A Clean Break With the Past (Part 3)
February 26, 2018
Fangfang, China
Although the people from the religious community didn’t come to bother me again, the church leaders still continued to incite my folks to harass me. Every few days they would come over to my house to urge me to change my mind, and they always insisted that I go over to the leader’s place to “repent.” One day, my folks came over and my father tried to use a passage from the Bible to deceive me while my mother stood to one side and tearfully pleaded with me to go to the leader’s place to “repent.”
It really upset me to see my mother so sad. I thought about how she had lost her mother at the age of 3 and was then abused by her stepmother. She had suffered a lot in her life and was now getting on in years, and I hadn’t been a very filial daughter, especially in the way I was making her worry now. Then I looked at my father’s pale face and graying hair, and that made me even sadder, to the point where I struggled to hold back the tears. Just as I was at my most vulnerable I thought of 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 that God does in you is Satan’s wager with God—behind it all is a battle” (“Only Loving God Is Truly Believing in God” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). God’s words helped me to understand that on the surface it seemed as if my parents were harassing me, but in the spiritual realm it was Satan making a bet with God. It was like when Job was being tested by God, and his wife, who served as a servant of Satan, said to him: “Do you still retain your integrity? curse God, and die” (Job 2:9). But Job had fear and reverence for God and stayed away from evil, so he scolded his wife, calling her an ignorant and stubborn woman, and did not sin in anything he said. He bore witness for God in front of Satan, and in Jehovah God’s eyes he was a complete man. Now it was me who was being harassed by my parents, who had believed all of the silly nonsense that the pastors and elders were saying. This was one of Satan’s temptations, because Satan knew that I cared a lot about them and was taking the opportunity to get involved. Satan attempted to use my empathy for my parents to make me deny and betray God, which shows just how sneaky and cunning Satan is! But I wasn’t going to give Satan the satisfaction of seeing its schemes come to fruition. I wasn’t going to disappoint and sadden God, so I resolved to stand by God’s side. Following that, whatever my parents said, however they urged me, my heart did not budge an inch. Seeing that I was totally unmoved, my parents left, looking very dejected.
It really upset me to see my mother so sad. I thought about how she had lost her mother at the age of 3 and was then abused by her stepmother. She had suffered a lot in her life and was now getting on in years, and I hadn’t been a very filial daughter, especially in the way I was making her worry now. Then I looked at my father’s pale face and graying hair, and that made me even sadder, to the point where I struggled to hold back the tears. Just as I was at my most vulnerable I thought of 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 that God does in you is Satan’s wager with God—behind it all is a battle” (“Only Loving God Is Truly Believing in God” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). God’s words helped me to understand that on the surface it seemed as if my parents were harassing me, but in the spiritual realm it was Satan making a bet with God. It was like when Job was being tested by God, and his wife, who served as a servant of Satan, said to him: “Do you still retain your integrity? curse God, and die” (Job 2:9). But Job had fear and reverence for God and stayed away from evil, so he scolded his wife, calling her an ignorant and stubborn woman, and did not sin in anything he said. He bore witness for God in front of Satan, and in Jehovah God’s eyes he was a complete man. Now it was me who was being harassed by my parents, who had believed all of the silly nonsense that the pastors and elders were saying. This was one of Satan’s temptations, because Satan knew that I cared a lot about them and was taking the opportunity to get involved. Satan attempted to use my empathy for my parents to make me deny and betray God, which shows just how sneaky and cunning Satan is! But I wasn’t going to give Satan the satisfaction of seeing its schemes come to fruition. I wasn’t going to disappoint and sadden God, so I resolved to stand by God’s side. Following that, whatever my parents said, however they urged me, my heart did not budge an inch. Seeing that I was totally unmoved, my parents left, looking very dejected.
At a later date, the church leader let my father stand in front of all of the members of their church and announce that I had been expelled from the church. The leader also made my parents stay away from me. As a result of the harassment from the church leader and my folks, my husband began to frantically persecute me. Every time I returned home from fulfilling my duties he would either beat me or shout abuse at me, and sometimes he even locked me out of our home. He would damage my electric scooter or my bicycle, and one time he even took me to a police station. I was brutalized by him to the point of physical and psychological exhaustion, and our neighbors in the village also began to mock and slander me. Faced with this situation, my psychological weakness began to make me feel that faith in God was too unbearable. I didn’t know how to proceed, and so I often knelt before God and prayed and wept, begging God to give me confidence and strength. And then on one occasion, I read these words of God: “Those who God refers to as overcomers are those who are still able to stand witness, maintain their confidence, and their devotion to God when under the influence of Satan and under siege by Satan, that is, when within the forces of darkness. If you are still able to maintain a heart of purity and your genuine love for God no matter what, you stand witness in front of God, and this is what God refers to as being an overcomer. If your pursuit is excellent when God blesses you, but you retreat without His blessings, is this purity? Since you are certain that this way is true, you must follow it until the end; you must maintain your devotion to God. Since you have seen that God Himself has come to the earth to perfect you, you should give your heart entirely to Him. No matter what He does, even if He determines an unfavorable outcome for you at the very end, you can still follow Him” (“You Ought to Maintain Your Devotion to God” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). From God’s words I came to understand that during the last days God will make a group of overcomers and will allow Satan to tempt people. No matter whether it’s the CCP’s oppression, the harassment from the religious community, abandonment by relatives, or the mockery and insults received from the general public, we believers must realistically undergo these trials because only those believers who can obey and stay loyal and bear witness to God in any situation are overcomers who have been completed by God. God has arranged these difficult situations in order to perfect me, to see if I really believe and trust in Him and have obedience and loyalty to Him. After understanding God’s intentions, I went before God and made this pledge: No matter what difficulties or oppression I face I will always follow God with determination, I will always fulfill my duties as one of God’s creatures in order to satisfy God, and I will bear victorious testimonies for God in front of Satan. After that, although my husband was just as frenzied in the way he continued to harass and disturb me, I still prayed to God frequently, looked up to God, equipped myself with God’s words every day and so didn’t feel that I was suffering. God also opened up a way out for me: My husband was punished by God on a number of occasions for flying into frenzies and bullying me, and after that he didn’t dare to beat me or smash up my bicycle again. Through experiencing this, I saw God’s almightiness and sovereignty and His wonderful deeds. I saw that there isn’t any dark force that can surpass God’s authority and ability, and I personally experienced the fact that all we need to do is rely completely on God and face difficulties using God’s words then God will open up a way forward for us and lead us in overcoming Satan’s influence of darkness. After experiencing all of the persecution and suffering, although my physical body had suffered a little I still felt that I’d gained so much. My confidence in God got greater and greater, which is God’s blessing for me. Thank You, Almighty God!
A year later I went with Sister Zhang to my youngest sister’s workplace and bore witness to God’s work of the last days for her. My sister accepted it, and when I saw her take the book of God’s words I had a deep realization about just how difficult it is for a person to be saved by God. God is immensely practical when it comes to saving people. I couldn’t stop tears of gratitude from rolling down my face, and my heart soared with thanks and praise for God! In 2006, my youngest sister and I teamed up and convinced our other sister of the gospel of the kingdom, and following that, we were able to bring some of our other relatives before Almighty God, too. Through this I was able to see that regardless of how frantic religious leaders get in creating falsehoods and disturbing and harassing true believers, the gospel of God’s kingdom will spread, and no one can stop it. God’s lambs will always hear God’s voice and return before God’s throne. As Almighty God says: “The kingdom is expanding in humanity’s midst, it is forming in humanity’s midst, it is standing up in humanity’s midst; there is no force that can destroy My kingdom” (“The Nineteenth Utterance” of God’s Utterances to the Entire Universe in The Word Appears in the Flesh).
Source The Internet
No comments:
Post a Comment