2. Is it true testimony of faith in God if one only enjoys God’s grace?
Relevant Words of God:
If you only enjoy the grace of God, with a peaceful family life or
material blessings, then you have not gained God, and your belief in God
has failed. God has already carried out one stage of the work of grace
in the flesh, and has already bestowed material blessings upon man—but
man cannot be made perfect with grace, love, and mercy alone.
In man’s
experiences he encounters some of God’s love, and sees the love and
mercy of God, yet having experienced for a period of time, he sees that
God’s grace and His love and mercy are incapable of making man perfect,
and incapable of revealing that which is corrupt within man, nor are
they able to rid man of his corrupt disposition, or make perfect his
love and faith. God’s work of grace was the work of one period, and man
cannot rely on enjoying the grace of God in order to know God.
from “Only by Experiencing Painful Trials Can You Know the Loveliness of God” in The Word Appears in the Flesh
If one merely enjoys God’s grace, he cannot be perfected by God. Some
may be satisfied with the peace and enjoyment of the flesh, a life of
ease without adversity or misfortune, living in peace with their family
without fights or quarrels. They may even believe this to be the
blessing of God, but in truth, it is merely the grace of God. You cannot
be satisfied merely with enjoying the grace of God. This kind of
thinking is too vulgar. Even if you read the word of God daily, pray
every day, and your spirit feels particular enjoyment and peace, yet in
the end you cannot speak of any knowledge of God and His work or have no
experience with such, and no matter how much of God’s word you have
eaten and drunk, if you merely feel peace and enjoyment in your spirit
and that the word of God is sweet beyond compare, as if you cannot enjoy
it enough, but you have no real experience with and no reality of the
word of God, then what can you receive from such manner of faith in God?
If you cannot live out the essence of God’s word, your eating and
drinking and prayers are entirely concerned with religion. Then such
kind of man cannot be perfected and cannot be gained by God.
from “Promises to Those Who Have Been Perfected” in The Word Appears in the Flesh
People who do nothing more than enjoy God’s graces cannot be made
perfect, or changed, and their obedience, piety, and love and patience
are all superficial. Those who only enjoy God’s graces cannot truly know
God, and even when they do know God, their knowledge is superficial,
and they say things like God loves man, or God is compassionate toward
man. This does not represent the life of man, and does not show that
people truly know God. If, when God’s words refine them, or when His
trials come upon them, people are unable to obey God—if, instead, they
become doubtful, and fall down—then they are not in the least bit
obedient.
from “In Your Faith in God You Should Obey God” in The Word Appears in the Flesh
People just regard the attainment of grace and the enjoyment of peace
as symbols of belief in God, and the seeking for blessings as the basis
for belief in God. Very few people seek to know God or seek a change in
their disposition. People’s belief in God seeks to make God give them a
suitable destination, to give them all the grace under the sun, to make
God their servant, to make God maintain a peaceful, friendly
relationship with them, and for there never to be any conflict between
them. That is, their belief in God requires God to promise to fulfill
all their demands, to bestow on them anything they pray for, just as it
says in the Bible “I will listen to all your prayers.” They require God
to not judge anyone or deal with anyone, as God is always the kind
Savior Jesus, who keeps a good relationship with people at all times and
in all places. The way they believe is like this: They always
shamelessly ask God for things, and God just bestows everything blindly
on them, whether they are rebellious or obedient. People just
continually demand “payment” from God and God must pay without any
resistance, and pay double, whether God has gotten anything from them or
not. He can only be at their mercy; He cannot arbitrarily orchestrate
people, much less can He reveal His ancient hidden wisdom and righteous
disposition as He wishes to people, without their permission. They just
confess their sins to God and God just absolves them, and cannot get
sick of it, and this goes on forever. They just order God about and He
just obeys, as it is recorded in the Bible as saying “God’s coming is
not to make man wait upon Him, but for Him to wait upon man. He has come
to serve man.” Haven’t you always believed in this way? When you can’t
gain anything from God then you wish to run away. And when you don’t
understand something you get so resentful, and even go so far as to hurl
all kinds of abuse. You simply won’t allow God Himself to fully express
His wisdom and wonder, but instead you just want to enjoy temporary
ease and comfort. Up until now, your attitude in your belief in God has
been the same old views. If God shows you just a slight bit of majesty
you become unhappy; do you see now exactly how your stature is? Don’t
think that you are all loyal to God when in fact your old views have not
changed. When nothing bad befalls you, you think that everything is
plain sailing and you love God to the highest peaks. But when something
small befalls you, you fall down into Hades. Is this you being loyal to
God?
from “You Should Put Aside the Blessings of
Status and Understand God’s Will for the Salvation of Man” in The Word
Appears in the Flesh
Most people believe in God for the sake of peace and other benefits.
Unless it is to your benefit, you don’t believe in God, and if you can’t
receive God’s graces, you fall into a sulk. How could this be your true
stature? When it comes to inevitable family incidents (children falling
ill, husbands going into hospital, poor crop yields, persecution of
family members, and so on), you can’t even make it through these things
that often happen in day-to-day life. When such things happen, you’re
thrown into a panic, you don’t know what to do—and most of the time, you
complain about God. You complain that God’s words tricked you, that
God’s work has messed you around. Do you not have such thoughts? Do you
think such things happen among you only rarely? You spend every day
living amid such events. You don’t give the slightest thought to the
success of your faith in God, and how to satisfy God’s will. Your true
stature is too small, even smaller than a little chick’s. When your
husband’s business loses money you complain about God, when you find
yourself in an environment without God’s protection you still complain
about God, you complain even when one of your chicks dies or an old cow
in the pen falls ill, you complain when it’s time for your son to start a
family but your family doesn’t have enough money, and when the church’s
workers eat a couple of meals at your home but the church doesn’t
reimburse you or no one sends you any vegetables, you also complain.
Your belly is stuffed full of complaints, and you sometimes don’t go to
assemblies or eat and drink the words of God because of this, you likely
become negative for a great length of time. Nothing that happens to you
today bears any relation to your prospects or fate; these things would
also happen if you didn’t believe in God, yet today you pass
responsibility for them to God, and insist on saying that God has
eliminated you. What of your belief in God, have you truly offered up
your life? If you suffered the same trials as Job, none among you who
follow God today would be able to stand firm, you’d all fall down. And
there is, quite simply, a world of difference between you and Peter.
Today, if half your assets were seized you’d dare to deny the existence
of God; if your son or daughter were taken from you, you’d run the
streets crying foul; if your life reached a dead end, you’d try and take
it up with “God,” asking why I said so many words in the beginning to
scare you. There’s nothing you would not dare to do at such times. This
shows that you have not truly seen, and have no true stature.
from “Practice (3)” in The Word Appears in the Flesh
Are you content to live under the influence of Satan, with peace and
joy, and a little fleshly comfort? Are you not the lowliest of all
people? None are more foolish than those who have beheld salvation but
do not pursue to gain it: They are people who gorge themselves on the
flesh and enjoy Satan. You hope that your faith in God will not entail
any challenges or tribulations, or the slightest hardship. You always
pursue those things that are worthless, and you attach no value to life,
instead putting your own extravagant thoughts before the truth. You are
so worthless! You live like a pig—what difference is there between you,
and pigs and dogs? Are those who do not pursue the truth, and instead
love the flesh, not all beasts? Are those dead ones without spirits not
all the walking corpses? How many words have been spoken among you? Has
only a little work been done among you? How much have I provided among
you? And so why have you not gained it? What do you have to complain of?
Is it not the case that you have gained nothing because you are too in
love with the flesh? And is it not because your thoughts are too
extravagant? Is it not because you are too stupid? If you are incapable
of gaining these blessings, can you blame God for not saving you? What
you pursue is to be able to gain peace after believing in God—for your
children to be free from illness, for your husband to have a good job,
for your son to find a good wife, for your daughter to find a decent
husband, for your oxen and horses to plough the land well, for a year of
good weather for your crops. This is what you seek. Your pursuit is
only to live in comfort, for no accidents to befall your family, for the
winds to pass you by, for your face to be untouched by grit, for your
family’s crops to not be flooded, for you to be unaffected by any
disaster, to live in God’s embrace, to live in a cozy nest. A coward
such as you, who always pursues the flesh—do you have a heart, do you
have a spirit? Are you not a beast? I give you the true way without
asking for anything in return, yet you do not pursue. Are you one of
those who believe in God? I bestow the real human life upon you, yet you
do not pursue. Aren’t you no different from a pig or a dog? Pigs do not
pursue the life of man, they do not pursue being cleansed, and they do
not understand what life is. Each day, after eating their fill, they
simply sleep. I have given you the true way, yet you have not gained it:
You are empty-handed. Are you willing to continue in this life, the
life of a pig? What is the significance of such people being alive? Your
life is contemptible and ignoble, you live amid filth and
licentiousness, and you do not pursue any goals; is your life not the
most ignoble of all? Do you have the gall to look upon God? If you
continue to experience in this way, will you not acquire nothing?
from “The Experiences of Peter: His Knowledge of Chastisement and Judgment” in The Word Appears in the Flesh
Today man sees that with the grace, love, and mercy of God alone, he
is incapable of truly knowing himself, much less is he able to know the
essence of man. Only through both the refinement and judgment of God,
only during such refinement can man know his deficiencies, and know that
he has nothing, and thus, man’s love of God is built upon the
foundation of the refinement and judgment of God.
from “Only by Experiencing Painful Trials Can You Know the Loveliness of God” in The Word Appears in the Flesh
In your experiences you will see that those who suffer great
refinement and pain, and much dealing and discipline, have a deep love
of God, and a more profound and insightful knowledge of God. Those who
have not experienced any dealing have but a superficial knowledge, and
can only say: “God is so good, He gives people graces so that they can
enjoy Him.” If people have experienced dealing and discipline, then they
would be able to speak the true knowledge of God. So the more wondrous
is God’s work in man, the more valuable and significant it is; the more
impenetrable it is to you and the more incompatible it is with your
conceptions, the more God’s work is able to conquer you, gain you, and
make you perfect.
from “Those Who Are to Be Made Perfect Must Undergo Refinement” in The Word Appears in the Flesh
Now do you understand what belief in God is? Is belief in God
beholding signs and wonders? Is it ascending to heaven? Believing in God
is not easy. Today, that kind of religious practice should be purged;
pursuing the manifestation of the miracles of God, pursuing God’s
healing and His casting out of demons, pursuing the bestowment of peace
and ample graces by God, pursuing the gaining of prospects and comfort
for the flesh—these are religious practices, and such religious
practices are a vague and abstract form of belief. Today, what is real
belief in God? It is the acceptance of God’s word as the reality of your
life and the knowing of God from His word in order to achieve a true
love of Him. To be clear: It is the belief in God so that you may obey
God, love God, and perform the duty that should be performed by a
creature of God. This is the aim of believing in God. You must achieve a
knowledge of the loveliness of God, of how worthy God is of reverence,
of how, in His creatures, God does the work of salvation and making them
perfect—this is the minimum that you should possess in your belief in
God. Belief in God is principally the switch from a life in the flesh to
a life of loving God, from a life within naturalness to a life within
the being of God, it is coming out from under the domain of Satan and
living under the care and protection of God, it is being able to achieve
obedience to God and not obedience to the flesh, it is allowing God to
gain your entire heart, allowing God to make you perfect, and freeing
yourself from the corrupt satanic disposition. Belief in God is
principally so that the power and glory of God may be manifested in you,
so that you may carry out God’s will, and accomplish God’s plan, and be
able to bear testimony to God before Satan. Belief in God should not be
in order to behold signs and wonders, nor should it be for the sake of
your personal flesh. It should be for the pursuit of knowing God, and
being able to obey God, and like Peter, obeying Him until death. This is
what it is mainly in order to achieve.
from “All Is Achieved by the Word of God” in The Word Appears in the Flesh
Recommended:
Eastern Lightning, The Church of Almighty God was created because of the appearance and work of Almighty God, the second coming of the Lord Jesus, Christ of the last days. It is made up of all those who accept Almighty God's work in the last days and are conquered and saved by His words. It was entirely founded by Almighty God personally and is led by Him as the Shepherd. It was definitely not created by a person. Christ is the truth, the way, and the life. God's sheep hear God's voice. As long as you read the words of Almighty God, you will see God has appeared.
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