Regarding the apostle Paul’s words “pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17), many people interpret them as constantly speaking to God and consider it a very difficult thing to accomplish. In fact, praying without ceasing is not some sort of outward ritual. Instead, it refers to us Christians honoring God as great, relying on and looking to God, communicating with God in our spirits and living before God at all times. Praying without ceasing does not hold to a certain format, nor is it limited to a fixed time or place. Regardless of whether we are free or busy, strong or weak, whether our environment is comfortable or harsh, whether we have difficulties or not, or whether we have made transgressions or not, we can pray to God and communicate with Him. Even when our hands are busy doing something, we can still pray to God in our hearts. Whether we are sitting on the bus, working, or preaching, we can always pray to God, draw close to Him with heart, and quiet our hearts before the Lord. In short, we can practice praying at any time and any place.
Prophecies are about things that haven’t happened yet, that God has already told us about. Some of them are signs that He gave to prophets so that they would write about them, such as in the books of Isaiah and Daniel. Some of them were told to people directly by God in the flesh, like the Lord Jesus’ prophecies about the last days. How a prophecy is actually fulfilled isn’t something that we as humans can fathom. What I want to express here is that we all know that prophecies aren’t things that people can full understand, but many people still try to rely on their own thinking and imaginations in looking at biblical prophecies. They give sermons without any restraint based on the literal meanings of prophecies. This is a really serious issue. Not only can this bring harm to others, but it can also mislead them so that they may miss out on God’s salvation or even be resistant to God.
“‘Love’ refers to an emotion that is pure and without blemish, where you use your heart to love, to feel, and to be thoughtful. In love there are no conditions, no barriers, and no distance. In love there is no suspicion, no deceit, and no cunning. In love there is no distance and nothing impure” (“Pure Love Without Blemish” in Follow the Lamb and Sing New Songs). This hymn of God’s words was once my companion as I lived through an interminable and painful seven years and four months of life in prison. Though the CCP government deprived me of the best years of my youth, I gained from Almighty God the truth that is most precious and most real. Therefore I have no regrets whatsoever!
Almighty God says, "The three stages of work are at the heart of God’s entire management, and in them are expressed the disposition of God and what He is. Those who do not know of the three stages of God’s work are incapable of realizing how God expresses His disposition, nor do they know the wisdom of God’s work, and they remain ignorant of the many ways in which He saves mankind, and His will for the whole of mankind. The three stages of work are the full expression of the work of saving mankind. Those who do not know the three stages of work will be ignorant of the various methods and principles of the Holy Spirit’s work; those who only rigidly stick to doctrine that remains from one stage of work are people who limit God to doctrine, and whose belief in God is vague and uncertain. Such people will never receive God’s salvation."
My name is Christopher, and I’m a pastor of a house church in the Philippines. In 1987, I was baptized and returned to the Lord Jesus and then by the Lord’s grace, in 1996 I became a pastor in a local church. At that time, I was not only working and preaching in many places around the Philippines, but I was also preaching in places such as Hong Kong and Malaysia. Through the work and the guidance of the Holy Spirit, I felt that I had inexhaustible energy in my work for the Lord and endless inspiration for my sermons. I would often offer support to brothers and sisters who were feeling negative and weak. Sometimes when their nonbeliever family members were unfriendly toward me, I was still able to be tolerant and patient; I didn’t lose faith in the Lord and believed that the Lord could change them. So, I felt like I had changed a great deal since becoming a believer. However, starting in 2011, I was no longer able to feel the work of the Holy Spirit as strongly as before. I gradually lost new enlightenment for my sermons and lacked the strength to break free from living in sin. I could not help losing my temper with my wife and daughter when I saw them doing things I didn’t like and scolded them out of anger. I knew that this was not in keeping with the will of the Lord, but often I could not help myself. This was particularly distressing for me. In order to free myself from a life of sinning and then confessing, I put more effort into reading the Bible, fasting and praying, and looked everywhere for spiritual pastors so we could seek and explore this together. But all of my efforts came to naught; there was no change to my life of sin and the darkness within my soul.
The Bible says: “Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Ghost” (2 Peter 1:20-21). “As also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, to their own destruction” (2 Peter 3:16). “For the letter kills, but the spirit gives life” (2 Corinthians 3:6). These verses tell us that we cannot interpret prophecies literally relying on our conceptions and imaginings, because prophecies are from God, and it is only through the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit that we can understand them. However, before prophecies are fulfilled, it is easy for us to rely on our own notions and interpret them literally. This makes it easy to misinterpret prophecies. And our absurd interpretations will mislead others. For example, when it came to the prophecies about the arrival of the Messiah, the Pharisees relied on their own ideas. Before the Lord Jesus was born, based on the literal meaning of the prophecies in Isaiah 7:14, 9:6-7 and Micah 5:2, they imagined the Messiah’s arrival: The Messiah would be born of a virgin in Bethlehem, and be named Emmanuel; He would grow up in a palace and govern Israel while sitting upon a throne. However, when the prophecies were fulfilled, the way they had imagined Him ended up being at odds with the facts. What they actually saw was: The Lord was born of the married Mary and into a carpenter’s family, and was called Jesus; He came from Nazareth, and in the end was nailed to the cross. This is very different from the literal meaning of the prophecies. Hence, even though they saw that the Lord Jesus’ work and preaching had authority and power, the Pharisees did not acknowledge the Lord Jesus as the promised Messiah. Instead, they even blasphemed the Lord Jesus, saying He depended on the prince of the devils to cast out demons. Thus, they committed the sin of blaspheming against the Holy Spirit, offended the disposition of God, and would never gain the Lord’s forgiveness. And those commoners who had no discernment and believed what the Pharisees said also lost God’s salvation. From this example, we can see that because the Pharisees held on to their imaginings and the literal meaning of the prophecies, they ruined themselves and also others.
At a predetermined time, the brothers and sisters meet at go to Sister Wang’s for Bible study. Today it was at 7 p.m.
At 7 p.m., as the brothers and sisters arrived one after another, the room became noisy. When Sister Dong was talking with others, there was a knock at the door. Sister Wang rose to open the door, and it turned out to be Sister Lin, who walked in while singing a song, “In the last days there will be a great white throne; the Lord Jesus sits on it, from whose face everyone will pass through a sea of glass where their entire life’s transgressions will be showed….”
Attracted by Sister Lin’s singing, the others all clapped their hands and sang along. After Sister Lin came, smiling, to the chair and sat down, the singing gradually faded.
Sister Wang walked up to Sister Lin, sat down and asked curiously, “Hey, why did you sing this song today?”
In 1995, the work of testifying to the kingdom gospel of Almighty God formally began in Mainland China. Through our gratitude to God and with a love that was true, we testified to the appearance and work of Almighty God to the brothers and sisters in various denominations. Little did we expect to suffer extreme resistance and slander from their leaders. We could only come before Almighty God to pray earnestly, beseeching God to work in person. From 1997 onward, we beheld the Holy Spirit work on a great scale. There was a rapid increase in the members of churches in various locations. At the same time, many signs and wonders occurred, and many people in various denominations returned to Almighty God as a result of receiving God’s revelations or seeing these signs and wonders. If the Holy Spirit had not worked, what could man do? This made us realize: Although we understood some truths, we could not testify to Almighty God through our human strength alone. After these people from various denominations accepted Almighty God, they gradually became certain of Almighty God in their hearts through eating and drinking and enjoying the word of Almighty God, and after a period of time, there was produced in them genuine faith and obedience. People from every denomination were thus lifted before the throne, and no longer expected to “meet the Lord in the sky” as they had imagined.
When the ancestors of mankind, Adam and Eve, were corrupted by Satan, God began His management of mankind's salvation. Since that time, He has worked without cease: God decreed the laws to guide mankind, and He personally came among man to be crucified and redeem mankind, and during the last days, God continues His work, fulfilling the prophecies of the Bible: "I go to prepare a place for you" (John 14:2). "I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be" (Revelation 22:12).
More attention:
"The Eastern Lightning" has testified that the Lord Jesus has already returned, expressed the truth, and made complete a group of overcomers. Does this fulfill the prophecies from the Bible?
I’m an ordinary country woman and, because of the feudalistic idea of only valuing male children, I was unable to raise my head in front of others for shame at having borne no son. Just when I was suffering the most, I was chosen by the Lord Jesus and, two years later, I accepted the salvation of Almighty God. Moreover, I understood much truth from within the words of Almighty God and my heart obtained true release. However, while I was performing my duty to repay God’s love, I was twice arrested by the CCP government and I suffered brutal torture and torment at the hands of the CCP’s pawns. Just when I was on the verge of death, the words of Almighty God guided me and inspired me and caused me to stand witness in the midst of Satan’s cruel harm, thereby strengthening my determination to follow God and love God for all my life.
I was born in the countryside and, after I married, I gave birth to three daughters, one after another. Because the feudalistic idea of valuing only male children is so strong in rural areas, my family and the people of the village all looked down on me, and moreover, my sisters-in-law bullied and ridiculed me. I felt so pained and oppressed inside; I felt depressed all day long. In 1998, I began to believe in Jesus and, although my distressed mind became more optimistic within the Lord Jesus’ love, the knots in my heart could still not be undone. Two years later, I accepted Almighty God’s salvation of the last days and, when I read these words of God, they were like medicine that cured a chronic sickness: “Since the creation of the world I have begun to predestine and select this group of people, namely, you today. Your temperament, caliber, appearance, stature, family in which you were born, your job and your marriage, the entirety of you, even the color of your hair and your skin, and the time of your birth were all arranged by My hands” (“The Seventy-fourth Utterance” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). These words of God made me understand that all things and events are in God’s hands, that my destiny was arranged by God long ago and that my having had three daughters was also predestined by God, and to God this was for the best. I was therefore no longer under the ties and bonds of feudalistic ideas, and my heart obtained the greatest release. From that day on, I actively lived the church life, I hungered to read the words of God, enjoyed the life provided by the words of Almighty God, and I gradually came to understand much truth, such as how Satan corrupts man, how God saves man and what the value and significance of man’s life is. Having understood these things, my heart felt peaceful and filled with light, always with a joy I could not express in words, and more and more I came to firmly believe that Almighty God is the one true God that saved me from the sea of misery, and I became resolved to follow Almighty God and live out a real life. After a short while, God raised me up to be a leader in the church. While I was performing my duty, however, I was twice arrested by the CCP government and subjected to ruthless persecution ...
On April 3, 2003, I went with a sister to visit a new believer. This new believer had still not been set in the truth and ended up reporting us. As a result, four evil plain-clothes police came and aggressively forced the two of us into their vehicle and took us to the police station. On the road, my heart was extremely nervous, because on my person was a pager, a partial list of names of members of our church, and a notepad. I was afraid that the evil police would discover these things and I was more afraid that my brothers and sisters would call my pager, therefore I continually and urgently prayed to God in my heart: “God, what am I supposed to do? I ask You to provide a way out for me and not let these things fall into the hands of the evil police.” Following this, I took the things from my bag and quietly moved them into my waist and said that my stomach was not feeling good and I had to use the restroom. The evil police swore at me saying: “You are full of shit!” Upon my repeated requests, they had a female police officer watch me as I went to the bathroom. When I removed my belt, the pager fell out and I easily picked it up and threw it into the sewer pipe. Because I was afraid at the time that the female officer would discover the bag in my waist, I didn’t throw it in the pipe, but rather placed it in the garbage can; I thought that I would use the bathroom again at night and then throw it in the toilet. As it turned out, I never went back to that bathroom. It turned out that the evil police found the bag I had thrown away in the garbage can.
When I was three years old my father passed away. At that time my mother had just given birth to my younger brother, and my grandmother, owing to superstition, said that it was my mother and younger brother that caused my father’s death. For lack of a better option mother had to take my younger brother to her father’s house to live, so from the start of my earliest memories I was living together with my grandpa and grandma. Although my grandpa and grandma treated me well I still felt lonely and really wanted to be together with my mom and little brother. I hoped for the same kind of motherly love that other kids received. Really, what I was asking for wasn’t much, all I wanted was a true family, a mother who loved me dearly, who I could share my true feelings with. But even this small ask turned into an extravagant hope. I was only able to see my mother on the weekends. Whenever I got into trouble at school mom was never there by side either, I was like a small patch of grass by the side of the road, nobody showed any interest in me. Over time I became very self-abased, I held everything back in my heart and didn’t take initiative to interact with others. When I was sixteen there were some people in my village who were going abroad for work, and the idea tempted me. I thought to myself: My family conditions aren’t very good, if I were to go abroad then I could earn my own living, and even give some of my earnings to my family. That way I could help my family live a little better.
The Lord Jesus asked us to be honest, we also often practice the Lord's requirements to be an honest person. However, for most of the time, we fail to put the Lord's requirements into practice. What is it that stop our footsteps of being honest?
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.
I am an ordinary person. I lived in a run-of-the-mill life. Like many who yearn for the light, I tried lots of ways to search for the true meaning of human existence, attempting to give my life more significance. In the end, all my efforts were in vain. But after I was fortunate enough to accept Almighty God’s work of the last days, miraculous changes occurred in my life. It brought more color to my life, and I came to understand that only God is the true Provider of people’s spirits and lives, and only God’s words are the true meaning of human life. I was glad that I had finally found the right way of life. However, whilst performing my duty I was once illegally arrested and brutally tortured by the CCP government. From this, my life’s journey gained an experience that I’ll never forget …
One day in December 2011 at around 7 a.m., another church leader and I were carrying out inventory on church assets when more than ten police officers suddenly burst through the door. One of these evil police rushed up to us and shouted: “Don’t move!” Seeing what was happening, my head reeled. In my mind I thought, This is bad—the church is going to lose a lot of assets. Next, the evil police searched us like bandits carrying out a robbery. They also ransacked each room, turning them upside down in short order. In the end, they found some church possessions, three bank cards, deposit receipts, computers, mobile phones, and so on. They confiscated all of them, then took the four of us to the police station.
How God Establishes Man’s Outcome and the Standard by Which He Establishes Man’s Outcome
Before you have any of your own views or conclusions, you should first understand God’s attitude toward you, what God is thinking, and then decide whether or not your own thinking is correct. God has never used units of time to establish a person’s outcome, and He has never used the amount of suffering endured by someone to establish their outcome. Then what does God use as a standard for establishing man’s outcome? Using time units to establish a person’s outcome—this is what most conforms to people’s conceptions. And there are also those individuals who you often see, those who at one point devoted a lot, spent a lot, paid a lot, suffered a lot. These are ones who, in your views, can be saved by God. All that these people show, all that they live out, is precisely mankind’s conception of the standard by which God establishes the outcome of man. Regardless of what you believe, I won’t list out these examples one by one. In short, so long as it isn’t the standard of God’s own thinking, then it comes from man’s imagination, and it’s all man’s conception. What’s the consequence of blindly insisting on your own conception and imagination? Obviously, the consequence can only be God spurning you. This is because you always flaunt your qualifications before God, compete with God, and dispute with God, and you do not try to truly comprehend God’s thinking, nor do you try to comprehend God’s intentions and God’s attitude toward humanity. Proceeding like this is honoring yourself above all, not honoring God. You believe in yourself; you don’t believe in God. God doesn’t want this type of person, and God won’t save this type of person. If you can let go of this kind of viewpoint, and then rectify these incorrect viewpoints of the past; if you could proceed according to God’s demands; start practicing the way of fearing God and shunning evil from this point forward; manage to honor God as great in all things; don’t use your own personal fancies, viewpoints, or beliefs to define yourself, define God. And instead, you seek out God’s intentions in all respects, you achieve a realization and understanding of God’s attitude toward humanity, and you use God’s standard to satisfy God—that would be wonderful! This would mean you are about to embark on the way of fearing God and shunning evil.
On the night of July 21, 2012, we had a huge flood here, which seldom happens. I would like to tell everyone who thirsts for God what I actually experienced and saw then.
On the day my husband and I took care of the fodder yard for my sister. In the night heavy rain kept on pouring down, and we went to sleep very early. At 3:45 a.m. my brother-in-law called saying: “They’re going to open the reservoir! Everything is going to be flooded! We have to get up fast!” On hearing this I was shocked, and all I knew to cry out to God in my heart was the words, “Oh God! Oh God!” I only knew I had to protect the electric scooter, and the MP5 player and TF card used for listening to hymns and sermons. In great anxiety I went to the store room to push the electric scooter out, and I drove off wanting to go home to check on my books of the words of God and also as I was worried about my mother-in-law and my children. I drove up to the highway, but because I couldn’t see in the heavy rain I hit a piece of asphalt that had been washed down in the torrent, and the scooter and I rolled into the waters. In my heart I was praying, “Oh God, it is Your righteousness, if I am washed away today. Spare me, and I will do my duty in earnest from now on!” At this point one of my shoes had been washed away, so I decided to take highway. But when I went ahead and looked, I was stunned; it turned out that the side of the road was fenced off, and I couldn’t get through. I stumbled into the waters again and my other shoe was washed away. The waters had risen now up to my thighs, and I had no choice but to go back for the third time, all the time praying in my heart. At this moment a family of three emerged from one of the other pig farms, and I gave thanks to God from my heart. I joined them and was preparing to take the highway again, when my husband turned up. He used a drill shank to open up a hole in the wire mesh and I was first to leap through barefoot and got up onto the highway. To the south was a bend in the river flowing north, and to the north the main road was streaming with water running south, so we were caught in the middle with our only choice being to take the highway.
Almighty Godsays, "As man lacks rest, so does God. When God once again enters into rest, man will also enter into rest. The life in rest is one without war, without filth, without persisting unrighteousness. This is to say that it lacks Satan’s harassment (here “Satan” refers to hostile forces), Satan’s corruption, as well as the invasion of any force opposed to God. Everything follows its own kind and worships the Lord of creation. Heaven and earth are entirely tranquil. This is humanity’s restful life. When God enters into rest, no more unrighteousness will persist upon the earth, and there will be no more invasion of any hostile forces. Humanity will also enter a new realm; he will no longer be a humanity corrupted by Satan, but rather a humanity that has been saved after having been corrupted by Satan."
