By Rose, the Philippines

In February 2021, I was elected as a church leader. One day, an upper leader said to me that Sister Esther had good caliber and was very proactive in her duties, and that I was to cultivate her. Hearing the upper leader say this, I became somewhat worried, thinking that perhaps Sister Esther would soon do better than me in her duties. If the upper leaders and brothers and sisters all thought highly of her, I might end up being overlooked, and no one would turn to me for church matters in the future. Later, although I told Esther how to do the church work, I didn’t share all the actual details of the church’s situation with her, and I didn’t give her detailed fellowship on how to do the work well. I saw that Esther was proactive in her duties. She quickly familiarized herself with the work, and the results of her duties got better and better. She received praise from the brothers and sisters, and the upper leaders also noticed this. Before long, Esther was elected as a church leader and began cooperating with me on church work. Since I was in the Middle East and there was a time difference with the Philippines, the brothers and sisters had difficulty contacting me, so they’d always contact Esther to host gatherings. I’d see her at every gathering, and that she was really proactive in her duties. I felt very jealous of her, and I was worried that the brothers and sisters would think of her as more proactive and competent than me, and that she could do more work than me, making them value her more than me. I thought, “In the future, I can’t share some of my church work experiences with her right away. She already understands a lot about church work and some truths, so if I tell her everything I understand, then one day, she’ll understand church work better than me and do it better than I do. Then she’ll be more favored and admired by the brothers and sisters than me, and the upper leaders will also value her more and think that I’m not too worth cultivating anymore.” As a result, I didn’t want to cultivate Esther. As the days passed, Esther became more proactive in her duties. She did more work, and every time I was with her, I felt incompetent and discouraged.

One time, because many newcomers had joined the church, we needed to set up more small gathering groups. Esther and I worked on this task separately. On the surface, the sister and I seemed to work well together, but I didn’t tell her that this task needed to be arranged quickly, and I just busied myself with my own work. I thought, “If I can set up more groups and arrange for more people to attend gatherings, I’ll receive praise from the brothers and sisters.” When I asked Esther about the progress of her work, she told me that because her workload was heavy, she hadn’t been able to attend to more people who needed to gather. But I didn’t offer her any help. When the upper leaders asked me about Esther’s work, I even said that she’d complained about her heavy workload. The upper leaders seemed to agree with what I said, and I felt very happy. I felt that Esther’s value in their eyes had diminished, and that they would no longer think she had good work capabilities. Another time, when Esther organized the gathering for a group, a newcomer had some notions about God’s work and appearance. Esther told me she didn’t know how to fellowship to resolve these notions. I actually knew which truths needed to be fellowshipped to resolve them, but I didn’t want her to learn more. I thought, “You’re already doing well. If you learn more and can solve this issue, then the brothers and sisters will all praise you. I don’t want everyone to admire you. Although we’re both church leaders, I was a leader first, and I want to be the best. If you can solve every problem people put to you, then the brothers and sisters will think your work is more effective than mine. How could I continue to work then?” So, I didn’t tell her how to solve this problem. Instead, I just told her to ask the upper leaders. I thought that this way, the upper leaders would not think she understood the truth, and so they’d no longer think highly of her. After doing this, I felt really guilty, but I still didn’t help her. It was only when the upper leaders told me to help her that I finally told her how to solve this problem.

I felt that I had become really hardhearted. I really didn’t want to be jealous of Esther, but I couldn’t control myself. I felt sad about my actions, and I knew that my state was awful. After realizing my problem, I read Almighty God’s words to reflect on and understand myself. I read God’s words: “As a church leader, you do not merely need to learn to use the truth to resolve problems, you also need to learn to discover and cultivate people of talent, whom you absolutely must not envy or suppress. Practicing in this way is beneficial to the work of the church. If you can cultivate a few pursuers of the truth to cooperate with you and do all the work well, and in the end, you all have experiential testimonies, then you are a qualified leader or worker. If you are able to handle everything according to the principles, then you are committing your loyalty. Some people always fear that others are better than they are or above them, that other people will be recognized while they get overlooked, and this leads them to attack and exclude others. Is this not a case of being envious of people with talent? Is that not selfish and despicable? What kind of disposition is this? It is maliciousness! Those who only think about their own interests, who only satisfy their own selfish desires, without thinking about others or considering the interests of God’s house, have a bad disposition, and God has no love for them” (The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. Freedom and Liberation Can Be Gained Only by Casting Off One’s Corrupt Disposition). After reading God’s words, I felt deeply distressed. I realized that I was a person who was jealous of those with talent. When the upper leaders asked me to cultivate Esther, I saw that she had talent, knew how to host gatherings well, and had good results in her work, and so I became jealous of her. I feared that she would surpass me and be admired by the brothers and sisters, and I worried that the upper leaders would value her, and that therefore they’d stop cultivating me. In order to prevent Esther from being promoted and cultivated for doing her duty well, I suppressed her. I knew full well that she had good caliber but I didn’t cultivate her, and I didn’t tell her how to do the church work well. I just wanted to be the only one who was looked up to. When she couldn’t solve the brothers’ and sisters’ problems, even though I knew how to solve them, I didn’t tell her. On the surface, I was encouraging her to ask the upper leaders, but really, by doing this, I wanted to give the upper leaders a bad impression of her, and for them to think she didn’t understand the truth and didn’t have the ability to fulfill this duty. I was truly insidious, deceitful, selfish, and despicable! As a church leader, I should have cultivated talented people when I found them, and done my best to help them do church work well. But I didn’t consider God’s intention, nor did I consider the church’s work. I only worked for my own reputation and status, living in a state of being jealous of and suppressing talented individuals. I refused to cultivate Esther, even hoping she would fail at church work. Behind these actions, I was revealing a malicious disposition. Only those with a malicious disposition would suppress their brothers and sisters. People with normal humanity wouldn’t harm their brothers and sisters. At that point, I realized that I was acting according to a satanic disposition in my duty, and that this was detestable in God’s eyes. Esther has good caliber and was proactive in her duty, and by cultivating her, the church work would be done more easily, and the results of all aspects of the church work would improve. I shouldn’t have been jealous of her; instead I should have cultivated her, helped her with her duty, and done the church work responsibly and diligently. So, I prayed to God, “God, I don’t want to act according to my satanic disposition anymore. I don’t want to rebel against or oppose You anymore. I want to repent before You, to help my sister, and to work together with her to do our duties well.” I prayed to God over and over. During that time, I felt a great deal of guilt in my heart. I told myself that I should no longer envy Esther—this was a corrupt disposition that didn’t please God. After that, I began to actively help Esther. I communicated with her daily, and gradually guided her on how to do church work well so that she could make progress. Whenever the upper leaders informed me of work that needed to be implemented, I would discuss with Esther how the work should be carried out. I was no longer afraid that she would surpass me, be admired by the brothers and sisters, and steal my spotlight. I worked in harmony with Esther as we did our duties together, and I found that many tasks became easier, and that the results of the church’s work also improved.

Later, I was supervising the work of several churches, and the upper leaders assigned Sister Mailyn to do her duties in a church I was supervising. At first, she spoke very little during gatherings, and she was very quiet, but later, she fellowshipped much more, and her fellowship was very good. I felt somewhat jealous of her and worried because she had believed in God for a long time, understood more truths, knew a lot about the work, and had more experience in the work. I thought the brothers and sisters would be sure to praise and admire her. I didn’t want that to happen. One day, I discussed the situation of the several groups that Sister Mailyn was supervising with her, and I asked her about the reasons why the brothers and sisters weren’t attending gatherings regularly. She told me she was looking into the matter, but despite doing a lot of work, she still wasn’t clear on what was wrong. After hearing this, I felt she was complaining, thinking that she had many shortcomings. When the upper leaders came to ask about the work, I told them, “Mailyn loves to complain and isn’t willing to persist in fulfilling her duties.” I even sent the screenshots of our conversation to the leaders, wanting the leaders to think that she was complaining and unwilling to accept others’ advice. I also wanted them to look down on her, value me more, and think I was more worth cultivating than her. When I revealed these thoughts, I realized my state was wrong, and so I prayed to and sought from God.

Later, I read God’s words: “What kind of disposition is it when a person sees someone who is better than them and they try to bring them down, spreading rumors about them, or employing despicable means to denigrate them and undermine their reputation—even trampling all over them—in order to protect their own place in people’s minds? This is not just arrogance and conceit, it is the disposition of Satan, it is a malicious disposition. That this person can attack and alienate people who are better and stronger than them is insidious and wicked. And that they will stop at nothing to bring people down shows that there is much of a devil in them! Living by the disposition of Satan, they are liable to belittle people, to try to stitch them up, to make things hard for them. Is this not evildoing? And living like this, they still think they’re okay, that they’re a good person—yet when they see someone better than them, they are liable to give them a hard time, to trample all over them. What is the issue here? Are people who are capable of committing such evil deeds not unscrupulous and willful? Such people only think of their own interests, they only consider their own feelings, and all they want is to achieve their own desires, ambitions, and aims. They don’t care how much damage they cause to the work of the church, and they would prefer to sacrifice the interests of the house of God to protect their status in people’s minds and their own reputation. Are people like this not arrogant and self-righteous, selfish and vile? Such people are not only arrogant and self-righteous, they are also extremely selfish and vile. They are not considerate of God’s intentions at all. Do such people have God-fearing hearts? They do not have God-fearing hearts at all. This is why they act wantonly and do whatever they want, without any sense of blame, without any trepidation, without any apprehension or worry, and without considering the consequences. This is what they often do, and how they have always behaved. What is the nature of such behavior? To put it lightly, such people are far too jealous and have too strong a desire for personal reputation and status; they are too deceitful and insidious. To put it more harshly, the essence of the problem is that such people have no God-fearing heart at all. They are not frightened of God, they believe themselves to be of utmost importance, and they regard every aspect of themselves as being higher than God and higher than the truth. In their hearts, God is not worthy of mention and is insignificant, and God does not have any status in their hearts at all. Can those who have no place for God in their hearts, and who do not have God-fearing hearts, put the truth into practice? Absolutely not. So, when they typically go around merrily keeping themselves busy and exerting quite a lot of energy, what are they doing? Such people even claim to have abandoned everything to expend for God and suffered a great deal, but actually, the motive, principle, and objective of all their actions are for the sake of their own status and prestige, of protecting all of their interests. Would you or would you not say that this sort of person is terrible? What kind of people have believed in God for many years, yet have no God-fearing hearts? Are they not arrogant? Are they not Satans? And what things most lack a God-fearing heart? Apart from the beasts, it is the evil and the antichrists, the devils and Satan’s ilk. They don’t accept the truth at all; they are entirely without a God-fearing heart. They are capable of any evil; they are the enemies of God, and the enemies of His chosen people” (The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. The Five Conditions That Must Be Met to Embark on the Right Track of Belief in God). God’s words exposed my real state. I was jealous of brothers and sisters whose work yielded better results than mine, and I even attacked and excluded them to maintain my reputation and status. Even though I knew they were doing their duties to satisfy God, I didn’t consider God’s intentions. I just wanted to do my duty in a way that would earn others’ admiration and make them look up to me, instead of doing church work well to consider God’s intentions. When I realized that Mailyn had believed in God for a long time, had caliber and work capability, and that she also had a strong sense of burden for her duty, I became jealous of her and worried that she would surpass me. I judged her before the upper leaders, saying that she was always complaining about her duty, when in reality, Mailyn had just told me she’d been facing difficulties in her duty, and that even though she’d done a lot, she still hadn’t resolved the issues. But I lied to the upper leaders, saying that she was complaining. My goal was to make the upper leaders think that she wasn’t worth cultivating, and I aimed to ruin the image the leaders had of her. This way, the leaders wouldn’t think highly of her or cultivate her, and I wouldn’t have to worry about her surpassing me. I actually slandered my sister for the sake of my reputation and status. I was utterly insidious and malicious! As a church leader, I should have cooperated harmoniously with my brothers and sisters, allowing us to complement each other’s strengths and weaknesses, and I should have fulfilled my responsibilities and duties. I shouldn’t have treated my brothers and sisters as competitors. But I only cared about my reputation and status. I just wanted to be the only one to be admired by others. On the surface, it seemed that I had a sense of burden for the church’s work, but I didn’t have a God-fearing heart. When I saw that Mailyn was talented, I became jealous and refused to let her surpass me. To achieve my goals, I even refused to help her even though I clearly knew she was facing difficulties in her duty. I was willing to harm the church’s work just to protect my fame, gain, and status. I was terrified of the arrogant and malicious disposition I had revealed. I didn’t consider the church’s work but instead engaged in my own enterprise. This truly disgusted God! I thought about how quickly the kingdom gospel was spreading, about how there were so many churches being established everywhere, and about the urgent need for more people to water newcomers and lead the churches. But my thoughts were wicked. I only sought to protect my reputation and status, and when I saw talented people, I not only didn’t cultivate them, but excluded and suppressed them. I was opposing God and disrupting and disturbing the gospel work. A person with good humanity would be happy to see more people rising up to cooperate with the church work, and only antichrists and evil people feel threatened when they see others who are more capable than themselves, attacking and excluding others to maintain their reputation and status. I didn’t have a place for God in my heart or a God-fearing heart. I valued reputation and status too highly. In order to fulfill my ambitions and desires, not only did I not help Mailyn, but I used tactics to suppress her, affecting her ability to do her duties well. The disposition I revealed was the disposition of an antichrist. I was resisting God. If I continued like this without repenting, I would surely be forsaken by God. So I opened my heart to God and prayed, asking for His forgiveness. I also asked God to enlighten and illuminate me so that I could understand His intention and find a path of practice.

Later, I read a passage of God’s words: “If you are truly capable of showing consideration for God’s intentions, you will be able to treat other people fairly. If you recommend a good person and allow them to undergo training and perform a duty, thereby adding a person of talent to God’s house, will that not make your work easier? Will you not then be showing loyalty in your duty? That is a good deed before God; it is the minimum conscience and reason that those who serve as leaders should possess. Those who are capable of putting the truth into practice can accept God’s scrutiny in the things they do. When you accept God’s scrutiny, your heart will be set straight. If you only ever do things for others to see, and always want to gain others’ praise and admiration, and you do not accept God’s scrutiny, then is God still in your heart? Such people have no God-fearing hearts. Do not always do things for your own sake and do not constantly consider your own interests; do not consider the interests of man, and give no thought to your own pride, reputation, and status. You must first consider the interests of God’s house, and make them your priority. You should be considerate of God’s intentions and begin by contemplating whether or not there have been impurities in the performance of your duty, whether you have been loyal, fulfilled your responsibilities, and given it your all, as well as whether or not you have been wholeheartedly thinking about your duty and the work of the church. You must consider these things. If you think about them frequently and figure them out, it will be easier for you to perform your duty well” (The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. Freedom and Liberation Can Be Gained Only by Casting Off One’s Corrupt Disposition). After reading God’s words, I realized that as a church leader, I had to consider God’s intention in my duties, always putting the church work first. When I see brothers and sisters with good caliber and work capability, I shouldn’t be jealous or exclude them for the sake of my own fame, gain, and status, but instead recommend and cultivate them, and help them fulfill their duties so they can grow faster. This was my duty and responsibility. I should practice according to God’s words, break free from the bondage of fame, gain, and status, as well as from jealousy, put aside my own interests, sincerely cultivate brothers and sisters, and fulfill my duty to satisfy God. After understanding God’s intention, I began to correct my intentions, and I kept reminding myself that God detests jealousy. When discussing work again with Mailyn, I calmed myself to listen to her speak, and I tried my best to show care for and help her with any difficulties she had, fellowshipping about similar experiences I’d had. I’d also share good methods I’d drawn from my work. I truly felt at peace by practicing in this way, and the work quickly yielded good results.

One time, Mailyn sent me a message saying she was very upset because some newcomers still weren’t attending gatherings regularly. I felt guilty when I saw her message, as it reminded me of when I used to be jealous of her. Back then, when she encountered difficulties in her duties, I not only didn’t help her, but I also judged her in front of the leaders, saying she always complained while doing her duty. My selfishness had hurt her deeply. From that day on, I’d often comfort and encourage her, and I’d tell her not to worry and I actively worked with her. I no longer cared whether the results of her duties were greater than mine or whether she came to stand out more than me. Before long, Mailyn was elected to supervise the gospel work, and together with me, she would be responsible for following up on the gospel work of the churches. Whenever there were problems or difficulties in the gospel work, we would discuss solutions together, and often talk openly from the heart. I no longer felt jealous of her, and there were no more barriers between us. Since then, my heart has felt lighter. In my experience, I realized that I really needed to give up my desire for reputation and status, as only then could I fulfill my duties according to God’s requirements. I no longer wanted to compete with brothers and sisters for reputation and status, because I knew that the more I pursued reputation and status, the further I would stray from God. By doing so, I would only ever live in a corrupt disposition, and I wouldn’t be able to do the church work well or fulfill my duties. After that, whenever there were newcomers in need of cultivating in the church, I would do my best to help them. Although sometimes I still revealed jealousy, I despised myself. I’d calm my heart, and pray to God, and I’d ask God to protect my heart so that I’d no longer be constrained by corrupt thoughts. After praying this way, my heart found peace, I was no longer jealous of others or afraid of them surpassing me, and I just wanted to help my brothers and sisters, cooperate well with them, and fulfill my duties.

It was the guidance of Almighty God’s words that allowed me to realize my corrupt disposition of jealousy toward talented people, and to know that God detests people like me. I can now rebel against my flesh and practice according to God’s words, sincerely helping and supporting my brothers and sisters, and doing things that benefit the church’s work and my brothers and sisters. All of this is God’s salvation.