Christian Testimonies - A Small Blade of Grass That Grew Among the Brambles (2)

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After that my boss started picking on me and even started saying sarcastic things about me. I knew that she was saying these things in an attempt to force me to abandon my faith in Almighty God. One day, she suddenly said to me, “Sister Yun wants to talk with you when she returns from her business trip.” When I heard that, I felt a bit upset and a bit nervous. I thought: “Sister Yun will definitely try to prevent me from believing in Almighty God. I became a Christian after listening to her preaching and she’s a VIP customer in our beauty salon. If I offend her then the boss won’t be happy and I’ll have even more problems getting along with her in the future.” As the day of Sister Yun’s return drew closer, I became more nervous and afraid. One afternoon, I was sitting in the VIP room praying to God. I’d just finished my prayer when my phone rang. It was my boss. “Sister Yun is coming over. Give her a facial.” I wasn’t at all keen to do it but there was no way I could refuse. When I got back to the treatment room I put on a recording of hymns in order to calm myself in God’s presence. While listening to the hymn “I Am Determined to Love God With My Heart” I heard these lines: “May You open my spiritual eyes and may Your Spirit move my heart. Make it so that, as I come before You, I throw off all that is negative, cease to be constrained by any person, matter, or thing, and lay my heart completely bare before You, and make it so that I may offer my entire being before You. However You may test me, I am ready. Now, I give no consideration to my future prospects, nor am I under the yoke of death. With a heart that loves You, I desire to seek the way of life” (Follow the Lamb and Sing New Songs). God’s words gave me faith, and gradually I began to feel calmer and more grounded. “That’s right,” I thought. “I shouldn’t be restrained by any person, matter, or object when choosing the true way. Since I’m already certain that Almighty God is the return of the Lord Jesus, I should follow Him without the slightest doubt or hesitation. How my boss sees me and treats me or how my relationship with Sister Yun develops is all in God’s hands. I should rid myself of my worries and abide by God’s arrangements.” I therefore went to face the situation with confidence.

A few minutes later, Sister Yun arrived. I prayed silently to God: “O Almighty God, I’m afraid that she’ll say something that blasphemes, resists, condemns and attacks You. I’m also afraid that she’ll try to harass me. Please help and protect me, God.” At first, Sister Yun only talked about her business trip to Israel and how successful it had been. Eventually, however, she brought up the topic in a roundabout way. “During the last days there are lots of false Christs and false prophets who try to deceive people—” I didn’t want to hear her say anything that would blaspheme Almighty God so I interrupted her by saying, “Yes, the Lord gave us this reminder so that we can guard against those false Christs who imitate the Lord Jesus by manifesting signs and miracles. But the Lord’s intention was to make us develop discernment, not to have us refuse to listen to all who preach the gospel of the Lord’s return. The Lord Jesus said: ‘My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me’ (John 10:27). The Lord will lead us along the right path, so we shouldn’t just worry about being misled by the false Christs of the last days, but should also keep in mind the fact that the Lord will return during the last days. As long as we seek the Lord then we’ll find the manifestation of the Lord because He has told us that God’s sheep can hear God’s voice.” But Sister Yun didn’t pay any attention to what I said and just repeated the stuff about false Christs deceiving people during the last days and that I should be more careful. Then she said more things about how bad The Church of Almighty God was. I ignored her, and when she saw that I wasn’t going to reply, she stopped talking.

After that, my boss still wasn’t happy about me believing in Almighty God and continued to pick on me and attack me in front of my colleagues. During this period, the brothers and sisters from The Church of Almighty God were always there to fellowship and share God’s words with me so that I could understand God’s will. They also told me that God is holy, and that when God created mankind, He gave us free will, the freedom to choose. They said that God never forces anyone to do anything but only expresses truths that provide sustenance for us and that help us to understand His will and to differentiate between good from evil. For example, God told Adam and Eve that they could eat fruit from any tree in the Garden of Eden except the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, because if they did they would surely die! The essence of God is good and He gives mankind the freedom to choose; it is only Satan that controls and coerces people, because Satan is evil. So, accepting Almighty God’s work of the last days is each individual’s decision, and nobody is forced into it. As well as telling me these things, the brothers and sisters also found a passage of God’s words: “In every step of work that God does within people, externally it appears to be interactions between people, as if born of human arrangements or from human interference. But behind the scenes, every step of work, and everything that happens, is a wager made by Satan before God, and requires people to stand firm in their testimony to God. Take when Job was tried, for example: Behind the scenes, Satan was making a bet with God, and what happened to Job was the deeds of men and the interference of men. Behind every step of work that God does in you is Satan’s wager with God—behind it all is a battle. … When God and Satan do battle in the spiritual realm, how should you satisfy God, and how should you stand firm in your testimony to Him? You should know that everything that happens to you is a great trial and the time when God needs you to bear testimony” (“Only Loving God Is Truly Believing in God” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). The fellowships with the brothers and sisters helped me to understand this passage a little. I now understood that no matter what happened to me, it was always sanctioned by God. God was using these situations to test me to see if I had real faith in Him and to make me develop discernment. God wanted me to see clearly what comes from Him and what comes from Satan, and He wanted me to learn to rely on Him and look to Him in times of trial, to stand witness for God like Job, and thereby humiliate Satan.

With the guidance of God’s words and the assistance of the brothers and sisters, I was able to build a clearer picture of the true way, I became certain that I wasn’t on the wrong path by following Almighty God but was instead keeping pace with the footprints of the Lamb. The brothers and sisters from The Church of Almighty God were fellowshiping truths and God’s will with me. They were bearing witness to God’s work of saving mankind, and to all that God has and is. They never tried to force me to believe anything, but instead helped me to learn how to discern between various voices so that I could make my own decisions freely. But Sister Yun and my boss believed in all the online rumors and continuously said things that resisted and blasphemed God in order to obstruct and coerce me, and to prevent me from accepting God’s work of the last days. When I didn’t accept their point of view, they started to bully me, mock me, and verbally attack me. But I saw clearly that everything they said and did came from Satan, because bullying, coercing, and attacking people are actions that can only derive from Satan. Thanks be to God! I was now able to see at a glance who comes from God and who from Satan, and I now had discernment of these types of people. I now felt light filling my heart and that a heavy weight had been lifted from it. I was so grateful to God for incarnating in human form during the last days and expressing so many truths so that, every time I was harassed, I was able to turn to God’s words to understand His will and find the path of practice. I felt so fortunate to be able to grow, a little at a time, under the provision of God’s words!

At first, I thought that the whole affair had come to an end, so I was surprised when a new round of attacks began. One day, I had just finished giving a customer a beauty treatment when my boss came and took me to the building next door. As we got to the door, she told me that Sister Yun was in there waiting for me. I went in, and when I saw that Sister Yun and Pastor Liu and his wife were there, I immediately began to feel nervous, and I had no idea what they were going to do. I quickly said a silent prayer to God: “O God, they’ve come to talk with me again. Please protect me and help me by giving me the wisdom to answer them.” After praying, I no longer felt nervous, and I wondered: Had they come to force me to leave Almighty God? And if I refused, would I lose my job? But then I remembered that everything was in God’s hands and that God’s arrangements were always suitable, so I resolved that, even if I lost my job, I still wouldn’t leave Almighty God.

The pastor asked me when I first started believing in the Lord, and then talked about many things to do with faith in the Lord. Then he asked me, “Do you know about The Church of Almighty God? Are you still in touch with them?” He then went on to say many things that blasphemed Almighty God and laid false accusations against The Church of Almighty God. I got angry listening to him, and said, “Why is it that The Church of Almighty God that you describe is nothing like the one that I have been in contact with and actually know something about? We have all seen the stuff online. What I’ve seen are the words of Almighty God and the films and videos produced by The Church of Almighty God, as well as the written testimonies of experiences had by the brothers and sisters. I’ve also looked at some of the negative propaganda, but all I saw was a lot of empty, baseless rumors and lies. They are not able to produce a shred of believable evidence to back up even one of those rumors. They either make things up from scratch or take an existing falsehood and embellish it and then spread it around more. These are all Satan’s lies, so I don’t believe them and have absolutely no interest in them. How is it that you only believe the negative rumors but never even look at the words of God on The Church of Almighty God’s website? None of you read Almighty God’s words, nor do you investigate God’s work of the last days, but instead you just condemn it however you please. Is that the right thing to do?” The pastor didn’t answer my question directly but instead said, “The Church of Almighty God has expanded very quickly, and they’ve been actively going to other churches to steal their members. If you insist on believing in Almighty God, then we won’t be nice to you any longer. We’ll tell all of the brothers and sisters in our church that you now believe in Almighty God, so the next time you come to our congregation they’ll think you’ve come to steal them away and they’ll reject you.” He then tried to use some false testimonies to scare me but nothing he said affected me. In fact, I felt even more emboldened and said, “This stuff that you’re talking about, did you personally see it happen? Or have you done a thorough investigation and got solid evidence? What proof do you have that the members of The Church of Almighty God did all this? Where’s the evidence? You’re just taking the rumors and false testimonies spread by the CCP government and the religious community to condemn Almighty God and falsely accuse and incriminate The Church of Almighty God. Aren’t you worried that you’ll be condemned by the Lord, just like the Pharisees were?”

I went on, saying, “The Lord Jesus predicted this about His return: ‘But first must He suffer many things, and be rejected of this generation’ (Luke 17:25). What does this mean? At present, the whole religious community and the atheist Communist government of China are trying their best to resist and condemn Almighty God’s work of the last days. Doesn’t this fulfill the Lord’s prediction? Isn’t the religious community’s resistance to and condemnation of Almighty God today exactly the same as the Jewish Pharisees’ resistance to and condemnation of the Lord Jesus all those years ago? The Pharisees resisted the Lord Jesus and denied that He was the foretold Messiah, but the Lord’s disciples were able to recognize that the Lord Jesus was the Messiah foretold in the prophecies and so they followed Him. And today, we now find ourselves in the exact same situation. The pastors and elders don’t accept Almighty God’s work of the last days, and they resist and condemn Almighty God, but the good sheep in the various denominations are able to recognize the voice of God in the words of Almighty God and recognize that Almighty God is the return of the Lord Jesus. How is it so? The Lord Jesus said that God’s sheep are able to hear God’s voice, and that God’s return would separate the sheep from the goats. I’ve only believed in the Lord for a short time, and I don’t understand the Bible all that well, so I don’t know how the Lord will separate the sheep from the goats. Pastor Liu, you’ve been to seminary and have been a pastor for many years now. Perhaps you’d be so good as to explain it to me?” Pastor Liu looked at me angrily, because he clearly didn’t know how to explain this to me. All he said was, “We believers gain eternal life because we have been baptized.” So I said, “What? Gaining eternal life is that easy? So everyone who has come to your church and been baptized will enter the kingdom of heaven? Does that accord with what the Lord said? Are they all people who approach the Lord with true hearts? Do they all abide by the will of the heavenly Father? Every sermon in the church mentions giving offerings, but the Lord never said that giving offerings is the same as loving the Lord. So what is loving the Lord?” Pastor Liu replied, “Reading the Bible a lot and praying a lot is loving the Lord.” Although I didn’t know what truly loving the Lord meant, I knew that it was foolish to say that reading the Bible and praying a lot is loving the Lord. The Pharisees read the Bible a lot and did plenty of praying, but can it be said that they loved the Lord? If they loved the Lord, then why did they blaspheme and condemn Him, and nail Him upon the cross? It seemed to me that the pastor didn’t understand what loving the Lord meant at all. Pastors may well understand biblical knowledge and theological theories but that doesn’t mean that they understand truths! But I could only blame myself for not previously having enough discernment and regarding them too highly.

When I realized this, I saw no point in continuing to debate with Pastor Liu, so I stopped talking. But the pastor had more to say. “Do you know that they say the Lord has returned incarnated as a woman to perform God’s work?” I replied, “What form the Lord takes when He returns and incarnates to do the work is God’s business. We are just tiny, insignificant beings created by God, so how can we make rules for God’s work? In the Bible it says: ‘[W]ho has been His counselor?’ (Romans 11:34). Almighty God’s words say: ‘Man should not define the work of God; moreover, man cannot define the work of God. In the eyes of God, man is as insignificant as an ant; so how can man fathom God’s work?’ (Preface to The Word Appears in the Flesh). God is the Creator of all things and God’s wisdom exceeds everything, so however God does His work He doesn’t need to check in with us humans first!” Seeing that they didn’t have the slightest interest in seeking and investigating God’s work of the last days, but only wanted to nitpick and look for chances to attack and blaspheme God and prevent me from accepting God’s work of the last days, I decided not to continue the conversation. Finally, I asked them, “Did you ever think about how your coming to the salon today would affect my work here?” To my utter surprise, the pastor lied to my face and said, “Your boss doesn’t know what this conversation is about.” Before, I would have been very shocked that this pastor—a man who preaches and instructs people and knows the Bible so well—could tell such a bare-faced lie. But after having just heard them make up lies that blasphemed God, I wasn’t at all surprised. This behavior was all too normal for them. I couldn’t help but think of the Lord Jesus’ words: “You are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father you will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and stayed not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it” (John 8:44). In my heart I said these words to God: “Thank You, God! You have allowed this event to happen to me today so that I can see that they have no understanding of the truths, and that they are liars who brazenly spread falsehoods and deceive people. Truly, they are hypocritical Pharisees.” I had nothing more to say to them and wanted to leave immediately.

Seeing that I was in no mood to continue the conversation, Sister Yun said to me, “Yixin, you should think about your children and your parents.” I replied, “They are all doing well, and we’re all fine. I believe in the one true God, the Creator of all things. Almighty God is the return of the Lord Jesus. God is the God that loves and saves people, and with God’s blessings and guidance, my family will do better and better.” The pastor and Sister Yun wanted to pray for me, but I refused. Pastor Liu finished off with a warning: “If you don’t leave The Church of Almighty God then you’ll be ostracized from our church!” I thought: “And what is the church like these days? It’s like the temple when the Lord Jesus first started His work: nothing but a den of thieves. The gatherings don’t provide any spiritual sustenance, so what is there for me to miss?” I’d already accepted God’s work of the last days, was keeping pace with the footprints of the Lamb, and had come before God’s throne. I was being provided with the living water of life issued by Christ and enjoying being face-to-face watered and shepherded by God. I was the happiest woman on earth, and The Church of Almighty God was now my true home.

Almighty God’s words say: “Everything that has been arranged now is for the purpose of training you so that you may grow in your lives, to make your spirit keen and sharp, to open your spiritual eyes and make you recognize the things that come from God” (“Chapter 13” of Utterances of Christ in the Beginning in The Word Appears in the Flesh). I’m grateful to God for having mercy on me and for using the harassment of religious forces to enable me to develop discernment. I saw how full of lies the religious pastors are, how they resist and condemn God’s work of the last days, and how they don’t have a shred of reverence for God. I saw how their congregations cling to their sinful ways, how they follow the trends and fashions of the material world, how they cheat each other, and how they don’t behave like believers in God at all. All this made me even more certain that the religious community no longer has the work of the Holy Spirit, that it is smothered in darkness and under Satan’s control. At the same time, I was able to see that the brothers and sisters of The Church of Almighty God pursue the truth and seek to know God under the guidance of God’s words and, when they encounter difficulties, they seek to use God’s words to resolve their problems. Within The Church of Almighty God it is wholly the truth, God’s words, and the Holy Spirit which rule. Almighty God’s words must be accomplished, and what is said will be done. Nobody can stand in the way of what God wants to accomplish, and this is an undeniable fact! Almighty God’s words are indeed the truth, and Almighty God is the manifestation of the Lord of creation. I wish to follow Almighty God for the rest of my life!

Source From: The Church of Almighty God

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