Guileless People Are Not Necessarily Honest People

Guileless People Are Not Necessarily Honest People

Cheng Mingjie Xi’an City, Shaanxi Province

I consider myself to be an outgoing and forthright kind of person. I speak with people in a very straightforward manner; whatever I want to say, I say it—I’m not the type to beat around the bush. In my interactions with people I tend to be a pretty straight shooter. Often, I get cheated or ridiculed for too easily placing trust in others. It was only after I started going to church that I felt I had found a place I could call my own. I thought to myself: In the past my guilelessness has put me at a disadvantage and made me vulnerable to the deception of others; but in church God wants honest people, people who have been scorned by society, so I don’t have to worry anymore about being too guileless. I felt especially comforted when I heard that God loves the honest and simple, and that only the honest shall receive God’s salvation. When I saw how distressed my brothers and sisters had become as they began to recognize their treacherous nature but could not change it, I felt even more relieved that, being honest and straightforward, I wouldn’t have to go through such distress. One day, however, after receiving a revelation from God, I finally realized I wasn’t the honest person I thought I was.

How Should I Face It, After Testing Positive for Hepatitis B? (Audio Essay)

How Should I Face It, After Testing Positive for Hepatitis B? (Audio Essay)

I was struck by an illness that came out of nowhere, and in the blink of an eye I had become mired in pain and despair, and I lost all hope for life. Nevertheless, through God’s wonderful salvation, I came to understand that God’s will was behind my illness, and I saw God’s wondrous deeds. Remembering the events of that time, they are as vivid to me now as they were then.

A few months ago, my boss told us that Xiao Wang, one of my colleagues, had contracted a serious liver condition and had been hospitalized for treatment. The boss went on to say that the illness Xiao Wang had contracted could be transmitted to other people through physical contact, food, drink and bodily fluids. As we were often in contact with Xiao Wang, it was highly probable that we would have been infected, so we were told to go to the hospital immediately for testing. Hearing this news, the office was suddenly all abuzz; everyone was worried that they were infected, and so we all hurried to hospital. After a series of tests, I waited uneasily for the results. After a while, the doctor came and handed me the test results, and said: “You are a carrier of the Hepatitis B virus, and it has not been contracted recently, but has probably been there for a while.” I simply couldn’t believe what I was hearing, and I asked the doctor to repeat herself. The doctor said regretfully, “You heard right. This is real. You must seek urgent treatment. If you delay, then your condition will worsen, and if it becomes liver cancer then you’ll be in real trouble. What’s more, as this virus cannot be wholly eradicated from the body, you will carry this virus for the rest of your life. You should get your mind right and be prepared!” This terrible, sudden news left me all at sea, and my whole body seemed to shrivel up like an eggplant affected by the frost, and my legs felt as heavy as lead. Scared out of my mind, I took the test results and left the hospital, not knowing how to get home.

A Brief Talk About the Source of the World’s Darkness and Evil

A Brief Talk About the Source of the World’s Darkness and Evil

By Yang Le, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region

When I was still at school, my father grew sick and passed away. After he died, uncles on both sides of the family who had often been helped by my father not only did not take care of us—my mother, my two sisters and I, who had no source of income—but, on the contrary, did everything they could to make a profit off us, even fighting with us for the little legacy my father had left behind. In the face of my relatives’ indifference and all the things they did that I never could have expected, I felt such extreme pain and couldn’t help but hate the utter lack of conscience and the heartlessness that these relatives displayed, at the same time also gaining a sense of the fickleness of human nature. After that, whenever I saw some occurrences in society of family members fighting each other over money, or even suing and murdering each other over money, I would feel that the world today was too full of darkness, that people’s hearts really were sinister and the world really was too fickle! At that time, I thought the reason why the world was so full of darkness was because people had turned bad, that they no longer had any conscience and that there were too many evil people in the world. Afterward, only through reading the words of God did I realize that what I had seen was just a surface-level phenomenon, and was not the source of the world’s darkness and evil. From God’s words I saw clearly the real source of darkness and evil in the world.

Every Word of God Is an Expression of His Disposition

Every Word of God Is an Expression of His Disposition

By Hu Ke, Shandong Province

Whenever I saw these words spoken by God, I felt anxious: “Every sentence I have spoken contains within it the disposition of God. You would do well to ponder My words carefully, and you will surely profit greatly from them” (“It Is Very Important to Understand God’s Disposition” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). I felt anxious because understanding God’s disposition is so important both to man’s understanding of God and their seeking to love and satisfy Him. But when reading the words of God, I always felt like God’s disposition was too abstract, and I didn’t know how to understand it. Afterward, through fellowship from my church leader, I came to know that I should understand what God likes and what He hates from His words, and thereby come to understand God’s disposition. I subsequently tried for a while to put this into practice and I saw some results. But I still felt at a loss regarding God’s words, “Every sentence I have spoken contains within it the disposition of God,” and had no idea how exactly to understand it.

An Arrogant Believer’s Process of Transformation

An Arrogant Believer’s Process of Transformation

An Arrogant Believer’s Process of Transformation

Under God’s care and protection, my illness gradually improved. Even though I wasn’t able to speak clearly, I could ride a bicycle and do a little bit of work in general affairs. However, because my arrogant nature was too deeply entrenched, God once again arranged for new people and things to judge me and change me. One day, the church leader arranged for me to take on hosting duties. After hearing this I felt very unwilling to do it. I believed that acting as a host was a waste of my abilities, but I also couldn’t refuse, so I grudgingly agreed. While I was hosting, some brothers and sisters were meeting at my house and had me watch the door to safeguard our surroundings. Once again my inner thoughts arose: Just acting as a host, keeping an eye on the door—what will I get out of this? I thought back to the past. When I stood behind the pulpit I was so haughty, but in my duty today I didn’t have any face or any status. My rank was so low! So after a period of time, my internal resistance became greater and greater, I felt more and more wronged, and I was no longer willing to fulfill that duty.

Almighty God’s Work Has Caused Us to Walk the Same Path as Husband and Wife

Almighty God’s Work Has Caused Us to Walk the Same Path as Husband and Wife

Liu Xue, Henan Province

In 1991, since we were enduring the hardships of family conflict, my husband and I believed in the Lord Jesus together. From then on, we no longer quarreled. We read the Bible and attended gatherings together very zealously. Not long afterward, my husband left the Three-Self Church and switched over to the Stream of Recovery. In regards to the matter of my husband switching denominations, I did not mind. I believed that as long as we believed in one God, it did not matter which denomination we belonged to.

Are You Worshipping God or Performing Religious Ceremony?

Are You Worshipping God or Performing Religious Ceremony?

The Lord Jesus says: “But I say to you, That in this place is one greater than the temple. But if you had known what this means, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice, you would not have condemned the guiltless. For the Son of man is Lord even of the sabbath day” (Matthew 12:6-8). I thought about the Lord Jesus’ words: Why does the Lord say these words? The temple is the place where people worship God. It should be approved by Him. But why does the Lord say: “That in this place is one greater than the temple. … For the Son of man is Lord even of the sabbath day”? At that time, my mind couldn’t help but fly back to the time when the Lord Jesus was working. When the Lord Jesus came into the flesh to work, those chief priests, scribes, and Pharisees were the people who served God in the temple all their lives. But when the Lord Jesus worked, He didn’t go to the temple to preach to those who seemed to be the most “devout” but He condemned them saying that woe befell them. What were the Lord Jesus’ thoughts behind it?

Gospel Movie clip "The Bible and God" (2) - Are All of God's Work and Words in the Bible?

Gospel Movie clip "The Bible and God" (2) - Are All of God's Work and Words in the Bible?

Introduction

The entire religious world all believes that the work and words of God are all in the Bible, and that with the exception of the Bible, there are no words spoken by God and His work.