He Finally Knew How to Escape Sin After Over 40-Year Belief in God

By Tiexin

Fallen So Far That the Lord Might Have Abandoned Me

At the age of 20, I was baptized and returned to the Lord. From the Bible, I knew that the Lord Jesus was personally crucified to redeem mankind and took on the sins of all people. As long as we prayed in the name of the Lord Jesus and repented to the Lord for our sins, the Lord would forgive our sins and bestow abundant grace upon us. I was moved by the Lord’s great love, and was determined to spend my life following the Lord’s teachings and expending for the Lord to repay His love.

Later, I found that I couldn’t keep the Lord’s teachings. Aside from continuing to serve God in the church, I was indistinguishable from a Gentile outside the church, spending my days eating, drinking, and amusing myself. Later, I even began to indulge in gambling to satisfy my desire to make money. Each time I prayed to the Lord, my heart was filled with self-blame as I knew gambling was detested by God. Many times I came before the Lord and swore to never gamble again, but I couldn’t overcome the temptation from my friends, and I was trapped deeper and deeper in sin and unable to extricate myself. I felt the Lord had abandoned me. In disappointment, I left the church in 1992.

In the years after I left the church, I lived like a zombie, endlessly busying myself to repay gambling debts. I yearned for the story of the prodigal son returning to happen to myself, but when I thought of what I had done, I felt too ashamed to come before the Lord. This way, my relationship with the Lord had grown more and more remote.

The Lord Pitied Me, but How Could I Escape Sin?

Later, at the age of 38, I passed the government’s civil servant exam. With a steady income, I no longer had to spend all my time repaying my debts. I knew the Lord still pitied me, and then, I found a church and began going to meetings again.

In the year 2000, I looked for a new church. At that time, although I was also eager to spread the gospel and took part in all kinds of service work in the church, I still lived a life of sinning during the day and confessing at night, which was very distressing for me. Once, I read that Romans in the Bible teaches us, “I beseech you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be you transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God” (Romans 12:1–2). I felt even more upset and thought, “How come I often involuntarily commit sins? Then how can I renew and transform myself? Why can I never meet the Lord’s requirements?” These questions never stopped troubling me.

Understanding the Root of People’s Inability to Escape Sin

In August of 2017, I met two sisters on the internet, and our discussions went very well. After that, I decided to join their Bible study group.

Once, as we were researching the Bible, my sisters read me two passages of God’s word directed at why we always lived in a state of sinning and confessing and how to escape the bondage of sin, “For all that man may have been redeemed and forgiven of his sins, it can only be considered as God not remembering the transgressions of man and not treating man in accordance with his transgressions. However, when man, who lives in a body of flesh, has not been set free from sin, he can only continue to sin, endlessly revealing his corrupt satanic disposition. This is the life that man leads, an endless cycle of sinning and being forgiven. The majority of men sin in the day only to confess in the evening. This way, even if the sin offering is forever effective for man, it will not be able to save man from sin. Only half the work of salvation has been completed…” (“The Mystery of the Incarnation (4)” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). “Fully saving man from the influence of Satan not only required Jesus to take on the sins of man as the sin offering, but also required God to do greater work to completely rid man of his disposition, which has been corrupted by Satan” (Preface to The Word Appears in the Flesh).

My sister then fellowshiped, “As we all know, the Lord Jesus was crucified, which has redeemed us from our sin. When we sin, if we pray to the Lord and repent, we are forgiven for our sins, but our sinful natures haven’t been resolved. We are dominated by satanic dispositions such as deceit, arrogance, cunningness, greed, evil, selfishness and despicability, so we still often sin and oppose God. Sometimes, in order to protect personal interests, we will tell lies and deceive others despite ourselves though we clearly know that God requests that we be honest people. Sometimes there are also misunderstandings with others; although we know God demands that we first remove the beams from our own eyes, our arrogant disposition still causes us to set our gaze upon others. What’s more, sometimes in order to experience fleshly greed, we follow the wicked trends of the world, focus only on eating, drinking and being merry, and live out a worldly life. God says: “You shall therefore be holy, for I am holy” (Leviticus 11:45). It’s also written in the Bible that, “Holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord” (Hebrews 12:14). God is holy. If we don’t resolve our satanic nature, we will never be able to escape from the bondage of it, and what we live out will still be the filthy corruption in how we originally were. We are simply unqualified to see the Lord’s face or to enter into the heavenly kingdom. So, in the last days, the Lord will come again to do the new work of judging and purifying our sins, and completely save us from the bonds of sin, which fulfills these words in the Bible, ‘And if any man hear my words, and believe not, I judge him not: for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world. He that rejects me, and receives not my words, has one that judges him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day’ (John 12:47–48). And 1 Peter 4:17 says, ‘For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God.’ Only by accepting God’s judgment and experiencing God’s work can our corrupt satanic dispositions be cleansed and transformed, and can we truly escape the bondage of sin, become a person in possession of the truth and full humanity, achieve full salvation and enter God’s kingdom.”

After hearing my sister’s fellowship, my heart was touched. In the past, I didn’t understand why we continued to live in sin and couldn’t escape the bondage of sin. Now, I know that what the Lord Jesus did was only the work of redeeming the human race. Only our sins are forgiven in our belief in the Lord, yet the sinful nature inside us has not been eliminated, and due to the control of our sinful nature, we still frequently sin and oppose God. In the last days, to save us sinners, the Lord has come to the world to do the work of judgment to thoroughly purify our sinful nature, save us from Satan’s dominion, and bring us into His kingdom. The Lord’s love for us is truly great.

She went on to say, “Brother, the Lord Jesus has actually already come among men, He is the incarnate Almighty God, and He has expressed more than a million words and revealed all the mysteries in the Bible, and is now doing His work of judging and purifying people. These truths that I fellowship about with you today are understandings I came to by reading the words expressed by Almighty God.”

The Lord Jesus has already returned? This news was very exciting to hear. But I thought again, “No, if the Lord has returned to do the work of judgment, it would be a major event. Why haven’t I heard of such a thing? Our pastors and elders haven’t told us such a thing either! What’s going on?”

Why the Religious World Condemns Eastern Lightning

With doubts in my mind, I hurried to search online for information about The Church of Almighty God. I saw that the pastors and elders of Hong Kong’s religious world were condemning and resisting it, which instantly made me conflicted. I thought, “The sister’s fellowship was in accord with the Bible, so why is The Church of Almighty God resisted and condemned by religion? What’s this all about? Forget it. Now that the majority of the pastors and elders of the religious world are condemning the work of Almighty God, there’s no use investigating further.” So I quit the group and blacklisted the sisters with whom I had studied before.

Although I had quit the group, the brothers and sisters of The Church of Almighty God continued to attempt to contact me. After finding me, Sister Liuxin from The Church of Almighty God tried to alleviate my confusion through fellowship about the disturbance she experienced from her pastor when she had just accepted the work of Almighty God in the last days. After that, this sister showed me two gospel films from The Church of Almighty God, “Who’s Nailing God to the Cross Again?” and “Stay Out of My Business.”

After we watched the films, she again fellowshiped with me, “Brother, the truth is, each time God appears to work, His appearance is accompanied by the disturbances and attacks of Satan’s forces. Just like in the Age of Grace, when the Lord Jesus was incarnated to do work, the Pharisees saw that the Lord Jesus had come, and was not called the Messiah and did not lead the Jews to escape the rule of the Roman government, but instead gave sermons on repentance and taught tolerance, patience, and love of your enemies. The Lord Jesus’ work refuted the notions and imaginings of the Pharisees, so they denied the fact that the Lord Jesus was Christ and God Himself. Especially when the Pharisees discovered that there was authority and power in the work and utterances of the Lord Jesus, and that many people had turned toward the Lord one by one, they—in order to protect their positions and status—wildly judged and condemned the Lord Jesus, made up rumors and released fallacies to blaspheme the Lord Jesus, and even allied with the Roman government to have the Lord Jesus crucified. The Pharisees publicly resisted God and contended with God for status, and they were exposed as antichrists by the Lord Jesus’ work. In the last days, how the pastors and elders of the religious world condemn God’s work of the last days is the same as how the Pharisees resisted and condemned the Lord Jesus’ work. Many pastors and elders have known that The Church of Almighty God has been bearing witness to the return of the Lord Jesus, and some of them have also read the words expressed by Almighty God; they know that Almighty God’s words have authority and power, but they still cling to their conceptions and refuse to accept them. To preserve their own status and positions, they openly judge and condemn Almighty God’s work in the last days and use all kinds of methods to obstruct and disturb the brothers and sisters from investigating the true way. They even unite with the atheist CCP government to get the people from The Church of Almighty God arrested. From the religious world’s pastors’ and elders’ defiance and condemnation of Almighty God’s work of the last days, we can see that they are all people who despise the truth and resist God, and that they are stumbling blocks and obstacles to people accepting the true way, and are antichrists who stand as enemies to God. Just as the words of the Lord Jesus when cursing the Pharisees: ‘But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for you neither go in yourselves, neither suffer you them that are entering to go in. … You serpents, you generation of vipers, how can you escape the damnation of hell?’ (Matthew 23:13,33).

“God is almighty. God’s wisdom is exercised based on Satan’s scheming. God uses the CCP’s political power and the wild condemnation, resistance, and persecution of the antichrists in the religious world to reveal every type of person. Those in various religions and denominations who truly believe in God and love the truth, hear that The Church of Almighty God has already testified to the return of the Lord and then actively seek and investigate. Through reading the words expressed by Almighty God, they recognize God’s voice and one by one, they have accepted God’s work of the last days. But those who loathe and despise the truth cling to their notions and imaginings, refuse to seek or investigate God’s work of the last days, and even wildly resist and condemn God’s work of the last days. They have been exposed and eliminated by God long ago, and those who seriously resist are cursed by God and punished by God for offending God’s disposition. This fulfills the prophecies in the Bible that in the last days, God will do the work of separating the wheat from the chaff, the lambs from the goats, and the good from the evil servants. So, in the matter of welcoming the Lord’s return, we must learn to be wise virgins, learn to hear the voice of God, and must distinguish the rumors and fallacies of the religious world and not be deceived by them, because only in this way can we welcome the Lord’s return and dine at the Lamb’s wedding feast. This precisely fulfills the prophecy in chapter 3, verse 20 of the Book of Revelation, ‘Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.’”

After hearing her fellowship, my heart felt light. When the Lord Jesus came to do His work, the Jewish Pharisees wildly defied, condemned and judged Him. Today in the last days, the religious pastors and elders, for the sake of their own positions and jobs, also wildly resist and condemn the work of God, and prevented their believers from investigating the true way. The pastors and elders of the religious world are contemporary Pharisees. In this moment I thought of the following verse from the Bible, “So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Romans 10:17). I understood, as I investigated the true way, I shouldn’t blindly believe the words of the pastors and elders of the religious world. Instead, I should listen more to the words of Almighty God, because only this way would I have the opportunity to welcome the Lord’s return. Therefore, I decided to conduct a thorough investigation of the work of Almighty God in the last days.

God's Judgment in the Last Days | Be Good Soldiers of Christ "Song of Victory" Gospel Movie Trailer

God's Judgment in the Last Days | Be Good Soldiers of Christ "Song of Victory" Gospel Movie Trailer The judgment work of Almighty God in the last days has reverberated throughout every sect and group. Following the spreading of the kingdom gospel, Almighty God's words are accepted and spread by more and more people, true believers in God who thirst for Him to appear have been returning one by one before God's throne. In the meantime, the Chinese government and religious pastors and elders have ceaselessly repressed and persecuted the Church of Almighty God from start to finish. The heroine of this movie, Zheng Xinjie, is a member of the Church of Almighty God who spreads the gospel. She has faced the deranged oppression and attacks from the Chinese Communist government and religious leaders.Together with her brothers and sisters, relying on God, how will she triumph over these dark, satanic forces to sing a song of victory? …

Christian Movie "Stay Out of My Business" Clip 2

Christian Movie "Stay Out of My Business" Clip 2 - Accepting the Gospel of the Lord Jesus' Second Coming and Being Raptured Before God In the Bible, Paul said, "I marvel that you are so soon removed from Him that called you into the grace of Christ to another gospel" (Galatians 1:6). The pastors and elders misinterpret these words of Paul, and condemn all people who accept the gospel of the second coming of Lord Jesus, saying that this would be apostasy and that it would be betraying the Lord. Some believers therefore miss the chance to welcome the Lord, because they have been deceived. It is evident that getting a clear understanding of the true meaning of this text is extremely important to our welcoming the return of the Lord.So what is the true meaning of this passage of Scripture? This video will reveal the answer to you.

Beware of the Pharisees’ Leaven on the Path to the Heavenly Kingdom

By Kemu, Myanmar

Editor’s Note: Two thousand years ago the Jewish commoners didn’t beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and were deceived by their heretical fallacies, and  thus followed them in resisting the Lord Jesus, losing God’s salvation and receiving God’s punishment. Today, at the crucial moment of the Lord Jesus’ return, how should we learn from the failures of those in the past and beware of the leaven of the modern Pharisees? Sister Kemu has first-hand knowledge of this. How did she beware of the leaven of today’s Pharisees and welcome the return of the Lord Jesus? Let’s read her story together.

124-A-4 Sermons and Fellowship About God’s Word “Only Christ of the Last Days Can Give Man the Way of Eternal Life”

The words of God are as follows: “Those whose belief in God is false, those who are not approved by God, those who are despised by God, those who are eliminated by God—they are bound to be rejected by God, are bound to remain without the way of life, and are bound to remain ignorant of where God is.” These stipulations are quite severe but they reveal the truth of the matter. “In contrast, those in whose hearts God lives know where He is,” the people who have God in their hearts know where God is. Now, where would you say God is? You say, “God is in my heart!” Do not even dare to say this! Where exactly is God? If you actually do not know, what kind of problem is this? Those who do not know are the people who God has eliminated. Those who truly have God living in their hearts know where God is.

Can We Enter the Kingdom of Heaven Now That Our Sins Have Been Forgiven

He Jun, Sichuan

Sunday August 5th, 2018. Cloudy.

After the meeting today, a brother came seeking me, his face filled with worry. He said that God requires people to be sanctified, but that he often involuntarily commits sin, and if he always lives like this in sin, then will he be able to enter into the kingdom of heaven when the Lord comes? I told him that the Lord Jesus was crucified and that He took upon Himself all our sins, paying the price with His life. I said that our sins had been forgiven because of our faith in the Lord Jesus, and that the Lord no longer saw us as sinners, and that as long as we could give up everything and expend ourselves, work hard for the Lord, and endure till the very end, then we would be raptured up into the kingdom of heaven when the Lord returned. After the brother heard me say this, he looked as though he hadn’t gotten the answer he’d wanted, and he left looking somewhat disappointed. As I watched him walk away, I felt some very complex emotions. To tell the truth, didn’t I have the same worries as this brother did? Thinking of how I had believed in the Lord for many years but had often been bound by sin, and had been living in a condition whereby I sinned in the daytime and confessed in the evening, I didn’t wish to keep living that way either. But I really wasn’t capable of overcoming sin, and so I often prayed to the Lord and strengthened my reading of the scriptures. And yet I never resolved the problem of my sins. The Lord is holy, so would He commend someone like me, so filled with sin?

Catholic Beliefs: I Have Welcomed the Lord’s Return

By Amy, USA

“Meeting with the Lord is the greatest hope of all believers. By the grace of the Lord, I have welcomed the Lord’s return and I am full of gratitude to Him….” It’s nighttime, and the clear moonlight spills into the room through the window. Under the soft light of her lamp, Amy is quickly typing out her experience of welcoming the Lord’s return. Thinking of God’s love and salvation for her, Amy stands up and softly walks to the window and gazes out at the full moon, reminiscing on the past …

Western Scholars Gather in Seoul for The Church of Almighty God’s Premiering Photo Exhibit

October 24, 2018, The Church of Almighty God held its first photo exhibition in Seoul, South Korea with the theme of “The birth and development of The Church of Almighty God,” drawing eleven experts and scholars from seven countries including the USA, Canada, England, France, and Italy to attend and explore the exhibit. Massimo Introvigne, who is an Italian sociologist and the founder and managing director of the Center for Studies on New Religions (CESNUR), France’s Bernadette Rigal-Cellard, professor of North American Studies at the University of Bordeaux Montaigne, Canadian sociologist and author Susan Jean Palmer, and others raised questions on Almighty God’s work of the last days, and several Christians who accepted Almighty God’s work of the last days in its early period provided detailed answers to each one of them. They also shared their feelings and understandings from undergoing Almighty God’s work and words with the guests.

Some people ask: After believing in the Lord, we practice humility and patience, love our enemies, bear our crosses, abandon worldly things and we work and preach for the Lord and so on. We have achieved a little change. So why must we accept God’s work of judgment in the last days before being able to be cleansed and saved?

Answer:

We can love our enemy, bear the cross, overcome our body, and spread the gospel of the Lord. These are positive behaviors coming from our belief in the Lord. Our exhibition of such good behaviors signifies that our faith in the Lord is true. These good behaviors may appear correct to people, as if these are in line with the word of God, but it does not mean that we are practicing God’s word and following the will of the heavenly Father, it doesn’t mean that we have quit our sinful nature and become sanctified. There is a reason why we cannot just look at people’s good behaviors by appearance.

You have said that the Lord Jesus has already come, but we don’t believe it. We have had faith in the Lord for many years and have always toiled tirelessly for Him. When the Lord comes He should first reveal it to us. Since the Lord has not revealed it to us, that just shows us that He hasn’t returned. What is wrong with this belief?

The Answer from God’s Word:

The work of God continues to advance, and though the purpose of His work remains unchanging, the means by which He works are constantly changing, and thereby so are those who follow God. … All men wish to gain God yet are unable to tolerate any changes in God’s work. Those who do not accept the new work of God believe that the work of God is changeless, and that the work of God forever remains at a standstill. In their belief, all that is needed to gain eternal salvation from God is to keep the law, and as long as they repent and confess their sins, the heart of God will be forever satisfied. They are of the opinion that God can only be the God under the law and the God who was nailed on the cross for man; it is their opinion too that God should not and cannot exceed the Bible. It is precisely these opinions that have shackled them firmly to the law of old and kept them fettered by rigid regulations.

The Lord Jesus in whom we believe is God’s incarnation. The Lord Jesus did God’s work of redemption, no one dares deny this, but this Almighty God in whom you believe is not necessarily God’s incarnation, because there is no record of Almighty God in the Bible. So then, the pastors and elders of the religious world all say He in whom you believe is merely a man, that you’ve been fooled. Only the Lord Jesus, in whom we believe, is Christ, is God’s Son!

Answer: Your belief in the Lord Jesus as God’s incarnation is not false. But why do you believe in the Lord Jesus? Do you really think of the Lord Jesus as God? You believe in the Lord Jesus because of what has been recorded in the Bible and because of the work of the Holy Spirit. But no matter what you say, if you haven’t seen the Lord Jesus face to face, do you really dare say you know the Lord Jesus? In your belief in the Lord, you’re merely echoing the words of Peter, who said that the Lord Jesus is Christ, the Son of the living God, but do you believe that the Lord Jesus is the manifestation of God, is God Himself? Do you dare say that you recognize the Lord Jesus’ divine substance? Do you dare guarantee that if the Lord Jesus were to come again expressing the truth, you would recognize His voice? Your belief in the Lord Jesus amounts to nothing more than a belief in “the Lord Jesus” these three words. You believe in His name only.

You have testified that Almighty God is the returned Lord Jesus and that He has expressed many words. But in South Korea there are some people who fake the returned Lord Jesus. They have also said some words and also wrote some books. Some have also gained followers. I would like to listen to what you think about how to distinguish the words of these false Christs.

Answer: Knowing how to distinguish between the true Christ and false Christs is crucial to being able to receive the return of the Lord. Only those who can distinguish between the true Christ and false Christs can accept God’s work of the last days and be raptured before His throne. Those who cannot distinguish between the true Christ and false Christs are foolish virgins and will ultimately be abandoned and eliminated by God. The key to discerning false Christs is to see through their essence. False Christs are possessed by evil spirits, so their essence is evil spirits. False Christs don’t have any reality of truth whatsoever. All their words are lies, nonsense, fallacious words, words that invert black and white. They know that people all worship Bible knowledge and want to understand the mysteries of the Bible, so they take advantage of this psychology to misinterpret the Bible and take it out of context to use all kinds of strange talk and absurd arguments to deceive people. Their fallacies sound very strange and very novel, as though their explanations of the Bible are so profound and mysterious. Can this prove that their words are the truth? Then just what is the truth? The truth is what God has and is. It is the reality of all positive things and represents God’s disposition. The truth can make people know God and the truth can be their life. It can save, cleanse, change and perfect people. False Christs explain the Bible with strange talk and absurd arguments—how can that be the truth? Can it perfect and change people? Can it make people know and obey God? Can it make people discern Satan and despise Satan? Can it make people break free from Satan’s dark influences? If their words cannot achieve the actual effect of making people’s lives grow, then they are regarded as fallacies, heresies, and lies. God’s work is practical. The incarnate Almighty God of the last days expresses all truths to save mankind. These truths can make people know God and can make people break free from Satan’s influence to achieve salvation, become people who obey and worship God, and can make people live out the likeness of a real person and a meaningful life. This is God’s work. If what people believe in and follow is truly the Christ, God in the flesh, then after believing in God for 8 or 10 years or so they will naturally understand a lot of truths. Their faith, love, and obedience toward God should all gradually increase, and their life disposition should also achieve some changes. Only these effects can prove that what man believes in is Christ and the true God. There are many people who have believed in false Christs for 8 or 10 years and not received any truth at all, they have no real knowledge of the true God, and moreover they have no faith, no love and no obedience toward God. Haven’t such people been tricked and deceived?

False Christs and all kinds of evil spirits are not possessed of the truth and cannot do God’s work at all. The words of Almighty God express God’s disposition and what God has and is. They cannot be spoken or imitated by any false Christs or evil spirits. False Christs can only rely on taking things out of context and misinterpreting the Bible to deceive people, or impersonate the Lord Jesus’ name to say some words that bless people and make promises to people, but these have no benefit whatsoever to people’s life entry and cannot carve out new paths and moreover cannot open up a new age. All work of false Christs and evil spirits cannot last. After a while it will fall apart in an uproar and self-destruct. That’s a fact. Only that which comes from God can flourish and remain standing. The true work of Christ can achieve the results of saving and perfecting man, and can carry out God’s will as well as begin and end ages. This is absolute, because God is omnipotent. The truths expressed by God will exist forever. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but God’s words won’t!

from the movie script of Who Is He That Has Returned

The Lord Has Appeared in the East

Qiu Zhen, China

One day, my sister phoned me and said that she was back from the north and that she had something important to tell me. She asked me to come over right away. I had a feeling about what might have happened and went to my sister’s house after the phone call. As soon as I entered and saw that my sister was reading a book, I felt relieved. My sister saw that I had arrived, suddenly stood up and said: “Sister! This time in the north I got some good news: The Lord Jesus has returned!”

The Holy Spirit Works in a Principled Way

Qin Shuting Linyi City, Shandong Province

For some time, although I had not ceased to eat and drink the words of God, I never felt the light. I had prayed to God for this but, afterward, I had still not been enlightened. So I thought, “I have eaten and drunk what I should have and God is not enlightening me. There is nothing I can do, and I do not have the faculty to receive God’s words. There is a time for God to enlighten each man, so there is no use in trying to rush it.” Afterward, I kept the rules and ate and drank the words of God without anxiety, “patiently” awaiting God’s enlightenment.

Until one day, I read these words of God: “Only if your heart is at peace before God will your pursuit of the truth and of changes in your disposition bear fruit. Because you come burdened before God and you always feel that you are lacking too much, that there are many truths that you need to know, much reality that you need to experience, and that you should give every care to God’s will—these things are always on your mind, and it is as if they are pressing down on you so hard that you can’t breathe, and thus you feel heavy of heart (but not in a negative state). Only people such as this are qualified to accept the enlightenment of God’s words and be moved by the Spirit of God. It is because of their burden, because they are heavy of heart, and, it can be said, because of the price they have paid and the torment they have suffered before God that they receive His enlightenment and illumination, for God does not give anyone special treatment. He is always fair in His treatment of people, but He is also not arbitrary in His provision to people, and does not give to them unconditionally. This is one aspect of His righteous disposition” (“Establishing a Proper Relationship With God Is Very Important” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). In pondering these words of God, I understood: God is a righteous God. He is never arbitrary in His provision to man, and does not give to man unconditionally. For people to receive God’s enlightenment and illumination, they must quiet their hearts before God and have a heart that yearns for and seeks God’s words. They must bear the burden for their own lives and search for their own shortcomings within the words of God. Bearing their burden, they must purposefully eat and drink the words of God to give every care to His will and go ever deeper into the truth. Only by practically paying such a price to work with God can one obtain the enlightenment of God. In retrospect, I was carrying no burden nor keeping any yearning heart at all to eat and drink the words of God. Every time I picked up the book of the word of God, I would flick through and see that I had read this passage and read that passage, thinking that I had a rough idea about every passage. Then I would find any old one, give it a cursory read, and then I was done. When I ate and drank the words of God, it was only enough for me to understand the literal meaning of the words, focusing only on keeping a few rules and practices. I certainly didn’t see much of the truth that I needed to enter into, nor was I satisfying God’s heart. I was bearing no burden for my own life at all, nor was I worried about having not equipped myself with enough truth; I was merely handling my eating and drinking of God’s words with indifference. With such a cavalier attitude to the words of God, how would I have obtained His enlightenment and illumination? I was not really working with God, and was using “There is a time for God to enlighten each man” as an excuse to wait blindly for God’s enlightenment. I really was being so ignorant! Only now do I recognize that, although there is a time for God to enlighten each man, this much is true, there is a principle behind the Holy Spirit’s work on man. Man himself must have a yearning, seeking heart to be able to positively and actively work with God. Only then can the Holy Spirit work on man and enlighten and illuminate man’s understanding of God’s will, causing them to understand the truth in His words.

Oh God! I give thanks for Your timely enlightenment that allowed me to recognize the deviation in my own experience. Now I wish to turn back to positively and actively work with You, to keep a yearning, seeking heart, to bear my burden to eat and drink Your words, to pursue further enlightenment obtained through Your words, to make myself penetrate deeper into the truth, and for my life to grow ever greater.

We still haven’t determined whether God’s kingdom is on earth or in heaven. The Lord Jesus once talked about “the kingdom of heaven being at hand” and “the kingdom of heaven coming.” If it is the kingdom of heaven, it should be in heaven. How can it be on earth?

Answer: We should all be clear that “Heaven” is always referred to as God. The “heavenly kingdom” obviously refers to God’s kingdom. Revelation says, “the tabernacle of God is with men,” “The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ.” This means that God’s kingdom will be established on earth. In the end, the kingdoms of earth will become God’s kingdom. After the old world is destroyed in the great disasters, the Millennial Kingdom will appear. The kingdoms of the earth will become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ. Then God’s will will be done on earth as it is in heaven. This will completely fulfill the prophecy: New Jerusalem will come to earth. God has become flesh and does the work of judgment in the last daysto end this dark, evil generation.

The Lord Jesus said it Himself that the Bible is His testimony. That’s why our belief in the Lord must be based on the Bible. The Bible is our only path to knowing the Lord.

The Lord Jesus said it Himself that the Bible is His testimony. That’s why our belief in the Lord must be based on the Bible. The Bible is our only path to knowing the Lord.

As a Christian Believing in God, Regularly Attending Gatherings Cannot Be Neglected!

Xiaogao

Hello brothers and sisters of Spiritual Q&A,

I get very tired from working during the day, and I do not sleep very well at night. As a result, I am not willing to make it to gatherings on time. I do not like to be restricted. I feel that if I have spiritual needs, as long as I look for my brothers and sisters to chat during those times, it should be fine. I wonder what the cause of this issue is. How should I resolve this?

When the Lord Jesus Knocks at the Door, How Will We Answer

Xiao Fei

After I entered belief in the Lord, the brothers and sisters liked to sing a hymn called “The Good Man Is Knocking at the Door” which goes: “The good man is knocking at the door, His hair wet with dew; let us quickly rise and open the door, and not let the good man turn around and leave. …” Every time we sang this hymn, our hearts were deeply moved and stirred. We all want to ask the good man to stay the night, so when the good man comes and knocks at the door we will welcome the Lord the first time we hear the good man’s voice. It can be said that all of us who believe in the Lord have such a hope. But when the Lord comes, how will He knock? When the Lord knocks, what should we do to make sure we are welcoming Him as the Lord? This is something people who believe in the Lord should think about.

When the Lord Jesus came to do the work of salvation in the Age of Grace, news of the miracles wrought by the Lord and the word of the Lord spread throughout the land of Judea. His name also caused a great stir in all Judea, and for the people of that time the knock at the door was the disciples led by the Lord Jesus preaching the gospel of the heavenly kingdom in every place.

Almighty God's Word "You Should Know How the Whole of Humanity Has Developed to the Present Day" (Part Two)

    Almighty God says, "All of His work is the most actual work. He carries out His work according to the development of the times, and He carries out His most actual work according to the changes of things.

The Origin and Development of the Church of Almighty God

In the Age of Grace, the Lord Jesus promised to His followers, “And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you to myself; that where I am, there you may be also.” (John 14:3) He also prophesied, “For as the lightning comes out of the east, and shines even to the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.” (Matthew 24:27) In the last days, as promised and foretold by Himself, God has again become flesh and descended to the East of the world—China—to do the work of judgment, chastisement, conquest, and salvation using the word, on the foundation of the redemption work of the Lord Jesus. In this, the prophecies of the Bible that “Judgment begins with the house of God” and “He that has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit said to the churches!” have also been fulfilled.