English Christian Crosstalk "The Mystery of God's Name" | Why Does the Name of God Change?

English Christian Crosstalk "The Mystery of God’s Name" | Why Does the Name of God Change?

For two thousand years, Christians have always prayed in and called upon the Lord Jesus' name, believing that God's name will only ever be Jesus. However,

God’s Words Guide Me to Learn How to Educate My Children (I)

Xiaoxue, Malaysia

I have two sons and they are one year apart. In order to raise them to be cultured, well mannered, good people who will be able to establish themselves in society and succeed, when they were two years old, I discussed finding a good kindergarten for them with my husband. After some visits, inquiries and comparison, we selected an English kindergarten because they placed importance on children’s caliber and ability, which matched my view on educating children. Although the tuition fees were a bit high, as long as the children were able to develop better and get a better education, it was worth spending a little more money.

As my children gradually grew up, I found that they were not as sensible and obedient as I had hoped for. On the contrary, they were extremely overbearing and rebellious. For example, when I took them to the mall, when they saw something they liked, they just took it and if I did not buy it for them, they would lie on the floor and cry and make a fuss. When they played with other children, if they saw something that they liked, they would snatch it from others. If the other children did not give it to them, they would hit them. Seeing my children being so capricious and overbearing, I reprimanded them firmly every time. However, not only was this ineffective, but my children became less and less obedient. Once I reprimanded them, they would throw their clothes and shoes in the trash. When they were angry, they would take scissors and cut up their clothes, sheets and pillows. I felt very sad about this. How could my children be so arrogant and badly behaved? I suggested they change schools but my husband did not agree. He said that children should grow up naturally and spontaneously. My husband’s attitude toward my children made me very angry: An excellent child is nurtured, not left to develop free-range. Who knows how they would become if you let them develop independently! But no matter how I persuaded him, my husband still insisted on his point of view. I felt extremely pained seeing my husband as a father being so irresponsible. If we continued like this, what would become of our children in the future! The more I thought about this, the more worried I felt, and I did not know what to do. I felt at a loss as to what to do about my children’s education and felt afflicted and worried.

In March 2017, I accepted the gospel of the kingdom of Almighty God. One day in June that year, I saw that the words of Almighty God said: “Besides birth and childrearing, the parents’ responsibility in a child’s life is simply to provide him or her with a formal environment to grow up in, for nothing except the predestination of the Creator has a bearing on a person’s fate. No one can control what kind of future a person will have; it is predetermined long in advance, and not even one’s parents can change one’s fate. As far as fate is concerned, everyone is independent, and everyone has his or her own fate. So no one’s parents can stave off one’s fate in life or exert the slightest influence on the role one plays in life. It could be said that the family into which one is destined to be born, and the environment in which one grows up, are nothing more than the preconditions for fulfilling one’s mission in life. They do not in any way determine a person’s fate in life or the kind of destiny amidst which a person fulfills his or her mission. And so no one’s parents can assist one in accomplishing one’s mission in life, no one’s relatives can help one assume one’s role in life. How one accomplishes one’s mission and in what kind of living environment one performs one’s role are entirely determined by one’s fate in life” (“God Himself, the Unique III” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). When I saw God’s words I realized that although we are the parents of children, we only give birth to them, raise them and provide them with an environment in which to grow. As for what their future will be like, what kind of role they will play and what missions they will fulfill, this is all in God’s hands. It is God who is in charge of their destiny and who determines their future, not their parents. The only thing I can do is to pray to God, entrust my children to God and hope that God guides them to grow. I also reflected on how I treated my children. I always used my abilities to forcibly control and put pressure on my children and whenever I saw my children disobeying, I would hit them, thinking I would change their bad habits and improve their caliber this way. But not only did my children not become obedient and sensible, they actually became more and more rebellious. Now it seems like I did not understand the truth and did not know God’s domination and arrangements, so I could not educate my children, let alone allow them to grow up healthily. I should change my method of educating them and treat them with the proper attitude. After this, when my children made mistakes, I talked to them patiently and made them aware of their own wrongdoings. When I saw them bow their heads and stop talking, I did not chide them further. Sometimes they were too naughty and I would punish them a bit and ask them to face the wall and reflect on their actions. Gradually, I found that they were much quieter than before and that they did not hit other children anymore and rarely swore and cursed. When I saw my children starting to develop well, I felt very grateful and knew that this was all because of the words of God and from the bottom of my heart I thanked God!

In November 2017, when my eldest son was about to finish kindergarten and progress to first grade, my husband and I selected a well-known primary school for him, hoping that he would study hard and achieve good results in the future. In mid-July, we took our child to do the school entrance tests in advance. After the test, the principal called me and said that my child’s score was the worst of dozens of children and that he wouldn’t be able to keep up with first grade. He also said that they would conduct a second test. When I heard this news, I felt a bit uncomfortable, but my husband and I still took our child to re-sit the school entrance test. When the test results were announced, I was dumbfounded: My son had spent three years at kindergarten but had learned nothing. He couldn’t even read or write the alphabet and did not understand single digit addition and subtraction. My child was about to start first grade and his results were unexpectedly so poor—I could hardly believe the results. The principal also reproached me and said: “Are you very busy? Even though you come from China, your child’s Chinese is so bad; how did you educate him?” The principal’s rebuke made me feel so ashamed. It was the first time that I felt such a failure as a mother. I felt too ashamed to see anyone and could not wait to find a place to hide away.

When I returned home that afternoon, my husband asked me to quickly find a kindergarten for my son. As soon as I heard this, the anger that I had kept inside immediately raised its head and I lost control of myself and started to get angry again with my children. I told them to go to sleep quickly and then I ran to a small room on my own, closed the windows and the curtains, lay down on the bed and emptied my mind. This was how I fell asleep in a daze. Until six o’clock that evening, I felt very upset and could not stop the tears. I didn’t even have the motivation to make dinner. Faced with such results, what should I do? In suffering, I knelt down before God and prayed: “God! I can’t take it. I feel so much pain in my heart. May You enlighten and guide me to understand Your will. I’m willing to practice the truth and to satisfy You.” Then I thought of God’s words: “There will always be some distance between one’s dreams and the realities that one must confront; things are never as one would like them to be, and faced with such realities people can never achieve satisfaction or contentment. Some people will even go to any length imaginable, will put forth great efforts and make great sacrifices for the sake of their livelihoods and future, in attempt to change their own fate. But in the end, even if they can realize their dreams and desires by means of their own hard work, they can never change their fates, and no matter how doggedly they try they can never exceed what destiny has allotted them. Regardless of differences in ability, IQ, and willpower, people are all equal before fate, which makes no distinction between the great and the small, the high and the low, the exalted and the mean. What occupation one pursues, what one does for a living, and how much wealth one amasses in life are not decided by one’s parents, one’s talents, one’s efforts or one’s ambitions, but are predetermined by the Creator” (“God Himself, the Unique III” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). From God’s words I suddenly understood that it’s not people who have the final say over our fate and destiny and that it cannot be changed by anyone. It depends upon God’s mastery and predestination. No matter how great someone’s ambition is and desires are or how magnificent their goals and hopes are, it does not change God’s mastery and arrangements for people’s destiny in the slightest. Who knows how many people have pursued success and high rank, yet always run into a wall. At the end of the day, they still spend a lifetime as ordinary people. Many people want to work hard based on their own efforts and live happy lives, but struggle for a lifetime and fail to achieve this. And so on. These facts can often be seen around us. I think about how I was like this too when I was educating my children. From the time my children were born, I particularly focused on their development and education and hoped that they would become cultured, well-mannered and good people. To achieve my own desires, I made strict demands of them and tried my best to find a good school for them, but even though I worried so much and felt so tired, in the end my child’s performance was not as good as I had hoped. Only through reading God’s words did I come to understand this: Children’s academic achievements, what kinds of career they have, what they do in the future, what they do for a living and what their humanity is like is not based on school education and their upbringing. This is all determined by God’s mastery and predestination. Our job as parents is just to try our best to educate our children. As for their fate in the future and whether or not they can be talented, only God has the final say. I constantly educated my children according to my own requirements and made my children develop according to my own wishes. Isn’t this just breaking free of God’s mastery? This is also a manifestation of disobeying God! After I understood God’s will, I prayed to Him: “God, I understand that my child’s future is in Your hands. I will no longer educate my children in my own way as I desire, and I am willing to fully entrust my children to You, look to You and obey Your mastery and arrangements.” After praying, I felt power in my heart and my heart became strong.

The next morning, I went to find a school for my son. I continued to pray for God along the way and pray that God would guide me. I viewed two schools that day. When I viewed the second school, I really liked it and felt that the school was very standardized. After the children arrived at school, they did morning exercises and also told their own stories. It felt very regular. Children went to school from eight in the morning to six in the evening, so I had more time to attend meetings. I felt very happy and my son was also very happy when he saw the school. So I decided to let my son go to this school. After that, I successfully completed the admission procedures for my son and he was officially enrolled that day.

Who Was It That Rescued Her Marriage?

Yang Zi, China

She had just turned twenty, she had a graceful figure and appeared as pretty as a flower, and there were many suitors pursuing her. But she didn’t pay this any mind until one day when her friend invited her to come out and she by chance met Lin. Lin was almost 6 feet tall, he was tall and handsome, with a dignified bearing. He spoke with humor and with wit, and was able to attract her in an instant. And Lin too was quite interested in her. The two of them started seeing each other very soon, and after a few months they got married. Before long they had a child of their own, and this made her feel very blessed. But good things don’t last forever. Just when she was starting to enjoy everything and long for a beautiful future, she discovered that Lin was not engaging in honest work every day. All day long he was idling about, and he would even go out often and get in fights and gamble. When he returned home, he would pick out faults with her no matter if there was something going on or not. He simply did not care for her or their child. She did not understand why Lin was acting this way. Many times with eyes full of tears she would urge Lin to walk the correct path, but not only did Lin not listen, he would even lash out at her, and one time he even went so far as to nearly choke her to death. She had lost all hope in Lin. Before long, Lin got sentenced to prison for breaking the law, and she had to support herself and their one-and-a-half-year-old child on her own. Her life was full of hardships and dashed hopes. It wasn’t until 2003, when Lin completed his prison sentence and was released, that she was finished with this painful marriage.

After this, she took her son to her parents’ home. Since she didn’t have a job, she and her son had to rely on her relatives to assist them, which made her feel very embarrassed and helpless. When her neighbors saw that she was having difficulty taking care of her child by herself, they made an effort to look for a partner to introduce to her. At first she thought that she just wanted an average man, that as long as he was good to her child then it would be okay, but then she thought to herself: I’m still quite young, although I’ve gotten divorced, I cannot just settle for anyone. To her surprise, her neighbors introduced her to men who were very short, or otherwise they weren’t the least bit handsome, or they didn’t have a dignified bearing, some of them even forsook her for having a child, and none of the men that came by suited her, which made her feel quite disappointed. Later on she met Jun, he was eight years older than her, he was divorced, and he had a daughter. He had a dark complexion and average looks, and he wasn’t very tall. In her heart she didn’t really regard Jun highly, but he was honest and kind-hearted, and he was very kind to her and her son. So, she thought it over, and decided that for the sake of her son she had to compromise and marry him. After they got married, he was just as kind to them as he was before. He took care of them, he was very considerate, and he even did work around the house, cooking food and washing clothes. But she couldn’t get past the pitfall of her vanity, so she still could not completely accept Jun in her heart. She resented him for looking ugly and felt that he was undeserving of her. For this reason, she never wanted to go outside together with her husband. One time when she was out, she saw a dress in the display window of a shop that she really wanted to go try on, but she saw her husband behind her, who was old and dark, she thought if she let him walk beside her then the people working in the shop would certainly point at her and make fun of her behind her back, they would laugh about how she didn’t have a good eye for things. How could her husband be so old? She couldn’t let go of this pride of hers, so she made him wait for her outside in the entryway of the shop. In that moment, she saw a look of disappointment sweep over his eyes, but then he immediately smiled and said: “Go try it on, I’ll wait for you.” When she heard this, she felt somewhat ashamed and uneasy. After this, in order to make her accept him in her heart, Jun took over all household duties, and did them the best he could, but no matter what he did, she wasn’t able to fully accept him.

In 2010 she started doing cosmetics business, and when this started, the clothes and makeup she wore became more and more fashionable and trendy, making her look even younger and more beautiful. When she would stand in front of the mirror next to her husband, he appeared even more like a rural peasant in contrast to her, he didn’t have the looks or the personality. The distance between them had increased, and at this time she felt even worse in her heart. In addition, she was interacting with lots of people and saw that these other people’s husbands were good-looking and outstanding, so whenever she would return home and see her husband, she would feel more dissatisfied, and she could not help but find faults with him. Actually, she felt lost, for she knew that her husband had always worked hard to win her favor, and that she shouldn’t treat him like this, but since she always felt a disequilibrium in her heart, she couldn’t control how she felt. As time passed, Jun was unable to put up with this kind of life, the two of them would often get into quarrels, and they were living in suffering. She thought back to one afternoon when Jun came to the office to pick her up. Actually it would have been a good thing if he did not come because none of her coworkers knew what he looked like. But he came that day to pick her up, and then the next day her coworkers circled around her, asking: “Who was that yesterday who picked you up? He looked so rustic….” She immediately felt like she had lost face. She felt upset because she thought that her husband shouldn’t have come to pick her up. At the same time, she also asked herself how she could have found such a disappointing husband that she didn’t want to be seen with, who was ridiculed and looked down upon by other people. She really had a difficult time living like this. In this moment, she came up with a brazen idea: She would look again for someone of the opposite sex that she liked. As for her marriage with Jun, if it really wasn’t going to work then she’d end it. Thereupon, she accompanied her coworkers whenever they invited her to go sing at KTV, but all she wanted to do was find a person of the opposite sex that she admired. At this time, since Jun was often being avoided and ignored by her, he started to feel a suffering in his heart, and he too started feeling more and more indifferent toward her. It got to the point that he too would sometimes not return home when he got off of work. In this way, the marriage between her and Jun entered into a crisis …

from ;The Church of Almighty God|Who Was It That Rescued Her Marriage?|Eastern Lightning

Blessings Due to Sickness —Essay on God’s Love

Dujuan, Japan

I was born into a poor family in a rural village. Since I was a child, I lived a tough life and was looked down upon by others. I sometimes did not even know if I would have my next meal, let alone snacks and toys. Since my family was poor, when I was little, I would wear what my older sister used to wear. Her clothes were usually too big for me. As a result, when I went to school, the other kids would laugh at me and they would not play with me. My childhood was very bitter. From that point on, I would secretly tell myself: Once I grow up, I will be somebody and make lots of money. I won’t let others look down on me again. Since my family had no money, I was forced to drop out before junior high school. I went to the county town to work in a medicine factory. In order to earn more money, I would frequently work until 9 or 10 PM. However, the money I earned was not enough to reach my goals. Afterward, when I heard that my sister was able to earn in five days what I earned in a month selling vegetables, I quit my job at the medicine factory and went to sell vegetables. After a period of time, I found that I could make even more money selling fruits, so I decided to start a business selling fruits. After I married my husband, we started a restaurant business. I thought that now that I had a restaurant, I would be able to earn even more money. Once I could earn a considerable amount of income, naturally, I would win other’s admiration and regard. Other people would start looking up to me and at the same time, I would be able to live a better life. However, after operating the business for a period of time, I discovered that I was actually not making a lot of money. I started getting anxious. When would I be able to lead a life that others would admire?

In 2008, by chance I heard a friend say that working for one day in Japan was the equivalent of working ten days in China. When I learned this news, I was very happy. I felt that finally, I had found a great opportunity for earning money. I thought that I should secure the greater benefit by sacrificing the lesser. All I needed to do was go to Japan to work and I would be able to recoup my expenses. In order to realize our dreams, my husband and I did not care how much the agent fee would be. We decided to go to Japan immediately. After we arrived in Japan, we were able to find a job very quickly. Each day, my husband and I worked for 13 or 14 hours. Work stress was quite significant. I was completely exhausted all day long. After work, all I wanted to do was lie down and rest. I did not even want to eat. I found it difficult to endure such a fast-paced lifestyle. However, once I thought about the money I would have after I struggled for a few years, I encouraged myself: Even though it is difficult and tiring right now, later on, my life will be wonderful. I must go on. As a result, each day I worked my fingers to the bone as if I were a money-making machine. By 2015, I collapsed under the heavy work load. I went to the hospital for an examination and the doctor told me that I had a herniated disc and that it was pressing against a nerve. If I continued to work the way I was working, I would eventually be bedridden and unable to care for myself. This news hit me like thunder from a clear sky. I became extremely weak right away. My life had just begun to be better off, and I was getting closer and closer to my dream. I never would have thought that I would get sick. I refused to give up. I thought: “I am still young. I just need to clench my teeth and get through this. If I do not earn more money now, by the time I go home, I will not have a lot of money. Wouldn’t that be even more embarrassing?” As a result, I clenched my teeth and dragged my weak body back to work. However, after a few days, I was so sick that I literally could not get up.

I felt very miserable as I lay on a bed in the hospital with nobody to take care of me. “How do I end up in this situation? Could it be that I will actually be unable to get out of bed?” I really hoped for someone to be by my side. Unfortunately, my husband was at work and my son was at school. My boss and my colleagues were only focused on profit. They basically did not care at all about me. The ward was filled with all kinds of sick people. I could not help but think deeply: For what purpose do people live? How can one live a meaningful life? Can money really buy happiness? I reflected on what I had after 30 years of struggling. I worked in a medicine factory, sold fruit, ran a restaurant and came to Japan to work. Even though I did earn some money all these years, however, I endured much sadness. I had thought that once I reached Japan, I would be able to realize my dreams very quickly. After a few years in Japan, when I returned to China, I would be able to start a new life as a rich person and be envied by other people. However, now I was bedridden and faced with the possibility that I would no longer be able to take care of myself and that I would bitterly spend the second half of my life in a wheel chair…. At the thought of this, I started to regret that I had risked even my own life in order to earn money and get ahead in life. The more I thought about this, the more bitter tears began flowing down my face. In agony, I couldn’t help but cry out: God! Save me! Why is life so cruel?

Source:The Church of Almighty God|Blessings Due to Sickness —Essay on God’s Love|Eastern Lightning

Meeting the Lord Again

Jianding, USA

I was born into a Catholic family, and from an early age my mother taught me to read the Bible. At the time, the Chinese Communist Party was re-building the nation after the civil war, and as the CCP was suppressing all religions, I was 20 years old before I finally got the chance to go to church and listen to sermons. The priest often said to us: “We Catholics must properly confess our sins and repent. We must do good, not evil, and always go to Mass. During the last days, the Lord is going to come and judge everyone and send people to heaven or to hell according to how they have acted and behaved on earth. The biggest sinners will be punished in hell eternally, whereas those who commit minor sins can still go to heaven as long as they confess their sins to the Lord and repent. Anyone who doesn’t believe in the Lord will never get to heaven, no matter how good they are.” Whenever I heard this, I always congratulated myself for having the good fortune to be a member of the Catholic congregation from birth. I’d always tell myself to pursue hard, attend Mass more, and confess sins and repent to the Lord more, and that way I’d go to heaven and not suffer in hell. So that’s when I developed the determination to go to church and participate in Mass regularly. At that time, the priest also told us that in 2000 the Lord would return, and this news made us all very excited. So we all began to pursue earnestly, waiting for the Lord’s return. But the year 2000 came and went and we didn’t see any sign of the Lord’s return. Many in our congregation lost their faith, and fewer and fewer people attended church for Mass. I also felt a sense of loss, but I still felt that my faith in the Lord wouldn’t be shaken, no matter what others did. That was mainly because there had been many times when I’d been in danger and the Lord had protected me and made the danger disappear. Without the Lord’s protection I’d have died long ago, so I wasn’t going to be so ungrateful as to lose faith in the Lord.

In the following years I heard from people around me that the USA was “heaven on earth,” and so a strong desire to come here grew in me. In December 2014 my whole family and I immigrated to the U.S., but the reality of life here was nothing like the beautiful picture I’d painted in my mind. At first, everything in the U.S. seemed unfamiliar and we didn’t know anyone. The environment and climate were very different from what I was used to in China, and my body soon began to complain. I often felt weak and listless, but the doctors in the hospital couldn’t find anything wrong with me. I was at my wit’s end, so I started praying even more sincerely to the Lord, hoping that the Lord would protect me. I prayed more and began looking for a church where I could do Mass and eventually found a church for Chinese Christians. But after going to the church a few times I discovered that it wasn’t much different from what was going on in everyday society: Members of the congregation were superficially friendly but their interactions were governed by power and money. Faced with this kind of situation in the church, I became very disappointed. I thought to myself: “Oh Lord, when will You return? When You return, good people will be separated from wicked people and the world will be cleansed.” Although I still kept on going to Mass I was never able to feel God’s presence in the church, and this made me disappointed and depressed and affected my faith in the Lord. But then one day in July 2015, when I was working out of state, I got a phone call from my wife. She said to me excitedly: “The Lord has returned. He is expressing words and doing the work of judgment of the last days! Hurry back so that we can accept God’s new work together.” On hearing this, I couldn’t help but be a bit suspicious: The Lord has returned? How is that possible? When the Lord returns to judge the world the good people will be separated from the bad people. But right now the good and the bad are still mixed together, so why is my wife saying that the Lord has returned? Has my wife joined another denomination? We’ve been Catholics for most of our lives, there’s no way we’re going to deviate now! So I hurriedly finished off the job I was doing and returned home.

When I got home I asked my wife: “How do you know that the Lord has returned? You haven’t deviated from our Catholic beliefs, have you? You’re saying that the Lord has returned to do the work of judgment, but right now the good people and the bad people are still mixed together so how can the Lord have already returned? We can look forward to the Lord’s return, but we can’t be disloyal to Him!” My wife listened to me and then patiently replied: “Don’t get so agitated. I only just found out myself about the Lord’s return. At present, The Church of Almighty God is bearing witness to the Lord’s return and Almighty God is expressing truths to do the work of judgment that has begun in God’s house. I’m not clear about the specifics of what’s happening, but I’ve been reading online a lot of the words that Almighty God has expressed and I’m sure that they are all the voice of God. The Lord once said: ‘My sheep hear my voice: and I know them, and they follow me’ (Jhn 10:27). We can find out whether Almighty God is the returned Lord by going to The Church of Almighty God to investigate, right?” What my wife said sounded reasonable, and the Lord’s return to do the work of judgment is something that is predicted in the Bible, so there was no harm in me going along with her to the church to take a look and then I could make up my mind.

To this end, my wife and I arranged to visit the home of one of the members of The Church of Almighty God, a man known as Brother Zhang. Brother Wang and Sister Li, and some other fellow Catholics also came. Seeing that I had plenty of company greatly put my mind at ease. After a little polite chit-chat we all sat down and I asked the brothers and sisters this: “Regarding the return of the Lord my understanding is this: When the Lord returns to do the work of judgment, the good people will be separated from the wicked people. Then the good people will be accepted into heaven by the Lord and will meet Him, while the wicked will be sent to hell and punished. You say that the Lord has returned and He is doing the work of judgment, so how come we haven’t seen any of these things happening?” Brother Wang replied: “Brother, my viewpoint used to be the same as yours in that I also believed the Lord’s return meant that good people would be separated from wicked people, that good people would live in heaven eternally and the wicked would be punished, and that if we didn’t see this happen then that proved that the Lord hadn’t returned. But after reading Almighty God’s words I realized that is only our notions and imaginings and isn’t the actual way that God works. How God undertakes the work of judgment in the last days is something that God alone plans and organizes. God’s wisdom is higher than the heavens, and in God’s eyes humans are as small as a speck of dust, so how can we fathom God’s work? In the Bible it says: ‘Who hath forwarded the spirit of the Lord? or who hath been his counsellor, and hath taught him? With whom hath he consulted, and who hath instructed him, and taught him the path of justice, and taught him knowledge, and shewed him the way of understanding? Behold the Gentiles are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the smallest grain of a balance: behold the islands are as a little dust’ (Isa 40:13-15). Every one of us uses our brains to think, so we can speculate about God’s work as we like but God never does His work according to our imaginings. If we use our imaginings to set parameters for God’s work then aren’t we behaving extremely arrogantly? So, how does God do His work of judgment? How does He separate the good from the wicked? Let’s read several passages of Almighty God’s words to help us understand. Almighty God said: ‘The work of judgment is God’s own work, so it should naturally be done by God Himself; it cannot be done by man in His stead. Because judgment is the conquering of the human race through the truth…. That is to say, in the last days, Christ shall use the truth to teach men around the earth and make all truths known to them. This is God’s work of judgment’ (‘Christ Does the Work of Judgment With the Truth’ in The Word Appears in the Flesh). ‘The last days have already arrived. All things in creation will be classed according to their kind, and divided into different categories based on their nature. This is the moment when God reveals humanity’s outcome and their destination. If people do not undergo chastisement and judgment, then there will be no way of exposing their disobedience and unrighteousness. Only through chastisement and judgment can the outcome of all creation be revealed. Man only shows his true colors when he is chastised and judged. Evil shall be put with evil, good with good, and all humanity shall be classified according to their kind. Through chastisement and judgment, the outcome of all creation will be revealed, so that the evil may be punished and the good rewarded, and all people become subject to the dominion of God. All this work must be achieved through righteous chastisement and judgment. Because man’s corruption has reached its peak and his disobedience become exceedingly severe, only God’s righteous disposition, one that is principally compounded of chastisement and judgment and is revealed during the last days, can fully transform and complete man. Only this disposition can expose evil and thus severely punish all the unrighteous’ (‘The Vision of God’s Work (3)’ in The Word Appears in the Flesh). ‘My purpose in doing the work of conquest is not solely to conquer for the sake of conquest, but to conquer so as to reveal righteousness and unrighteousness, to obtain proof for the punishment of man, to condemn the wicked, and even more, to conquer for the sake of perfecting those who willingly obey. In the end, all will be separated according to kind, and all the ones who are perfected have their thoughts and ideas filled with obedience. This is the work to be completed in the end. But those who are filled with rebellious ways will be punished, sent to burn in the fires and become the object of eternal curse’ (‘Those Who Obey God With a True Heart Shall Surely Be Gained by God’ in The Word Appears in the Flesh). We have the idea that God’s work of judgment is directly to separate the wheat from the tares, the goats from the sheep, the good servants from the wicked servants, in other words, separating the good people from the wicked and putting each with its own kind. But if we think about it, there are at present over 2 billion Christians around the world—and they all say they have true faith in God and love God—so how are we to distinguish good from bad, righteous from evil? If God determines that you are good and that I’m evil, I definitely won’t go along with it because I’ll feel that I’m also a good person. If God determines that I’m good and that someone else is evil, they definitely won’t go along with it. So how on earth are we supposed to know who is good and who is evil? We can’t, because we humans don’t have the principles or standards to gauge this. If God were to gauge us like this we certainly wouldn’t submit and would have notions about it, such as thinking that God was unfair and unjust. So how could the work of putting each with its own kind thus proceed? The Lord that returns during the last days is Christ of the last days—Almighty God—who uses truths to do the work of judgment. For all Christians, revealing who are the wheat, who are the tares, who are the goats, who are the sheep, who are the good servants, who are the wicked servants, who are the wise virgins, who are the foolish virgins, is all done by using truths. God’s words reveal everyone, and the wise virgins are those who truly believe in God and love the truth. When they hear that someone is testifying to God’s coming they go out to welcome it and actively investigate God’s words and God’s work. They recognize God’s voice and accept God’s work of the last days, and in the end they gain purification and salvation through God’s judgment. During great catastrophes they have God’s protection and are able to survive, and finally are taken into God’s kingdom. By contrast, because the foolish virgins do not love the truth, because they insist on holding onto their own notions and imaginings or believing in rumors, because they don’t seek or investigate God’s work of the last days—and some of them even follow religious leaders in resisting and condemning God and refusing God’s salvation of the last days—they will be revealed as evildoers by God’s work of the last days and will be eliminated. Their fate will be to suffer punishments during the great catastrophes. From this, we can see that God’s work of putting each with its own kind during the last days is not done according to our notions and imaginings. Instead, God uses the method of judgment to do the work of revealing people, and the final result is that everyone is thoroughly revealed and put with their own kind according to whether they accept the truth or resist the truth. Isn’t this exactly God’s wisdom, God’s fairness, God’s righteousness?”

To Be an Honest Person Is Truly Great!

Wu Ming, China

One day in 2004 a friend said to me: “Every day you get up early and are busy all day cutting cloth, you exhaust yourself, yet you still don’t make money. Today’s society relies on the tongue to make money, like the popular saying goes: ‘It is better to have a slick tongue than to have strong arms and legs.’ You know that I’m now engaging in the direct sales business selling makeup products, not only does it make me beautiful, I also don’t need to exert too much effort each day, I just need to speak a few words with my customers and sell my products in order to make a lot of money. Why don’t you change jobs and come sell makeup products with me?” I looked my friend over, she really was prettier than before, and then I thought about how I had been a dressmaker for over 10 years, how I hadn’t really made any money at it, and how I wasn’t getting any younger. If it really was like what my friend was saying, if by switching to a job where I sold makeup products I could make easy money, and could even become younger and prettier and win the high praises of others, then that would be much better! As I thought about this, I told her right then and there that I was willing to become a part of the company. Later, after my inspection, I ordered over 3,000 yuan worth of products, and I started my job in the cosmetics industry as a beauty consultant for this company.

A coworker told me that after becoming a beauty consultant, if we are able to develop between 8 to 12 other beauty consultants then we can be promoted to work as a seller. But if we want to be a seller then we must have more customers ordering products as a condition of good performance. After this, I started to rack my brains to think of a way to increase my performance. I consulted other people, and studied marketing methods; frequently invited customers to our store to try out our products, and persuaded them to buy the products that I showed them; when I had time I would practice speaking in front of the mirror to raise the level of speech I used to express myself, so that I could interact with the customers better. Through my constant hard work I gradually got more customers. In order to stabilize the customer base, I had to keep up with the promotional sales activities at the company and make phone calls to invite customers to attend our workshops, where they could experience the effectiveness of our products for themselves, and at the same time I could introduce company products and our rewards system, sales promotions, etc., thereby attracting customers. I often would talk constantly for over an hour, not stopping until the customers were satisfied enough with buying the products. Looking down at the money in my hands that I had earned so easily made me feel so happy: Relying on my mouth to make money really was a lot more effortless compared to making money in my previous honest manual labor job, and I figured that so long as I continued working hard, then becoming a seller was just around the corner for me.

One time a girl with pimples on her face came into the store, and I thought to myself: This is an opportunity, I need to make this girl feel the need to appear beautiful and recommend to her some high-profit products, this way not only will I be able to make lots of money, but also I can turn her into my long-term customer, and when the time is right I will get her to bring me more customers, which will then increase my product sales volume, thereby naturally increasing my performance. I saw that the pimples on her face were not that serious, but in order to receive high profits, I said in an exaggerated tone: “Oh! If we don’t treat the pimples on your face right away they will grow deeper into your skin and damage it, and then there will be no products that can heal it, which will also affect the skin on your face in the future. It could get serious enough that your face will get bumpy and covered in zits. Not only will this affect your appearance, it will also have an effect on your future, that will be a problem!” When the girl heard this, she was scared out of her wits and immediately wanted me to give her any products that could help her. So I struck while the iron was hot, immediately taking out some products to show her, and she ended up leaving with over 1,000 yuan worth of products. I thought to myself: It seems that if I want to make money I can’t be that honest, and that I must take a customer’s weak points and exaggerate them based on their own preferences, because that’s what it takes to make them willing to buy our products. After that, I learned how to use different methods on different types of customers in order to sell our products, and as a result my performance at the company grew more and more.

I worked hard for four years, eventually being promoted to the level of seller, but it was not easy to hold on to this position. According to the company’s unwritten rules: Our performance is based solely on orders, the higher our performance, the higher our wages, and the higher our rank, the more rewards we will receive. In order to reach these targets and meet our performances as sellers, we used a rewards method to encourage beauty consultants to order products. Sometimes when beauty consultants didn’t place orders, we had to use our own money to purchase products so that we would pass in our performances. This would overstock many of our products, and after a long period of not being sold, these products would expire. In order to maintain our performance, we would discount these soon-to-be-expired products to sell to customers. One time, a colleague of mine sold a customer a product that was about to expire, and afterward the customer’s face turned red, like a blossoming flower. This annoyed the customer and they came looking for my colleague to make trouble for them, who was so scared that they didn’t know what to do. After talking it over, they ended up compensating the customer, which finally put an end to the ordeal. When this happened, I thought about how each month, in order to meet my own performance, I too would sell overstocked products that were about to expire, and how these soon-to-be-expired products had no company guarantees, so if by chance a customer developed a skin problem after using one of these products and came looking for me wanting to file a lawsuit, what was I to do? This made me feel more and more uncomfortable, it made me scared enough that my heart started racing, and I told myself that from now on I could no longer sell products that were about to expire. But then I thought about it some more: If I don’t sell out all the products then my performance will not pass, and then I won’t have my qualifications to be a seller, and before I know it I’ll be demoted to an ordinary beauty consultant. This would mean that the dream I had worked toward for so long of getting rich would just become a pie in the sky, and all the hard work I put in for so many years would be for nothing! As I thought about the past and the future I realized that in order to keep my qualifications to be a seller then I wouldn’t be able to change that much. If others could do it why not me? So, I kept going along with this unwritten business rule.

In 2012 a friend of mine got me into believing in Almighty God, and since then I have often read the word of God, prayed to God and fellowshiped together with brothers and sisters. During fellowships, brothers and sisters all openly speak from the heart, discussing what they know and have experienced from the word of God, and I really enjoy listening to them. One day, I read God’s word saying: “You ought to know that God likes an honest man. God has the substance of faithfulness, and so His word can always be trusted. Furthermore, His actions are faultless and unquestionable. This is why God likes those who are absolutely honest with Him” (“Three Admonitions” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). Through God’s words I discovered that God is faithful and that He likes honest people. God also asks all of us to be honest people, to not tell lies, to not cheat others. I thought about all the dishonest words I’d used every day to cheat customers as I conducted my business and tried to make a profit, one that I gained by cheating the trust of my customers. I had used dishonest methods to make money. These were all expressions of dishonesty. If I kept going in this way, how could God like me? Now I believe in God I must be like my brothers and sisters and practice being an honest person and speak the truth. This is how I will be able to make God happy and obtain His approval.

But in real life, when facing profits, practicing being an honest person really wasn’t as easy as I imagined it would be. One day a customer came to me with a list of 7,000 yuan worth of makeup products that she wanted. I looked at the list and saw that we didn’t have all of the products that she wanted in our store, so I wondered what I should do. Should I tell her the truth, or … I felt an intense battle raging in my heart: I am now a believer in God, to tell a lie is to not fit with God’s will, I cannot go on cheating people like I did before; but if I tell the truth to this customer then it goes without saying that I won’t be able to make a sale with her this time, and perhaps she won’t come back next time, in which case I would no longer have an opportunity to make money from her. Alas, to tell a lie is to not fit with God’s will, but to not tell a lie is the same as letting go of over two thousand yuan that was about to fall into my hands, which, if my coworkers found out, they would surely laugh at me for, so I might as well do it this time, and then next time I won’t do it. So then I went over to the customer and said: “I am a skincare specialist, if you take my advice and use the products I recommend then I guarantee that your skin will get better.” I relied on my silver tongue, speaking with the customer for over an hour until she was finally willing to buy the products that I recommended. So I gathered together a random collection of 7,000 yuan worth of high grade products to give to her. After she left I looked down at the money in my hands but I didn’t feel the least bit happy. I felt very ashamed because I had not practiced being an honest person as God requires. After several days the customer gave me a call out of the blue asking to return the products. She said that she didn’t feel comfortable using the products that I had put together for her. I tried everything I could do to persuade her, but her mind could not be changed. After this incident, one customer after another wanted to return their products. As this series of unfortunate events fell upon me I started to mull things over: In order to profit myself I have always used dishonest words to cheat my customers into buying products. This doesn’t conform to the will of God, but I did it to hold on to my qualifications as a seller. In spite of being fully aware of the truth I deliberately went against it and continued using methods of deceit to conduct my business. God is pure and holy, how could He allow me to say one thing and do another? These events that have befallen me recently, for all of it, I only had myself to blame, I was reaping what I sowed. This was the dealing and discipline of God, and it was God saving me. But I didn’t understand, with profits in front of me, why I wanted to act according to the word of God but was unable to. All I could do was pray and seek before God.

Afterward I saw in the word of God where it says: “Once man has been contaminated by this cheating, it is the same as someone who gets involved in gambling and then becomes a gambler. In unawareness, he approves of his cheating behavior and accepts it. In unawareness, he takes cheating to be a legitimate commercial behavior, and takes cheating to be the most useful means for his survival and his life; he thinks that by doing this he can get rich quick. At the beginning of this process people cannot accept this type of behavior, they look down on this behavior and this way of going about things, until they try it out and experiment with it in their own way, personally and firsthand, and then their hearts begin to gradually transform. So what is this transformation? It is an approval and admission of this trend, an admission and approval of this type of idea instilled in you by the social trend. In unawareness, you feel that if you do not cheat in business then you will suffer losses, that if you do not cheat then you will have lost something. Unknowingly, this cheating becomes your very soul, your mainstay, and also becomes a type of behavior that is an indispensable rule for your life. After man has accepted this behavior and this thinking, does the heart of man undergo a change? Your heart has changed, so has your integrity changed? Has your humanity changed? (Yes.) So has your conscience changed? (Yes.) Man’s entirety undergoes a qualitative change, from their heart to their thoughts, to such an extent that they are changed from the inside out. This change puts you further and further from God, and you become more and more in conformity with Satan, more and more similar to it” (“God Himself, the Unique VI” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). God’s words uncovered the riddle in my heart, I understood that with my own benefits in front of me I could not put God’s words into practice, I could not live like the kind of honest man that God requires, and the reason was that I had been deeply corroded by the evil trends in society and had relied on the poison of Satan to live. “Every man for himself and the devil take the hindmost.” “Man will do anything to get rich.” “As a small mind makes no gentleman, a real man is not without venom.” Such poisons of Satan as these were already deeply rooted within me, which caused me to be unable to practice the truth despite being fully aware of it and to lose my innate sense of right and wrong when it comes to being a normal person, which made me grow further and further away from God. I thought about how I had blindly followed the societal trend of putting money above all else, and how I thought that being honest and willing to toil was not as good as using methods of deceit to make money quickly, which led me to change jobs and sell makeup products where from the start I pursued Satan’s life philosophy in a way where “it is better to have a slick tongue than to have strong arms and legs.” When conducting my business I relied on my silver tongue, always using dishonest words to deceive my customers, saying whatever it took to reach my goals. I told myself that this act of deception was normal, that everybody did it, that I would be at a disadvantage if I didn’t do it, which led me to disregard my conscience telling me what I should do and to not practice the truth even though I was aware of it. It was clear that the various poisons that Satan had instilled in me had become deeply rooted into my bone marrow and had become my life. In my heart everything that I wanted to do was to my own benefit, as long as something involved directly benefiting me then I started to go against my conscience and the truth to tell lies to people. All of these actions and behaviors of mine truly made God detest me, and it was plain to see that Satan’s rules for survival were in direct opposition to the truth, they resisted the truth, and they resisted God. God raised up this kind of environment to deal with me and discipline me so that I may change my corrupt disposition, get rid of my lying and deceiving ways, be able to live like an honest person, and no longer rely on Satan’s rules for survival to live. He roused my numb heart and enabled me to see clearly my ugly look of being corrupted by Satan. He made me able to despise myself and return to Him. God truly is righteous and holy! God is faithful. God likes honest people, and He blesses honest people. Only by pursuing being an honest person can we attain God’s salvation. Once I understood God’s intentions I prayed to Him to make a resolution: From now on I would no longer tell lies to deceive people, and I would no longer do things that go against my conscience.

Christian Crosstalk "A Love No Net Can Catch" | Hold Onto the True Love for God in CCP's Persecution

The crosstalk A Love No Net Can Catch shares the experience of a Christian who is subjected to all sorts of monitoring and pursuit by the CCP government;