Question 1: You say that God becomes flesh in the last days to do the work of judgment. Does this have any basis in the Bible, or fulfill any biblical prophecies? Without a biblical basis, we shouldn’t be so quick to believe it.

Answer: Any major incidents of God’s work are prophesied in the Bible, and there are quite a few prophecies relating to the second coming of the Lord Jesus and God’s work of judgment in the last days.

Question 8: How can we believe in the Lord and gain life if we move away from the Bible?

Answer: The question you raised is very key. This is something all of us believers want to know. The Lord Jesus once said these words: “Search the scriptures; for in them you think you have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me. And you will not come to me, that you might have life” (Jhn 5:39-40).

Question 7: I have studied the Bible for more than 20 years. I discovered that the Bible was written by more than 40 different authors during different times, but the content of what they wrote had no errors whatsoever. This shows that God is the true author of the Bible and that the Bible comes from the Holy Spirit.

Answer: The Bible was written by more than 40 authors and that there were no errors. Are there really no errors? Let’s communicate on this issue specifically. Actually, Almighty God—Christ of the last days—has already opened up these mysteries for us.

Question 3: 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.

Answer: Then let’s see whether one can truly know the Lord based on the Bible. The answer to this question can be found in the word of Almighty God.

Question 2: The truths in the Bible are already complete. Having the Bible is enough for our belief in God. We don’t need any new words!

Answer: The content recorded by the Bible is limited. The Old Testament only recorded the work of Jehovah God, while the New Testament only recorded the work of the Lord Jesus. But regarding God’s work of the last days, the Bible only contains prophecies. The precise details are not recorded in the Bible. This is because the work of God in the last days is judgment work, it is new work outside of the Bible. God is the Expressor of truth, and moreover the Ruler of all things in the universe. His richness is inexhaustible and always in supply. He cannot be fathomed by any created being. Therefore, the content of the Bible cannot completely explain all of God’s deeds. 

Question 2: God’s name in each age cannot represent God’s all, so what is the significance of His name in each age?

Answer: This question is very critical. Today Almighty God has already told us the answer. He 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.

6. How Do You Tell the Difference Between True and False Leaders, and Between True and False Shepherds?

Relevant Words of God:

All those who are able to follow the present light of the Holy Spirit are blessed. The people of ages past also followed the footsteps of God, yet they could not follow until today; this is the blessing of the people of the last days. Those who can follow the present work of the Holy Spirit, and who are able to follow the footsteps of God, such that they follow God wherever He leads them—these are people who are blessed by God. Those who do not follow the present work of the Holy Spirit have not entered into the work of God’s words, and no matter how much they work, or how great their suffering, or how much they run about, none of it means anything to God, and He will not commend them. Today, all those who follow the present words of God are in the stream of the Holy Spirit; those who are strangers to the words of God today are outside of the stream of the Holy Spirit, and such people are not commended by God. Service that is divorced from the present utterances of the Holy Spirit is service that is of the flesh, and of conceptions, and it is incapable of being in accordance with God’s will. If people live among religious conceptions, then they are unable to do anything that is fit for God’s will, and even though they serve God, they serve in the midst of their imagination and conceptions, and are totally incapable of serving in accordance with the will of God. Those who are unable to follow the work of the Holy Spirit do not understand the will of God, and those who do not understand the will of God cannot serve God. God wants service that is after His own heart; He does not want service that is of conceptions and the flesh. If people are incapable of following the steps of the Holy Spirit’s work, then they live amid conceptions. The service of such people interrupts and disturbs, and such service runs contrary to God. Thus those who are unable to follow the footsteps of God are incapable of serving God; those who are unable to follow the footsteps of God most certainly oppose God, and are incapable of being compatible with God. “Following the work of the Holy Spirit” means understanding the will of God today, being able to act in accordance with the present requirements of God, being able to obey and follow the God of today, and entering in accordance with the newest utterances of God. Only this is someone who follows the work of the Holy Spirit and is in the stream of the Holy Spirit. Such people are not only capable of receiving God’s praise and seeing God, but can also know God’s disposition from the latest work of God, and can know man’s conceptions and disobedience, and man’s nature and substance, from His latest work; furthermore, they are able to gradually achieve changes in their disposition during their service. Only people such as this are those who are able to gain God, and who have genuinely found the true way. Those who are eliminated by the work of the Holy Spirit are people who are incapable of following the latest work of God, and who rebel against the latest work of God. That such people openly oppose God is because God has done new work, and because the image of God is not the same as that in their conceptions—as a result of which they openly oppose God and pass judgment upon God, leading to their loathing and rejection by God.

from “Know the Newest Work of God and Follow the Footsteps of God” in The Word Appears in the Flesh

2. How Should You Differentiate Between the Work of the Holy Spirit and That of Evil Spirits?

Relevant Words of God:

God does not repeat His work, He does not do work that is not realistic, He does not make excessive requirements of man, and He does not do work that is beyond the sense of man. All the work He does is within the scope of man’s normal sense, and does not exceed the sense of normal humanity, and His work is according to man’s normal requirements. If it is the work of the Holy Spirit, man becomes ever more normal, and his humanity becomes ever more normal. Man has an increasing knowledge of his satanic corrupt disposition, and of the essence of man, and he has an ever greater longing for the truth. That is to say, the life of man grows and grows, and the corrupt disposition of man becomes capable of more and more changes—all of which is the meaning of God becoming the life of man. If a way is incapable of revealing those things that are the essence of man, is incapable of changing the disposition of man, and, moreover, is incapable of bringing him before God or giving him a true understanding of God, and even causes his humanity to become ever more lowly and his sense ever more abnormal, then this way must not be the true way, and it may be the work of an evil spirit, or the old way. In short, it cannot be the present work of the Holy Spirit.

from “Only Those Who Know God and His Work Can Satisfy God” in The Word Appears in the Flesh

30. The Work of God Is So Wise

By Shiji, Anhui Province

Normally, when attending co-workers’ meetings, my leader would often preach about the experiences of people who failed in their service to God, and would ask us to learn lessons from their experiences and to take them as a warning. For example, some leaders always preached letters and doctrines when they gave sermons or fellowshiped. They were unable to preach real knowledge of the truth and they were unable to perform practical work, with the result that they served as leaders for years without moving the work of the church forward; the church work almost came to a complete standstill, and they became false leaders and were sifted out by God. When performing their duties, some leaders always showed themselves off, exalted themselves and testified to themselves, and worked to protect their status, and in the end, such leaders led people before themselves, and became antichrists to be expelled. Some leaders showed too great a consideration for their own flesh, coveting comforts and never doing any real work. Such leaders were like parasites in the church who coveted the blessings of status, and in the end, they were exposed and weeded out. Hearing these examples of failure, I couldn’t help but question: “Is God not almighty? Given that these leaders were perpetrating evil and resisting God as they worked and were causing loss to the church’s work, why didn’t God step in sooner to expose and weed them out? In this way, would not the life of the brothers and sisters and the church’s work suffer less loss?” I was beset with this question.

I Overcame Satan’s Temptation by Relying on God’s Strength (Part 2)

By Cindy

Multiple Hindrances Fail and the Threat of Divorce Is Employed

One day when my husband came home from work, he had completely changed his formerly fierce attitude and said to me, “If you really want to believe in God, I’ll go to church with you. As long as you don’t believe in Almighty God, I’ll go to any church at all with you.” I knew very clearly in my heart that this was Satan tempting me again, so I turned him down and said, “God started His work of the last days a while ago, and so the Holy Spirit’s work also shifted to God’s work of the last days. The churches based on the Age of Grace are lacking the Holy Spirit’s work, and only by keeping up with God’s new work can we receive the sustenance of the living water of life and keep up with the footsteps of the Lamb. It’s just as in the Age of Grace when the Lord Jesus came to do the work of redemption and the Holy Spirit was no longer working within the temple; the Spirit of God was upholding the Lord Jesus’ work, and only those who accepted that were able to receive enlightenment and guidance from the Holy Spirit, and gain the Lord’s salvation. And currently, Christ of the last days—Almighty God—has expressed millions of words of the truth, revealed all the mysteries of the Bible, and has pointed out to mankind the path to achieve dispositional change and be fully saved. We must keep up with God’s footsteps and experience His current work and words to gain the work of the Holy Spirit. The entire religious world is currently in a bleak state—it lost the work of the Holy Spirit some time ago. What good would it do to go back into religious circles to attend services?” After my husband heard me say this he wouldn’t even acknowledge me. I then urged him, “You’re trying everything to hinder me because you don’t understand God’s work. If you just looked into Almighty God’s work of the last days and read more of His words, you would see that they are all the truth and that God’s work truly can transform and save us.”

3. Who Knows the Motherly Heart of God?

By Qingxin, Henan Province

In the past, I didn’t understand God’s work of saving mankind, thinking that if someone reveals corruption or commits transgressions in their duty that bring harm to the church’s work, that person will face the retribution they deserve, or that they will be stripped of their duty or be subjected to punishment. Because of this erroneous viewpoint, I was always afraid of slipping up in my work and being dismissed or sent back home, so I thought of a little “trick”: Whenever I did something wrong, I would try my best to not let the leaders know first, and scramble to make up for it myself and do my utmost to make it right. Wouldn’t that then help me hold on to my duty? So every time I gave reports on my work, I would downplay big issues and simply erase the small ones. During the times I was passive I would do my best to cover it up in front of the leaders and present myself as very active and positive, terrified that they would know I was in an abnormal state and think that I could not do the work, and then remove me from my position. That is how I became very carefully guarded, tiptoeing around the leaders and God in everything I did.

What Should I Do if My Work Is So Busy That I Shun the Lord?

Hello brothers and sisters of Spiritual Q&A,

I’m a new believer who has recently accepted God’s work. Although I know that, as a Christian, one must attend church gatherings and read God’s words, and I want to practice in accordance with God’s requirements, my work is so busy every day at the moment and I have an active social life. I feel exhausted every day. Although I’ve made some money over the past few years and my living standards have improved, I always feel like I want to make more money in order to provide protection for my family’s future. Therefore, I work very hard every day to make money and I have no time to attend church gatherings or read God’s words. My heart always feels empty and I feel indebted to the Lord. How can I find a balance between my work and my belief in God?

Xiaodong

June 15, 2018

Hello Xiaodong,

This issue puzzled me for a long time as well. Later, by reading God’s words and through the fellowship and support of brothers and sisters, I finally and gradually came to understand God’s will, and I discovered that if I wanted to balance my work with my belief in God, then I had to understand the value and meaning of pursuing the truth, as well as what it is exactly that we work for. Once we have thoroughly understood these truths, we can then make calm decisions regarding attending gatherings and our jobs. Below, I will fellowship a little of my own experiences and knowledge.

The Value and Meaning of Pursuing the Truth

In fact, we all have to work in order to live, but if we have no time to attend church gatherings or read God’s words because we’re too busy with work, then that is at odds with God’s will. The main reason for this is because we have failed to see the meaning and the importance of pursuing the truth. If we understand the value of the truth and we experience the enjoyment, the release and the freedom that come with practicing the truth, then we will want to attend gatherings and read God’s words. The Lord Jesus said, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4). God’s words say, “Whether the words spoken by God are, in outward appearance, plain or abstruse, they are all truths indispensable to man as he enters into life; they are the fount of living waters that enables him to survive in both spirit and flesh. They provide what man needs to stay alive; the dogma and creed for conducting his daily life; the path, goal, and direction through which he must pass in order to receive salvation; every truth that he should possess as a created being before God; and every truth about how man obeys and worships God. They are the guarantee that ensures man’s survival, they are man’s daily bread, and they are also the sturdy support that enables man to be strong and stand up. They are rich in the reality of the truth of normal humanity as it is lived out by created mankind, rich in the truth by which mankind breaks free from corruption and eludes Satan’s snares, rich in the tireless teaching, exhortation, encouragement, and solace that the Creator gives to created humanity. They are the beacon that guides and enlightens men to understand all that is positive, the guarantee which ensures that men will live out and come into possession of all that is righteous and good, the criterion by which people, events, and objects are all measured, and also the navigation marker that leads men toward salvation and the path of light” (“Knowing God Is the Path to Fearing God and Shunning Evil”).

As we live in this world, it won’t do to merely have material things—what we most need is the guidance and the supply of God’s words. Material things can only provide the basic necessities for living and can provide temporary comfort and satisfaction for our flesh. But only the word of God can resolve the difficulties and problems we encounter in our jobs and in our lives, for the word of God is the truth and it can both show us the way to practice and soothe our spirits. Otherwise, though we may be very rich and live a prosperous life, we still feel empty and pained in the deepest recesses of our hearts. For example, we work hard on this earth in order to survive and we come to appreciate how unfair the world is, and how wicked people can be. In our dealings with other people, we all encounter difficulties that we don’t know how to handle, and these difficulties simply cannot be resolved with money or material things. Only by coming before God, attending gatherings, reading God’s words and fellowshiping with brothers and sisters can we understand the truth, be discerning when we encounter issues and thoroughly understand the essences of all manner of different people. Then, when we interact with other people, we will know how to approach them. Furthermore, we are under the dominion of the satanic poisons of “People struggle to go upward, but water flows downward,” and “To be a man is to get ahead.” We focus on pursuing status to make others look up to us in the belief that this is a splendid way to live. When we are without status, we vie with others both openly and behind their backs and we unscrupulously try to usurp their position. And when we obtain status, we are on our guard against others at all times, worrying that someone else will come and replace us and living in extreme suffering. Only through reading God’s words and attending gatherings and fellowshiping the truth with brothers and sisters can we thoroughly understand that fame, fortune and status are ways in which Satan corrupts and harms us. We rack our brains to pursue fame, fortune and status and we will pay any price, and we end up living in unbearable pain, exhausted in both mind and body. Also, the more we pursue fame, fortune and status, all that happens is that we sink deeper and deeper into sin, and our lives cease to have any value or meaning. At the same time, we come to understand from God’s words that, whether us human beings possess status or not, we are just tiny created beings, and the most important things for us to do are to fulfill the duty of a created being, pursue the truth to satisfy God and worship God, and obtain God’s praise and blessings. In this way, our inner satanic outlook is transformed, we no longer concern ourselves with gains and losses for the sake of fame, fortune and status at work, and we no longer try to prevail over others and scheme against them. When someone is better than us at something, we are then able to treat them properly and submit to God’s sovereignty and arrangements, and our hearts naturally become peaceful and at ease, free and liberated. Therefore, God is beside us when we pursue the truth and, no matter what situation we encounter, God is always in our hearts, supporting us, and we have God’s words to steer our course by. We can then calmly face and obey the orchestrations and arrangements of God, and this sense of comfort and peace we feel in our spirits is the only true happiness. It is evident, therefore, that the truth gives us so many blessings, and pursuing the truth is more meaningful than anything else. Making the effort to read God’s words and pursue the truth is the only intelligent thing to do!

Trust the Lord to Provide All That We Need

The Lord Jesus said, “Therefore I say to you, Take no thought for your life, what you shall eat, or what you shall drink; nor yet for your body, what you shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much better than they?” (Matthew 6:25–26). “Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knows that you have need of all these things” (Matthew 6:31–32). We can see from God’s words that He does not want us to expend too much energy on the basic necessities, but rather He wants us to come more before Him to build a normal relationship with Him and focus on our lives. We don’t need to concern ourselves too much with all the things we need to live, for God will provide them, and all we need to do is submit to God’s orchestrations and arrangements—as long as we have food and clothing, then that is enough. Take the story of the prophet Elijah in the Bible, for example. To avoid being killed, he hid in a mountain valley where there was nothing to eat, yet God gave him food through ravens. In a great drought that lasted for three years, God made the poor widow provide for Elijah when all she had was a tiny bit of oil in a jug and a tiny bit of flour in a jar, and yet they survived three years of famine. And there are many brothers and sisters today who follow God who have a deep appreciation of these words of God. When they take pursuing the truth and practicing the truth as their number one priority, and when they entrust their lives to God and let nature take its course with their work, they discover that God still provides much, more even than they ever imagined.

What Do We Work For?

Perhaps we may all think like this: “Everyone has to have a career in order to live, and must earn money to support one’s family—is this not the proper way to live?” Of course, there’s nothing wrong with earning money and supporting one’s family, but oftentimes we are not working hard and toiling just to support our families, but instead we do it to satisfy the extravagant desires of our flesh. We want to earn even more money so we can buy a house, buy a car and enjoy a high-flying life and thereby win the admiration and esteem of others. For the sake of physical comforts or the admiration and esteem of others, we work extra shifts and work overtime, to the point where we spend all our time and energy on making money. Not only do we then ruin our bodies through exhaustion, but we also have no time at all to come before God. In this way, we unknowingly lose the chance to worship the Lord of creation as created beings.

God’s words say, “In fact, no matter how lofty man’s ideals are, no matter how realistic man’s desires are or how proper they may be, all that man wants to achieve, all that man seeks for is inextricably linked with two words. These two words are vitally important to the life of every person, and these are things Satan intends to instill in man. Which two words are these? They are ‘fame’ and ‘gain.’ Satan uses a very subtle kind of way, a way very much in concert with people’s notions; it is not any kind of radical way. In the midst of unawareness, people come to accept Satan’s way of living, its rules of living, establishing life goals and their direction in life, and in doing so they also unknowingly come to have ideals in life. No matter how high-sounding these ideals in life seem, they are just a pretext that is inextricably linked to fame and gain. … People think that once they have fame and gain, they can then capitalize on them to enjoy high status and great wealth, and to enjoy life. Once they have fame and gain, they can then capitalize on them in their pleasure-seeking and unscrupulous enjoyment of the flesh. People willingly, albeit unknowingly, take their bodies, minds, all that they have, their futures and their destinies and hand them all over to Satan in order to attain the fame and gain they desire. People actually do this without ever a moment’s hesitation, ever ignorant of the need to recover it all. … Once someone is mired in fame and gain, they no longer seek that which is bright, that which is righteous or those things that are beautiful and good. This is because the seductive power that fame and gain have over people is too great, and they become things for people to pursue throughout their lives and even for all eternity without end. Is this not true?” (“God Himself, the Unique VI”).

God’s words are so clear! From when we are little, we are indoctrinated with satanic life axioms, such as “Money isn’t everything, but without it, you can do nothing,” “To be a man is to get ahead,” and “A man leaves his name behind wherever he stays, just as a goose utters its cry wherever it flies.” Under the influence of these axioms, our hearts advocate money, we covet physical pleasures and seek to become top dog, regarding fame, fortune and status as being more important than anything else. Under the dominion of these fallacious ideas, we no longer work purely to be able to support our families, but instead we work seeking to have a career with which we can win the admiration and esteem of others. For this reason, one-by-one we become money-making machines, we live exhausted and in pain, and some people even ruin their own bodies and ultimately pay with their lives. Although we may make some money, yet inside ourselves we often feel empty and helpless, without a hint of peace or joy in our spirits. Furthermore, when we live by the life axioms of Satan and persistently pursue fame and fortune, our hearts grow farther and farther from God and our interest in fulfilling the duty of a created being—believing in God and worshiping God—grows less and less. Some people even come to think that attending church gatherings and reading God’s words interfere with their ability to earn money, and so they stop going to gatherings and they stop reading God’s words, and without them being aware of it, they lose their normal relationship with God. From this, we can see that Satan uses our pursuit of fame and fortune to steal us away from God, to bring us thoroughly under its control and occupation and so that we sink deeper and deeper into the quagmire of sin. Therefore, we must understand that fame and fortune are ways in which Satan deceives, harms and devours us, and the pursuit of fame and fortune is the wrong path to take. Once we can understand and discern our inner wrong views on pursuit, we can then take the correct approach to our work.

In fact, there is no clash between our jobs and our belief in God. So how then should we establish a normal relationship with God in our work?

You Can Experience God’s Work in Your Job

The Lord Jesus said, “God is a Spirit: and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth” (John 4:24). God is a Spirit and we can worship Him and establish a normal relationship with Him in any place and at any time. While we’re at work, though we may be busy with the work at hand, we can still quiet our hearts before God, think of God’s love and salvation, contemplate the truths in God’s words and learn to practice and experience God’s words. God will then be with us, helping us to resolve our difficulties and guiding us on how to conduct ourselves as human beings. When we establish a normal relationship with God and we obtain the work of the Holy Spirit, our hearts derive comfort and will feel peace and joy. In this way, even though we may tire from our work and we may find it hard to make time, we can still face it all with a positive attitude.

Let me tell you a little of my own experiences. When I’d only just started to believe in God, I believed that work was work and faith in God was faith in God. I believed that attending gatherings was the only proper way to worship God and I simply had no idea that I could practice God’s words when I was at work. At that time, I was working in a restaurant and it was very busy. I also had several church gatherings to attend per week and I never felt like I had enough time. I felt like I didn’t have the time to read God’s words nor any opportunity to experience His words. While I was at work, I felt like the time dragged by and was very dull. Later at a church gathering, a sister read me a passage of God’s words that concerned my problem: “Because in order to walk in God’s way, we cannot let go of anything to do with ourselves, or anything that happens around us, even the little things. No matter whether we think we should pay attention to it or not, as long as any matter is facing us we should not let it go. All of it should be viewed as God’s test for us. How’s this kind of attitude? If you have this kind of attitude, then it confirms one fact: Your heart fears God, and your heart is willing to shun evil. If you have this desire to satisfy God, then what you put into practice isn’t far from the standard of fearing God and shunning evil. There are often those who believe that the matters which aren’t paid much heed by people, the matters that aren’t usually mentioned—these are merely minor trifles, and they don’t have anything to do with putting truth into practice. When these people are faced with just such a matter, they don’t give it much thought and let it slide. But in actual fact, this matter is a lesson for which you should be studying, a lesson on how to fear God, on how to shun evil. Moreover, what you should be even more concerned about is knowing what God is doing when this matter arises to face you. God is right at your side, observing every one of your words and deeds, observing your actions, your mind changes—this is God’s work” (“How to Know God’s Disposition and the Result of His Work”). By reading God’s words, I came to know that the people, events and things we encounter every day, whether big or small, are all meticulously arranged by God for our sake. God wants to trial us and test us through these people, events and things to see whether or not we revere Him, whether or not we can practice in accordance with His words in all things, and whether or not we have entered into all kinds of truths. I was never aware before that I could experience God’s words in the people, events and things around me and I therefore missed many chances to gain the truth. I decided that I must focus on bringing God’s words into my real life, I must experience and practice God’s words at work and I must pursue the truth in the environments that God arranges so that my life may gradually mature.

One day, I was in the restaurant writing the menu when the manager asked me to add more dishes to customers’ bills so that we could charge them more. I knew that the Lord said: “But let your communication be, Yes, yes; No, no: for whatever is more than these comes of evil” (Matthew 5:37). The Lord asked that we be honest and call a spade a spade. If we lie for the sake of profit, then we are engaging in deception and we will not earn God’s praise. I knew that I should not tell lies to cheat the customers, but I worried about displeasing the manager so that he would make things difficult for me or cut my pay, and if I didn’t handle it well then I could even lose my job. As I worked my way through this dilemma, I suddenly realized that God had permitted this issue to befall me and that God was right beside me watching to see what I would do with the truth and watching to see whether or not I would practice God’s words and be an honest person. And so, I prayed to God and became willing to forsake my flesh and practice the truth. I didn’t care how people would treat me or whether or not I would lose my job, but instead I wanted to focus on living before God and establishing a normal relationship with God. After praying, my heart felt much more at ease and I found the resolve to practice the truth and satisfy God. Unexpectedly, just as I was truthfully writing up the menu for the customers, though the manager said nothing, he later went and told the restaurant owner that I was honest and trustworthy. I witnessed God’s wondrous deeds and I experienced the feelings of peace and security, of release and freedom that comes from practicing the truth, and those are feelings that no amount of money can buy. In my work after that, I always paid close attention to the people, events and things around me and I focused on experiencing and practicing God’s words, and gradually my relationship with God normalized and I felt much more relaxed at work.

Brother Xiaodong, having now given fellowship about how to find a balance between work and belief in God, I trust that you will now have some paths to follow. In work, we should let nature take its course and not struggle for the sake of our own fame and fortune—it is enough to have food and clothing. At the same time, we must put our heart into reading God’s words and pursuing the truth, we must arm ourselves more with the truth, train with and practice God’s words in our lives and allow God’s words to become the principles of our lives and our conduct. In this way, we will gradually be able to understand the truth and come to know God more and more. At the same time, we will obtain inner liberation and freedom as well as the joy that comes from having God beside us. May the Lord bless you!

Xiaoming of Spiritual Q&A

June 17, 2018

A Doctor’s Experience of Metamorphosis

Liu Jing

When I was a child, whenever my mother took me to the hospital to see a doctor and I saw all the doctors and nurses in their white gowns scurrying around, I always thought that they looked like angels in white. I was full of admiration for them, and I used to think: If I could be an angel in white too when I grow up, that would be so great! As a young adult, my school grades were exceptionally good and I was able to pass the entrance exam for medical college, and eventually my heartfelt wish came true when I was sent to a certain city hospital to begin my career as a doctor. You can’t imagine how happy I was on the first day that I put on a white gown! The professional duty of doctors is to cure illness and prevent death, and that makes the profession highly respected, lofty! I was determined to live up to the nickname, angels in white, by being a totally responsible and professional doctor committed to relieving the suffering of my patients.

Jealousy—the Chronic Illness of the Heart

By He Jiejing, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region

I performed my duty with Sister Zhang and, through the course of our acquaintance, I found that not only did she have a pure understanding of God’s word and that she fellowshiped about the truth very clearly, but that she was also good at singing and dancing. She was better than me at everything. The brother and sister of our host family liked her very much and would seek her out to fellowship with her. Because of this, my heart was quite unsettled and I felt like I was being given the cold shoulder—even to the point of thinking that as long as she was there, there was no place for me. In my heart, I began to feel fed up with her and I didn’t want to work with her in fulfilling our duties anymore. I hoped that she would leave so that the brothers and sisters would like me and think highly of me.

Reflection for Today: Does a Church Appearing Fervent Mean That It Has the Work of the Holy Spirit?

Hello brothers and sisters of Spiritual Q&A,

Several months ago, I witnessed the pastors in our church vying with each other for the sake of fame and gain and jockeying for position, so much so that they even verbally attacked and disparaged each other during sermons. Their sermons were not enjoyable to listen to, and our spirits went unnourished. Furthermore, there was widespread cooling of the faith of brothers and sisters; they pursued wealth, they coveted physical pleasures and they followed worldly trends, giving all their attention to eating, drinking and having fun. Most of the time, some brothers and sisters simply did not attend gatherings, but instead only came when a disaster occurred in their lives or when there was some important holiday … Faced with this situation in our church, I left to look for a church that had the work of the Holy Spirit. I searched in many places, however, and discovered that most churches were just the same, and I began to lose hope. I recently found a church, however, which often put on shows and held events, and it even had pastors come from overseas to give sermons. The atmosphere in this church was very warm and enthusiastic, and many people attended each gathering. Looking at this church that was so ardent and at the brothers and sisters who attended gatherings so enthusiastically, I thought this must be a church that had the work of the Holy Spirit. It wasn’t long, however, before I discovered that, although the church appeared ardent, the sermons preached by the pastors were unable to provide benefits for the lives of brothers and sisters and were unable to satisfy our spirits. The singing and dancing that went on only had the effect of changing the atmosphere in the church—while it was going on, we all felt very energetic, but as soon as we sat down to listen to a pastor give a sermon, we would begin to doze off. Moreover, brothers and sisters were always trying to outdo each other with donations and prayers. Whoever donated a lot was considered to be someone who loved the Lord, and whoever prayed for a long time and said nice words in their prayers was considered to be a spiritual person…. In this kind of church, the brothers and sisters not only had no honesty or humility but, on the contrary, their vanity just got stronger and stronger and they became more and more hypocritical. They focused on expressing themselves and showing off in front of others and were exceedingly self-righteous and arrogant. Whenever they encountered an issue, they just dealt with it however they wanted, and they didn’t listen to anyone else—they were just not keeping to the Lord’s teachings at all. Faced with this kind of situation in the church, I couldn’t help but wonder: Could such a church that appears to be so fervent from the outside have the work of the Holy Spirit? This question has always perplexed me, so I’d like to ask if you could answer it for me.

Wenxi

What are the wise virgins? What are the foolish virgins?

Relevant Words of God:

    In the past, people have made predictions of “five wise virgins, five foolish virgins”; although the prediction is not accurate, it is not entirely wrong, so I can give you some explanation. Five wise virgins and five foolish virgins certainly do not both represent the number of people, nor do they represent one type of people respectively. Five wise virgins mean the number of people, five foolish virgins represent one type of people, but these two things are not the firstborn sons, they represent creation.