Fellowship From the Brother Above – January 5, 2026 (Part One)

In today’s gathering, let’s get right to the questions. (Okay.)

Question 1: How can the fundamental work of watering the church be done well? What are the specific principles of practice?

Answer: Watering the church is work that directly involves serving God. What basic result should serving God achieve? Bringing God’s chosen people before God. What does it mean to bring God’s chosen people before God? This means enabling God’s chosen people to understand the truth, know their corrupt dispositions, and know God’s disposition, until eventually they can submit to and worship God. This is the true significance of bringing God’s chosen people before God. Some people say, “Don’t we bring people before God by preaching the gospel?” When you preach the gospel and fellowship the truth to people, causing them to turn to Almighty God, this counts as bringing people before God. However, is there a gap between this and truly bringing people before God so that they can submit to and worship God? (Yes.) Is the gap between these two things not very large? (It is.) After you preach the gospel to someone and they come to believe in Almighty God, this is only the first step in bringing them before God—making them turn toward Almighty God. But whether they can submit to and worship Almighty God is hard to say. There are many people who have come to believe in Almighty God, but have they truly come before God? Do they truly know how to rely on and look to God? Do they truly have a God-fearing heart? Can they truly submit to all of God’s orchestrations and arrangements? Can they truly worship God in spirit and in truth? Can they truly live by God’s words, practice the truth in all things, and honor God as great? They fall far short of these things. Therefore, preaching the gospel only makes people turn to Almighty God; it doesn’t yet achieve the result of truly bringing them before God. God requires those who serve Him to bring His chosen people before Him. You must be able to lead God’s chosen people to eat and drink God’s words so that they can come to understand the truth, know their corrupt dispositions, and know their nature essence. You must also lead God’s chosen people to accept God’s judgment, chastisement, pruning, trials, and refinement, and to ultimately achieve a change in life disposition. Only when people’s dispositions change can they truly submit to God and worship God in spirit and in truth. Only when the work you do achieves such results have you truly brought people before God. Then tell me, can an antichrist bring people before God in their work? (No.) Why not? (An antichrist is not a right person, and in their work they bring people before themselves.) The main reason is that an antichrist does not have the truth reality. They do not know what the truth is, nor what it is to know oneself. They therefore cannot come to practice the truth, submit to God, or worship God, and they are capable of betraying and resisting God at any time. Therefore, it is simply impossible for them to lead God’s chosen people into the truth reality, and impossible for them to bring God’s chosen people before God. If God’s chosen people do not enter the truth reality, they are liable to betray God at any time and in any place, or even withdraw from their faith. It is just like how there are many people who accepted God’s work of the last days after hearing the truth of visions fellowshipped by gospel workers, but withdrew after living the church life for a while. Why is this? It is because the gospel workers did not truly bring them before God. Although they verbally acknowledged Almighty God as the Lord Jesus returned, they were not at all certain about Almighty God in their heart. They did not accept the truth, or know what the truth is, much less did they gain the truth. If people do not gain Almighty God’s words as their life, and moreover do not enter the truth reality, what will the consequences be? (They will remain liable to betray God.) Though today they may acknowledge Almighty God as the true God, tomorrow, they might betray God and withdraw from their faith if they encounter some issue. Is this not true? (It is.) It is just like how there are many people in mainland China who have believed in Almighty God for ten or twenty years, but suddenly one day they are arrested by the great red dragon and are brutally tortured. What ends up happening? Most of them betray God and sign the “Three Statements.” How is it that these people are still able to betray God after believing in Him for ten or twenty years? Have they truly come before God? Do they truly know God? No. They have not rooted themselves in the words of Almighty God, which is to say they have not rooted themselves in the true way. They have not gained life. If people believe in God but do not gain life, can they withstand Satan’s temptations? Can they withstand the torment of torture? Can they withstand the test of life and death? (No.) They are unable to withstand any of these. Therefore, when great temptations come to them, they cannot stand firm. Some people, after being arrested, sign the Three Statements and betray God. Tell me, why do these people sign the Three Statements? Do they truly deny God in their hearts? No. In their hearts, they acknowledge Almighty God as the true God. So why is it that they sign the Three Statements? (They fear death.) It is precisely because of their fear of death that they deny God. The fatal weakness of corrupt mankind is the fear of death. Once their lives are threatened, once something becomes a matter of life and death, people choose to drag out an ignoble existence, and thus they sign the Three Statements and strike a compromise with Satan. Is this not betraying God? (It is.) Then, among those arrested by the great red dragon, are there any who stand firm in their testimony? (Yes.) Some people choose death over signing the Three Statements. Some of them are beaten to death, and some are given heavy sentences. Ever since God began to appear and work, at least three hundred people in The Church of Almighty God have been martyred. No matter how the CCP police beat or torture them, they refuse to sign the Three Statements or deny God, and so they are persecuted to death. They are martyred. There are also some who, though they are not beaten to death, are sentenced to many years in prison—some for five years, seven years, or even more than ten years. Even now, there are still many people detained in prison. As for those who sign the Three Statements and betray God, they are released by the great red dragon. Their flesh is free and no longer suffers, but do their hearts know freedom, peace, or joy? (No.) Then what do they feel in their hearts? (Pain and torment. They wallow in a living hell.) They have tasted what it is like for life to be worse than death, and their hearts know profound torment. There are even some who no longer want to live, feeling that they can no longer show their face before God and that they would be better off dead. So why did you sign the Three Statements? If you had truly risked your life to stand firm in your testimony, even if you had been beaten to death, it would have been worth it. You would have triumphed over Satan. Now, because you have signed the Three Statements and betrayed God, you have tasted what it is like for life to be worse than death, and only now do you know regret. But it is too late. Those who betray God are revealed and eliminated. Their outcome is to go to hell and suffer punishment, and no matter how great their regret, it is of no use. Tell me, why is it that these people still betray God after believing in Him for ten or twenty years? What is the reason? (They have not gained the truth.) It is precisely because they have not gained the truth as their life, and because they have no true faith in God. With the little faith they have, if no great temptation comes to them and their life is not threatened, they can still believe in and follow God. But once their life is threatened and there is the danger of death, they stop believing in God and betray Him. This is what it means to not have true faith. God’s standard for people in this stage of His work in the last days is to at least achieve the faith of Job. You must be able to risk your life to follow God. If you cannot, then your faith is not up to standard. Therefore, in our serving of God, is bringing people before Him a simple matter? How much work do you need to do to bring people into the truth reality? How much work do you need to do to enable people to have true faith in God, absolutely submit to God, and submit to all of God’s orchestrations and arrangements? Achieving this is no simple matter. In the course of your work, you must also experience repeated judgment, chastisement, trials, refinement, chastening, discipline, numerous rounds of pruning, as well as many failures and falls. Only then can your life grow, and can you come to shoulder God’s commission and follow God’s will. This cannot be achieved without many years of effort. You must see through this matter. Do not say, “I am now a leader or worker, and the work I’m doing is serving God, which is bringing people before God. As long as I am not weak or negative, do not give up, and do not betray God, then I am following God’s will.” Is this correct? (No.) To think this way is truly superficial. Your view on the matter of serving God is too simple. Remember, if you do not understand many truths while doing church work, it is absolutely impossible to bring God’s chosen people before God, and you can’t even begin to speak of serving God.

The most recent New Year’s variety showcase was quite good. When interviewed, the brothers and sisters from various countries who participated in the performance all spoke from the heart and recounted their true experiences. They all personally experienced the work of the Holy Spirit and felt that God is right by their side, and that when people sincerely pray to and rely on God, the Holy Spirit truly works to guide them and gives them faith and strength. Some brothers and sisters also saw God’s wondrous deeds. For example, when brothers and sisters from Australia were filming their program, a superstorm struck. Through praying and relying on God, the weather quickly turned sunny and bright. They joyfully thanked God and quickly finished filming the program. They saw God’s wondrous deeds and said in their hearts, “Believing in Almighty God is the right choice! Almighty God is the true God. When people encounter difficulties and pray to Almighty God, God can truly help them overcome their difficulties and resolve their problems. God is truly with man, and the Holy Spirit is truly doing great work!” Through filming this program, they all gained experience, and these experiences were all quite good. There were also participants in the performance who, although not interviewed, also had such experiences. This is absolutely true. Just by filming a program and expending themselves a little for God, people personally experienced God’s great power, God’s presence, God’s grace and blessings, and God’s love, and they also personally experienced the work of the Holy Spirit. In this way, did people’s faith not grow ever greater? Did they not develop true faith? (They did.) Once you have true faith, you begin to enter into life experience. If you can seek the truth to resolve the many difficulties and hurdles you encounter in your duty, you will have more knowledge of God, and your life growth will be like a sesame stalk putting forth blossoms notch by notch—rising ever higher. The more experience people gain, the more they know God. The more experience people gain, the more they can come face-to-face with God. The more experience people gain, the more faith they have in God. The more experience people gain, the more their corrupt dispositions are cast off, and the more they submit to God. Gradually, they come to gain the truth and their disposition changes. This is what it means to be made perfect by God. After being made perfect by God, people gain true knowledge of God, can completely submit to God, and come to have a God-fearing heart. Can such people come to shun evil? (Yes.) Shunning evil becomes easy. If they encounter some difficulties in their duty, will they still become negative? (No.) If they encounter someone disrupting and disturbing the church’s work, will they be able to discern, expose, and stop these things? (Yes.) Once people understand the truth, these difficulties and problems all come to be resolved. Therefore, the key to experiencing God’s work and achieving life growth is to do one’s duty. If you do not do your duty, the work of God that you can experience will be very little, and the deeds of God that you can see will also be very limited. If you experience very little of God’s work and see very few of God’s deeds, then your gains will be too few, and it will be very difficult for you to come to understand or gain the truth. You see, the brothers and sisters who participated in the performance truly saw God’s deeds by experiencing God’s work during the filming of the program. They realized that God truly listens to people’s prayers. Every time people sincerely pray to and rely on God, God acts, removing many difficulties for them, giving them strength, and guiding them forward. God’s work is so real and practical. People have such knowledge—is this not achieved by doing one’s duty and by experiencing God’s work? (It is.) Do those who do not do their duty have such gains? They do not. Therefore, the more you do your duty, the more opportunities you will have to experience God’s work, the more you will be able to see God’s deeds, the more you will come to know God’s disposition, the more deeply you will come to know your own corrupt dispositions, and the more corrupt dispositions you will be able to cast off. In the end, your submission to God will increase, and your God-fearing heart will also grow. By this point, it will be easy for you to fear God, shun evil, and submit to God absolutely, and no difficulty will be able to stump you. This is how a person’s spiritual life grows. The more you experience God’s work, the faster your life grows. The less you experience God’s work, the slower your life grows. If you only believe in God in your spare time, and you busy yourself working to earn money during the day and leave yourself no energy at night, then how can you do your duty? You only live to get by. Although you say that you believe in Almighty God, in reality, you just fill your days with the affairs of daily life. Is this not squandering your time? (It is.) This is squandering your time, and your life will not grow.