By Lynn, Australia

I was elected as a church leader in April 2020, to be principally responsible for watering work. A few months ago, I noticed that some new believers weren’t consistent in attending gatherings, coming late and leaving early. Some were busy with school or work and said they’d come when they had time. Some didn’t come because they were misled by the rumors and fallacies of the CCP and religious world. We tried to talk to them, but a few wouldn’t answer the phone—it was as if they’d disappeared. I figured that since we’d tried to contact them, if they didn’t want to attend gatherings, it wasn’t our responsibility and we should just let them go. Besides, God wants the best of people, not just more people. He saves those who have true faith and love the truth. If they lacked true faith, no amount of effort from us would help. So, I didn’t pray, seek, or discuss this with my leader, and just decided myself to give up on those newcomers. During this time, I reached out to a few of them, but they didn’t want to attend gatherings, so I felt even more sure that my judgment had been correct. Later on, a sister I worked with noticed I’d given up on lots of new believers two months in a row and asked me if it was really appropriate to do that. She suggested that I could fellowship with our leader and learn the principles. I thought, “We handled this sort of thing the same way in the past. It’s not like we didn’t try to talk to the newcomers, we just can’t get in touch with some of them now, and others don’t even want to believe. There is no need for me to seek the principles.” So I rejected her suggestion. I felt a little uneasy afterward, and wondered if it was really the right thing to do. But then I figured what I’d done couldn’t be wrong because we’d offered them support, and that it wasn’t our fault that they hadn’t come to gatherings. The key thing is that they aren’t true believers in God. So I didn’t pray or seek, and each month I gave up on some newcomers.

Later my leader found out I wasn’t following the principles in giving up on newcomers and really harshly pruned me, saying I didn’t know the principles and hadn’t sought them, and that I just did whatever I wanted. She also said that coming before God was hard for every single one of the newcomers, that other brothers and sisters were putting everything into supporting them, but I was just nonchalantly sweeping some of them aside. I was writing them off without giving any loving support, and it was really irresponsible. Then she asked me, “Why aren’t the newcomers attending gatherings? What sorts of notions and issues are they having? Have you fellowshiped to resolve them? Are you trying to think of other ways to help the newcomers?” The barrage of questions left me speechless, and scene after scene of me giving up on new believers played in my mind like a movie. Only then did I finally realize that I hadn’t acted responsibly toward the newcomers, that I hadn’t actually helped and supported them with love. I hadn’t gained clarity on what their unresolved notions were or why they weren’t coming to gatherings. They hadn’t been to gatherings for a while, so I figured they’d given up believing, and paid them no mind. I saw I’d really failed in my responsibility for the new believers, and was going against the principles by casually abandoning them. I was really lacking humanity! So I came before God to pray, asking Him to enlighten me so I could understand His intention, and reflect on and know myself.

After that, I saw these words from God: “You must exercise care and prudence and rely on love in your treatment of people who are investigating the true way. This is because everyone investigating the true way is a nonbeliever—even the religious among them are more or less nonbelievers—and they are all fragile: Should anything not accord with their notions, they are liable to contradict it, and should any phrase not conform to their will, they are liable to dispute it. Therefore, spreading the gospel to them requires tolerance and patience from us. It requires extreme love on our part, and it requires some methods and approaches. What is crucial, though, is reading God’s words to them, conveying to them all the truths God expresses to save man, and letting them hear the voice of God and the words of the Creator. In this way, they will gain benefits. The most important principle of spreading the gospel is to let those who thirst for God’s appearance and love the truth read God’s words and hear God’s voice. Therefore, speak less to them the words of man and read more to them from God’s words. After you have finished reading, fellowship on the truth so that they can hear God’s voice and understand something of the truth. Then, they will be likely to return to God. Spreading the gospel is the responsibility and obligation of one and all. No matter who this obligation comes to, they must not shirk it or use any excuses or reasons to refuse it” (The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. Spreading the Gospel Is the Duty to Which All Believers Are Honor-Bound). “There are some people who have just come to believe in God who are often negative and weak. This is because they do not understand the truth, their stature is too small, and they lack any understanding of the various truths concerning faith in God. They therefore believe themselves to be of poor caliber, unable to keep up, have lots of difficulties—which breeds negativity, and even makes them throw in the towel: They take the decision to give up, to stop pursuing the truth. They eliminate themselves. What they think is, ‘In any case, God will not approve of me for my belief in Him. God doesn’t like me, either. And I don’t have much time to go to gatherings. My family life is difficult and I need to earn money,’ and so on. These all become the reasons why they can’t go to gatherings. If you are not quick to find out what’s going on, you will likely pigeonhole them as not loving the truth, and as not being someone who truly believes in God, or else you will pigeonhole them as coveting the comforts of the flesh, pursuing the world and being unable to let go of worldly things—and because of this, you will abandon them. Does this fit with the truth principles? Do these reasons truly represent their nature essence? In fact, it is because of their difficulties and entanglements that they become negative; if you can solve these problems, they will not be so negative, and will be able to follow God. When they are weak and negative, they need people’s support. If you help them, they will be able to get back on their feet. But if you ignore them, it will be easy for them to give up because of negativity. This depends on whether the people who do the work of the church have love, on whether they carry this burden. That some people do not often come to gatherings does not mean that they do not truly believe in God, it is not tantamount to a dislike of the truth, it does not mean that they covet the pleasures of the flesh, and are not able to put aside their families and work—much less should they be judged as overly emotional or enamored of money. It’s just that in these matters, people’s statures and aspirations are different. Some people love the truth, and are able to pursue the truth; they are willing to suffer to give up these things. Some people have little faith, and when faced with actual difficulties they are powerless, and cannot overcome them. If nobody helps or supports them, they’ll throw in the towel and give up on themselves; at such times, they need people’s support, care, and assistance. That’s unless they are a disbeliever, and are devoid of love for the truth, and a bad person—in which case they can be ignored. If they are someone who truly believes in God, and do not often go to gatherings because of a few genuine difficulties, then they must not be abandoned, but given loving help and support. If they are a good person, and have the comprehension ability, and are of good caliber, then they are even more deserving of help and support” (The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. Part Three). I was really ashamed of myself when I contemplated God’s words. God has become flesh in the last days and come to speak and work among us for our salvation. God suffers great humiliation, and with immense patience He saves humanity to the greatest extent possible. As long as one can hear the voice of God and accept the truth, God will save them and forsake no one. Although man transgresses, God forgives time and time again. As long as there is a little repentance in your heart, He will give you a chance. From this we can see that God overflows with mercy and tolerance for humans—His love for us is truly so great. Newcomers are like newborn babies, not yet understanding the truth and still lacking a foundation on the true way. God asks us to treat these newcomers with tremendous love and tolerance. As long as they have good humanity and truly believe in God, even if they’re weak, have religious notions, or are too busy to attend gatherings, we can’t casually dismiss them, and we certainly shouldn’t just write them off completely. If we think that they’re not true believers and abandon them because they aren’t coming to gatherings after we’ve only supported them a few times, we’re being irresponsible. When I was new to the faith, I wasn’t gathering regularly because I was busy at home. My brothers and sisters had been really understanding and would change gathering times to accommodate my schedule, and they fellowshiped with me tirelessly. Their help and support allowed me to see the importance of pursuing the truth, and I could feel God’s love and tolerance for me. After that I could attend gatherings regularly and take on duties. If my brothers and sisters had rejected me at the time and thought I didn’t love the truth and that I was a disbeliever, they’d have given up on me a long time ago, and I’d never be here today! I wasn’t considering God’s intentions at all, nor was I making allowances for the struggles of newcomers. I felt dissatisfied with them, thinking they were too busy and that they had too many notions. So I wrote them off and gave up on them, unwilling to pay more of a price to help them. My humanity was so malicious, and I hadn’t taken on a shred of responsibility for these newcomers. I prayed to God, “God, I want to repent to You. I am willing to correct my wrongs as soon as I can, and support these newcomers with love.”

After that I started going with other brothers and sisters to offer support to these newcomers. We learned about their struggles and patiently fellowshiped with them, and some of them came back to gatherings. One of them had been so busy with work that it was hard for her to come to gatherings, and she said, “As long as I believe in my heart, God will never cast me out.” Before I’d thought that she was just focused on earning money and didn’t have genuine faith, but gaining an understanding of her showed me that she hadn’t been at gatherings because we’d set them at times that didn’t work for her. So, we adjusted our gathering times to suit her and fellowshiped with her, “In the last days, God uses the truth to cleanse and save mankind. True believers should gather and fellowship on God’s words, pursue the truth, cast off their corrupt dispositions, and change their life dispositions. That’s the only way to be saved by God and enter into His kingdom. If we have faith but don’t attend gatherings, if we only acknowledge God in words and believe in our hearts, if we treat our belief like a hobby, then that makes us the same as nonbelievers in the eyes of God. Even if we believed in Him until the very end, we would never obtain His approval.” Through fellowship, this newcomer realized she’d had the wrong perspective and wanted to attend gatherings. My heart was overflowing with remorse when I saw these new believers ready to attend gatherings, one after another. I had been writing them off based on my own ideas. Hadn’t I been harming them by doing this? I’d really done a great evil!

One day, my leader asked me, “Since taking over the watering work, how many newcomers have you let go of because of your irresponsibility? When you were abandoning them, did you seek the truth principles?” At the time, I had no idea what to tell her. Then she sent me a passage of God’s words: “There are many people who follow their own ideas no matter what they do, and consider things in highly simplistic terms, and do not seek the truth, either. There is a total absence of principle, and in their hearts they give no thought to how to act according to what God asks, or in a way that satisfies God, and they know only to mulishly follow their own will. God has no place in such people’s hearts. Some people say, ‘I only pray to God when I encounter difficulty, but still it doesn’t feel like this has any effect—so generally when things happen to me now I don’t pray to God, because praying to God is of no use.’ God is utterly absent from the hearts of such people. They do not seek the truth no matter what they are doing at ordinary times; they only follow their own ideas. So are there principles to their actions? Definitely not. They see everything in simple terms. Even when people fellowship the truth principles to them, they are not able to accept them, because there have never been any principles to their actions, God has no place in their hearts, and there is no one but them in their hearts. They feel their intentions are good, that they are not committing evil, that they cannot be considered in violation of the truth, they think that acting according to their own intentions should be practicing the truth, that acting thus is submitting to God. In fact, they are not truly seeking or praying to God in this matter, but acting on impulse, according to their own zealous intentions, they are not performing their duty as God asks, they do not have a heart of submission to God, they are absent of this wish. This is the greatest mistake in people’s practice. If you believe in God yet He is not in your heart, are you not trying to deceive God? And what effect can such faith in God have? Just what can you gain? And what is the point of such faith in God?” (The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. Part Three). God’s words revealed my exact state and behavior. When I gave up on those new believers, I didn’t pray or seek the truth, or even discuss it with my leader. I just blindly acted on experience, thinking of some new believers we’d watered in the past who’d skipped gatherings for months and how we’d just let them go after failing to contact them. I thought that we should just do the same thing now when newcomers weren’t coming back. I even believed that I had a clear view of which ones weren’t truth-seekers and which ones were disbelievers, so I casually wrote them off and abandoned them. Even though I felt uneasy at times, I didn’t do any seeking. When my partner brought it up, I didn’t take her suggestion seriously and just did whatever I wanted. I treated my ideas like the truth principles, thinking I couldn’t be wrong. Wasn’t that arrogant and conceited? I thought nothing of other people, and I wasn’t holding God in my heart. I was much too willful! I judged whether new believers had genuine faith just by if they came to gatherings or not, thinking that if they didn’t show up for a while and I couldn’t get hold of them, we could let them go. In fact, that newcomers don’t attend gatherings doesn’t mean they are disbelievers. Determining which ones are true believers and which are disbelievers requires a real understanding of their situations—they have to be treated differently. Some of the ones who aren’t going to gatherings have reluctantly come along with family members who hope they’d become believers. But they don’t even believe in God’s existence, don’t enjoy reading His words or attending gatherings. Some are pursuing worldly things or fame or evil trends and aren’t remotely interested in following God and going to gatherings. They are averse to and resist any kind of fellowship on God’s words. These people are averse to the truth by nature, so they’re innately disbelievers. If they don’t want to attend gatherings, we can let go of them completely. However, some newcomers have good humanity and genuine faith in God, but don’t understand the truth or the significance of gatherings because they’re just starting out. They think they only need to acknowledge God in their hearts and that it doesn’t make a difference if they come to gatherings or not. So they don’t think much of it and just come when they feel like it. And some have actual difficulties and are unwilling to come because of conflicts between their work and gathering times. We need to give them loving help and support for their problems, use the truth to resolve their notions and difficulties and get them to understand God’s intention to save man. At the same time we should adjust the gathering times to suit them. But I wasn’t treating new believers according to their actual situations or being principled in my duty. I didn’t understand the truth, I just stubbornly did things my own way, treating some newcomers who weren’t coming to gatherings like disbelievers, and carelessly tossing them aside.

God has done a lot of work behind the scenes, made many arrangements and paid an incredible price for every new believer who accepts His work in the last days. Brothers and sisters have patiently and lovingly shared the gospel with them many times. But without even seeking the principles, I’d casually written off some newcomers as people that God wouldn’t save. I really was unreasonably arrogant. It wasn’t their fault that they weren’t coming to gatherings, it was mine for not knowing what they were facing and not helping and supporting them as I should. I was even using the statement that “God wants the best of people, not just more people” as an excuse to give up on them. But what that really meant was that God’s kingdom needs people who have true faith and love the truth, and that God won’t save the disbelievers, evildoers and antichrists. But I’d judged all those new believers who skipped gatherings as people that God wouldn’t save. I was misinterpreting God’s words. I didn’t provide any actual fellowship or help to them, or pay a price and fulfill my responsibilities. I also didn’t get an understanding of whether they really cared about the truth or not, or if they were true disbelievers, I just blindly wrote them off and abandoned them based on my own ideas. If my leader hadn’t pruned me, I don’t know how many more newcomers I would have hurt. I saw how hateful my behavior had been. I didn’t know the truth principles and hadn’t sought them, instead I’d just acted out of my satanic disposition. Those were transgressions! I knew if I didn’t repent and change, God would definitely spurn me.

As a church leader, God’s intention is for me to water and support these brothers and sisters who are new to the faith, to help resolve their notions and problems so they can learn about His work and put roots down in the true way as soon as possible. But I did whatever I wanted and recklessly committed misdeeds. Not only was I blindly going my own way, but I was also leading others astray. As a result, my brothers and sisters were also arbitrarily abandoning new believers. I was doing evil. Seeing how serious the consequences of this were, I couldn’t help but feel scared and angry at myself. Why didn’t I pray to God or seek the truth principles at the time? Why didn’t I reach out to my leader, but just casually gave up on those who weren’t going to gatherings? What led me to act with such audacity? I prayed to God and then read a passage of God’s words: “If, in your heart, you truly understand the truth, then you will know how to practice the truth and submit to God, and will naturally embark on the path of pursuing the truth. If the path you walk is the right one, and in line with God’s intentions, then the work of the Holy Spirit will not leave you—in which case there will be less and less chance of you betraying God. Without the truth, it is easy to do evil, and you will do it despite yourself. For example, if you have an arrogant and conceited disposition, then being told not to oppose God makes no difference, you can’t help yourself, it is beyond your control. You would not do it on purpose; you would do it under the domination of your arrogant and conceited nature. Your arrogance and conceit would make you look down on God and see Him as being of no account; they would cause you to exalt yourself, constantly put yourself on display; they would make you scorn others, they would leave no one in your heart but yourself; they would rob you of God’s place in your heart, and ultimately cause you to sit in the place of God and demand that people submit to you, and make you venerate your own thoughts, ideas, and notions as the truth. So much evil is done by people under the dominance of their arrogant and conceited nature!” (The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. Only by Pursuing the Truth Can One Achieve a Change in Disposition). I’d read these words plenty of times, but it was only when I compared them with this experience that they really touched me. I hadn’t served as a church leader for very long and didn’t have any truth reality. There were many truth principles that I didn’t understand, yet I still thought really highly of myself, as if I understood everything. With new believers, I just wrote off all the ones who weren’t gathering as disbelievers, instead of treating them differently according to their actual situations. I was so self-righteous that I didn’t pray, seek or talk to my leader, or even take my partner’s advice. I was incredibly arrogant! In fact, there are lots of truth principles concerning how to treat new believers, like the principles of helping people with love, the principles of treating people fairly, and there are also truths about resolving the notions of newcomers, and so on. If I’d had a bit of a God-fearing heart and hadn’t been so arrogant and self-righteous, if I’d really considered these principles, I never would have been so pig-headed and disruptive to our work. I realized that living by my arrogant disposition meant I couldn’t help but do evil and resist God. I really hated myself, and felt that I truly deserved to be cursed by God. I swore that I had to seek the truth to resolve my arrogant disposition.

After that, I read two passages of God’s word: “In their work, church leaders and workers must pay attention to two principles: One is to do their work exactly according to the principles stipulated by the work arrangements, never violating those principles and not basing their work on anything that they might imagine or on any of their own ideas. In everything they do, they should show concern for the work of the church, and always put the interests of God’s house first. Another thing—and this is most crucial—is that in all things, they must focus on following the Holy Spirit’s guidance and do everything in strict keeping with God’s words. If they are still capable of going against the Holy Spirit’s guidance, or if they stubbornly follow their own ideas and do things according to their own imagination, then their actions will constitute a most serious resistance against God” (The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. Part Three). “How should you reflect on yourself, and try to know yourself, when you have done something that violates the truth principles and is displeasing to God? When you were about to do that thing, did you pray to Him? Did you ever consider, ‘Is doing things in this way in line with the truth? How would this matter be viewed by God if it were brought before Him? Would He be happy or irritated if He knew about it? Would He hate or detest it?’ You did not seek it out, did you? Even if others reminded you, you would still think that the matter was no big deal, and that it did not run against any principles and was not a sin. As a result, you offended God’s disposition and provoked Him to anger, even to the point of His hating you. This is produced by people’s rebelliousness. Therefore, you should seek the truth in all things. This is what you must follow. If you can earnestly come before God to pray beforehand, and then seek the truth according to God’s words, you will not go wrong. You may have some deviations in your practice of the truth, but this is hard to avoid, and you will be able to practice correctly after you gain some experience. However, if you know how to act in accordance with the truth, yet don’t practice it, the problem is your dislike of the truth. Those who do not love the truth will never seek it, no matter what may happen to them. Only those who love the truth have God-fearing hearts, and when things happen that they don’t understand, they are able to seek the truth. If you can’t grasp God’s intentions and don’t know how to practice, then you should fellowship with some people who understand the truth. If you can’t find those who understand the truth, you should find a few people who have a pure understanding to pray to God together with one mind and one heart, seek from God, await God’s time, and wait for God to open a way for you. As long as you all yearn for the truth, seek the truth, and fellowship on the truth together, the time may come when one of you comes up with a good solution. If you all find the solution suitable and a good way, then this may have been due to the enlightenment and illumination of the Holy Spirit. If you then continue to fellowship together to come up with a more accurate path of practice, it will certainly be in line with the truth principles. In your practice, if you discover your way of practice is still somewhat unsuitable, then you need to quickly correct it. If you err slightly, God will not condemn you, because your intentions in what you do are right, and you are practicing according to the truth. You are simply a little confused about the principles and have made an error in your practice, which is excusable. But when most people do things, they do them on the basis of how they imagine them to be done. They don’t use God’s words as a basis to contemplate how to practice according to the truth or how to gain God’s approval. Instead, they only think about how to benefit themselves, how to make others look up to them, and how to make others admire them. They do things entirely based on their own ideas and purely to satisfy themselves, which is troublesome. Such people will never do things in accordance with the truth, and God will always loathe them. If you are truly someone with conscience and reason, then no matter what happens, you should be able to come before God to pray and seek, be able to seriously examine the motives and adulteration in your actions, be able to determine what is appropriate to do according to God’s words and requirements, and repeatedly weigh and contemplate what actions please God, what actions disgust God, and what actions earn God’s approval. You must go over these matters time and again in your mind until you clearly understand them. If you know that you have your own motives for doing something, then you must reflect on what your motives are, whether it is to satisfy yourself or to satisfy God, whether it is beneficial to yourself or to God’s chosen people, and what consequences it will cause…. If you seek and contemplate more like this in your prayers, and ask yourself more questions to seek the truth, then the deviations in your actions will become smaller and smaller. Only those who can seek the truth in this way are people who are considerate of God’s intentions and who fear God, because you are seeking in accordance with the requirements of God’s words and with a submissive heart, and the conclusions you reach from seeking this way will be in line with the truth principles” (The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. Part Three). God’s words gave me a path of practice. Leaders and workers need to work strictly in accordance with the truth principles and the arrangements of God’s house, and always follow the Holy Spirit’s guidance. We also need to pray and seek often in our duties, and maintain a God-fearing heart. We should never follow our own ideas and experiences, or our imaginings and notions, just doing whatever we want. Even less should we believe in ourselves blindly—we have to seek the truth principles. When we don’t understand something, we can seek and fellowship with our brothers and sisters so that we have a firm grasp on the principles before acting. That’s how we have to do our duty to accord with God’s intention. This experience really taught me a lesson. If God hadn’t set things up and allowed my leader to prune me, I still wouldn’t understand how serious the consequences of working based on my own ideas could be. I told myself that from then on, I had to seek the truth and do my duty according to the principles. Later on, two new members stopped coming to gatherings, and I didn’t dare follow my arrogant disposition and cavalierly make assumptions and abandon them. After reaching out to understand, help and support one of them many times and fellowshiping about his situation with our leader, we ultimately determined that he was a disbeliever and let him go. But the other was a sister who’d believed in God for less than two years, liked reading God’s words and did her best in her duty. However, when she read God’s words about judging and exposing people’s corruption, she compared herself to them and saw that she was deeply corrupted. She decided she was a lost cause, and started to give up on herself. The others and I fellowshiped God’s words with her so she could see that God’s salvation is for all humankind, who has been profoundly corrupted by Satan. We fellowshiped that God understands our difficulties, weaknesses and needs, and that as long as we don’t give up our pursuit of the truth, God won’t abandon us easily, because He always tries to save people to the greatest extent possible. That sister was moved to tears, and she could feel God’s love. We helped and supported her a few times, and now she’s gathering regularly again.

This experience really showed me the good intentions and incredible love God has in His salvation of corrupt mankind. At the same time, through the judgment and revelation of God’s words, I’ve gained some understanding of my arrogant disposition and seen the harm and consequences of doing my duty my own way. I’ve finally had a bit of a God-fearing heart. Now I can do my duty in line with the principles, and this was achieved through God’s words. Thank God!