The Church of Almighty God | Be Strict With Oneself to Discipline Others

Xiaoyan    Xinyang City, Henan Province

Be Strict With Oneself to Discipline Others

I had a close work partnership with an elderly sister in general affairs. After working with her for some time, I found her to be careless in her work and that she did not accept the truth. As such, I formed an opinion about her.

Cheng Hao Yongzhou City, Hunan Province Eastern Lightning, The Church of Almighty God,Church I Experienced God’s Salvation By the grace of God, my wife and I were promoted to the second-line gospel team to fulfill our duties. A little while ago, my wife was promoted to team director, while I, as a result of my own arrogance and wanton behavior, lost the work of the Holy SpiritCheng Hao Yongzhou City, Hunan Province Eastern Lightning, The Church of Almighty God,Church I Experienced God’s Salvation By the grace of God, my wife and I were promoted to the second-line gospel team to fulfill our duties. A little while ago, my wife was promoted to team director, while I, as a result of my own arrogance and wanton behavior, lost the work of the Holy Spirit and was sent home to reflect on my actions. Given that my wife and I began fulfilling our duties at the same time, it was a hard pill to swallow seeing her promoted while I was dismissed from my duties. Tears came to my eyes as I thought: “It’s over for me. God is separating out each after his kind and, given that I’ve been dismissed, this is certainly that I’ve been revealed and eliminated. Oh! Who would have thought that after all these years, my life as a believer would end in such utter failure. All I can do now is wait for my punishment.” Then I headed home with a heavy heart. From then on I became mired in defeat and full of misunderstanding and blame for God. I was hopelessly sunk in darkness. One day, I came upon the following two passages of God’s word by chance: “I never said that you had no future, much less that you had to be destroyed or suffer perdition; have I publicly announced such a thing? You say you are without hope, but is this not your own conclusion? Is this not the effect of your own mentality? Does your own conclusion count?” (“You Should Put Aside the Blessings of Status and Understand God’s Will for the Salvation of Man” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). “You don’t see God’s righteous disposition, and you always misunderstand God and distort His intentions, which causes you to always be pessimistic and lose hope. Is this not self-inflicted? … You do not understand God’s work and you don’t understand God’s will at all; even more so, you don’t understand the good intentions God has put into His 6,000 years of management work” (“God’s Will Is to Save People to the Greatest Extent Possible” in Records of Christ’s Talks). Reading these passages, I realized with a start: Is God not talking about me? As soon as I learned that the church had dismissed me, I guessed and concluded that I had been revealed and eliminated and lost faith in seeking the truth. I lived in a perpetual state of negativity and misunderstanding, utterly resigned to my own failure. At that point, I looked into my heart, asking: “Do you really understand why you’ve met with this misfortune? Do you really understand God’s will? Of course not! I don’t understand! Then why would I make wild conjectures and unfounded delineations? Was this not too arrogant, too treacherous? Had I not relegated myself to this place of dark suffering? How foolish, how absurd I had been!” Thus, I went before God in prayer, asking for His enlightenment so that I may uncover His will in this recent revelation. Later, I saw this passage of God’s word: “All that He does is true love for you; He has no ill intention. It is because of your sins that He judges you, so that you will examine yourselves and receive this tremendous salvation. All this is done to work man. From beginning to end, God has been doing His utmost to save man, and He is certainly not willing to completely destroy the men He created with His own hands. Now He has come among you to work; isn’t this even more salvation? If He hated you, would He still do work of such magnitude to personally lead you? Why should He suffer so? God does not hate you or have any ill intention toward you. You should know that God’s love is the truest love. It is only because of people’s disobedience that He has to save them through judgment; otherwise, they would not be saved. … He does not have the heart to let you become even more depraved; neither has He the heart to see you living in the filthy place like this, being trampled by Satan at will, or the heart to let you fall into Hades. He only wants to gain this group of you and thoroughly save you. This is the main purpose of doing the conquering work on you—it is just for salvation” (“The Inside Truth of the Conquering Work (4)” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). God’s heartfelt words warmed my heart and roused me from my numb disillusion. As it turned out, though my situation seemed grim on first inspection, it was actually God visiting His love upon me, and investing me with His salvation. It was not, as I thought, that I would be eliminated. I had been arrogant and uncompromising—fulfilling my duties with reckless and wanton abandon. God simply couldn’t bear to see me continue to be trampled by Satan. He couldn’t bear to see me sink any lower and He especially could not bear to see me face punishment for offending God’s disposition through acts of wanton arrogance. Thus, through judgment and chastisement, He brought salvation upon me, blessing me with His saving grace and helping me escape from the grips of Satan’s corruption. The church dismissal was, indeed, God’s greatest salvation. The more arrogant I became, the more God created environments to confront my faults. He allowed my desires to remain unfulfilled so that my numbed heart would begin to feel pain. He acted through this pain to cause me to reflect on my actions, understand the substance of my corrupt nature and seek the truth to achieve a change in my disposition. This is the very real work of the salvation that God visited upon me. All He did was care and love for me. Otherwise, I would still be living in insouciant sin, still be acting with reckless abandon. In the end, my actions would have offended God’s disposition and I would have been eliminated by God. At this point, I came to see that God’s salvation was very real. There is nothing false or empty about God’s love—it is true and real. I, however, failed to see God’s work and His salvation. I failed to seek the earnest intention in God’s salvation, instead over-defining myself at every turn while misunderstanding and criticizing God and living in pessimistic abandonment. How unreasonable I was! I was unworthy of receiving God’s judgment and chastisement. Dear God, thank You! Through this experience, I realize that Your salvation is real and Your judgment and chastisement are full of love. Without Your judgment and chastisement, I never would have taken an honest look at myself. I would have continued to live in corruption, on a downward spiral, trampled by Satan and finally carried off by it. Through this experience, I also realized that Your substance is love and that all Your actions are aimed at saving mankind. God, I vow to invest myself fully in seeking the truth and starting anew. No matter what the outcome, I vow to fulfill my creaturely duty to satisfy Your will. Recommendation:The brief introduction of the Church of Almighty God and was sent home to reflect on my actions. Given that my wife and I began fulfilling our duties at the same time, it was a hard pill to swallow seeing her promoted while I was dismissed from my duties. Tears came to my eyes as I thought: “It’s over for me. God is separating out each after his kind and, given that I’ve been dismissed, this is certainly that I’ve been revealed and eliminated. Oh! Who would have thought that after all these years, my life as a believer would end in such utter failure. All I can do now is wait for my punishment.” Then I headed home with a heavy heart. From then on I became mired in defeat and full of misunderstanding and blame for God. I was hopelessly sunk in darkness. One day, I came upon the following two passages of God’s word by chance: “I never said that you had no future, much less that you had to be destroyed or suffer perdition; have I publicly announced such a thing? You say you are without hope, but is this not your own conclusion? Is this not the effect of your own mentality? Does your own conclusion count?” (“You Should Put Aside the Blessings of Status and Understand God’s Will for the Salvation of Man” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). “You don’t see God’s righteous disposition, and you always misunderstand God and distort His intentions, which causes you to always be pessimistic and lose hope. Is this not self-inflicted? … You do not understand God’s work and you don’t understand God’s will at all; even more so, you don’t understand the good intentions God has put into His 6,000 years of management work” (“God’s Will Is to Save People to the Greatest Extent Possible” in Records of Christ’s Talks). Reading these passages, I realized with a start: Is God not talking about me? As soon as I learned that the church had dismissed me, I guessed and concluded that I had been revealed and eliminated and lost faith in seeking the truth. I lived in a perpetual state of negativity and misunderstanding, utterly resigned to my own failure. At that point, I looked into my heart, asking: “Do you really understand why you’ve met with this misfortune? Do you really understand God’s will? Of course not! I don’t understand! Then why would I make wild conjectures and unfounded delineations? Was this not too arrogant, too treacherous? Had I not relegated myself to this place of dark suffering? How foolish, how absurd I had been!” Thus, I went before God in prayer, asking for His enlightenment so that I may uncover His will in this recent revelation. Later, I saw this passage of God’s word: “All that He does is true love for you; He has no ill intention. It is because of your sins that He judges you, so that you will examine yourselves and receive this tremendous salvation. All this is done to work man. From beginning to end, God has been doing His utmost to save man, and He is certainly not willing to completely destroy the men He created with His own hands. Now He has come among you to work; isn’t this even more salvation? If He hated you, would He still do work of such magnitude to personally lead you? Why should He suffer so? God does not hate you or have any ill intention toward you. You should know that God’s love is the truest love. It is only because of people’s disobedience that He has to save them through judgment; otherwise, they would not be saved. … He does not have the heart to let you become even more depraved; neither has He the heart to see you living in the filthy place like this, being trampled by Satan at will, or the heart to let you fall into Hades. He only wants to gain this group of you and thoroughly save you. This is the main purpose of doing the conquering work on you—it is just for salvation” (“The Inside Truth of the Conquering Work (4)” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). God’s heartfelt words warmed my heart and roused me from my numb disillusion. As it turned out, though my situation seemed grim on first inspection, it was actually God visiting His love upon me, and investing me with His salvation. It was not, as I thought, that I would be eliminated. I had been arrogant and uncompromising—fulfilling my duties with reckless and wanton abandon. God simply couldn’t bear to see me continue to be trampled by Satan. He couldn’t bear to see me sink any lower and He especially could not bear to see me face punishment for offending God’s disposition through acts of wanton arrogance. Thus, through judgment and chastisement, He brought salvation upon me, blessing me with His saving grace and helping me escape from the grips of Satan’s corruption. The church dismissal was, indeed, God’s greatest salvation. The more arrogant I became, the more God created environments to confront my faults. He allowed my desires to remain unfulfilled so that my numbed heart would begin to feel pain. He acted through this pain to cause me to reflect on my actions, understand the substance of my corrupt nature and seek the truth to achieve a change in my disposition. This is the very real work of the salvation that God visited upon me. All He did was care and love for me. Otherwise, I would still be living in insouciant sin, still be acting with reckless abandon. In the end, my actions would have offended God’s disposition and I would have been eliminated by God. At this point, I came to see that God’s salvation was very real. There is nothing false or empty about God’s love—it is true and real. I, however, failed to see God’s work and His salvation. I failed to seek the earnest intention in God’s salvation, instead over-defining myself at every turn while misunderstanding and criticizing God and living in pessimistic abandonment. How unreasonable I was! I was unworthy of receiving God’s judgment and chastisement. Dear God, thank You! Through this experience, I realize that Your salvation is real and Your judgment and chastisement are full of love. Without Your judgment and chastisement, I never would have taken an honest look at myself. I would have continued to live in corruption, on a downward spiral, trampled by Satan and finally carried off by it. Through this experience, I also realized that Your substance is love and that all Your actions are aimed at saving mankind. God, I vow to invest myself fully in seeking the truth and starting anew. No matter what the outcome, I vow to fulfill my creaturely duty to satisfy Your will. Recommendation:The brief introduction of the Church of Almighty GodGradually, the normal relationship between us was lost, we couldn’t get along well, and were unable to partner up in work. I felt that it was mostly her fault that our relationship had come to this point, and so I tried to figure out all kinds of ways to communicate with her so that she could get to know herself. But all my attempts to communicate with her ended in vain or were even counterproductive. In the end we parted ways, our issues unresolved. This made me even more assured that she was not a person who accepts the truth. After that, the church arranged for me to stay with a different host family. Soon after, I discovered many problems also existed with the host family brother and sister, and I again “labored” to communicate with them, but all my attempts were ineffective, and they began to hold prejudices against me. Faced with these circumstances, I was very troubled and puzzled: Why do the people I meet not accept the truth? Until one day, I found the source of the problem when I ran up against a wall at work.

One day, the leader had arranged for me to send her the work arrangement, and I entrusted the elderly sister to deliver it to her. Who would have known that a week later, the package would be sent back to me intact. Faced with this situation, I was stunned and poured blame on the elderly sister for her careless mishandling of the matter, which had resulted in the package not being delivered to the leader. There was also no contact from the leader for a few days after this, and I was beginning to feel unsettled: Usually if something is not delivered or sent late, the leader will call to inquire about the situation. Why hasn’t she contacted me this time? Is she trying to stop me from performing my duty? I grew more and more fearful—my thoughts were filled with worry and regret. I couldn’t help but fall in front of God, “God, I feel so very sick and conflicted in my heart. The work arrangement has been sent back to me intact. I don’t know what is happening, and I am unsure what aspect of me will be perfected in meeting with this situation. Please lead and enlighten me and help me to understand Your will.” Right after the prayer, one of God’s phrases kept flashing in my head, “Whenever you do something it goes awry or you hit a wall. This is God’s discipline” (“Those Who Are to Be Made Perfect Must Undergo Refinement” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). I suddenly realized that the issues I had run into during work, the bad partnering with the elderly sister, and the opinions of the host family brother and sister; were these not God’s way of dealing with me through my circumstances? I silently called out to God, “God, I know that You deal with and discipline me because You love me, but I don’t understand what aspects of me You wished to address in creating these circumstances. I pray You to lead and enlighten me.” Later, when I was eating and drinking the word of God, I saw these two passages, “You must first resolve all the difficulties within yourself by relying on God. Make an end to your degenerate dispositions and be able to really understand your own situations and know how you should do things; keep fellowshiping anything you don’t understand. It is unacceptable for you not to know yourself. First heal your own sickness, and by means of eating and drinking My words more, contemplating My words, live life and do things according to My words; whether you are at home or in some other place, you should allow God to wield power within you” (“The Twenty-second Utterance” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). “When you encounter things, you need to make a choice, you need to approach them correctly, you need to calm down and you need to use the truth to resolve the problem. What is the use of your ordinarily understanding some truths? They are not there just to fill your belly and they are not there to merely be spoken and nothing more, nor are they to resolve the problems of others; instead they are to resolve your own difficulties, and only after you resolve your own problems can you resolve others’ problems” (“Confused People Cannot Be Saved” in Records of Christ’s Talks). God’s words were like a flash of lightning. Yes, when things happen we should first know ourselves, and use the truth to resolve the difficulties within us. By improving our condition, we solve our problems, thereby making it possible to solve other people’s problems. But I never knew myself when things happened, and fixated my eyes on others, finding fault with them whenever possible. When coordination wasn’t smooth, I attributed it to someone else, and tried to figure out ways to communicate with them, getting them to learn their lesson and know themselves. When the host family brother and sister were not willing to listen to me communicate, I believed it was because they were not pursuing the truth, and not able to accept the truth. When the work arrangement was sent back to me intact, I shifted blame and responsibility onto others. When all this happened, I failed to examine what corruption I had revealed, and which truths I should enter. It was as if I had no corruption, and did everything right. Instead, I made demands of others according to my own standards, and if someone could not meet my standard or refused to accept my communication, then I jumped to the conclusion that the person must not be seeking the truth and accepting the truth. I was truly too arrogant and had no self-knowledge. I had no knowledge of the corruption I revealed, nor did I seek the truth to solve my own problems, but always found fault with others. How could I partner harmoniously and get along with others? It was then that I realized: The reason I don’t get along with anyone is not because they don’t seek the truth, or accept the truth, but because I have no self-knowledge, and don’t emphasize the use of truth to solve my own problems.

After realizing all of this, I began to pay attention to my own entry and solving my own problems first when things happened. When communicating with brothers and sisters subsequently, there were components of self-knowledge in my communication. This was when I found my brothers and sisters to have changed. They began to show some knowledge of their own corruption, and we gradually developed a harmonious partnership. Faced with facts, I was finally able to see that when issues arise, it is extremely important to get to know oneself and solve one’s own problems first. Only then can we live out our normal humanity, have a harmonious partnership with others, and profit from our life experiences.

Source:Testimonies of Experience of Christ’s Judgment

Recommendation:Know more of the Church of Almighty God