Some time ago, we needed to plot out districts within our area, and based on our principles for the selection of leaders, there was one brother who was a relatively suitable candidate. I prepared to promote him to district leader. One day when I was chatting with this brother, he mentioned that he felt I was overbearing in my work, too intense, and that in a gathering with me there wasn’t much enjoyment…. When I heard this, I felt that I had been belittled. I felt terrible; I immediately developed a certain opinion of this brother, and no longer planned to promote him to district leader.
When I returned to my host family, I was still stewing and I could not calm down. At that time, I thought of something from “Reckless Leaders Who Do Not Carry Out Their Proper Work Must Be Dismissed” in the man’s fellowship: “How leaders treat brothers and sisters who they find disagreeable, who oppose them, who hold completely different views than them—this is a very serious issue and should be handled with caution. If they do not enter into the truth, they will certainly discriminate and strike against this person when met with this kind of issue. This type of action is precisely revealing the nature of the great red dragon resisting and betraying God. If the leader is someone who pursues the truth, who possesses a conscience, and sense, they will seek the truth and handle it correctly. … As people, we need to be just and fair. As leaders, we must handle things according to God’s words in order to stand witness. If we do things according to our own will, giving free rein to our own corrupt disposition, then that will be a terrible failure.” I couldn’t help but compare my two entirely different attitudes from before and after my chat with that brother. I was originally prepared to promote him to district leader, but he said some things that caused me to lose face when I spoke with him, so I immediately changed my opinion of him and no longer planned to make that promotion. Wasn’t this exploiting my power to take personal revenge? What’s the difference between this and the great red dragon discriminating and striking against those who dissent? Isn’t this type of action despicable? The church is not the same as society. The church needs every level of its leaders to be people with humanity, who love the truth, and can accept the truth. It does not need people who are sycophants, who do not recognize the truth. But what I was doing was entirely contrary to God’s will. When selecting a candidate I only thought of my own interest and as soon as the other person didn’t support me, when he said something disagreeable to me, I discriminated against and resented him. Wasn’t my acting like this precisely revealing the nature of the great red dragon resisting and betraying God? Wasn’t it precisely an exposure of the disposition of Satan, “Those who submit will prosper; those who resist shall perish”? Wasn’t behaving this way being a servant of Satan, disrupting God’s work and being His enemy? Isn’t my heart so wicked? The church was about to select someone for a position, and that brother was a suitable candidate for district leader. His assessment of me was disagreeable to me; I should have sought out the truth on this matter and accepted his opinion. I should have examined myself and known myself, and made up for the deficiencies in my work. However, not only did I not look for the reason within myself, but I gave free rein to the nature of Satan in me to discriminate against him and take revenge on him. I am so arrogant, so lacking in humanity! This disposition of mine is so disgusting to God! If I had continued giving free rein to this type of corrupt nature, I would eventually have gone to my ruin as an arrogant servant of evil who is blind to God. I truly was in peril. At that time I couldn’t help but shudder at my thoughts and actions, seeing myself full of the poison of the great red dragon, that what was exposed was all enmity against God. God truly hates this, and is disgusted by it.
Two thousand years ago, when the Lord Jesus appeared and worked, the Pharisees clung to the laws and condemned His work, saying that His work went beyond the Scriptures. To protect their status and livelihood, they strove with all their might to stop people from seeking the Lord Jesus' work, and joined forces with the Roman government to nail Him to the cross. In the last days, as the Lord Jesus again appears in the flesh to do work, the leaders of the religious world repeat the historical tragedy of the Pharisees' resistance of Lord Jesus. How do they resist God's work of the last days? Through a pastor acting a Pharisee in a performance, this skit exposes how modern pastors and elders hold on to the Bible to resist God, and shows clearly that the path they walk is exactly the same as that of the Pharisees.
I had just been promoted to take on the responsibility of church leader. But after a period of hard work, not only was the church’s evangelical work fairly lackluster, but my brothers and sisters in the evangelical team were all also living in negativity and weakness. Faced with this situation, I could no longer contain my feelings. How on earth could I work to revitalize the evangelical work? After racking my brains, I finally thought of a good solution: If I held a monthly awards ceremony for the evangelical team and selected outstanding individuals and model preachers, whoever won more souls for God would be rewarded, and whoever won fewer souls would be admonished. This would not only excite their enthusiasm, but it would lift up the negative and weak brothers and sisters. When I thought of this, I was very excited for this “clever move” of mine. I thought: “This time I’ll really amaze everyone.”
One day, I saw this following passage of God’s word in the piece “How Peter Came to Know Jesus”: “Over the time he followed Jesus, Peter observed and took to heart everything about His life: His actions, words, movements, and expressions. … From his time in contact with Jesus, Peter also realized that His character was different from that of an ordinary man. He always acted steadily and never with haste, never exaggerated nor underplayed a subject, and conducted His life in a way that was both normal and admirable. In conversation, Jesus was elegant and graceful, open and cheerful yet serene, and never lost His dignity in the execution of His work. Peter saw that Jesus was sometimes taciturn, yet other times talked incessantly. He was sometimes so happy that He became agile and lively like a dove, and yet sometimes so sad that He did not talk at all, as if He were a weather-beaten mother. At times He was filled with anger, like a brave soldier charging off to kill enemies, and sometimes even like a roaring lion. Sometimes He laughed; other times He prayed and wept. No matter how Jesus acted, Peter grew to have boundless love and respect for Him. Jesus’ laughter filled him up with happiness, His sorrow plunged him into grief, His anger frightened him, while His mercy, forgiveness, and strictness made him come to truly love Jesus, developing a true reverence and longing for Him. Of course, Peter only gradually came to realize all of this once he had lived alongside Jesus for a few years.” After reading this passage I thought: No wonder Peter could achieve knowledge of God! Turns out it was because during the time he lived alongside Jesus day and night, he personally witnessed Jesus’ every word and every move, and from that he discovered more of God’s adorableness. Now is also the era of when God becomes flesh to personally descend upon the world of man to work. If I could also have the fortune of being able to come into contact with God and spend time together like Peter had, then wouldn’t I also know God better? Oh! It’s a shame that now I can only read God’s word but cannot see the face of Christ. Then how would I be able to gain true knowledge of God?
Just when I was sad and disappointed over this and losing my confidence in God, His words enlightened me: “Knowing God must be done through reading God’s word and understanding God’s word. Some people say: ‘I haven’t seen God incarnate, so how can I know God?’ God’s word is actually an expression of God’s disposition. From God’s word you can see God’s love for mankind, His salvation of mankind, and the way He saves them … because God’s word is expressed by God as opposed to God using man to write it out. It is personally expressed by God. It is God Himself expressing His own words and His inner voice. … expressing His disposition, His will, His thoughts, His love for mankind, His salvation of mankind, and His expectations of mankind. Among God’s words.… Sometimes God speaks from a gentle and compassionate perspective, and people see God’s love for mankind; sometimes He speaks from a strict perspective, and people see God’s unoffendable disposition. Man is deplorably filthy and is not worthy of seeing God’s face, and is not worthy of coming before God. People’s coming before God now is purely out of God’s grace. God’s wisdom can be seen from the way God works and the meaning of His work. Even if people don’t come into contact with God, they will still be able to see these things in God’s word” (“Knowledge of the Incarnation” in Records of Christ’s Talks). God’s words made me suddenly see the light. Yes! God in the flesh of the last days has already used His word to express all His disposition to man, allowing man to see through God’s word His great power, His supremacy, His humility and hiddenness, and His adorableness, and moreover understand His joys and sorrows, and know all He has and is. This is sufficient to show that reading God’s word and experiencing God’s word is the only path to knowing God. If I move away from God’s word, then so what even if I see God in the flesh? Didn’t the Pharisees also see Jesus back then? So why did they nail Jesus to the cross? Wasn’t it because they didn’t listen to Jesus’ words, they were arrogant and stubbornly held on to their own conceptions and imaginations, and resisted and condemned the Lord Jesus based on that little bit of the scriptures they understood? On the other hand, Peter was able to know Jesus because he could let go of his own conceptions and imaginations, listen closely to the words of Lord Jesus, and was good at carefully contemplating every word and sentence uttered by Jesus. Through Lord Jesus’ utterances and work he got to know God’s disposition and all He has and is, ultimately gaining true knowledge of God. Doesn’t this ironclad fact sufficiently explain that man can only know God through His word? Moreover, given that the main work of God in the flesh of the last days is the work of the word, doesn’t this benefit me in getting to know God?
The more I thought back to my logical reasoning the more I felt my own wretchedness, foolishness, and childishness. Every day I held God’s word in my hands, ate and drank God’s word, read God’s word, and experienced God’s word, but I did not love God’s word dearly, thinking that I could only know God by seeing the face of Christ. I really was living a blessed life without appreciating it! Oh God! Thank You for revealing and turning around my wrong way of knowing and making me see the path to knowing God. From now on, I will long to read Your word, contemplate Your word, seek to understand Your joys and sorrows through Your word, and through discovering more of Your adorableness get to know You even deeper.
1. The true significance of prayer to God is to understand the truth and attain obedience to God and worship of God. You must not, under any circumstances, engage in religious ceremony.
2. You must draw upon your practical difficulties and problems when praying to God. You must not depart from reality and speak empty words, or talk of letters and doctrines.
3. You must frequently pray to God about the problems of performing your duty and entering into life, seeking to understand the truth and enter reality.
4. There must be reverence for God in your prayers, and you must be reasonable. You may not make demands of God, coerce God, or take advantage of God, much less may you make trades with God.
Prayer is not a case of going through the formalities, or following procedure, or reciting the words of God, which is to say, prayer does not mean parroting words and copying others. In prayer, you must give your heart to God, sharing the words in your heart with God so that you may be touched by God. If your prayers are to be effective, then they must be based on your reading of God’s words. Only by praying amid God’s words will you be able to receive more enlightenment and illumination. A true prayer is shown by having a heart that yearns for the requirements made by God, and being willing to fulfill these requirements; you will be able to hate all that God hates, upon the basis of which you will have knowledge, and will know and be clear about the truths explained by God. Having the resolution, and faith, and knowledge, and a path by which to practice after praying—only this is truly praying, and only prayer such as this can be effective. Yet prayer must be built upon the foundation of enjoying God’s words and communing with God in His words, your heart being able to seek God and being at peace before God. Such prayer has already reached the point of true communion with God.
from “Concerning the Practice of Prayer” in The Word Appears in the Flesh
