Those Who Love God Will Forever Live Within His Light

The substance of most people’s belief in God is religious conviction: They are incapable of loving God, and can only follow God like a robot, unable to truly yearn for God or adore Him. They merely follow Him silently. Many people believe in God, but there are very few who love God; they only “revere” God because they fear catastrophe, or else they “admire” God because He is high and mighty—but in their reverence and admiration there is no love or true yearning. In their experiences they seek the minutiae of the truth, or else some insignificant mysteries. Most people merely follow, they fish in murky waters only to receive blessings; they do not seek the truth, nor do they truly obey God in order to receive God’s blessings. The life of all people’s belief in God is meaningless, it is without value, and in it are their personal considerations and pursuits; they do not believe in God in order to love God, but for the sake of being blessed. Many people act as they please, they do whatever they want, and never consider the interests of God, or whether what they do is in accordance with the will of God. Such people can’t even achieve true belief, let alone the love of God. God’s substance is not just for man to believe in; it is, moreover, for man to love. But many of those who believe in God are incapable of discovering this “secret.” People don’t dare to love God, nor do they try to love Him.

Only by Experiencing Refinement Can Man Truly Love God

How should man love God during refinement? Having experienced refinement, during refinement people are able to truly praise God and to see just how much they are lacking. The greater your refinement, the more you are able to renounce the flesh; the greater their refinement, the more people’s love for God. This is what you should understand. Why must people be refined? What effect does it aim to achieve? What is the significance of God’s work of refinement in man? If you truly seek God, then having experienced His refinement to a certain point you will feel that it is so good, and that it is of the utmost necessity. How should man love God during refinement? By using the resolve to love God to accept His refinement: During refinement you are tormented inside, as if a knife were being twisted in your heart, yet you are willing to satisfy God using your heart, which loves Him, and you are unwilling to care for the flesh. This is what is meant by practicing the love of God.

How Peter Came to Know Jesus

During the time that Peter spent with Jesus, he saw many lovable characteristics in Jesus, many aspects worthy of emulation, and many which supplied him. Although Peter saw the being of God in Jesus in many ways, and saw many lovable qualities, at first he did not know Jesus. Peter began following Jesus when he was 20 years old, and continued so for six years. During that time, he never came to know Jesus, but was willing to follow Him purely out of admiration for Him. When Jesus first called to him on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, He asked: “Simon, son of Jonah, will you follow Me?” Peter said: “I must follow he who is sent by the heavenly Father. I must acknowledge he who is chosen by the Holy Spirit. I will follow You.” At the time, Peter had heard tell of a man named Jesus, the greatest of the prophets, God’s beloved Son, and Peter was constantly hoping to find Him, hoping for a chance to see Him (because that is how he was then led by the Holy Spirit). Although he had never seen Him and had only heard rumors about Him, gradually a yearning and adoration for Jesus grew in his heart, and he often yearned to one day look upon Jesus. And how did Jesus call upon Peter? He too had heard tell of a man called Peter, and it was not that the Holy Spirit instructed Him: “Go to the Sea of Galilee, where there is one called Simon, son of Jonah.” Jesus heard someone say that there was one called Simon, son of Jonah, and that people had heard his sermon, that he too preached the gospel of the kingdom of heaven, and that the people who heard him were all moved to tears. After hearing this, Jesus followed that person, and made for the Sea of Galilee; when Peter accepted Jesus’ call, he followed Him.

English Gospel Song | How Great Is Our God | "How God Rules Over All Things"

English Gospel Song | How Great Is Our God | "How God Rules Over All Things"

From the moment you come crying into this world, you begin to perform your duty. In the plan and ordination of God, you assume your role, and begin the journey of life. Whatever your background or the journey ahead of you, none can escape the orchestration and arrangement that Heaven has in store, and none are in control of their destiny, for only He who rules over all things is capable of such work. Since the day man came into existence, God has been steady in His work, managing this universe and directing the change and movement of all things. Like all things, man quietly and unknowingly receives the nourishment of the sweetness and rain and dew from God. Like all things, man unknowingly lives under the orchestration of God’s hand. The heart and spirit of man are held in the hand of God, and all the life of man is beheld in the eyes of God. Regardless of whether or not you believe this, any and all things, living or dead, will shift, change, renew, and disappear according to God’s thoughts. This is how God rules over all things. from The Word Appears in the Flesh 

Only Those Who Know God Can Bear Testimony to God

It is Heaven’s law and earth’s principle to believe in God and know God, and today—during an age when God incarnate is doing His work in person—is an especially good time to know God. Satisfying God is something that is achieved by building on the foundation of understanding God’s will, and in order to understand God’s will, it is necessary to have some knowledge of God. This knowledge of God is the vision that one who believes in God must have; it is the basis of man’s belief in God. In the absence of this knowledge, man’s belief in God would exist in a vague state, in the midst of empty theory. Even if it is the resolution of people like this to follow God, they will gain nothing. All those who gain nothing in this stream are the ones who will be eliminated—they are all freeloaders. Whichever step of God’s work you experience, you should be accompanied by a mighty vision. Otherwise, it would be difficult for you to accept each step of new work, for the new work of God lies beyond man’s capacity to imagine, and is outside the bounds of his conception. And so, without a shepherd to tend to man, without a shepherd to engage in fellowship about visions, man is incapable of accepting this new work.

A Brief Talk About “The Millennial Kingdom Has Arrived”

How do you see the vision of the Millennial Kingdom? Some people think about it a lot, and say that the Millennial Kingdom will last for a thousand years on earth, so if the older members of the church are unmarried, do they have to get married? My family has no money, should I start making money? … What is the Millennial Kingdom? Do you know? People are purblind, and suffer a great ordeal. In fact, the Millennial Kingdom has yet to officially arrive. During the stage of making people perfect, the Millennial Kingdom is but a fledgling; at the time of the Millennial Kingdom spoken of by God, man will have been made perfect. Previously, it was said that people would be like saints and stand firm in the land of Sinim. Only when people are made perfect—when they become the saints spoken of by God—will the Millennial Kingdom have arrived. When God makes people perfect, He purifies them, and the purer they are the more they are made perfect by God.

Only Loving God Is Truly Believing in God

Today, as you seek to love and know God, in one respect you must endure hardship and refinement, and in another, you must pay a price. No lesson is more profound than the lesson of loving God, and it can be said that the lesson that people learn from a lifetime of belief is how to love God. Which is to say, if you believe in God you must love God. If you only believe in God but do not love Him, have not attained the knowledge of God, and have never loved God with a true love that comes from within your heart, then your belief in God is futile; if, in your belief in God, you do not love God, then you live in vain, and your entire life is the most lowly of all lives. If, throughout your whole life, you have never loved or satisfied God, then what is the point of you living? And what is the point of your belief in God? Isn’t that a waste of effort? Which is to say, if people are to believe in and love God, then they must pay a price. Rather than trying to act in a certain way externally, they should seek true insight in the depths of their hearts.