Eastern Lightning | Competing in This Way, I Benefit Tremendously! (Audio Article)
Ma Xin
Note: Since the writer’s husband was not engaged in honest work, she believed in God in order to gain blessings. Not long after she started believing in God, first, her daughter became sick and then afterward, her husband was faced with dismissal by his boss and started suffering a condition in his legs. Through God’s words, the author recognized that her perspective of believing in God in order to gain blessings was not in accordance with God’s intentions. In this way, Satan had captured the author by attacking this weak and fatal point. Satan harmed, deceived and coerced the author into doubting, denying and betraying God. Once the author understood God’s intentions and saw through Satan’s schemes, she let go of her own perspective of gaining blessings twice in the midst of Satan’s temptations. She was willing to obey God’s orchestrations and arrangements and saw God’s miraculous achievements and salvation.
Since my husband was not engaged in honest work, frequently drank alcohol and showed no concern for family matters, I would often sink into bitterness and pain. At a time when I did not have the strength to struggle on, a relative delivered Almighty God’s kingdom gospel to me. Through reading God’s word, I understood: God expresses the truth and does the judgment work of the last days in order to save the human race from the hands of Satan. He instructs us to understand, obey and return to Him so that we can receive His protection and care. As a result, I gladly accepted the work of Almighty God of the last days and quickly started my church life. However, right as I found something I could depend my life upon and felt a sense of joy and cheer, Satan’s temptations pounced on me like a wild beast rushed after its prey and a spiritual war erupted …
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When the relative who had spread the gospel to me learned of my thoughts, she patiently told me, “The reason why we encounter unfavorable matters today is because of Satan’s disturbance. There is a war going on in the spiritual world. The work of God of the last days is to save mankind. When man forsakes Satan and returns to God, Satan is not willing to be resigned to defeat. It will disturb and deceive man in every possible way. It will give man all kinds of suffering and tribulations so that man would generate misunderstandings and complaints about God. Its purpose is to cause man to deny God, reject God, lose God’s salvation and once more return under Satan’s domain. If we are this negative and keeping far away from God, we have fallen for Satan’s crafty scheme! In fact, even if we do not believe in God, these matters are unavoidable. Because our perspective about believing in God is not correct, we have given Satan an opportunity to harm us. Let’s take a look at a passage of God’s words. Almighty God said, ‘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. … 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’ (‘Practice (3)’ in The Word Appears in the Flesh).”
When I heard these words of God, my heart trembled: God really examines the bottom of man’s heart! Each word reached deep into my heart. The reason I believed in God was indeed because I wanted my family to be safe! When I encountered troublesome matters, I misunderstood God, I complained to God and I lost faith in God. I was living in negative conditions and my spiritual stature was very small. My relative continued to communicate to me, “God’s words point out our wrong perspective of believing in God in order to obtain blessings. Due to our conceptions and imagination, we believe that as long as we believe in God, God will bless us and make sure everything goes smoothly. Since this conception exists in our hearts, once we encounter unhappy situations in our lives, we immediately blame God and as a result, we are capable of denying, betraying and leaving God at any time. Satan understands this fatal weak point of ours. That is why it gives us all kinds of calamities and suffering in order to disturb us. If we are unable to see through Satan’s crafty schemes, we will involuntarily oppose God, blame God, deny God and even leave and betray God. In the end, we will be seized and swallowed up by Satan. Just as God’s words say, ‘On earth, all manner of evil spirits are endlessly on the prowl for a place to rest, are ceaselessly searching for the corpses of men to eat up’ (‘The Tenth Utterance’ of God’s Utterances to the Entire Universe in The Word Appears in the Flesh). What God’s words reveal are the facts of the spiritual world! If we get swallowed up by Satan, we will lose our opportunity to be saved by God. We must see through Satan’s crafty schemes!” When I heard these things from my relative, my heart brightened up immediately. Then, I knew that the things that my family was encountering were in fact Satan’s disturbance and calamity. At the same time, God also revealed my incorrect perspectives on faith. I said to my relative, “Since I believed in God, I believed that God is a God that bestows grace upon man. As long as one believed in God, things would go smoothly in one’s family and one would receive God’s care and protection. If I encountered some unhappy circumstances, I believed that something was wrong and that believing in God meant that I would not encounter these unhappy circumstances. Only after reading the previous selection of God’s words did I understand that my perspective on faith was incorrect and that Satan used this as a way to disturb me and cause me to generate notions and misunderstandings about God and keep far away from God. Truly, I had fallen for Satan’s crafty schemes! Afterward, regardless of how Satan would disturb me, I should see through Satan’s crafty schemes and I will not blame, misunderstand or even more so, betray God. I have to stand witness for God. Regardless if my child’s hand gets better or not or whether or not my husband has a job, I will be willing to entrust them to God and let God make His arrangements.” What I did not expect was that once I was willing to obey God’s arrangements and orchestrations, in a short period of time, my daughter’s hand became infected. When the doctor brushed away the pus, he discovered that there was a splinter stuck at the base of her finger. After he removed the splinter, it wasn’t long before my daughter’s hand recovered. After experiencing this situation, I could see that once I reversed my own mistaken perspectives and was willing to obey God, Satan was defeated. God took away my daughter’s sickness. God is truly miraculous and almighty!
picture of the Church of Almighty God |
Right at this time when I was about to be drowned by pain and despair, I thought of God’s words: “If many things come upon you that are not in line with your notions but you are able to put them aside and know God’s actions from these things, and in the midst of refinements you reveal your heart of love for God, this is standing witness. If your home is peaceful, you enjoy comforts of the flesh, no one is persecuting you, and your brothers and sisters in the church obey you, can you display your heart of love for God? Can this refine you? It is only through refinement that your love for God can be shown, and it is only through things occurring that are not in line with your conceptions that you can be perfected. It is through many negative things, many adversities that God perfects you. It is through many of Satan’s actions, accusations, and its expression in many people that God allows you to acquire knowledge, thus perfecting you” (“Those Who Are to Be Made Perfect Must Undergo Refinement” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). Through God’s words, I understood that Satan was using my husband’s sickness to put its schemes into action. Since Satan knew that my perspective of obtaining blessings from God and conducting transactions with God through faith had not completely disappeared, it did this in order to entice me to misunderstand, blame, deny, betray and resist God. If I did these things, in the end, I would lose God’s grace and Satan’s despicable purpose would prevail. At the same time, God used this kind of a situation to perfect my faith in Him. At the moment when Satan was accusing, I was supposed to see things from the perspective of God’s words and penetrate through Satan’s crafty schemes. I should not rely on my intention of obtaining blessings to haggle with God once more. In the battle between God and Satan, I must stand on the side of God and not lose my witnessing. After I understood God’s intentions, I silently prayed to God, “God, protect my heart. Let me stand firm in this situation. Regardless of my husband’s condition, I will not blame You. Even if my husband is paralyzed, I am willing to continue to follow You.” After I finished praying, I heard my husband pleasantly say, “I am better. I can move my legs.” Once I heard this, my heart felt very moved and I could feel that God is truly wise and almighty! God did not intentionally make me suffer this pain. Instead, He used this circumstance to test me and to reverse my incorrect perspective of faith!
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Thank God for guiding me to see through Satan’s crafty schemes! From now on, I will pray to God, rely on God more and I will stand witness in every fight. I will definitely follow God unswervingly to the end! All the glory be to Almighty God!
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