Archives for 3 月 2023

By Qainbei

Later, we read another passage of God’s words, “In the last days, Christ uses a variety of truths to teach man, to expose the substance of man, and to dissect the words and deeds of man. These words comprise various truths, such as man’s duty, how man should obey God, how man should be loyal to God, how man ought to live out normal humanity, as well as the wisdom and the disposition of God, and so on. These words are all directed at the substance of man and his corrupt disposition. In particular, the words that expose how man spurns God are spoken in regard to how man is an embodiment of Satan, and an enemy force against God. … What the work of judgment brings about is man’s understanding of the true face of God and the truth about his own rebelliousness. The work of judgment allows man to gain much understanding of the will of God, of the purpose of God’s work, and of the mysteries that are incomprehensible to him. It also allows man to recognize and know his corrupt essence and the roots of his corruption, as well as to discover the ugliness of man. These effects are all brought about by the work of judgment, for the essence of this work is actually the work of opening up the truth, the way, and the life of God to all those who have faith in Him. This work is the work of judgment done by God” (“Christ Does the Work of Judgment With the Truth”).

In the fellowship, my brothers and sisters said that during God’s work of judgment in the last days, God uses various truths to judge and cleanse man. Through the judgment and chastisement of God’s words, God wants us to have a true knowledge of our own corrupt nature and see the fact that we have been corrupted by Satan. At the same time, God also reveals to us His unoffendable, righteous and holy disposition to make us have reverence for Him. Only in God’s words of judgment can we detest and hate our own disposition of Satan, and thus have the resolve to pursue the truth. Meanwhile, we will be willing to pursue practicing God’s words and live out the likeness of a genuine man in accordance with the requirements of God’s words; also, we will be willing to accept the judgment and chastisement of God’s words so as to break away from the bondage of sins and be saved and cleansed by God. All these results are achieved by undergoing the judgment and chastisement of God’s words.

Through this fellowship, it became obvious to me: The root cause of my being unable to get along well with my wife is that we have been corrupted by Satan, and controlled by our satanic nature and that what we have lived out are all corrupt dispositions. If I really want to solve our problem, I must accept God’s judgment and chastisement, through which I will know myself, change myself, and live out the likeness of a genuine human. I was very excited within that I saw the hope of settling the conflicts between my wife and me. Afterward, I testified to my wife about the work of God in the last days. Beyond my expectations, after hearing it, she felt it was rather reasonable. She wanted to know more and asked me to hurriedly contact the church for her. Through a period of investigation, my wife also accepted God’s work in the last days.

The Genuine Peace

When we had just accepted the work of God, we still had disputes. Subsequently, a sister found for us a passage of sermons and fellowship: “Presently, everybody’s interpersonal relationships are abnormal. The main reason for this is that people have been corrupted by Satan very deeply and their integrity is extremely flawed. Men seek nothing but profit and try to benefit at other people’s expense in everything that they do. They are guided by their own individual intentions and goals in all matters. People live for themselves and for their flesh. They are absolutely not concerned at all about others and they do not even have the loving emotions that they should possess. Men fight and scheme against each other and they do so both openly and covertly. There is no way for mankind to get along with one another in a normal fashion. The conscience and rationality that man should possess has vanished from the face of the earth. There is no spirit of cooperation amongst mankind. Without a little bit of patience, people would be enemies with one another. Man’s heart is filled with evil, conflict, hostility and irreconcilable differences. It’s as if man does not have the image of human being at all. He is completely possessed by Satan and his inner heart is filled with Satan’s philosophy. All of this has been revealed by God’s words and there is absolutely nothing wrong about it. These real situations exist in everybody. … In order for people to interact normally with one another, they must possess a few principles of practice. These principles should not only include not taking advantage of others, not harming others, but having some love. They further include having a conscience and rationality, helping one another, showing tolerance to one another, caring for others, letting others benefit in all situations, considering others, not just caring about yourself, showing compassion for others’ weaknesses, and forgiving the transgressions of others. If we have these few principles, we will be able to build a normal relationship with others and we will be able to live in harmony with each other” (“The Fellowship From the Above”).

Through reading the fellowship, we realized that after being corrupted by Satan, our natures are the same—arrogant, selfish, and deceitful. When things happen, all that we consider are our own interests, all that we see are other people’s problems but we seldom examine ourselves. Therefore, we have no normal interpersonal relationships with others. Accordingly, both my wife and I tried to lower ourselves, not asking the other to act according to our own ideas. We learned to understand and show much empathy for the difficulties of each other.

Gradually, we had less and less disputes. Even though there were arguments occasionally, we would sit together in communion and lay bare what we had thought and why we would get angry with each other. By openly communicating, I sensed my extreme arrogance. I never examined and knew myself when things happened, but fixated my eyes on her, always finding fault with her. In the past, I always assumed that the reason for our quarreling was because of the high requirements and bad temper of my wife, but I didn’t realize that I had shown no sincere empathy and consideration for her. At the same time, my wife also became aware that she liked imagining and harboring suspicion when things happened, without any trust in me. Understanding these suspicions were from Satan, she was determined to forsake her own suspicions and imaginations. After that, when she, faced with things, wanted to harbor suspicions, she would pray to God and penetrate Satan’s schemes under the leadership of God’s words, and she would not suspect me or lose her temper with me. At the sight of the fact that she finally relied on God and defeated Satan under the guidance of God’s words, I was full of gratitude to God within.

Nowadays, we communicate with each other more frequently. We have also learned to evaluate situations according to God’s words, respect God above all others and let Him reign in our family; we know that we cannot ask each other to obey ourselves because none of our viewpoints are the truth. When facing issues, we look for relevant words of God to see how God sees them, and then put God’s words into practice. When we do so, our relationship becomes more and more harmonious. This makes me see that God’s work of the last days actually can change us and recover our normal humanity. Thank  God for His salvation of me and of my family!

The End.

Part One: I Have Finally Found the Way of Promoting Marital Harmony (I)