Fellowship From the Brother Above – July 1, 2025 (Part Four)

Now, the disasters are growing greater and greater. Some people are afraid of suffering when doing their duty. When they engage with potential gospel recipients, they keep hitting a wall. They can’t fellowship on the truth clearly and never manage to gain anyone. Seeing how difficult it is to preach the gospel, they get disheartened and become negative. What is the problem here? Tell me, isn’t it normal to have difficulties in preaching the gospel? (It is.) What duty is easy? No duty is easy, and it’s even harder to achieve actual results in it. Do you think you can do the work well just by understanding some doctrines? That might work for duties that don’t involve the truth—those that require physical labor, like farming or manual work. But once a duty involves the truth and requires fellowshipping on the truth and acting according to principles, then it becomes difficult. Some leaders and workers are terrified of fellowshipping on the truth to others. If there’s a problem in the church that can only be resolved by fellowshipping on the truth thoroughly, they are at a loss. They only prefer to handle problems that can be solved with a bit of physical effort. What is the problem here? (They don’t have the truth reality.) Their understanding of the truth is too shallow. So, when God’s chosen people have problems or difficulties, they don’t dare to fellowship on the truth to resolve them. They think, “What if I can’t fellowship clearly and everyone laughs at me? Wouldn’t that be embarrassing? And what if they do not defer to me?” They’re afraid of losing face and afraid of being shamed; they are concerned with saving face. Tell me, can a person who is concerned with saving face gain the truth? (No.) If you want to gain the truth, you must constantly train yourself in fellowshipping on the truth. How can you gain the truth if you don’t train yourself in fellowshipping on it? Being able to fellowship on the truth with clarity isn’t something that can be achieved overnight. It requires training yourself in fellowshipping on the truth every day. When I first started doing the work, I didn’t have the truth either. I just visited churches in many different places. Whenever I arrived at a place, I would fellowship for a day or two. But at that time, God had not yet appeared and worked, so could anyone have the truth? No one could. Even after God appeared, worked, and uttered His words, is the truth something a person can immediately understand just by reading a couple of passages of God’s words? (No.) It still requires experiencing God’s work for several years. So, when I believed in the Lord Jesus, I did not have the truth reality, and within the first three to five years of believing in Almighty God, I didn’t have much truth reality either. So what did I rely on when I preached back then? I relied on the enlightenment and illumination of the Holy Spirit. Without the enlightenment and illumination of the Holy Spirit, no one would have listened to my sermons. Isn’t that the case? (It is.) When a person has not yet gained the truth, they rely on the enlightenment and illumination of the Holy Spirit to preach. But if a person doesn’t put in the effort to train themselves, can they gain the work of the Holy Spirit? (No.) Without putting in the effort to train yourself, you cannot gain the work of the Holy Spirit. You are just starting to do your duty now and don’t have much truth. So, are you willing to train yourself in fellowshipping on the truth? If you want to gain the truth, you must train yourself in this way. If you are constantly afraid of not fellowshipping on the truth clearly, and constantly afraid of being too shallow in your fellowship or of having a somewhat distorted comprehension and being laughed at by others—if you constantly have these concerns, can you still train yourself? (No.) When I think back on my sermons from the early days of my faith, they didn’t have much truth reality. It was only through the Holy Spirit enlightening and guiding me step by step that I was able to fellowship a little light. But that little bit of light, when compared to the clear words God expresses now, falls far short! That little bit of light was too shallow. But that was how the Holy Spirit guided me through. I just kept on preaching, day after day. Wherever I held a gathering, more and more people came to listen to my sermons. They felt my sermons had much light and they all found them very enjoyable. I trained myself to preach in this way, and over many years of training, I gradually entered into the truth reality. You can hear that my fellowship now has the truth reality. But if you look at my fellowship from the first ten years or so of my faith, what would you see? There was no truth reality! This is an inevitable pattern. When people first start believing in God, they don’t have the truth reality. It’s not just you who lack the truth reality; I was the same way when I first started to believe. But I trained myself in this way, and the Holy Spirit led me through it. It was only by experiencing this process that I came to have some truth reality. If you want to gain the truth, you must also experience this process. Don’t be afraid of making a fool of yourself because you can’t fellowship on the truth with clarity, thinking, “I can’t fellowship. What if my fellowship is too shallow and someone calls out my shortcomings?” Don’t be constrained by that. And don’t, when you see someone else fellowshipping on the truth really well and really practically, say, “Oh, their fellowship is so practical, so I can’t fellowship anymore. I’ll embarrass myself if I say anything more.” Is it good to constantly be constrained by these things? (No.) No matter what difficulties or problems we find among our brothers and sisters, we should fellowship the truth to resolve them. If our fellowship is shallow, and someone else fellowships more profoundly, more practically, and more in line with the truth principles, then we should accept what they say and practice according to their fellowship. In other words, we should submit to anyone whose words are correct. Is it good to practice according to this principle? (Yes.) Tell me, if I discover a brother or sister whose fellowship is better than mine, how do I handle it? I say, “That sister’s fellowship is more practical and profound than mine. Let’s handle this issue according to her fellowship.” Isn’t that better? If anyone fellowships with enough practicality, with enough depth, and in line with the truth principles, we should accept what they say. How does that sound? (Good.) If you have this kind of mindset, will you still be constrained? (No.) If you can be this simple and open, you won’t be constrained by anything. Gradually, the more you experience, the more reality you’ll have, and the more testimony you’ll bear. Then, when you fellowship on the truth again, everyone will love listening to you. In the future, when all of God’s chosen people have the truth reality, it will be even more enjoyable for everyone to fellowship together. You have experienced the reality of this area, and they have experienced the reality of that area. When you get together, all your fellowship will be on practical experiences and good experiential testimonies. This will be beneficial to everyone, and God will be pleased to see it. Isn’t that so? (Yes.) Now, when I fellowship on the various items of work with the leaders and workers, my principle is to go with whoever is right. If what I say is wrong, I’ll reject it and go by what others say is right. Tell me, is it good to practice this way? (Yes.) So don’t be afraid to fellowship because you see that someone else’s fellowship is profound and you fear that you’ll be belittled, looked down upon, and lose face. Why are you always constrained by this? Just be simple and open; call a spade a spade. If you say something wrong, admit it in front of everyone: “What I said was wrong, I take it back. My intention in speaking was wrong. I embellished things and was a bit deceptive.” When you say this, everyone will realize, “Wow, the people in God’s house are so simple and open. The brothers and sisters are like a family that can talk about anything.” Tell me, isn’t it enjoyable to live amid this kind of church life? (It is.) When brothers and sisters can all be simple, open, and honest, can all submit to and practice the truth, and can all turn their whole hearts to God and put their whole hearts into God’s work, then they are truly one family. This relationship is much better than that between fleshly brothers and sisters. Although siblings in the flesh are born of the same parents, some go their separate ways after becoming adults and have no further contact. They don’t even help each other when they face difficulties. Why is that? Some siblings can become so estranged that they never have anything to do with each other again for the rest of their lives. Why is that? Everyone’s heart is different, even though they come from the same family. Some are kind-hearted, others are wicked; some accept the truth, and others do not. Mankind has been deeply corrupted by Satan. The vast majority of people live for personal benefit—for fame and gain. Only a very small number can choose to accept the truth and follow God. This is the state of corrupt mankind. Even people from the same family love and pursue different things. Those who accept God’s work and those who do not walk two different paths; they cannot be compatible. So how did they come to walk two different paths? This fulfills the words of God: “Believers and nonbelievers are inherently not compatible; rather, they are opposed to one another” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. God and Man Will Enter Into Rest Together). No matter how close their fleshly relationship is, believers and nonbelievers are spiritually opposed, so in the end, they go their separate ways and have no more contact. After we come to believe in God, when we meet our brothers and sisters, we feel that we are truly one family, and that we have a common language. Look, is anything taboo when I speak with you? Nothing at all is taboo. I say whatever is in my heart. Why is that? It’s because we are connected in spirit. We are all open to God. In our gatherings and fellowship, we talk about our own experiential understanding based on God’s words. No matter who is speaking, if what they say is right or accords with the truth, everyone can accept it. This is what it means for us to be connected in spirit, and this is what it means to be true brothers and sisters. It’s just as the Lord Jesus said: “Who is My mother? And who are My brothers? … For whoever shall follow the will of My Father which is in heaven, the same is My brother, and sister, and mother” (Matthew 12:48, 50). What the Lord meant by this is that only those who follow the will of the heavenly Father are our brothers and sisters. Those who don’t follow the will of the heavenly Father are not our true brothers and sisters, even if they are our siblings in the flesh. Isn’t this what the Lord Jesus meant? (It is.) Therefore, when brothers and sisters from different countries gather together, their spirits connect even if they don’t speak the same language. They can all treat each other with love. Everyone can be tolerant of the shortcomings, weaknesses, or transgressions of others, and bear with them. This is what it means for brothers and sisters to love one another. It is really only because of God’s love that people can have this kind of love. You see, when I interact with nonbelievers, I don’t want to say a word more than I have to, but when I’m with brothers and sisters, there’s so much I want to say. The more we talk, the more there is to say. We couldn’t finish talking in a day, or even a month, a year, or a decade. Tell me, in the thirty or forty years I’ve been continuously preaching and working, have I said everything I needed to say? (No.) I’ve been speaking like this every day for thirty or forty years. The Chinese brothers and sisters in particular have often listened to me preaching and answering questions over the years—but is my fellowship repetitive? It’s never repetitive. Why isn’t it repetitive? Because my thoughts are different every day. I might answer the same question one way today and another way tomorrow. But no matter how I answer, it helps people understand and always achieves the result of resolving the problem. There are never any regulations in how I speak. When I preach, I don’t prepare, I don’t write an outline or a draft, and I never read from a script when resolving any issue. I just fellowship and answer whatever questions the brothers or sisters raise directly. No matter how I fellowship, I always have something to say. It’s very liberating and free. So, in God’s house, don’t be constrained by anything. When you’re with your brothers and sisters, just be simple and open. Just train yourself in fellowshipping on the truth. Gradually, your life will grow and you will have the truth reality.