confused kind of faith. Belief in God means neither receiving grace and blessings from the Lord nor sacrificing and giving up things for God. What is important is that man should have a knowledge of God, knowing how God has led and saved us step by step since His creation of the world. Only in this way can we somewhat read God’s intention of saving mankind and better welcome the return of the Lord Jesus. When people know that God’s name in one age represents His work and disposition in that age, do they still have any misgiving about what name the returned Lord Jesus will use?

Please watch the next episode—What is the Name of the Returned Lord Jesus in the Last Days?

Recommend:
God’s Name Has Changed!
God’s name—Do You Know the Origin of Name “Jehovah”?

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The Difference Between Worshiping God and Worshiping Idols

The Difference Between Worshiping God and Worshiping Idols

Now, a statement circulating online says that putting illustrations of the Lord Jesus on the Internet or sharing them with brothers and sisters is worshiping idols, not worshiping God. Does it conform to the truth? How can we tell the difference between worshiping God and worshiping idols?

The Lord Jesus said, “when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeks such to worship him” (John 4:23). Based on these words from the Lord Jesus, many thoughtful, savvy people will acknowledge such a fact: To judge whether or not one truly worships God depends not fully on his outward behavior, but on whether he truly believes in God and thirsts for the truth, and whether he is an honest man who shows a true representation of himself before God. That is to say, a man who appears devout on the outside is not necessarily a true worshiper of God, while a true worshiper of God focuses on worshiping God in spirit and in truth, not outward practices. So, my brothers and sisters and I all believe illustrations of the Lord Jesus are merely a symbol and metaphor which represents God is with us. We are not worshiping idols by using these pictures. What does worshiping idols truly refer to? It means to regard the illustrations or the Bible as God, and prostrate and kneel before them. That is truly worshiping idols. Let us put forward some examples. Some people must pray with a Bible in front of them, and some always take a Bible with them wherever they go and even hold it as they sleep. Still, there are some believers who must pray with their faces to a portrait of the Lord Jesus, and some others who make long prayers laying their hands on the Bible. These people all believe what they do is worshiping God. Yet, in fact, they have been unable to feel the presence of the Lord and the work of the Holy Spirit long ago. Some preachers in the churches cannot communicate any true knowledge of God, or reveal the real road for the believers to practice the truth and follow God’s will. Those who listen to the messages in a muddled way don’t know to actively search for the footsteps of the work of the Holy Spirit and only hold to various religious rituals, even though they cannot obtain the supply of life. Is this type of belief really worshiping God? If one cannot gain the work of the Holy Spirit and worships the illustrations and the Bible as God, then the object of his worship is actually empty air or a vague God in his notions and imagination, and in essence he is worshiping idols. By contrast, some people who have a picture of the Lord Jesus hanging in their homes are very pious as they pray to Him, and in their prayers, they often speak from their hearts, give thought to the Lord’s love, and are moved to tears. They normally focus on practicing and experiencing the Lord’s words, frequently receive enlightenment from the Holy Spirit and reap knowledge about the reality of the truth. This is the result reached through the work of the Holy Spirit. For such people, who can say they are worshiping idols?

Second of all, some people do not honor God as great as they believe in God, but blindly believe in and worship their pastors and elders. They believe and obey whatever their pastors and elders say, and never rely on God’s words to discern whether their words are in accordance with the truth and whether their deeds are after God’s heart. With regard to receiving the Lord’s second coming, many people are especially obedient to their pastors and elders. If their pastors and elders condemn and oppose something, they will follow them without discernment. When the pastors and elders claim that the Lord has not returned or define the way in which He shall come, they put blind faith in it, rather than discern it according to God’s words or seek a way of practice that is after God’s heart in God’s words. In their eyes, belief in God means to listen to the pastors and elders in all things. They worship and have blind faith in man so much that they even obey man as God. This is truly worshiping idols, and the men they worship are precisely their idols.

The Lord Jesus said, “Not every one that said to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that does the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name? and in your name have cast out devils? and in your name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess to them, I never knew you: depart from me, you that work iniquity” (Matthew 7:21-23). As we believe in God, we should have a place for God in our hearts, often exalt and testify to God, seek truth in all things, submit to God’s word and put it into practice. This is following the will of God, and through this we can certainly obtain the work of the Holy Spirit. In this way, no matter how many illustrations of the Lord Jesus we place in our homes and churches, or on the websites, it is completely right, because it is for the sake of spreading the gospel and bearing testimony to God, and it is regarded as a positive thing commended by God, which is beyond doubt. Conversely, those who believe in God in name only and worship status and power in reality, blindly believe in and follow the pastors and elders and treat man as God, hold to letters and doctrines as the truth—such people cannot possibly have the work of the Holy Spirit. No matter how many religious ceremonies they follow, God will not like them, but instead detest and reject them, for they never take exalting and bearing witness to God as their duty, or consider implementing and experiencing God’s words as important. These people are the chaff and false believers without life. Their faith is genuinely worshiping idols.

Recommended:
What Is True Faith in God?
Discussing Church Life and Real Life
Knowing God Is the Path to Fearing God and Shunning Evil

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How Much of God’s Creating All Things Do We Really Know?

How Much of God’s Creating All Things Do We Really Know?

Gao Han

From the Bible, I learned that when God created the world, He created the heavens and earth and all things during the previous five days, and created humanity and various living things on the sixth day. After knowing this fact, I thought that I had known God’s creation and believed He is the only true God. Not until I read God’s words did I come to understand how God created, manages and rules all things. Especially when I saw God says, “God created all things and used His own methods to set the laws of growth for all things, as well as their growth trajectory and patterns, and also set the ways all things exist on this earth, so that they may live continuously and depend on each other. With such methods and laws, all things are able to successfully and peacefully exist and grow on this land. Only by having such an environment is man able to have a stable home and living environment, and under God’s guidance, continue to develop and move forward, develop and move forward” (God Himself, the Unique VIII). I realized that, every day, we enjoy the air, sunshine, as well as rain and dew created by God, eat all kinds of grains provided by Him, and witness the changes and transformations of the natural world with our own eyes, but we have hardly any knowledge of His will behind His creation.

God says, “Ever since God created them, based on the laws that He determined, all things have been operating and have been continuing to develop regularly. Under His gaze, under His rule, all things have been developing regularly alongside the survival of humans. Not a single thing is able to change these laws, and not a single thing can destroy these laws. It is because of God’s rule that all beings can multiply, and because of His rule and management that all beings can survive …” (“God Himself, the Unique IX”). From God’s words, I understand that God determined the laws for all things at the same time He created all things. Afterward, He still manages and rules them. Then I continued reading God’s words, and I got some knowledge of God’s will of determining these laws: In the past, we only knew that God created mountains, plains, deserts, hills, rivers and lakes. The vastness of plains often wins our great admiration, yet we have never known that the plains are the best living environment God prepared for us mankind, in which it is convenient for us to walk and work. Mountains are natural defenses God prepared carefully for our living environment. They can block the sudden fierce winds and gigantic waves and keep our homes from being attacked and destroyed. They also take on the mission of raising a variety of animals and plants, and, simultaneously, supply ideal habitats for various birds. You may be attached to the mountains inasmuch as they are shot through with great vitality, but detest deserts on account of their blistering heat and being barren. But in truth, deserts are specially prepared and arranged by God for regulating the temperature. Because of their existence, there is suitable temperature and climate for us to live. The rivers and lakes are sources of water God offered for our survival. With water to drink, we will have the guarantee of survival. … When the world began, God drew boundaries and set the laws for plains, mountains, deserts, and hills. If we break and change this laws by our own will, we will only bring disaster on ourselves. Take the construction of the Three Gorges Project in China for example. It has converted a great deal of plains into reservoirs and has triggered several earthquakes, mountain landslides, and other geological calamities. God’s determining these laws for all things is for us humanity to live a life of happiness and in good health for generation after generation. Thus, only by abiding by these laws can we live in peace and happiness. Just as God’s words, “This is how God manages all beings. It is to provide for mankind the best environment for survival. The living beings within all beings each have life-sustaining food within their own environments for survival. With that food, they are fixed within their native environment for survival; they are fixed in that environment. In that kind of environment, they are still surviving, multiplying, and continuing on according to the laws God has established for them. Because of these types of laws, because of God’s predestination, all beings interact harmoniously with mankind, and mankind and all beings are interdependent” (“God Himself, the Unique IX”).

From God’s words, I also understood that God not only gave mountains, plains, rivers, and lakes their scope, but also arranged different living environments for various birds and beasts, and other animals and all plants. The fish can’t live without water, while different kinds of birds are doomed to fly in the sky; Livestock such as cattle and sheep are reared by man, but wild beasts always live in the forest; Lions and tigers never swim in the water, whereas the fish in the sea never creep in the desert; We can live with dogs and cats, but no one keep elephants or snakes at home as pets. … When God created all things, He set the laws of their existence according to their function and attribute. So all things survive and multiply according to the laws. It is because of these laws that sorts of animals, plants, and human beings can live safely; It is because of these laws and God’s ordination that all things and humans are interdependent, which constitutes a beautiful and harmonious spectacle. It can be said that whatever God does, we humans are always the ultimate beneficiaries. Of late years, locusts’ attacking crops has occurred frequently, and tens of thousands of toads once appeared on the street, which brought great harm to our lives. This is all because these creatures’ homelands are destroyed. That is to say, once the laws God established for all things are damaged, we humans will be harmed in the end. … At that moment, I realized the reason why God saw that it was good after creating all things. Everything He bestows on us mankind is indeed the best. At that time, I truly experienced that the way in which God treats us humans is akin to how parents treat their own children. His heart and love need us to feel and experience with our hearts.

God says, “If you limit your understanding of God to just words, if you limit it to your own little experiences, God’s grace that you count, or your little testimonies to God, then I say that your God absolutely is not the true God. He absolutely is not the true God Himself, and it can also be said that the God you believe in is not God. This is because the God that I am speaking of is the One that rules over everything, that walks among everything, that manages everything. He is the One that holds the fate of all of mankind—the One that holds the fate of everything. The work and actions of the God that I am talking about are not just limited to a small portion of people. That is, it’s not limited to just the people who currently follow Him. His actions are demonstrated among all things, in the survival of all things, and in the laws of change of all things” (“God Himself, the Unique IX”). After reading these words, I realized that our previous understanding of God is only confined within the words of the Bible and limited range of vision. Now, when we have seen more and more His deeds, and felt more of His great, immeasurable authority and power, we won’t delimit Him within narrow bounds any more. Because innumerable facts prove that He is not just the God of all believers in the Lord, but also the God of all humankind, and, moreover, the God of all things and all living beings; He did not merely create all things, but has been supplying and managing them in particular methods, which makes us and other things restrain one another, and depend on one another, and furthermore allows man and all things to follow the laws set by Him and live under His blessings continuously. His wisdom is wonderful and unfathomable. His deeds are deeply mysterious. We should come out of the Bible and the stage of our ideas, so that we can truly know Him. By the time when we these understanding, we will feel that He is the One who supplies us with everything, and the only thing we have. And we will grow to have infinite gratitude and adoration for Him.

Recommended:
After the Mountain Was “Removed” …
God’s First Commandment for Mankind is Full of Concern
On the First Day, the Day and Night of Mankind Are Born and Stand Fast Thanks to the Authority of God

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Super Full Eclipse – Signs of the Last Days

Super Full Eclipse – Signs of the Last Days

On August 21, 2017, “Super Full Eclipse” occurred within a band across the entire contiguous United States. Is the super-solar eclipse the sign of the last days? Let us see what Bible prophecies have been fulfilled concerning the super-solar eclipse!

The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day of the LORD come. – Joel 2:31

And it shall come to pass in that day, said the Lord GOD, that I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the clear day: – Amos 8:9

And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, see, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood; – Revelation 6:12

And I will show wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath; blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke: The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and notable day of the Lord come: – Acts 2:19-20

And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and on the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; – Luke 21:25

Now all kinds of disasters are getting bigger and bigger, the prophecies in the Bible become true one by one, and countless Christians are looking forward to the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. At this crucial moment, what should we do to welcome the second coming of the Lord Jesus and avoid being abandoned by Him? This question is worthy of our deep thought. What you might be interested in are as follows:

The Alarm of the Last Days Has Struck
How Will Prophecies About the Second Coming of Jesus Christ in the Bible Come True?
Have You Welcomed the Second Coming of the Lord Jesus?
Do Not Miss the Lord’s Calls – Salvation of the Last Days

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