Fellowship From the Brother Above – February 2, 2026 (Part Two)

Question 3: Many district decision-making groups do not know how to cultivate church leaders and deacons. Normally, they just do the work themselves and do not lead the church leaders and deacons to follow up on the work together. The church’s leaders and workers end up being sidelined, and when problems arise in the church’s work, they do not seek the relevant principles together with the leaders and deacons to resolve them. We would like to seek guidance: How should the district decision-making groups cultivate church leaders and deacons to do their work?

Answer: Cultivating church leaders and deacons to do their work is actually very simple. It’s just like a mother who has given birth to a child—does she know how to feed her own child? (She does.) She did not learn how to feed a child in school, so how does she know what to do? (It is human instinct; people have this innate nature.) It’s the same with church work. If someone is of good caliber, possesses comprehension ability and the ability to view things clearly, and moreover bears a burden for the church’s work, then they will naturally know how to do the work. This is instinct; it is determined by their caliber. In the past, when I believed in the Lord and first came into contact with the Shouters, I went to participate in their church life. By seeing it myself, I could tell what strengths and flaws their church life had. So I learned from their strengths and also tried to find ways to make up for their shortcomings. In this way, when I subsequently hosted church life, it was much better. People of good caliber who are good at learning can learn things just by watching others host gatherings. Do such people still need to be taught? (No.) They can make progress because they know how to observe and learn on their own. When I believed in the Lord, I saw that the pastors of the religious world always talked in the same old clichés when hosting gatherings—there was no illumination. So, I wanted to see what good publications for believers in the Lord there were. At that time, the Three-Self Church had a magazine called Tian Feng, in which the CCP criticized Witness Lee and Watchman Nee. I thought to myself: The CCP is atheist and resists God; what it criticizes and opposes must be positive, and what it supports and approves of must be negative. So if it was criticizing Witness Lee and Watchman Nee, that proved they must be spiritual. So I read the books of Watchman Nee and Witness Lee, and I discovered that the words they spoke contained the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit, and that there was a path in them. In your belief in God, you must find the people who have the Holy Spirit’s work, and then you will be able to see what work the Holy Spirit is doing. That is to say, before God becomes incarnate, you have to find the people used by the Holy Spirit. The sermons preached and work done by people used by the Holy Spirit all have the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and those around them are the first to receive the watering and provision of the Holy Spirit. If you believe in God but have not found the incarnate God, then you must try to find the people used by the Holy Spirit, or the people who have the work of the Holy Spirit. If God has become incarnate and appeared to do His work, then you can just go directly to the incarnate God. This is what it means to have found the source of the truth, the source of eternal life, and the path to gaining life. This is the secret to believing in God. Many people in the religious world simply cannot see this clearly. They are too blind and foolish. Only people of good caliber can see this matter clearly.

What is the first principle stipulated by God’s house for church life today? It is that after a church is established, the leaders and deacons must take turns hosting the gatherings. One leader hosts the gathering this time, another leader leads it the next time, and a deacon hosts it the time after that. After a period of time, the brothers and sisters will naturally come to a conclusion: “This leader is a good host. We enjoy the gatherings and gain a lot. That leader is not a good host. He is the only one talking for the entire gathering, and we have no chance to fellowship, no chance to talk about our experiences, and we do not learn anything.” At gatherings, some people just love to show themselves off. They do not let others speak, they run a one-man show, and they take up all the time. After the gathering, everyone feels very disappointed, having gained nothing. Then is this person a good host? No. God’s chosen people all have feelings and personal experiences regarding who hosts well and who does not, and so they naturally have discernment. When it is time for the next elections for church leaders and deacons, everyone will elect the people who host church life well, and those who are good hosts will be re-elected. Therefore, cultivating church leaders and deacons means arranging for them to take turns hosting gatherings. When someone is effective at hosting gatherings and has the work of the Holy Spirit, the others should learn from and accept their good methods, and should not stubbornly cling to their own old ways. In addition, leaders and workers of the district decision-making groups must pay special attention: You must not host gatherings in place of the church leaders and deacons. The primary remit of a church leader is to take charge of the church’s work. Do not sideline them and act as the church leader yourself. When you go to a church, you should only guide the work, offer suggestions, or fellowship the truth to resolve problems. You must never take over the work of the church leader and do it yourself. That is wrong. Even I do not assume the leading role when I visit a church. The church leader should host the gatherings normally, just as they are supposed to, and I do not disturb their work. Sometimes people ask me to host the gathering, and I say, “You are the church leader. This is your work and you must do it. If I am needed to speak, I will just add some fellowship.” Or, if I am there to resolve a certain problem, I will tell the leaders first and have them arrange a time to resolve the problem, but I do not take up their time when they should be hosting a gathering. This is a rule that leaders and workers should observe. Therefore, wherever they go, district leaders must never snatch work away from the church leaders. Let them do it themselves. Don’t speak unless they offer you a chance to speak. If you want to fellowship or implement work, wait until they finish hosting the gathering and arrange a time for you before you start. This is the normal procedure. Being able to do work according to this procedure shows that you have reason—we must have reason in our self-conduct. The main work of a church leader is to lead the brothers and sisters to gather and eat and drink God’s words. Why is leading people to eat and drink God’s words so important? What is the significance of eating and drinking God’s words? You must be clear on this. Today, the most important thing for us in accepting Almighty God is to accept God’s judgment and chastisement. What does it mean to accept God’s judgment and chastisement? It means accepting the judgment and chastisement of all the truths expressed by God. The focus of every gathering is reading God’s words, fellowshipping the truth, and knowing oneself. This is the core of church work. Leading people to eat and drink God’s words and to accept the judgment and chastisement of God’s words—which is to say, leading people to accept the judgment and chastisement of the truth—is the fundamental, core work of the church, and it is also substantive work. Therefore, every gathering in church life must be about eating and drinking God’s words and accepting the judgment and cleansing of the truth. This is the most crucial thing. In every gathering, people must talk about knowing themselves. The church in which people talk about knowing themselves best will be the church with the greatest number of people who understand the truth; these people will also cast off their corrupt dispositions the fastest. This means the leaders of that church are the best at doing church work. If, in another church, the people have poor life entry, no one can talk about knowing themselves, no one achieves true repentance, and no one understands the truth, knows God, or can bear testimony for God, then the leaders and deacons of that church are false leaders and false workers. They cannot do church work, and the chosen people of God in this church have essentially been ruined by these false leaders. Say God’s chosen people live church life in such a church. After believing for two or three years, they do not understand the truth at all, cannot preach the gospel or testify to God, and cannot expend themselves for God. After believing for four or five years, they still cannot know themselves, and they do not have any life entry. In the end, they all become negative and weak, and do not have much faith left. Have they not encountered false leaders? The false leaders have ruined these people. Tell me, if people follow a false leader or an antichrist in their belief in God, can they gain the truth and life? (No.) They will gain nothing. What are the prominent manifestations of false leaders? They are always showing themselves off. In gatherings, people only ever listen to them talk. They always act as teachers to others, they simply never talk about knowing themselves, and they never reflect on themselves when reading God’s words. They only spout words and doctrines to mislead people and make people worship them. The path they walk is the path of antichrists. If the people of a church can all know themselves, all truly repent and transform, and all achieve a change in disposition, this proves that the leaders of this church are good leaders. They know how to lead the people in the church to eat and drink God’s words and accept the judgment and chastisement of God’s words, so that they achieve true understanding of the truth and gain the truth. In this way, people gain new life within them. Gaining new life is what brings about true change. Say the people in a church only understand words and doctrines, and only their outward behavior changes, but their corrupt dispositions have not been cleansed and they can still resist God as before—this shows that the leaders and workers of this church are all false. Therefore, whether leaders and workers can host church life well and lead God’s chosen people to eat and drink God’s words and accept the judgment and chastisement of God’s words is absolutely crucial! So the key to cultivating leaders and workers is to have them train in hosting gatherings more. This is also the most practical path.

Question 4: Currently, most leaders and workers neglect the work of cultivating people. Although we have fellowshipped on the importance of cultivating people, they lack persistence when it comes to implementation, resulting in a shortage of people when the workload increases. How should we fellowship with them to get them to take the work of cultivating people seriously and actively devote themselves to it?

Answer: When fellowshipping about the work of cultivating people, the first step is to clearly fellowship about what it means to cultivate people. Cultivating people is mainly about cultivating them to understand the truth and act according to principles; it is not about external forms or behaviors. For example, how should you cultivate and train gospel workers? Trying to cultivate them by just telling them “Go and preach the gospel!” is certainly not going to work. You must teach them how to testify to God effectively when preaching the gospel and how to resolve people’s notions and problems; you must teach them about why people don’t seek, investigate, or accept Almighty God’s work of the last days, and about where they get stuck. You must teach them to find the reasons and address them in a targeted manner. Most people are bound by the various heresies and fallacies of the religious world, as well as many of their own religious notions and erroneous views, and this is why they do not investigate God’s work. For example, the greatest notion in the religious world is that “When the Lord Jesus returns, He will descend on a cloud. We just need to wait for the Lord to descend on a cloud and rapture us into the kingdom of heaven.” Clinging to this notion, people wait every day for the Lord Jesus to descend on a cloud. Whenever they have nothing to do, they look up at the sky and gaze at the clouds, wondering in their hearts, “Has the Lord Jesus come?” If they see a peculiar cloud, they even use binoculars to see if the Lord Jesus is in it. They firmly believe that the Lord will return as a spiritual body descending on a cloud, so when someone says that God has already become flesh and come as the Son of man, they reject it out of hand, saying, “This is impossible! I don’t believe it. I only believe that the Lord will return by descending on a cloud.” You see, this notion binds them. So how should this notion be resolved? You must fellowship with them on the prophecies about the Lord’s return. How did the Lord Jesus prophesy His return? He often talked to His disciples about “the Son of man comes” or “the coming of the Son of man.” For example, “Therefore be you also ready: for in such an hour as you think not the Son of man comes” (Matthew 24:44). “As the lightning comes out of the east, and shines even to the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be” (Matthew 24:27). The Lord rarely made the prophecy that He would descend on a cloud. You see, the Lord Jesus spoke of His return in one way when He was speaking to His disciples, and in another way when He was prophesying to outsiders. Tell me, which prophecy is the most crucial? (The words the Lord Jesus spoke to His disciples.) The words spoken to the disciples, to His confidants, are the most crucial. They contain a secret which ordinary people cannot recognize. So where can we find the secret to welcoming the Lord? The Lord Jesus also gave a special exhortation to those closest to Him: “When He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth” (John 16:13). The key mystery of welcoming the Lord is in this sentence. Through this sentence, the Lord Jesus was telling people, “For you to welcome the Lord is to welcome the Spirit of truth—the God who expresses the truth. If you welcome the God who expresses the truth, you will be blessed; if you do not, then however many years you have believed in God, it will all have been in vain.” This is the secret to welcoming the Lord, and these are His most intimate words. Waiting for the Lord to descend on a cloud—those are the most superficial words, the public words. The true secret is hidden. Religious people do not understand these things; they only cling to those superficial words, and simply refuse to accept the words the Lord Jesus spoke to His disciples and those closest to Him. This means that in their faith in God, they are only in the outer court; they have not yet entered the Holy of Holies and have not come face-to-face with God, so they cannot gain anything real and cannot understand God’s intentions. Is that not so? (It is.) So how should you fellowship with such people? You must say, “How many passages of scripture are there in which the Lord Jesus prophesied that He would return by descending on a cloud? On what occasions were these words spoken? In fact, these words were spoken by the Lord to outsiders, and He did not say them often. Most of the time when the Lord Jesus prophesied His return, He said things like ‘the Son of man comes’ and ‘the coming of the Son of man.’ These words were spoken to His disciples and to those who followed Him. The Lord Jesus also said something particularly crucial: ‘When He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth’ (John 16:13). The phrase ‘When He, the Spirit of truth, is come’ is the Lord Jesus telling His disciples, ‘In waiting for the Lord’s return, you only need to wait for the coming of the Spirit of truth, and then you will have welcomed the Lord, and that will be your blessing.’ What does this ‘blessing’ refer to? It refers to the Spirit of truth guiding people into all truth. It is just like back when the Lord Jesus came; He preached a way that was all about matters of life and matters of the kingdom of heaven. This was a blessing to those who followed the Lord. So, having followed the Lord for so many years and being so thirsty for the truth, if you wish to receive an even greater blessing, the most crucial thing is to welcome the Spirit of truth. If you welcome Him and gain the truths He expresses, then you will gain an even greater blessing, and your dream of entering the kingdom of heaven will be realized. If you cannot wait for and welcome the Spirit of truth, then in the end you will gain nothing. It will be like trying to draw water with a wicker basket—a completely futile effort. Your faith will have been in vain.” What do you think of fellowshipping in this way to resolve people’s notions? (It’s good.) After you finish fellowshipping like this, they will hear it and say, “That’s right. We only looked at the passage in Revelation about Him descending on a cloud, and we did not see these words that the Lord Jesus spoke to His disciples.” The Lord Jesus told His disciples that His return would be “the coming of the Son of man,” and He also said: “And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom comes; go you out to meet him” (Matthew 25:6). What does it mean to meet the bridegroom? It means that if you can be gained by the bridegroom, you will be blessed, and you will be qualified to attend the feast of the kingdom of heaven. You must be gained by him. If you are not gained by him, your faith will be in vain. When he gains you, you have also gained him. Then, attending the feast, gaining the truth, and entering the kingdom of heaven—all this will become reality. This is what it means to be gained by God. What does being gained by God refer to? It does not refer to being gained by God in heaven, but rather to being gained by the incarnate God. If the incarnate God acknowledges you and approves of you, then you are blessed. The incarnate God represents the Spirit of God. If He condemns you and does not acknowledge you, then you have been condemned and eliminated by God. If you say, “It doesn’t matter if the incarnate God condemns me. God in heaven acknowledges me in any case,” is this view correct? (No.) God in heaven is now within the God on earth; it is just that He has clothed Himself in ordinary flesh and so you cannot tell. In fact, this practical God incarnate on earth is the embodiment of God in heaven. That’s why, when the people in the religious world only believe in the name of the “Lord Jesus” in churches, the Lord Jesus does not acknowledge their faith. The Spirit of the Lord Jesus has long since come to earth as the incarnate Almighty God—so can the Lord Jesus acknowledge them, given that they do not accept Almighty God? (He cannot.) Therefore, when religious people say, “It is impossible for the Lord to become incarnate and come as the Son of man. The Lord will return by descending on a cloud, and we are just going to wait for the Lord Jesus to descend on a cloud,” this is the greatest notion that hinders people from investigating the true way, and it is also the key problem we must resolve when preaching the gospel. Cultivating gospel workers is about training them to resolve the notions of religious people, so that religious people can hear God’s voice and accept Almighty God. It is also about telling them that the main work of gospel workers is to help religious people clear away all hindrances and obstacles on the path to welcoming the Lord, opening up this path for them, and to then get them to read more of Almighty God’s words and watch more videos from The Church of Almighty God. Preaching the gospel in this way will yield results. Gospel workers must eliminate all hindrances and obstacles to religious people’s investigation of the true way. By reading Almighty God’s words to them and having them watch videos from The Church of Almighty God, their problems will all be resolved. When they see that Almighty God’s words have authority and power and are all truth, they will be willing to seek and investigate; upon further investigation, they will be able to let go of their notions and accept the truth. Have you not then gained someone by preaching the gospel in this way? Is this a good way to train people who preach the gospel? (It is.) In addition, when preaching the gospel, you must constantly draw lessons. If you meet someone who asks a question you cannot answer, then seek the truth to resolve it. If later you meet someone else who asks a question you cannot answer either, seek the truth again to resolve it. In this way—day by day and month by month—after a year or so you will have met many people while preaching the gospel, they will have asked many questions, and you will have had many opportunities to seek and equip yourself with the truth. Gradually, you will be able to resolve all these problems. At that time, you will have become a seasoned gospel preacher, and there will be no questions that can stump you. This is experience derived from practice. To cultivate people is to teach them all your experiences and then have them train more. If you are also a newcomer and have no experience, then it will not be easy for you to achieve results in cultivating people. Without experience or experiential understanding, how can you teach others? You can only preach some words and doctrines. But can preaching words and doctrines resolve problems? Preaching words and doctrines can only resolve superficial problems. If you cannot resolve actual and crucial problems, you will be unable to cultivate people.