The True Reason for Ineffective Work | Testimonies of Experience of Christ’s Judgment | Eastern Lightning

The True Reason for Ineffective Work | Testimonies of Experience of Christ’s Judgment | Eastern Lightning

Xinyi    Xi’an City, Shaanxi Province

In my recent visits to the churches, I often heard leaders and workers say that some people, after attending fellowship with me, became negative, weak and lacked motivation to continue seeking. Others felt it too challenging to believe in God and misunderstood God. Some said that their condition was fine before they met with me, but as soon as they saw me, they felt tremendously pressured and uncomfortable. … When I heard all this, my heart sank, and I felt terribly wronged—every time I came to have fellowship with them I would stay for a number of days, and, in order to solve their problems, I fanned through and cited countless passages of the word of God, talking until my mouth was dry, and all the while thinking that my efforts had yielded good results. I never imagined that things would turn out like this. Why did this happen? I held this question in my thoughts as I prayed to God, “Oh God, I am surely at fault for all that has happened, but I don’t know where I went wrong. I ask for Your guidance, so that I may become more aware of my faults. I am willing to wait to receive Your enlightenment.”

After finishing my prayer, I began to reflect back upon fellowship with my brothers and sisters: When they expressed issues with work arrangements I would dissect their arrogant nature and expound upon the consequences of arrogance, saying that all arrogance would inevitably be met with punishment. If I saw that problems were arising in the election process, I would talk about how selecting the wrong people would hold the church’s work back and ruin the lives of our brothers and sisters. In this way, God would come to hate us and we would be eliminated. When I saw brothers and sisters slacking off at work, I would raise “Zhenxin” as an example. I would tell them that they were being deceptive and that this amounted to a betrayal of God. If they didn’t change their ways, their fate would be the same as that of Judas. When they were unwilling to spread the gospel, I would discuss how such actions rebelled against and resisted God. … Oh God! In what sense was I using the truth to resolve their problems? I was using pure intimidation! Under God’s guidance, I thought of the following passage from the man’s fellowship, “Service in line with the will of God requires that in all things and with regard to all issues we should exalt God, testify to God, commune God’s will, commune God’s requests, and allow others to act in accordance with God’s word. We should not make people act in accordance to the principles, rules and sayings of man. Your communion should enable people to come before God and obey His will, act according to God’s word and, ultimately, come to know God and obey Him” (The Fellowship From the Above). At this moment, I experienced a sudden revelation. God entrusts leaders with the work of exalting God, testifying to God, communing God’s will and requests, allowing others to act in accordance with God’s requests and, ultimately, come to understand and obey God. In resolving my brothers’ and sisters’ issues I, however, rarely spoke of God’s requests, His will or His expectations. I also rarely used the truth to commune with regard to my brothers’ and sisters’ conditions. Instead, I relentlessly dissected their nature and the way in which they acted. I would bring up the potential consequences of their actions to intimidate them into knowing themselves. This caused my brothers and sisters to be unable to realize God’s will, have no real understanding of themselves and be even less capable of seeing the earnest intention of God’s salvation and love for mankind. As a result, they lived in all kinds of abnormal situations. It was only at this point that I realized I had been acting in blind adherence to my own desires. I had been resisting God! Leading my sisters and brothers in this way, not only was I unable to aid them in understanding and obeying God, I was actually causing them to misunderstand and come into more and more conflict with God. In this way, they grew further and further apart from God and committed more and more transgressions. Despite the fact that I resolved my sisters’ and brothers’ issues according to God’s word and everything I said was true, in reality, I wasn’t working in a constructive manner. In fact, what I was doing was downright useless. This way of working would be extremely damaging to the work of the church. It was then that I realized that the best way of supporting my brothers and sisters was to allow them to understand God’s will through the word of God, realize the earnest intention of God’s salvation, come to know the essence of their own nature and, in so doing, learn to hate themselves, act according to God’s requests and, ultimately, come to know and obey God. This is the true meaning of service in accord with God’s will and only this kind of service is considerate of God’s will.

I offer thanks to God for showing me the real reason why my work had been ineffective. Afterward, I consciously worked to commune God’s will and requests according to my brothers’ and sisters’ conditions. I discussed why God would have them act in the way He requested, how His earnest intentions reflected in their lives and what kind of effect He expected to have. I also discussed how they could work with God to be in accordance with His will. … After communing in this way, I truly saw God’s blessings: My brothers and sisters began to understand God’s will and witness God’s salvation. They came to understand that the price God has paid for all man is beyond comprehension. They started to understand their rebellious nature, were willing to seek the truth and felt motivated to fulfill their duties.

As the facts revealed themselves, I had a deep sensation of the very real nature of God’s love. When I worked according to my own will, resisting God in my service to Him, God immediately revealed my shortcomings and deficiencies and corrected all the errors in my work. Otherwise, I truly do not know where my actions would have led my brothers and sisters or for how long I would have entrapped them. Almighty God, thank You for Your real and true work, which allowed me to see Your wondrous actions and the salvation which You visited upon me. From now on, I vow to double down on the truth and work harder to fulfill Your requests, so as to seek and understand Your will and achieve the ability to work according to Your desire in all things, performing service in accordance with Your will.