Saturday, November 11, 2017

I Have Seen Clearly the Truth II

I Have Seen Clearly the Truth II

The sister nodded with a smile, “God allows Satan to tempt us, because this makes us see clearly Satan’s evil and cruel substance. That way we will be able to hate it and reject it from the bottom of our hearts and stand firm in our testimony to God. Actually, God has power to protect us. But if God did not permit Satan to tempt us and just directly brought us into the kingdom, then Satan wouldn’t be convinced. God’s work is to fully defeat Satan and convince it beyond the shadow of a doubt. So we need to see clearly the truth and penetrate Satan’s sinister motives. This impinges on the important matter of our salvation. We must pray more and depend on God and make up our mind to follow Him so that Satan will be left utterly humiliated and defeated.
I said, “Your fellowship makes me completely understand that it is actually a spiritual struggle. It turns out to be Satan’s disturbance that these things which are not to my liking come upon my family. I thought that I had taken the wrong path, so I wanted to stop my faith, nearly falling into Satan’s trap. It really is too dangerous. Satan wants to disrupt me with these bad things in order to have me betray God and lose the chance for salvation and suffer destruction together with it. Satan is too detestable. I will pray more and read God’s words more often, and put my husband and my children in God’s hands.”
The sister continued, “Right. We need to see through the tricks of Satan. For the substance of Satan is evil, it doesn’t want man to worship God, and it has been continually destroying man’s relationship with God. Therefore, we need to understand the work of the Holy Spirit and the work of Satan, so that we will have discernment in our future experiences, no longer falling into Satan’s trap. Let’s read more of Almighty God’s words, ‘The work of the Holy Spirit is proactive guidance, and positive enlightenment, it is not allowing people to be passive, bringing them solace, giving them faith, and resolve, and enabling them to pursue being made perfect by God. When the Holy Spirit works, people are able to actively enter; they are not passive or forced, but are proactive. When the Holy Spirit works, people are glad and willing, and they are willing to obey, and happy to humble themselves, and even though they are pained and fragile inside, they have the resolve to cooperate, they suffer gladly, they are able to obey, and they are untainted by human will, untainted by the thinking of man, and are certainly untainted by human desires and motivations. When people experience the work of the Holy Spirit, they are especially holy inside. Those who are possessed of the work of the Holy Spirit live out the love of God, the love of their brothers and sisters, and delight in the things that delight God, and loathe the things that God loathes. People who are touched by the work of the Holy Spirit have normal humanity, and they are possessed of humanity and constantly pursue the truth. When the Holy Spirit works within people, their circumstances become better and better, and their humanity becomes more and more normal, and though some of their cooperation may be foolish, their motivations are right, their entry is positive, they do not try to interrupt, and there is no malevolence within them. The work of the Holy Spirit is normal and real, the Holy Spirit works in man according to the rules of the normal life of man, and He enlightens and guides in people according to the actual pursuit of normal people. When the Holy Spirit works in people, He guides and enlightens them according to the needs of normal people, He provides for them based on their needs, and He positively guides and enlightens them based upon what they lack, and upon their deficiencies; when the Holy Spirit works, this work is in consonance with the rules of the normal life of man, and it is only in real life that people are able to see the work of the Holy Spirit (“The Work of the Holy Spirit and the Work of Satan” in The Word Appears in the Flesh).
From God’s words, we can see that God does His work based on the needs of mankind and the rules of the normal life of man, and that He does not force man. According to the needs of people, God guides, enlightens, and provides them in accordance with what they lack and with their deficiencies. When the Holy Spirit works, people can positively and actively cooperate with God. They are willing to read God’s words, sing, pray, and praise God, and assemble and commune His words together with brothers and sisters. They will have ever greater faith in God and ever higher aspirations to pursue the truth and the change in life disposition. They won’t doubt or complain against God in all circumstances. For instance, when they encounter things and don’t know how to practice, they can have a path to travel through prayer and reading God’s words. Thus, their hearts will brighten more and more and all the sorrows and worries will dissolve away. Although sometimes people are weak when they don’t understand the things cropping up, they will obey God’s work once they have understood His will, and will discover the loveliness of God through their experiences. When the Holy Spirit works in people, they are willing to satisfy God and practice according to God’s words. The more they satisfy God, the more God blesses them and the more their spirits are enlightened. Then they can possess discernment about many things. The work of the Holy Spirit on people allows them to be at peace and steadfast and experience enjoyment in their spirits.
However, the work of Satan causes people to be negative and in retreat. Almighty God says, ‘At the interference from Satan, you lose the love and loyalty toward God within you, you are stripped of a normal relationship with God, you do not pursue the truth, or the improvement of yourself, you regress, and become passive, you accommodate yourself, you give free rein to the spread of sin, and are not hateful of sin; furthermore, the interference of Satan makes you dissolute, it causes God’s touch to disappear within you, and makes you complain about God and oppose Him, leading you to question God, and there is even the risk of you leaving God. All this is of the work of Satan (“The Work of the Holy Spirit and the Work of Satan” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). From these words of God we can understand that at the interference from Satan, people will lose their faith in God and their love toward Him. They are unwilling to read God’s words, to pray, much less to have contact with brothers and sisters, and they are not happy with anyone. They even misunderstand and complain against God when something happens to them, and sometimes think of no longer believing in God and of betraying Him. They think nothing of committing sins, sinking into spiritual darkness without the feeling of being touched.As long as we understand this aspect of the truth, we can have a grasp on whether our own state is normal or abnormal. So in the face of Satan’s interference, we will be able to have discernment, rebel against Satan and establish a normal relationship with God, gradually walking the path toward salvation. In this way, God’s work to save us won’t be made void.”
After her fellowship, I felt I had the direction and faith. I came to know the differences between the work of the Holy Spirit and the work of Satan. God is the One who saves man while Satan is the one who slaughters and swallows man. From this time on, I could no longer be fooled by Satan to wound God’s heart. I would believe in God and follow Him properly. I would pray more and read His words more in the future.
After I thought this, a phone call from my younger son in the following day delivered the message that he had recovered from his illness. I felt very pleased and thought it was so wonderful. When I made up my mind to follow God, my son’s stomach sickness just passed. This made me further ascertain that Almighty God is the one true God who I could depend on and worship. My eyes blindfolded by Satan were opened and I gained the discernment of these things that happened to me. It was not that I took the wrong path; rather, it was Satan’s cunning scheme, a battle in the spiritual realm. Thank God for enlightening my spiritual eyes with His words and allowing me to see the facts. In the days that followed, I regularly led the life of the church and read God’s words, and was frequently touched and encouraged by His words. Also, God continually used His words to lead and guide me. When I had conflict with my husband, I no longer kicked up a fuss about trivial matters. Instead I discussed things with him with a calm heart. My husband thought that I had been an altered person. So he began to look at Almighty God’s words and accept His work afterward. Now our family lives in perfect harmony, no more strife-torn or warring, and is immersed in joy.
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