Words on Serving God (Excerpt 73)
In order for leaders and workers to perform their duties well and do a good job at the work God has entrusted to them, they must first understand God’s will and not focus on the size or quantity of their work. They should instead focus on whether or not they have life entry and change their dispositions. This is what God requires of leaders and workers. Do you now really understand changes in one’s disposition? What does a change in disposition mean? Are you able to discern a change in behavior and a change in disposition? Which states can be considered changes in one’s life disposition, and which states are merely changes in external behavior? What is the difference between a change in one’s external behavior and a change in one’s inner life? Can you tell the difference? You see someone with an enthusiastic heart, running around and spending time for the church, and you say: “His disposition has changed!” You see someone forsake their family or job, and you say: “Her disposition has changed!” You think that if their disposition hadn’t changed, they wouldn’t be able to make such a sacrifice. That’s how most of you see things, but is this view correct? Some people are even more absurd; when they see someone who has forsaken their family or job, they say: “This person really loves God!” Today, you say this person loves God, tomorrow you say someone else loves God. If you see someone preaching endlessly, you say: “This person knows God. He has gained the truth. If he did not know God, could he have so much to say?” Isn’t that how you see things? Indeed, this is how most of you see people and things. You always honor others with crowns and flatter them. Today you give someone a crown for loving God, tomorrow you give someone else a crown for knowing God, for being loyal to God. You’re “experts” in giving crowns to others. Every day, you honor others with crowns and flatter them, which results in their harm, and yet you feel proud for doing so. When you praise others in this way you make them arrogant. Those who are praised like this think to themselves, “I have changed, I can receive a crown, I am sure to enter the kingdom of heaven!” Worse still, there are some, like Paul, who always talk about how much they have suffered and how much they have borne witness. They sing their own praises and speak according to their own notions and preferences, without the slightest consideration of God’s will. They tell others to emulate them even though it is clear that they have not changed their own dispositions and, as a result, those who believe in God but lack discernment—and especially those who worship them—are harmed and led astray. They have not yet set out on the right track of believing in God, only expending themselves and suffering for God out of zeal. They have merely been arrested and imprisoned without betraying anything or becoming a Judas—and so they think that they have stood firm in their testimony and are qualified to enter the kingdom of heaven. They treat this little bit of experience as a testimony and flaunt it everywhere. Is this not showing themselves off to mislead people? Many people give this sort of “testimony,” and how many people have been misguided? Is it not absurd that such people are treated as overcomers? Do you know how God sees people? Is it clear to you what an overcomer is, exactly? Bearing false witness in this fashion is cursed by God. How many misdeeds have you committed in this vein? You cannot provide life for others, nor can you dissect others’ states. You can only give people crowns and, as a result, drive them to ruin. Don’t you know that a corrupt person can’t withstand praise? If no one praises them, they are so incredibly proud, with their noses stuck up in the air. But don’t they die faster if people praise them? You don’t know what it means to love God, to know God, to sincerely expend oneself for God. You do not understand any of these things. You look at the outward appearance of things and then pass judgment on others, giving them crowns and flattering them, and thereby misguiding and harming many people—and you do this often. Having been praised by you in this way, many people have gone astray and fallen. Even if they get back up, they have nonetheless delayed much of their progress in life, and already suffered losses. Now most are still not on the right track in their belief in God and cannot pursue the truth, and only know themselves a little. If they are praised like this, they will become self-satisfied, complacent, and stuck in their ways, feeling that they are already on the right track in their belief in God, and that they have a little bit of the truth realities. They will become emboldened in their speech, chiding people within the church, and acting like a despot. Are you not harming people and ruining them by working in this fashion? What kind of person loves God? Those who love God must be like Peter, they must be made perfect, and they must follow God to the end of the road in order to achieve the love of God. God observes the depths of people’s hearts, and only God can determine who loves Him. It is not easy for people to see this clearly, so how can they pass verdicts on others? Only God knows which people truly love Him. Even if they have a God-loving heart, they don’t dare say that they themselves are God-loving people. God said that Peter was a God-loving person, but Peter himself never said that he was. So, is loving God something that one can casually boast about? Loving God is man’s duty, so it is devoid of reason to start boasting as soon as your heart has a little love for God. Even more lacking in reason is if you yourself are not a God-loving person but still praise others for being so. This is insane. Only God knows who is a God-loving person, and can say who is such. If these words come out of a person’s mouth, they are occupying the wrong position. You are taking God’s position, applauding people and flattering them—on whose behalf is this done? God certainly doesn’t flatter people, nor applaud them. After Peter was made complete, God didn’t use him as an exemplar until He did the work of the last days. At the time, He never said to others the words: “Peter loves God.” He only said such things when He did this stage of the work, setting him up as a model and an exemplar for those who experience God’s judgment and seek to love Him in the last days. Everything that God does has meaning. How absurd is it for people to arbitrarily say that someone is a God-loving person! This is too preposterous. First, such people are standing in the wrong position. Second, this is not something that people can pass verdicts on. What does it mean to flatter others? It means misleading, tricking, and harming others. Third, in terms of its objective effect, such behavior is not only unable to lead others onto the right track, but it also disturbs their life entry and causes losses to their life. If you always say someone loves God, is able to renounce things, and is loyal to God, won’t everyone then imitate their outward actions? Not only have you not led others onto the right track, but you have also led most people to focus on outward actions, such that they just rely on these outward practices to exchange for crowns, unconsciously following the path of Paul. Has it not had this effect? When you speak these words, are you aware of these problems? What position are you standing in? What role are you playing? What is the objective effect of your words? What road does it ultimately lead others to follow? To what extent is it harmful? There are serious consequences when people work in this fashion.
Some leaders and workers within the church can’t talk about their experience and testify, and can’t use the truth to resolve problems. They always testify about how they have suffered, how they have accepted being pruned, how they did not become negative despite the many grievances they suffered, and how they persisted in doing their duties. Like Paul, they always testify for themselves, establishing themselves, and making God’s chosen people admire them, esteem them, and look up to them. In addition, when such people see someone who can speak the words and doctrines well and who can preach, they flatter them, and they commend and applaud those leaders and workers who are like Paul, and in this way they make others adore them. They not only fail to do the work of watering and providing well, but they also engage in some destructive and disturbing work that leads others to take the path of Paul. All the while they mistakenly think that they themselves are capable and good leaders, and they want to get rewards from God. Is this not the state that most of you are in? Based on your current method of only paying attention to the words and doctrines, incessantly admonishing people, can you lead people onto the right track? What path can this ultimately lead them to? Will this not lead them all onto the path of Paul? I see that this is how it is, it is no overstatement. It can be said that you are all Paul-style leaders, leading people onto the path of Paul. Do you still want some sort of crown? You will be lucky if you are not condemned. Based on your actions, you have all become people who resist God, serving God yet resisting God, and you have become experts in disrupting His work. If you continue down this sort of path, you will ultimately be false shepherds, false workers, false leaders, and antichrists. Now is the period of training for the kingdom. If you do not put effort into the truth and just focus on the work, you will unwittingly take the path of Paul. Moreover, you will bring a group of others who are like Paul along with you. Will you then not become someone who resists God and disrupts His work? So, if a person who serves God cannot testify for Him, or lead His chosen people onto the right track, then they are someone who resists God. There are only these two paths. Peter’s path is the path of pursuing the truth and ultimately succeeding in one’s faith. Paul’s path is the path of not pursuing truth, and of striving only for blessings and rewards. It is a path of failure. Today, those who walk the successful path of Peter are too few, while there are too many of those who walk Paul’s path of failure. If those of you serving as leaders and workers do not pursue the truth from the beginning to the end, you will all become false leaders and false workers, and you will all be antichrists, and evil people who resist God. If you change onto the right track from now on and genuinely take the path of Peter, then you can still become good leaders and workers whom God approves of. If you do not seek to be made perfect and to enter into the reality of God’s word, then you are in danger. Considering your foolishness and ignorance, your shallow and insufficient experience, your small stature, and your lack of maturity, the only thing that can be done is to fellowship more on the truth with you, to get you to understand, but whether you can obtain the truth depends on your personal pursuit. Because today is much different from the time of Peter and Paul. In those days, Jesus had not yet done the work of judging man, chastising man, or changing man’s disposition. Today, God incarnate has stated the truth so transparently. If people still take the path of Paul, it shows that their comprehension ability is flawed, and it further indicates that, like Paul, they are too evil in character, and too arrogant in disposition. That era was different from today, and the context was different. Today, the word of God is so bright and so clear; it is as if He has reached His hand out to teach and lead you, so it’s inexcusable if you still take the wrong path. In addition, today, there are the two archetypes of Peter and Paul, one positive and one negative, one an exemplar and the other a warning. If you take the wrong path, it means you have made the wrong choice, and are so evil. You have no one to blame but yourself. Only he who has the truth reality can lead others to enter the truth reality, but he who lacks the truth reality can only lead others astray.
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