God’s Words Guide Me to Learn How to Educate My Children (II)

Xiaoxue, Malaysia

One day after dinner, I taught my eldest son how to read Chinese—just the simple words, “Heaven, earth, people, and, soil, daddy, mommy....” I taught him quite a few times, but he still couldn’t write them. He would write the first word and then forget the next one. The anger inside me rose up, I scowled at him and shouted loudly: “How stupid you are! You cannot even learn these few words!” My eldest son was frightened into running to stand in the corner. I scolded him, “Come over here and keep writing!” My eldest son did not come over, so I grabbed hold of him and pulled him onto the chair. Seeing my eldest son’s pitiful look, I felt a stabbing pain in my heart. I cried and returned to my room and prayed to God: “God! As soon as my child displeased me, I could not control my anger. I don’t want to treat my children like this. God, may You help me.” After praying, I slowly calmed down.

Later, I taught him as usual, but he still did not learn. I remembered praying to God and I did not get angry again. At the same time, I also started to reflect on myself. Why could I not control my temper when my child did not please me? Whilst reflecting on this, I thought of a passage of God’s words: “Once a man has status, he will often find it difficult to control his mood, and so he will enjoy seizing upon instances to express his dissatisfaction and vent his emotions; he will often flare up into rage for no apparent reason, so as to reveal his ability and let others know that his status and identity are different from those of ordinary people. Of course, corrupt people without any status will also frequently lose control. Their anger is frequently caused by damage to their individual benefits. In order to protect their own status and dignity, corrupt mankind will frequently vent their emotions and reveal their arrogant nature” (“God Himself, the Unique II” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). “Some exercise restraint in their anger, while others are more rash and flare up with rage whenever they wish without the least bit of restraint. In short, man’s anger derives from his corrupt disposition. No matter what its purpose, it is of the flesh and of nature; it has nothing to do with justice or injustice because nothing in man’s nature and substance corresponds to the truth” (“God Himself, the Unique II” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). Through what God’s words revealed, I saw that I was too deeply corrupted by Satan and too arrogant and domineering, always suppressing and forcing my children in my identity and status as their mother and as soon as they did not meet my demands and standards, I could not stop myself from getting angry and chiding them. I actually had no reason at all. Was the reason why I got so angry with my son not because his results from taking the school entrance test were the worst of all the children? This made me feel a loss of face in front of others. “Treating my child so strictly and disregarding his feelings today is not all for his own good or to make him quickly improve his academic performance, but to gratify my own vanity and desire for status. I’m too selfish and despicable! It is because of my arrogant, selfish corrupt disposition that I cannot obey God and always want to break free from God’s mastery and arrangements and want to arrange everything for my children based on my own ability and finally bring myself and my children so much pain.” When I thought of this, I hated myself and no longer wished to live by Satan’s corrupt disposition and be fooled by Satan. So I prayed to God and asked God to keep my heart, to guide me through His words, and to arrange even more environments to change and cleanse me. Subsequently, I no longer demanded too much of my son. Instead, I patiently taught him and did my best to be a mother. Slowly, I no longer worried because my children did not learn, and felt especially relaxed and happy. When I looked at my two children again, I realized that they were really cute and lively, and I realized then how unfair it was for my children when I always made them live my way and grow into the standard image in my mind.

Subsequently, what surprised me was that my children began to change. Before, they did not have any concentration in their studies and couldn’t sit properly when doing their homework, slumping over the table and wanting to play after writing just a few words. Now they were actually able to sit down and do their homework diligently. Over the past few days, my eldest son had been unable to learn the Chinese characters I taught him many times, but now he remembered them after I said them just one or two times and could read four or five characters together. This really surprised me; more unexpectedly, whereas before my two sons often fought when they were together, now they had suddenly become well-behaved and no longer fought. My eldest son even proactively gave his favorite things to his younger brother. When my husband saw the transformation of our sons, he asked me in amazement how I had educated our children and why they had suddenly become smart and sensible. I thought to myself: How is this what I have taught them? This is a wonderful act of God!

After experiencing this, I calmed down to reflect on my previous methods of educating my children. I had always educated and controlled my children from my position as a mother, to make them listen to me and do what I said. I thought that this was the way to educate children well. In fact, when I educated my children in this way, not only did they not achieve, but they actually became more and more antagonistic. But when I renounced my flesh and stopped living by selfish, arrogant satanic disposition and became willing to obey God’s dominion and arrangements, entrust my children to God and fulfill my duty and responsibilities as a mother, my children became obedient and sensible. Now I understand that only God has the authority and the power and that only God’s words can change people and make us live out our lives in the likeness of real men. So I shall exalt God and let God wield power in our home. As it is said in the fellowship from the above: “When you bring God into your real life, the first thing is to bring God into your home life. In your home life, if people used to be in charge of your family, then you must remove them from their position. You must dispel all idols, make God’s words the master of your home, and allow Christ to rule. Husband and wife, father and son, mother and daughter—they must all read and commune God’s words together. If there are any problems or disagreements, these can be resolved through prayer, reading the words of God, and communing the truth. Do not do as you used to, listening to someone. People shouldn’t do as other people say, they should magnify Christ, and allow the words of Christ to rule their family, allow the words of God to take charge in their home. Is this not bringing God’s words into your real life?”

So, I said to my children: “From today onward, mommy will not lose her temper unreasonably or yell at you again. If you do wrong, mommy will patiently tell you and if mommy does wrong, mommy will apologize to you. Let’s study the word of God together and grow together in God’s words and not do things that God does not like, okay?” My sons happily said: “Okay!” Later, I practiced no longer using my status as their mother to suppress them. When we faced some issues, we all respected God as great and let Christ wield power in our home. Sometimes I spoke to them loudly and they told me: “Mommy, God will not love you when you are like this.” When they did something wrong, I would also explain to them the reason and tell them how God likes us to act and every time they listened very carefully. Slowly, my relationship with my children became more and more close. I often read God’s words to them and listened to the hymns of God’s word with them. When they returned from school before, they always watched cartoons such as “Robots” on the iPad. Nowadays, my children often say to me: “Mommy, we will watch the iPad for a while, but we won’t watch what you don’t like. Can we watch videos of the hymns of God’s word?” Then they quietly watch them, and sometimes they can watch them for more than an hour.

Thanks be to Almighty God for changing mine and my children’s lives with His words! In the past I was ignorant and foolish and disciplined my children based on my own arrogant nature. I didn’t know to bring my children before God and as a result the more I disciplined them, the more rebellious they became. Now I understand that only God’s words can change us and make us live out the likeness of a real man. From now on, I will learn to exalt God’s word and bring the children to believe in and follow God. All glory belongs to Almighty God!

Recommendation：Many good sheep in the church would prefer to suffer unbridled arrest and persecution by the Chinese Communist Party just to seek and investigate Eastern Lightning.

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God’s Words Guide Me to Learn How to Educate My Children (I)

Xiaoxue, Malaysia

I have two sons and they are one year apart. In order to raise them to be cultured, well mannered, good people who will be able to establish themselves in society and succeed, when they were two years old, I discussed finding a good kindergarten for them with my husband. After some visits, inquiries and comparison, we selected an English kindergarten because they placed importance on children’s caliber and ability, which matched my view on educating children. Although the tuition fees were a bit high, as long as the children were able to develop better and get a better education, it was worth spending a little more money.

As my children gradually grew up, I found that they were not as sensible and obedient as I had hoped for. On the contrary, they were extremely overbearing and rebellious. For example, when I took them to the mall, when they saw something they liked, they just took it and if I did not buy it for them, they would lie on the floor and cry and make a fuss. When they played with other children, if they saw something that they liked, they would snatch it from others. If the other children did not give it to them, they would hit them. Seeing my children being so capricious and overbearing, I reprimanded them firmly every time. However, not only was this ineffective, but my children became less and less obedient. Once I reprimanded them, they would throw their clothes and shoes in the trash. When they were angry, they would take scissors and cut up their clothes, sheets and pillows. I felt very sad about this. How could my children be so arrogant and badly behaved? I suggested they change schools but my husband did not agree. He said that children should grow up naturally and spontaneously. My husband’s attitude toward my children made me very angry: An excellent child is nurtured, not left to develop free-range. Who knows how they would become if you let them develop independently! But no matter how I persuaded him, my husband still insisted on his point of view. I felt extremely pained seeing my husband as a father being so irresponsible. If we continued like this, what would become of our children in the future! The more I thought about this, the more worried I felt, and I did not know what to do. I felt at a loss as to what to do about my children’s education and felt afflicted and worried.

In March 2017, I accepted the gospel of the kingdom of Almighty God. One day in June that year, I saw that the words of Almighty God said: “Besides birth and childrearing, the parents’ responsibility in a child’s life is simply to provide him or her with a formal environment to grow up in, for nothing except the predestination of the Creator has a bearing on a person’s fate. No one can control what kind of future a person will have; it is predetermined long in advance, and not even one’s parents can change one’s fate. As far as fate is concerned, everyone is independent, and everyone has his or her own fate. So no one’s parents can stave off one’s fate in life or exert the slightest influence on the role one plays in life. It could be said that the family into which one is destined to be born, and the environment in which one grows up, are nothing more than the preconditions for fulfilling one’s mission in life. They do not in any way determine a person’s fate in life or the kind of destiny amidst which a person fulfills his or her mission. And so no one’s parents can assist one in accomplishing one’s mission in life, no one’s relatives can help one assume one’s role in life. How one accomplishes one’s mission and in what kind of living environment one performs one’s role are entirely determined by one’s fate in life” (“God Himself, the Unique III” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). When I saw God’s words I realized that although we are the parents of children, we only give birth to them, raise them and provide them with an environment in which to grow. As for what their future will be like, what kind of role they will play and what missions they will fulfill, this is all in God’s hands. It is God who is in charge of their destiny and who determines their future, not their parents. The only thing I can do is to pray to God, entrust my children to God and hope that God guides them to grow. I also reflected on how I treated my children. I always used my abilities to forcibly control and put pressure on my children and whenever I saw my children disobeying, I would sternly scold them, thinking I would change their bad habits and improve their caliber this way. But not only did my children not become obedient and sensible, they actually became more and more rebellious. Now it seems like I did not understand the truth and did not know God’s domination and arrangements, so I could not educate my children, let alone allow them to grow up healthily. I should change my method of educating them and treat them with the proper attitude. After this, when my children made mistakes, I talked to them patiently and made them aware of their own wrongdoings. When I saw them bow their heads and stop talking, I did not chide them further. Sometimes they were too naughty and I would punish them a bit and ask them to face the wall and reflect on their actions. Gradually, I found that they were much quieter than before and that they did not hit other children anymore and rarely swore and cursed. When I saw my children starting to develop well, I felt very grateful and knew that this was all because of the words of God and from the bottom of my heart I thanked God!

In November 2017, when my eldest son was about to finish kindergarten and progress to first grade, my husband and I selected a well-known primary school for him, hoping that he would study hard and achieve good results in the future. In mid-July, we took our child to do the school entrance tests in advance. After the test, the principal called me and said that my child’s score was the worst of dozens of children and that he wouldn’t be able to keep up with first grade. He also said that they would conduct a second test. When I heard this news, I felt a bit uncomfortable, but my husband and I still took our child to re-sit the school entrance test. When the test results were announced, I was dumbfounded: My son had spent three years at kindergarten but had learned nothing. He couldn’t even read or write the alphabet and did not understand single digit addition and subtraction. My child was about to start first grade and his results were unexpectedly so poor—I could hardly believe the results. The principal also reproached me and said: “Are you very busy? Even though you come from China, your child’s Chinese is so bad; how did you educate him?” The principal’s rebuke made me feel so ashamed. It was the first time that I felt such a failure as a mother. I felt too ashamed to see anyone and could not wait to find a place to hide away.

When I returned home that afternoon, my husband asked me to quickly find a kindergarten for my son. As soon as I heard this, the anger that I had kept inside immediately raised its head and I lost control of myself and started to get angry again with my children. I told them to go to sleep quickly and then I ran to a small room on my own, closed the windows and the curtains, lay down on the bed and emptied my mind. This was how I fell asleep in a daze. Until six o’clock that evening, I felt very upset and could not stop the tears. I didn’t even have the motivation to make dinner. Faced with such results, what should I do? In suffering, I knelt down before God and prayed: “God! I can’t take it. I feel so much pain in my heart. May You enlighten and guide me to understand Your will. I’m willing to practice the truth and to satisfy You.” Then I thought of God’s words: “There will always be some distance between one’s dreams and the realities that one must confront; things are never as one would like them to be, and faced with such realities people can never achieve satisfaction or contentment. Some people will even go to any length imaginable, will put forth great efforts and make great sacrifices for the sake of their livelihoods and future, in attempt to change their own fate. But in the end, even if they can realize their dreams and desires by means of their own hard work, they can never change their fates, and no matter how doggedly they try they can never exceed what destiny has allotted them. Regardless of differences in ability, IQ, and willpower, people are all equal before fate, which makes no distinction between the great and the small, the high and the low, the exalted and the mean. What occupation one pursues, what one does for a living, and how much wealth one amasses in life are not decided by one’s parents, one’s talents, one’s efforts or one’s ambitions, but are predetermined by the Creator” (“God Himself, the Unique III” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). From God’s words I suddenly understood that it’s not people who have the final say over our fate and destiny and that it cannot be changed by anyone. It depends upon God’s mastery and predestination. No matter how great someone’s ambition is and desires are or how magnificent their goals and hopes are, it does not change God’s mastery and arrangements for people’s destiny in the slightest. Who knows how many people have pursued success and high rank, yet always run into a wall. At the end of the day, they still spend a lifetime as ordinary people. Many people want to work hard based on their own efforts and live happy lives, but struggle for a lifetime and fail to achieve this. And so on. These facts can often be seen around us. I think about how I was like this too when I was educating my children. From the time my children were born, I particularly focused on their development and education and hoped that they would become cultured, well-mannered and good people. To achieve my own desires, I made strict demands of them and tried my best to find a good school for them, but even though I worried so much and felt so tired, in the end my child’s performance was not as good as I had hoped. Only through reading God’s words did I come to understand this: Children’s academic achievements, what kind of career they have, what they do in the future, what they do for a living and what their humanity is like is not based on school education and their upbringing. This is all determined by God’s mastery and predestination. Our job as parents is just to try our best to educate our children. As for their fate in the future and whether or not they can be talented, only God has the final say. I constantly educated my children according to my own requirements and made my children develop according to my own wishes. Isn’t this just breaking free of God’s mastery? This is also a manifestation of disobeying God! After I understood God’s will, I prayed to Him: “God, I understand that my child’s future is in Your hands. I will no longer educate my children in my own way as I desire, and I am willing to fully entrust my children to You, look to You and obey Your mastery and arrangements.” After praying, I felt power in my heart and my heart became strong.

The next morning, I went to find a school for my son. I continued to pray for God along the way and pray that God would guide me. I viewed two schools that day. When I viewed the second school, I really liked it and felt that the school was very standardized. After the children arrived at school, they did morning exercises and also told their own stories. It felt very regular. Children went to school from eight in the morning to six in the evening, so I had more time to attend meetings. I felt very happy and my son was also very happy when he saw the school. So I decided to let my son go to this school. After that, I successfully completed the admission procedures for my son and he was officially enrolled that day.

Recommendation：Eastern Lightning—the appearance and work of God in the last days has rocked all sects and denominations, and all kinds of men have been revealed.

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Christian Life: The Correct Way to Teach One’s Child and Be a Caring Mother

By Lexin, Hong Kong

Introduction:

“Mom, you used to be so strict with my studies that I never had any time to play. You’ve changed so much for the better now and you speak so gently. I love you, mom,” said the innocent, lively young girl cheerfully as she lay flat by her young mother’s ear, and the young mother’s face flushed with happiness.

This young mother’s name is Lexin, and when we hear her daughter’s simple expression, we can deduce that their relationship was previously not so harmonious, because of the pressure Lexin placed on her daughter regarding her studies. So what’s the story between this mother and her daughter? And how did Lexin manage to change the way she educates her daughter, and obtain her daughter’s high opinion? Please read Lexin’s experiences of educating her daughter.

High Hopes for the Newborn Daughter

Under the influence of the ideas and views that “Knowledge can change your fate,” and “The worth of other pursuits is small, the study of books excels them all,” as I myself was not educated to a very high level, I hoped that my child would become a brilliant student when he or she got older and have good future prospects. I had heard that antenatal training made children more intelligent, so while I was pregnant, I bought lots of nursery rhymes and began antenatal training with music, and I made a point of eating some foods that would promote fetal brain development. After my daughter was born, I bought for her some education insurance to prepare for the costs of going to college. When she was 1 year old, I began to ask around about which kindergarten, which grade school and which middle school were the best, to pave the way for her future. And so, in this way, I was constantly making plans for my daughter’s future, afraid that if I didn’t arrange things properly now, then it could have a negative impact on her future.

Piling on the Pressure Achieved the Opposite of My Intentions

But things didn’t go as smoothly as I had imagined. At kindergarten, my daughter was getting poor grades in math. So as to prevent this from affecting her getting into grade school, I quickly signed her up for a mental arithmetic class, but every time I took her to the class, she would cry loudly and would not go into the classroom. Seeing her struggle so much with her studies, I felt bad too, and I thought to myself: “My daughter is so young still. Is it wrong to try to force her to study like this?” But then I thought, “If my daughter doesn’t lay the foundations right now, she won’t get into a good grade school due to her poor results in math. And then that will have a knock-on effect to her getting into middle school, and then college, and then what prospects will she have for her future? No, I can’t let her temper get in the way. I’m doing this for her own good.” And so, every time we went to the class, I had to cajole and persuade her and practically push her into the classroom.

After a while, however, I discovered that my daughter’s math grades were not getting any better, and I became very worried. I thought that hard work could make up for any lack of natural ability, so I demanded that she memorize math formulas every day, and when I saw that she had made mistakes in her homework, I would immediately correct them. Sometimes, she wanted to play for a while, but I would teach her instead, completely erasing the exercise questions she’d done wrong and ordering her to do them over until she’d gotten them right. When I saw other parents signing their children up for all kinds of classes in order to get them into famous grade schools, I feared that my daughter was falling behind, and so I drew up a strict study program for her: Apart from completing the lessons her teachers assigned to her, every day I demanded that she do many extra study exercises and that her writing be very neat and tidy. My daughter would therefore often have temper tantrums, saying, “Mommy, I’m tired of writing. Can I play for a bit and then do some more later?” I would then get impatient with her and say, “No! You’ve still got lots of lessons to go through. See how well-behaved your classmate so-and-so is. She takes the initiative and does all her lessons every day. Not like you. You just want to play all day long!” Seeing my rigid stance, my daughter would feel wronged and would burst into tears. Seeing her in this state, I would soften my tone and try to comfort her, saying, “I’m doing this for your own good. Do you want to be as uneducated as me when you grow up, and only be able to find a job that’s exhausting and toilsome?” My daughter didn’t respond, but just wiped her eyes and kept on with her lessons. When I thought of how she had recently been under so much pressure with her lessons that she would often get upset and lose her temper, I felt really bad. But then I comforted myself by thinking: “There is such fierce competition in society today. Without a good college diploma, people can’t get a good job. If I’m a little ruthless with my daughter now, she will have good prospects in the future. She’ll understand all my painstaking efforts when she grows up!”

But as time wore on, I found that my daughter who had always been cheerful was becoming more and more taciturn. She no longer liked to greet the neighbors, and we were becoming more and more distant from each other. When I got home, it would be as though she didn’t see me, and she would ignore me completely, whereas before she would run over and give me a hug and tell me all about what had happened at school that day. I saw these changes happening in her and I felt terrible.

At a parent teacher meeting one time, her teacher asked me, “Have you noticed recently that your daughter doesn’t speak much anymore and that she’s falling behind in her studies? Perhaps you’re putting too much pressure on her. You should know that kids learn faster when they’re happy, so don’t put so much pressure on her from now on and just let things take their course!” When the teacher said this, I felt upset and also somewhat disappointed. I thought: “My daughter not saying much lately is indeed because I’ve been so strict with her studies, but I’ve done this so that she can get better grades. I never imagined … What am I supposed to do?” When I thought of how my daughter would soon be taking the exams to move on to grade school, I couldn’t help but feel anxious, afraid that she would not get into a good school. But neither did I want to add any more pressure on her, lest I achieved the opposite of what I wanted for her. For a while, I felt very conflicted and I didn’t know what to do for the best …

God Holds Sovereignty Over My Daughter’s Destiny

In August 2017, I was fortunate enough to accept God’s work of the last days. At a gathering, I opened up to my sister and fellowshiped with her about how I was supposed to educate my daughter, a matter that had always given me such a headache. The sister shared with me a passage of God’s word, “People know that they are powerless and hopeless in this life, that they will not have another chance, another hope, to stand out from others, and that they have no choice but to accept their fates. And so they project all their hopes, their unrealized desires and ideals, onto the next generation, hoping that their offspring can help them achieve their dreams and realize their desires; that their daughters and sons will bring glory to the family name, become important, rich, or famous; in short, they want to see their children’s fortunes soar. People’s plans and fantasies are perfect; do they not know that the number of children they have, their children’s appearance, abilities, and so forth, are not for them to decide, that their children’s fates do not at all rest in their palms? Humans are not the masters of their own fate, yet they hope to change the fates of the younger generation; they are powerless to escape their own fates, yet they try to control those of their sons and daughters. Are they not overestimating themselves? Is this not human foolishness and ignorance?” (“God Himself, the Unique III”).

God’s words are so real—this was exactly how I had been thinking. I had always thought that, because I had no college degree myself, I had no opportunity to stand out in life, and so I put all my hopes onto my daughter. I wanted to depend on my own efforts to train my daughter well, to lay good foundations for her while she was still young, so that in the future she would get into a good college and have good future prospects. Therefore, before my daughter was even born, I did antenatal training. And after she started school, I micromanaged her, pressed her and pressured her, forcing her to study according to the study program I’d drawn up for her. I ended up placing a lot of pressure on her, and not only did her grades not improve, but her personality was becoming more and more solitary and unsociable, she lost the joy an innocent, naive child should have had, and she was becoming increasingly distant from me. This was all caused by me not understanding God’s sovereignty and wanting instead to rely on my own abilities to improve my child’s grades. Now I understand that people’s destinies were long ago ruled and preordained by God, and whether or not my child would have good prospects in the future was not up to me—it was all in God’s hands. I had no control over my own destiny, and yet had still wanted to change my daughter’s destiny through my own efforts. I really was so arrogant, ignorant and foolish!

God’s Words Reveal to Me the Source of All Pain

Later, I read these words of God, “As far as children go, all parents hope that their children will receive higher education and that they’ll someday get ahead, have a place in society as well as have both a stable income and influence—that way they can honor the family line. Everyone has this point of view. Is it the right viewpoint to hope that ‘the son becomes a dragon, the daughter becomes a phoenix’? Everyone wants their children to go to a prestigious university and then pursue advanced studies, thinking that after getting degrees they’ll stand out from the crowd. This is because in their hearts, everyone worships knowledge, believing that ‘The worth of other pursuits is small, the study of books excels them all.’ On top of that, competition in modern society is particularly fierce, and without a degree you’re not even guaranteed to be able to put food on the table. This is how everyone thinks about it. That is, what you learn and what kind of educational background you can achieve will decide your livelihood, your future. In other words, people intend to rely on this thing to survive throughout life, and they see it as especially important. That’s why everyone sees receiving a high-level education and getting into a top university as the number one most important thing for their children” (“Only by Knowing Your Misguided Views Can You Know Yourself”).

Were what God’s words revealed not precisely the views I had held? Under the influence of the thinking that “Knowledge can change your fate,” and “The worth of other pursuits is small, the study of books excels them all,” I believed that, if someone wanted to have a good future, then they had to receive a high level of education and get into a good college. And so, I made strict demands of my daughter and put pressure on her to study, I made her make up for anything she lacked in any class, and I didn’t care whether she liked it or not. When she couldn’t meet my set goals, I would then force her to do all kinds of study exercises and deprive her of any playtime. And even when she complained, though I loved her so much, spurred on by that thinking I would pay no attention to her feelings, believing that everything I was doing was for her own good, and I kept forcing her to study. In the end, I just caused her pain, and she ended up becoming more and more introverted and solitary. I thought of how so many parents were just like me, who didn’t want their children to fail before they’d even started, and so signed them up at a very young age to all kinds of study classes and interest classes, thus imperceptibly putting a lot of pressure on them. And the result is that the children can’t bear such a weight. Some become depressed and some commit suicide by jumping off of buildings and so end their lives. Is this not a tragedy caused by people living by these wrong views and ideas? Is it not the result of Satan harming and devouring people? As I was thinking these thoughts, I suddenly saw the light. It turned out that these wrong thoughts that Satan indoctrinates us with make us blindly pile pressure onto our children to study, and that they are the source of all our pain, and the chief culprits which push our children to the brink of disaster. Once I’d understood these things, I decided to let go of my previous wrong views and no longer force my daughter to study. I wanted only to entrust my daughter’s future to God, obey God’s sovereignty and arrangements and be a caring mother.

Through Obeying God’s Sovereignty, I Felt Relaxed and Free

Soon after, my daughter had to take her exams to get into grade school. When I saw other parents signing their children up to interview training classes to train their children for the Year One interviews in grade school so that they would get into the best schools, I thought that maybe I should also sign my daughter up to these classes. That way, my daughter would give a good impression when she came to do her interview, her talents would stand out from all the other students, and there would be more hope of her getting into a good school. Just as my husband and I were discussing this matter and preparing for it, I realized I was once again trying to use knowledge to change my daughter’s destiny. I thought of God’s words, “Regardless of differences in ability, IQ, and willpower, people are all equal before fate, which makes no distinction between the great and the small, the high and the low, the exalted and the mean. What occupation one pursues, what one does for a living, and how much wealth one amasses in life are not decided by one’s parents, one’s talents, one’s efforts or one’s ambitions, but are predetermined by the Creator” (“God Himself, the Unique III”).

God’s words served as another reminder that the job a person will do in their life and whether or not they will have a good future has nothing whatsoever to do with the knowledge they have mastered or how capable they are, but instead it is all orchestrated and arranged by the Creator. I thought of my brother’s classmate who finished college and still couldn’t find a job, so could only sell things on a small stall in his home town. One of my work colleagues finished studying media at college but ended up as a waitress in a restaurant. Whereas one of my dad’s classmates didn’t even finish middle school and yet had become a big shot in the property market. All these facts showed that one’s destiny was in God’s hands, and that possessing knowledge had no bearing on one’s future prospects. Once I’d understood God’s will, I hurriedly came before God and prayed, “O God! My daughter is about to take the exams to get into grade school and I see that I’m still living by the satanic views and ideas that “Knowledge can change your fate,” and “The worth of other pursuits is small, the study of books excels them all,” wanting to use knowledge to change her destiny. O God! I don’t want to keep doing this, but instead I want to place my daughter’s future in Your hands. Your good will is behind it all, no matter what school my daughter gets into, and I wish to submit to Your orchestrations and arrangements.” After praying, I felt much more relaxed, and I didn’t sign my daughter up for the interview training classes.

Something then happened beyond all expectations. When the schools all published their lists of successful candidates, I suddenly received a call from the school I had had my heart set on all along, and the principal said he wanted to see my daughter. I thought this was very strange as my daughter had clearly stated that she hadn’t done very well in her exams and that she hadn’t answered a lot of the questions. And my daughter’s best-scoring classmate was not being taken on by this school, so why had the principal come looking for us? When we got to the school, the principal told us that my daughter’s exam grades were pretty average, and that they wanted to give her another chance to take the exams. I was very surprised to hear this—this principal who had consistently demanded high grades was unexpectedly willing to give my daughter another chance to take her exams! Later, my daughter took the exams again and really was taken on by the school. After this experience, I became even more certain that my daughter’s destiny was in God’s hands, and was not something that I was able to decide for her.

In Practicing God’s Words, My Daughter and I Get Closer

After experiencing God’s wonderful arrangements, I no longer wanted to change my daughter’s destiny through knowledge, but wished only to place her in God’s hands, let nature take its course and allow my daughter to grow up happily. Afterward, I changed the way I educated my daughter and no longer forcefully demanded that she attend study classes or do extracurricular study exercises. Sometimes my daughter wanted to go out and play before she’d finished her homework, so I would have a talk with her and say, “Go play for half an hour and then finish your homework, OK?” Hearing this, my daughter would nod cheerfully. Sure enough, after a little while, my daughter would come back of her own accord and do her homework, and her attitude was much more conscientious than it had been before. After some time, my daughter’s math grades improved, and she became as happy and lively as she had ever been.

Now my daughter shares my belief in God, and every day we sing hymns and read God’s words together, our hearts filled with peace and joy. My relationship with her is getting more and more harmonious as time goes on as well. I know that this is all God’s deeds, and that it was God’s words which led me to find the right path to educate my child. Thanks be to God!

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Christian Life: How to Educate One’s Child and Be a Happy Parent

By Huiyuan, Malaysia

“Over these past few weeks, your son has listened very carefully in class and is a very sensible boy. He’s like a totally different person to how he used to be. How come he’s suddenly changed so much? How are you educating him at home?” Hearing the teacher say this, I smiled slightly, and my heart was filled with gratitude to God. That my son could change as much as he has is the result of God’s work, and I give thanks to God! I always failed before when trying to educate my son, but then I had the fortune to accept God’s work of the last days and, under the guidance of God’s words, I finally understood how to educate my son, and I became a happy parent.

My Naughty Son Drove Me to My Wits’ End

Over the previous few years, I saw many parents spoil their children, which led to their children becoming more and more unrestrained and reckless. Therefore, after I got married and had children, I said to myself: “There is no way I’m going to spoil my children. I will definitely be strict with them, keep their behavior to acceptable norms, and get them to develop good habits right from the start!” But my eldest son was very naughty, and he had many bad habits. For example, he would often ride on the escalator handrail and slide from the top to the bottom, he would willfully break things in the home, throw rubbish down wherever he wanted, and he was a fussy eater, and so on. To combat these problems, I drew up a plan to educate him: Whenever he was being fussy with his food, I would reprimand him, and then he wouldn’t dare be fussy anymore; if I saw anything in life that I thought would be beneficial to his upbringing, then he had to do what I said. If he didn’t, I had my own way to control him and would let him know what the consequences would be if he was disobedient … I made every effort to educate my son, but there was little change in him. This was all a big headache for me.

One day, I took him to his aunt’s house to play. While I wasn’t looking, my son actually peed on his aunt’s driveway and he also threw his snack packet down outside. My sister said my son was so rude, and she told me to discipline him. Hearing her say this, my face flushed bright red, and I felt a bit angry. This boy, I thought, is outrageous. Every time we go out, he embarrasses me. This won’t do. I must make him lose these bad habits! After we got home, I admonished my son and told him that he must lose his bad habits. Unexpectedly, several hours later, my son once again threw his snack packet down on the floor. Although I was very angry, I kept my cool and told him not to do that. But a little while later, he again threw rubbish down on the floor. Seeing my son ignore me time and time again, I couldn’t restrain my anger any longer, and I thought to myself: If I don’t nip this in the bud now, won’t it just get worse as he gets older? In a fit of anger, I gave him a stern telling off. He then started to cry and said he wouldn’t throw rubbish down anymore. Sure enough, over the next few days I didn’t find any more rubbish on the floor, and I was very happy, thinking that he’d finally changed. Little did I know that, one day as I was cleaning the house, I would find that the floor underneath the sofa was covered in snack packets. I felt angry and helpless, and I thought: To get rid of my son’s bad habits, I’ve tried controlling him, I’ve tried advising him and I’ve tried shouting at him. I’ve done everything I can, and yet he’s still so disobedient. Oh! How on earth am I supposed to teach my child well? For a while, I felt totally powerless.

Not only did my son cause me a lot of worry in our normal lives, but he also made me worry for his studies. One day, his kindergarten teacher said to me that, despite my son being five years old, there were many Chinese characters and basic English letters he couldn’t write, and she asked me how I had chosen his previous kindergartens and how his education had been allowed to slip like this. Just these few words from the teacher made me feel so embarrassed, and I thought to myself: Why is my son so bad at his studies? How can this go on? It looks as though I have to take his education in hand from now on. And so, from then on, every day after school I would give him extra lessons, and I would dictate to him English, Chinese and Malaysian words for him to write. Even on weekends, he had to do as I told him, or else I would tell him off. As time went on, I saw that my son’s behavior was becoming a little unusual: He would no longer look at me when I spoke to him, sometimes he would pretend not to have heard me, and he wouldn’t speak to me very much. Seeing my teaching have this effect on him, I felt very distressed, but I didn’t know what to do about it.

The Words “You’re Not My Mommy” Stabbed at My Heart

One time, I answered a call from my son’s teacher saying that he was not studying very well in class, that he was always playing games and that he was writing nonsense when answering test questions. Hearing this, I became extremely angry. As soon as my son got home, I gave him a scathing telling off: “How many times have I told you to pay attention in class? Why don’t you listen to me? Doesn’t what I say sink in at all?” I never expected my son to react so defiantly to me and, crying, he said, “I want to go to grandma’s house, I don’t want to live here! I don’t want to live with you! I get bullied at school, and you bully me when I get home. You’re not my mommy!”

Seeing my son react this way, I was totally struck dumb. Every word he said was like a sharp knife stabbing deep into my heart, and I felt such heartache. I never would have thought that all the pains I’d taken to educate my son over these years and all the price that I’d paid would be repaid with these words from my son. I held back my tears and said to him, “Mommy loves you. I do this for your own good. How can you say such things?”

He kept crying loudly and he said, “No! You don’t love me!” Having said this, he then ran to his room, leaving me standing alone. Later, I found out that the teacher had misunderstood my son on that occasion. When my son was in class, he was looking for his pencil and eraser, and his teacher thought that he was messing around, and so gave him a telling off. And his classmates had been bullying him because his grades were not so good. After finding this out, I hated myself for not clarifying the situation before getting angry at my son and hurting his feelings as much as I did. But for the sake of keeping my dignity as a mother, I admitted no mistake in front of my son.

From then on, I saw that my eldest son’s attitude toward his younger brother and sister was getting worse and worse. Whenever they did something he didn’t like, he would threaten them, saying, “Don’t you understand what I’m saying to you? If you don’t do what I say, I’ll hit you!” The way he spoke, and his tone of voice was exactly the same as the way I’d been treating him. For a while, I was at a loss and I felt very helpless. Why, I thought, was I taking such pains to educate my son when this was the result? What should I do? How on earth was I supposed to educate my son?

Understanding My Own Issues Led Me to Feel Deeply Indebted to My Son

Later, I saw that my neighbor’s child (my neighbor was a Christian) was so well-behaved, and I thought to myself: Could it be that Christians’ children are all more well-behaved than other children? How does she educate her child? Then I thought that auntie was also a Christian, and her child had used to be naughty, but was now very well-behaved. How had she managed this? I felt very curious about this, and so I got in touch with her and told her about my difficulties. She told me that this was all happening because I hadn’t come before God, because I didn’t understand the truth, and because I was treating my son relying on my hot-bloodedness and corrupt dispositions. If we understand the truth, she said, and learn to act in accordance with the principles of the truth, then we will know how to educate our children. Hearing her say this, I seemed to catch a glimpse of hope. For the sake of educating my son, I became extremely earnest about wanting to understand the truth. Later on, I asked my auntie to take me to her church.

After I had spoken to the brothers and sisters of my troubles educating my son, they read me a relevant passage of God’s words: “Once a man has status, he will often find it difficult to control his mood, and so he will enjoy seizing upon instances to express his dissatisfaction and vent his emotions; he will often flare up into rage for no apparent reason, so as to reveal his ability and let others know that his status and identity are different from those of ordinary people. Of course, corrupt people without any status will also frequently lose control. Their anger is frequently caused by damage to their individual benefits. In order to protect their own status and dignity, corrupt mankind will frequently vent their emotions and reveal their arrogant nature. … In short, man’s anger derives from his corrupt disposition. No matter what its purpose, it is of the flesh and of nature; it has nothing to do with justice or injustice because nothing in man’s nature and substance corresponds to the truth” (“God Himself, the Unique II”).

One of the sisters gave fellowship, saying, “When our children are naughty and they don’t understand things properly, we as parents have to teach them, and that is our responsibility—there is nothing wrong with this at all. But after we have been corrupted by Satan, our nature becomes extremely arrogant and self-conceited, self-important and self-righteous, we always want to make others listen to what we say and are inflated with our own pride, and we even treat our children in this way. We often educate our children from the standpoint of a parent, making them do what we say and act according to our own wishes; when our children don’t obey us, we become irrational and get angry at them, and we force them to do what we say in order to keep our dignity as parents; when our children do something wrong or they fail to live up to our demands, we feel disappointed in them and embarrassed by them, and so we use all kinds of methods to try to control them and to make them live up to our requirements and standards. We educate our children without considering their difficulties from their point of view, without guiding them calmly, without letting them know what is right and what is wrong, but rather blindly forcing our children to live and grow according to our own demands, constraining them, binding them and harming them, and we make our children not only shun us and become averse to us, but we also have a negative effect on them and they learn from us how to lecture others condescendingly. All these things are the consequences brought about by educating our children by relying on our arrogant dispositions! If we are without the truth and we do not speak or act with principle, then we will educate our children by relying on our arrogant dispositions, all the while thinking that we do it out of love for our children and because we mean them well. But the result is that our children and ourselves all end up living in pain. In the last days, God incarnate has come to perform His work of judgment and cleansing. He has expressed millions of words and He has exposed our satanic dispositions and the truth of our corruption by Satan, and He does this in the hope that we will come to know our own satanic dispositions through His words, see clearly the harm our corrupt dispositions cause both others and ourselves, let go of our parental standpoints, no longer live by our arrogant dispositions, treat people according to God’s words and requirements, and live out a normal humanity.”

Through God’s words and the sister’s fellowship, I suddenly saw the light. Yes indeed, I had always considered myself to be my son’s parent, and I had believed that however I educated him was all for his benefit, and that it wasn’t wrong even if I forced him to study or demanded that he act according to my wishes or I got angry at him. Only now did I understand that I had been educating my child by relying on my arrogant disposition. I had said it was for his own good but, in reality, I had done it to maintain my dignity as a parent and to maintain my own self-regard. I also saw that I was without the truth, and that by always relying on my corrupt disposition to educate my son, I was only making him grow further and further away from me, so that even when he was wronged at school, he was unwilling to tell me about it. It had gotten to the point where I was having a negative effect on him and had taught him how to lecture his younger brother and sister condescendingly. My method of educating my son had completely failed; not only had it not had any benefit for my son, but it had had the opposite effect. As I thought this, I felt a deep sense of indebtedness to my son, and I no longer wished to treat him relying on my arrogant disposition.

Later, I wrote my eldest son a letter of apology: “My son, mommy is so sorry! I didn’t consider your feelings when I did that before. It’s mommy’s fault and I will change. Do you want to change with mommy?” I never expected my son to reply, saying, “Mommy, I know you don’t want to shout at me. I know you are a good mommy and I love you! I want to change with you.” My son’s reply made me feel so relieved. I never imagined he could understand things so well. I thought of how I’d never had a heart-to-heart with him and had never listened to how he felt in his heart, but instead had always just treated him relying on my arrogant disposition. Thinking this, I felt even more ashamed.

By Bringing My Son Before God, I Gave Him the Best Education

Later, I read a passage from a sermon: “In your home life, if people used to be in charge of your family, then you must remove them from their position. You must dispel all idols, make God’s words the master of your home, and allow Christ to rule. Husband and wife, father and son, mother and daughter—they must all read and commune God’s words together. If there are any problems or disagreements, these can be resolved through prayer, reading the words of God, and communing the truth. Do not do as you used to, listening to someone. People shouldn’t do as other people say, they should magnify Christ, and allow the words of Christ to rule their family, allow the words of God to take charge in their home” (“Sermons and Fellowship About God’s Word ‘You Ought to Live for the Truth Since You Believe in God’” in Sermons and Fellowship on Entry Into Life (VI)). True! God’s words are the truth and they are the principles for our actions and conduct. In all things, we should exalt God as the highest and allow His words to hold power. I knew I should bring my son before God and allow him also to exalt God as the highest and, in any issue that cropped up, allow him to conduct himself and act according to God’s words—was this not the best education for my son? Afterward, every evening I would make time to chat with my son and read God’s words to him, telling him that man was made by God, as were all things in heaven and on earth, that it was God who guided us and that we should listen to Him. When he wanted to play and wouldn’t listen to me, I would patiently tell him what behaviors God liked and what behaviors He hated, so that my son would learn to distinguish between them. Sometimes my son would say he’d done something wrong, so I would encourage him to take his time, whilst at the same time leading him to pray and rely on God and ask God for help. Gradually, I saw that my son was smiling more, he became willing to talk to me again, and we became more and more on friendly terms.

One day, his teacher called me to say that he had lost his temper at another child because they wouldn’t give him a sweet and that, after losing his temper, he had hidden under his chair. After he got home, I asked him why he had lost his temper at the other child and hidden under a chair. He said it was because the other child had given everyone in the whole class a sweet except him, and so he had gotten angry. But he knew after getting angry that God did not like that kind of behavior, so he had hidden under his chair and prayed, and had asked God to help him not lose his temper anymore. Hearing him speak, I felt so relieved, and I said to him, “Next time, remember to pray to God before you lose your temper!” My son laughed and said, “I know, mommy!”

Now, my son and I have been believing in God for over six months and, under the guidance of God’s words, I no longer lose my temper with him like I did before. My eldest son has become very sensible too, and I don’t need to supervise him while he does his homework. His grades are also getting better, and he has already gone from Class D at school to Class B. I know that all this has happened because of God’s guidance and it is the result of God’s work! Thinking back over my own experiences, I really appreciate that it was the enlightenment and guidance of God’s words which enabled me to gain some knowledge of my own corrupt dispositions and to have a path of practice, and only then did I understand how to educate my son and become a happy parent. Thanks be to God!

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A Guileless Person Is Not an Honest Person

By Cheng Mingjie, Shaanxi Province

I am an outgoing and forthright kind of person. I speak with people in a very straightforward manner; whatever I want to say, I say it—I’m not the type to beat around the bush. In my interactions with others I tend to be a pretty straight shooter. I’m often cheated or ridiculed for placing trust in others too easily. This is often very distressing for me. After believing in God, I read in His words that God loves those who are simple and honest. I thought to myself: God wants honest people; in the past while out in the world, my guilelessness put me at a disadvantage and made me vulnerable to the bullying by others, but now in the church I no longer need to fret over being too guileless. Since then, I felt especially comforted when I read God’s words saying that only the honest shall receive God’s salvation. I thought of myself as an honest person, and that attaining God’s salvation wouldn’t be an issue. When I saw how distressed my brothers and sisters had become as they began to recognize their deceitful nature but they were unable to change it and couldn’t be in accord with God’s will, I felt even more relieved that, being innately honest, I wouldn’t have to go through all of that. One day, however, after receiving the enlightenment of God’s words, I finally realized I wasn’t an honest person.

One day, I read God’s words: “People who are honest are possessed of the truth, they are not pitiable, wretched, stupid, or simplehearted. … And so, do not put this crown upon your head, thinking that you are honest because you suffer in society, are discriminated against, and are pushed around and cheated by everyone you meet. This is utterly wrong. … Being honest isn’t as people imagine: People aren’t honest simply because they are straightforward and plain-dealing. Some people may be naturally very forthright in the way they speak, but being forthright does not mean they are without deceit. Deceit is people’s motivations, and their disposition. When people live in this world, when they live under the influence of Satan’s corruption, it is impossible for them to be honest; they can only become ever more deceitful” (“To Be an Honest Person, You Should Lay Yourself Open to Others” in Records of Christ’s Talks). God’s words were a perfect characterization of my state. I always thought: I speak frankly, I don’t engage in trickery or play games, I am frequently cheated and bullied in the world, and so no part of me is deceitful. As a result, I never checked myself against God’s words exposing the deceit in man, instead crowning myself as the quintessence of honesty. I thought that God’s words were all talking about other people and that I was somehow different, that I had been born with this innate honesty. But it turns out that was nothing but my own notion and imagination and was not at all in line with the truth. Another passage of God’s words then came to mind: “Honesty means to give your heart to God; never to play Him false in anything; to be open with Him in all things, never hiding the truth; never to do that which deceives those above and deludes those below; and never to do that which merely ingratiates yourself with God. In short, to be honest is to refrain from impurity in your actions and words, and to deceive neither God nor man. … If your words are riddled with excuses and valueless justifications, then I say that you are one who is extremely loath to put the truth into practice. If you have many confidences that you are reluctant to share, and if you are very unwilling to lay bare your secrets—that is to say, your difficulties—before others so as to seek the way of the light, then I say that you are one who will not receive salvation easily and who will not easily emerge from the darkness. If seeking the way of the truth pleases you well, then you are one who dwells always in the light. If you are very glad to be a service-doer in the house of God, working diligently and conscientiously in obscurity, always giving and never taking, then I say that you are a loyal saint, because you seek no reward and are simply being an honest man. If you are willing to be candid, if you are willing to expend your all, if you are able to sacrifice your life for God and stand witness, if you are honest to the point where you know only to satisfy God and not to consider yourself or take for yourself, then I say that these people are those who are nourished in the light and who shall live forever in the kingdom” (“Three Admonitions” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). God’s words made me more aware that what God really means by honesty is someone who gives their heart to God, who is unwaveringly faithful to Him, who harbors no deceit or cheating in their heart, someone who possesses the truth and humanity. An honest person doesn’t muddle through or cheat when performing their duty; they don’t cause concern for others and God can trust them. The honest lay themselves bare in all things before God, and are also willing to share their private matters and personal troubles with their brothers and sisters. They don’t try to cheat God, nor do they cheat other people. Honest people don’t distort things; they call a spade a spade. Honest people give no thought to their personal prospects or future plans; they wholeheartedly expend themselves for God and only live to satisfy Him. As for me, I just didn’t get what it meant to be an honest person. In my worldly judgment of things, God’s “honest person” was what we refer to in the secular world as a “guileless person.” Little did I know that God’s “honest person” and my “honest person” hold very little in common. How ignorant I was, how absurd!

Giving it some careful thought, Satan has corrupted man for thousands of years: We all grow up in an environment permeated with the poison and corruption of Satan. Our language and behavior, the way we conduct ourselves in society, are all subject to Satan’s worldly philosophies and laws of survival. “Think before you speak and then only with caution”; “Everyone for himself and the devil take the hindmost”; “Speak out of both sides of one’s mouth”: These most famous phrases from Satan have already planted themselves in the collective unconscious of man. They are part and parcel of our lives, driving us to deceit and cunning. Given that all mankind is afflicted by deceit and cunning, what made me think I was somehow immune, or innately honest? I speak straightforwardly and without equivocation because I’m a frank and direct person. I’m often cheated by others because I’m ignorant and somewhat slow, but this doesn’t mean that I’m really an honest person. When I think back, how many times have I misrepresented myself and lied to preserve my reputation and status? How many times have I wallowed in anxiety over my future prospects instead of believing in God with a pure and single-minded heart? I feared that in giving up everything for God, I’d be left with nothing, so I always wanted a promise from God, a guarantee that I would one day enter His kingdom. That was the only way I would have been able to pursue the truth wholeheartedly without worry. Even when I did make sacrifices and expend myself it was in exchange for a good destination. How many times was I unable to be faithful to God, always fussing over my personal losses and gains in the process of fulfilling my duties and fretting over my own fame and status? And how many times did I make and break resolutions in front of God, speaking high-sounding but empty words to curry God’s favor? How many times did I refrain from opening myself up to my brothers and sisters and sharing my personal troubles and private affairs with them for fear that they would look down on me? How many times did I say only what I believed would benefit me personally, putting up my guard and being suspicious of others? The more I reflected on myself, the more I saw that my thoughts, words and actions were all filled with craftiness and deceit, and that I was living every moment in accordance with a deceitful nature. I am not remotely an honest person.

Thank God for enlightening me, for showing me that honest people are not just frank and guileless, but rather those who possess truth and humanity. Thank God also for showing me that I am not honest by God’s definition, but a person afflicted by a deceitful nature, a deceitful person who God has exposed. Then, I prayed to God: “Dear God, I am no longer willing to rely on my deceitful nature in life; I will work to become an honest person. I ask that You expose me and allow me to have a deeper understanding of my own deceitful nature, so that I may despise myself, deny my flesh, and soon become an honest person who possesses the truth and humanity, living out the likeness of a true human to satisfy You.”

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Enlightenment From a Story of King Solomon—Path of Discerning the True Christ From False One

Xu Fan

During my free time, I read a story about Solomon from the internet. A king from a neighboring country gave, as a present, two uncommon and rare flower baskets to Solomon. The flowers of one of the flower baskets were real and the flowers of the other basket were fake. However, the flowers of both baskets looked extremely similar. There was almost no way to distinguish the real flowers from the fake flowers just by looking at their appearance. The state official from the neighboring country that delivered the flower baskets had heard of Solomon’s wisdom. So, he asked Solomon to distinguish between the real flowers and the fake flowers. Solomon sent some people to bring the two flower baskets to his garden. Nobody understood what Solomon’s intentions were. Solomon asked everyone to gather at the garden and there they understood why he brought the two baskets into the garden. The real flowers had attracted many bees to them while the fake flowers did not have any.

While this is a very simple story, it contains a lot of spiritual meaning. The flowers that had life in them gave off a fragrance and they secreted nectar. That is why they attracted the bees. The flowers in the other basket were dead. Even though, externally, they looked the same, they did not give off a fragrance nor did they have any honey with which to attract bees.

After reading this story of how Solomon was able to discern the real flowers from the fake flowers, I could not help but think: Presently, there are many Christians devoutly waiting for the return of the Lord Jesus. However, at the same time, they are afraid of being deceived and as a result, they reject the gospel of Jesus’ return. Because in the Bible, Jesus said: “Then if any man shall say to you, See, here is Christ, or there; believe it not. For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders; so that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect” (Mat 24:23-24). That is why, presently, there are many Christians in the religious world who, even though they have heard someone bear witness to God and tell them that the Lord has returned, do not seek, investigate and discern. Instead, they blindly judge, convict and resist. They maintain that “All those who bear witness to the return of the Lord are false.” Can they welcome the return of the Lord if they have this kind of notion and imagination? If we carefully ponder the Lord’s teachings, we will find that the Lord has actually taught us how to discern fake Christs so that we will not reject the gospel of God’s return solely on the manifestation of fake Christs in the last days. If we allow our fear of being deceived by fake Christs to prevent us from focusing on listening to God’s voice and discerning God’s voice, how can we welcome the Lord’s return? Think back to when Jesus just arrived to do His work. The Pharisees, chief priests and scribes serving Jehovah God in the temple adhered to their own notions and imaginations and the Old Testament Bible. They did not seek or investigate Jesus’ work. Instead, they nailed Jesus to the cross and committed a very serious sin. In the very end, they received God’s punishment and curse. However, Peter, Nathanael, the Samaritan woman and others, after listening to Jesus’ words, recognized that Jesus was the coming Messiah. As a result, they followed the Lord. It is prophesied many times in Revelation, “He that has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” In the Book of Romans, chapter 10, verse 17, it says: “So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” Therefore, when we hear someone spreading the gospel of Jesus’ return, we should first seek and investigate. From our seeking and investigation, we should then discern whether the Lord has returned or not. In this way, we will not miss the opportunity to meet the Lord again.

Naturally, if we are to welcome the return of the Lord, first, we must understand what Christ is. Let’s take a look at God’s words and see what He has to say about this topic: “God become flesh is called Christ, and so the Christ that can give people the truth is called God. There is nothing excessive about this” (“Only Christ of the Last Days Can Give Man the Way of Eternal Life”). From God’s words we can see that only the incarnate God can be called Christ. Christ is that God’s Spirit is realized in the flesh. Christ is the appearance of God, and is God made flesh to do His own work. Even though, externally, Christ looks like a normal person, the substance of Christ is divinity and the work that He does is God’s work. Now, how can one discern between the real Christ and fake Christs? God said, “To investigate whether it is God’s incarnate flesh, man must determine this from the disposition He expresses and the words He speaks. Which is to say, whether or not it is God’s incarnate flesh, and whether or not it is the true way, must be judged from His substance. And so, in determining whether it is the flesh of God incarnate, the key is to pay attention to His substance (His work, His words, His disposition, and many more), rather than external appearance. If man sees only His external appearance, and overlooks His substance, then that shows the ignorance and naivety of man” (“Only He Who Experiences the Work of God Truly Believes in God”). “If a man calls himself God yet is unable to express the being of divinity, do the work of God Himself, or represent God, he is undoubtedly not God, for he has not the essence of God, and that which God can inherently achieve does not exist within him” (“The Difference Between the Ministry of the Incarnate God and the Duty of Man”). From Almighty God’s words, we can understand that discerning false Christs involves inspecting whether they possess God’s essence and not from looking at their external appearance. We must also look at their work, words and disposition in order to discern. Christ is able to provide people with the truth and life. He is able to express God’s righteous disposition and the wisdom of His work. Christ is the holy, righteous God Himself. This is similar to how Jesus, during the Age of Grace, looked like a normal person. However, He expressed a great amount of truth and He provided people with the way of repentance. He also expressed a disposition that is mainly mercy and love and taught people to forgive others seventy times seven. Jesus also healed the sick, exorcised demons and freed people from the bindings of the law. In the end, He was nailed onto the cross, thereby completing the redemption of all mankind. From Jesus’ words and work, we can confirm completely that Christ is the truth, the way and the life. Similarly, today the Lord Jesus who has returned to flesh—Almighty God has brought a new age, the Age of Kingdom. He has expressed millions of words and He has come to do the judgment work of the last days. He judges and cleanses man with His righteous and holy disposition so that man no longer needs to live in an endless cycle of committing sins and repenting. His work will allow man, in the very end, to break free from the bindings of sins and thoroughly be saved and perfected. Almighty God’s words have revealed all mysteries for us. They have informed us of God’s intentions for mankind, the ending for each category of man as well as the work that God intends to accomplish. God’s words have given us a path of practice as well. From Almighty God’s words and work, we can see that He is the embodiment of the truth. Almighty God’s work once again confirms that Christ is the truth, the way and the life. These are all things that fake Christs will never be able to accomplish.

Now, how should we discern fake Christs? God said: “If, during the present day, there is to emerge a person who is able to display signs and wonders, and can cast out demons, and heal the sick, and perform many miracles, and if this person claims that they are Jesus who has come, then this would be the counterfeit of evil spirits, and their imitation of Jesus. Remember this! God does not repeat the same work. Jesus’ stage of work has already been completed, and God will never again undertake that stage of work. … If, during the last days, God still displayed signs and wonders, and still cast out demons and healed the sick—if He did exactly the same as Jesus—then God would be repeating the same work, and the work of Jesus would have no significance or value. Thus, God carries out one stage of work in every age. Once each stage of His work has been completed, it is soon imitated by evil spirits, and after Satan begins to follow on the heels of God, God changes to a different method; once God has completed a stage of His work, it is imitated by evil spirits. You must be clear about these things.” “Today, God has come to bring an end to the Age of Grace and cast out all the practices of the Age of Grace. … The God of today does not display signs and wonders, nor does He heal the sick and cast out demons. When Jesus came, the work He did represented one part of God, but this time God has come to do the stage of work that is due, for God does not repeat the same work; He is the God that is always new and never old, and so all that you see today is the words and work of the practical God” (“Knowing God’s Work Today”).

From God’s words, we understand that fake Christs do not have God’s essence and they cannot do God’s work. All they can do is imitate God’s past work in order to pretend to be God. In other words, in the last days, all those who can perform miracles, heal the sick, exorcise demons and claim that they are Christ are definitely evil spirits that are impersonating God. This is because God is always new and never old. In each age, God’s work is different. He is always doing new work. If man cannot discern this, he will be deceived. Therefore, Jesus warned us: “Then if any man shall say to you, See, here is Christ, or there; believe it not. For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders; so that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect” (Mat 24:23-24). Today, Almighty God, Christ of the last days, has done new work. He no longer performs miracles, heals the sick and exorcises demons. Instead, He expresses the truth and does the work of judging man, cleansing man and perfecting man. He has shown man a path of practice in the new age and He has given man the way of life. On the contrary, the fake Christs and fake prophets are not equipped with the truth at all nor are they able to express the truth and provide life to mankind. All they can do is imitate God’s past work and perform some simple miracles in order to deceive people. However, they can never emulate what Jesus did as feeding 5,000 people with 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish, resurrecting Lazarus, rebuking the wind and sea and other such miracles. They are evil spirits that are impersonating God. They do not rule over all things and they do not have the power or the authority to do so. This is completely determined by their essence. It is just as God said: “Sooner or later, those fake Christs will all fall, for although they claim to be Christ, they possess none of the substance of Christ. And so I say that the authenticity of Christ cannot be defined by man, but is answered and decided by God Himself” (“Only Christ of the Last Days Can Give Man the Way of Eternal Life”). Therefore, if we can grasp the principles of discerning the true Christ from false Christs, we do not need to be afraid of being deceived. We can calmly and courageously seek, investigate and discern all kinds of voices with a heart that reveres God. Only the person who can bring man the truth, the way and the life is the true Christ. This is similar to what the story talked about. The real flowers had life and they were able to attract bees. The fake flowers, while similar externally to the real flowers, did not have life and were unable to attract bees with their honey. Similarly, no matter how well fake Christs disguise themselves and imitate God, they are unable to express the truth and provide life for man. However, the true Christ has God’s essence, He is able to express the truth and He is able to provide man with life. Therefore, Jesus’s work is capable of being transmitted to all corners of the globe and He can bring many people before God so that they can receive Jesus’ salvation. This is the power of life. The truth that Almighty God of the last days expresses has opened all the mysteries of His work of 6,000 years of management for all of mankind to witness. Almighty God is capable of expressing all the truth that man requires in order to be cleansed and saved. This is what God provides to mankind. Not only can this truth aid us in discerning positive things and negative things, it also provides us with the path we need to change our dispositions and moreover, it provides us the way of eternal life. This is completely reliant on God’s essence. It is as Almighty God said: “The way of life is not something that can be possessed by just anyone … because life can only come from God, which is to say, only God Himself possesses the substance of life, there is no way of life without God Himself, and so only God is the source of life, and the ever-flowing wellspring of living water of life” (“Only Christ of the Last Days Can Give Man the Way of Eternal Life”). Nowadays, Almighty God’s kingdom gospel has already spread throughout Mainland China. Right now, it is being transmitted and witnessed to all corners of the world. The Word Appears in the Flesh expressed by Almighty God has also been published online a long time ago. It has been provided for all those who seek the truth to investigate. Many people that love the truth and thirst for God’s appearance have read the words that Almighty God expresses and they all recognize that they are God’s voice and that Almighty God is the Lord Jesus who appears in the last days. One after another, they are returning before God’s throne. Today, if we are afraid of being deceived by false Christs and as a result, do not seek and investigate the appearance and work of Almighty God, Christ of the last days, we will have forever lost God’s grace in the last days!

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When the Lord Jesus Knocks at the Door, How Will We Answe

Xiao Fei

After I entered belief in the Lord, the brothers and sisters liked to sing a hymn called “The Good Man Is Knocking at the Door” which goes: “The good man is knocking at the door, His hair wet with dew; let us quickly rise and open the door, and not let the good man turn around and leave. …” Every time we sang this hymn, our hearts were deeply moved and stirred. We all want to ask the good man to stay the night, so when the good man comes and knocks at the door we will welcome the Lord the first time we hear the good man’s voice. It can be said that all of us who believe in the Lord have such a hope. But when the Lord comes, how will He knock? When the Lord knocks, what should we do to make sure we are welcoming Him as the Lord? This is something people who believe in the Lord should think about.



When the Lord Jesus came to do the work of salvation in the Age of Grace, news of the miracles wrought by the Lord and the word of the Lord spread throughout the land of Judea. His name also caused a great stir in all Judea, and for the people of that time the knock at the door was the disciples led by the Lord Jesus preaching the gospel of the heavenly kingdom in every place. The Lord Jesus said: “Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Mat 4:17). The Lord hopes that people will come before the Lord to repent and confess their sins. In so doing, their sins will be absolved, and they will break free from the condemnation and imprecation of the law and be redeemed by God. At the time, many Jewish people witnessed the miracles performed by the Lord Jesus. They also noticed the authority and power in the word of the Lord, such that the Lord Jesus was able to feed 5,000 people with five loaves and two fish. With a single word, the Lord Jesus was also able to calm the wind and the sea, as well as to cause Lazarus to emerge from his tomb after being dead for four days…. In accordance with the words of the Lord Jesus, whatever is spoken is fulfilled, allowing us to see the authority and power in the Lord’s word. There are also the words of the Lord Jesus teaching people and rebuking the Pharisees. These words are the truth and are not words we are capable of uttering. The words spoken by the Lord Jesus and the things He did reveal God’s disposition and what God has and is. They manifest the authority and power of God and cause men’s hearts to shake. The Jewish people at that time had already heard the sound of the Lord knocking, but how did they treat the Lord?

The Jewish priests, scribes, and Pharisees at the time knew clearly that the words spoken by the Lord Jesus and the miracles He performed all come from God, but they did not at all have hearts that revered God. They did not seek or investigate the work of the Lord Jesus, but all along just clung to the words of the biblical prophecies, believing that the One who was to come would be called Emmanuel or Messiah, and be born of a virgin. When they saw that Mary had a husband, they determined that the Lord Jesus was not conceived by the Holy Spirit, and that He was not born of a virgin. They also made judgments however they wanted and said that the Lord Jesus was the son of a carpenter and so just a completely ordinary person. They used this to deny and accuse the Lord Jesus. They even went as far as to blaspheme against the Lord Jesus and say that He relied on Beelzebub, the ruler of the demons, to cast out demons. In the end, they joined the Roman government in crucifying Him. Most Jewish people believed that the Lord Jesus should have been born in the temple, and that He would be their king to save them from Roman rule. When the Pharisees were spreading rumors and slander and condemning the Lord Jesus, they were just being blindly obedient without any discrimination at all. Between the salvation of the Lord Jesus and the slanderous words said by the Pharisees, they chose to listen to the rumors and lies of the Pharisees, and rejected the way preached by the Lord Jesus. When the Lord knocked on the door, they closed their hearts off to the Lord. It is just as the Lord Jesus said: “And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which said, By hearing you shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing you shall see, and shall not perceive: For this people’s heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them” (Mat 13:14-15). Because they refused to listen to the Lord’s voice and did not accept the Lord’s work of salvation, these Jewish people missed their chance to follow the Lord Jesus. As a result of resisting God, they were met with God’s punishment, bringing about 2000 years of destruction to Israel. In contrast, the disciples who followed the Lord Jesus at the time such as Peter, John, James, and Nathanael had hearts that loved the truth. They did not rely on their own notions and imaginations in how they treated the word and the work of the Lord Jesus, but sought conscientiously, investigated carefully, and obtained the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit. They heard the voice of God and recognized that the Lord Jesus was the Messiah to come, and thus they caught up with the footsteps of the Lord and received the salvation of the Lord. We can see that the failure of the Pharisees and the Jewish people lies in that they only relied on the literal meaning of the biblical prophecies to accept and recognize the manifestation and work of God. This led them to be people who believed in God but resisted God. From this we can see that if people who believe in God treat God’s new work on the basis of their own notions and imaginations, not only will they not be able to welcome God’s arrival, but they may very easily become among those who believe in God and yet resist Him. How lamentable would that be? The Lord Jesus said: “Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. … Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled” (Mat 5:3,6). We can see here that we can only welcome the Lord’s return if we, like Peter and John, hear the Lord’s voice, have hearts that hunger and thirst for righteousness, and actively seek and investigate.

Today, the prophecies of the Lord’s second coming in the last days have fundamentally been fulfilled. When the Lord comes again in the last days, we must be more vigilant and prepared, take heed of God’s voice, and have hearts that seek and thirst for righteousness to await the Lord to knock at the door at any time. Only in this way can we welcome the second coming of the Lord. The Lord Jesus said: “I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. However, when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth” (Jhn 16:12-13). It is also prophesied many times in Revelation chapter 2-3: “He that has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” We can see from the scriptures that when the Lord Jesus returns He will speak again and do new work. This is the Lord knocking at the door for us, as well as Him using His word to knock on the doors of our hearts. All who hear the Lord’s utterances and actively seek and listen attentively to the voice of the Lord are the wise virgins. If they recognize that the Lord is speaking they are able to welcome the return of the Lord and obtain the watering and supply of the word of God. This fulfills the word of the Lord: “And also on the servants and on the handmaids in those days will I pour out my spirit” (Joe 2:29). The Lord is trustworthy, and He will allow all those who thirst and seek for Him to hear His voice in this time. However, God’s wisdom is difficult for us humans to fathom, and the way the Lord will knock at the door when He returns will not be as it seems in our notions and imaginations. It could be someone calling “the Lord has returned!” to us. It is just as the Lord Jesus warned us: “And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom comes; go you out to meet him” (Mat 25:6). We may also hear God’s voice from the churches that spread the gospel of the Lord’s return, or from the internet, radio, Facebook, or elsewhere and see God speaking to all the churches. Still, no matter what way the Lord knocks on our doors, we absolutely must not treat the Lord’s knocking like the Jewish people did. We must not decline to seek or investigate based on our notions and imaginations nor blindly listen to lies and rumors. By doing so we would have rejected the Lord’s call and missed our chance to welcome the Lord and be raised up into the heavenly kingdom. The Book of Revelation predicts: “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me” (Rev 3:20). The Lord Jesus says: “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you” (Mat 7:7). The will of the Lord is that we may all be the wise virgins and always be watchful in listening for the voice of the Lord. When we hear the Lord’s voice we must look into it with open minds and investigate with sincerity, and when we recognize the voice of God we must rush out to welcome the Lord. As long as we have hearts of seeking, God will surely open up our spiritual eyes. In this way, we will be able to be raised up before the throne of God and be present at the feast of the Lamb!

All the glory belongs to God!

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