Testify God

The word “Christ” appears in the New Testament, and the men who followed the Lord Jesus called Him Christ. What is the meaning of Christ? Why is the Lord Jesus called Christ?

As Christians, every one of us wants to be blessed by God. Then, how should we act to receive God’s blessings? Perhaps, we can gain inspiration from the deeds of Noah and Abraham.

Based on 1 Thessalonians 4:17, some people believe that when the Lord returns, His believers will be raptured into the air to meet Him. But is this really the case? Read to learn more.

We always experience repeated spiritual battles and encounter all kinds of Satan’s temptations on the path to the kingdom of heaven. Especially when facing constraints on our belief, how will we be able to stand witness through this spiritual warfare and have a path to follow in the face of these temptations?

In this noisy and materialistic society, competition is everywhere. We are generally not content with the status quo, which causes our needs to arise and our desires to grow. Some people look very ordinary, but they dream that they can be as beautiful as Snow White and become the focus of public attention, and thus they boldly enter the beauty clinic. However, they are disfigured after plastic surgery. As a result, the pain will be with them all their lives. Some are born in a poor family, but they hope that they can become rich and live a life where they are above others. Therefore, they try every way to strive for that all their lives. But finally, they are mentally and physically exhausted and suffer the torture of illness in return, and at the same time, happiness is rather distant from them. Some have been very unfortunate in their official career, but they wish that they can be successful. They contemplate how to achieve a high rank all day, thus flattering and toadying up to those in charge and even doing illegal things. … In short, we are struggling all our lives to realize our own ideals, but many times we end up empty-handed and our lives pass quickly. We constantly strive hard to realize these ideals and are still unwilling to stop even if we have paid a terrible price. Such is the case with later generations. What is the real reason for this? God’s word cuts to the point and reveals the source of this issue, “Because people do not recognize God’s orchestrations and God’s sovereignty, they always face fate defiantly, with a rebellious attitude, and always want to cast off God’s authority and sovereignty and the things fate has in store, hoping in vain to change their current circumstances and alter their fate. But they can never succeed; they are thwarted at every turn. This struggle, which takes place deep in one’s soul, is painful; the pain is unforgettable; and all the while one is frittering away one’s life. What is the cause of this pain? Is it because of God’s sovereignty, or because a person was born unlucky? Obviously neither is true. At bottom, it is because of the paths people take, the ways people choose to live their lives” (“God Himself, the Unique III”). Pondering God’s word, I realize that all kinds of pains we have suffered in pursuit of our personal interests are not caused by our being born unlucky, but by our holding on to the mistaken viewpoints and having extravagant desires. Our pursuit and paying a price are in order to tower above others to satisfy our ambitions and desires. We always think that we will live out a life with true value and meaning if we can stand out from the crowd and become someone to be looked up to. On the contrary, if we can’t fulfill this and we are looked down on and left out in the cold, we’ll think it meaningless and degraded to live like this. So, each of us has taken fame and gain as the goal of our pursuit and thus strives to become an outstanding and special talent as well as to turn ourselves extraordinary and superior. No matter what we do, we always work hard to achieve this goal. In fact, everything God has planned for us is the best, and can also meet our needs, but we always have too many insatiable demands, dissatisfied with our current situations. We want to surpass others in life and work to become the best and brightest who is admired by all. If we can’t achieve our goals, we will feel great pain and suffering in our hearts. Clearly, if we do not recognize God’s sovereignty and arrangements but want to rely on our own thinking to alter our fate to satisfy our desires, in the end we will definitely fail. The only way for us to live freely is to turn back to God, place ourselves in God’s hands, and allow God to rule over and arrange everything for us. Just as God’s word says, “So no matter how far you have walked in life, no matter how old you are now, no matter how long the rest of your journey is, first you must recognize God’s authority and take it seriously, accept the fact that God is your unique Master. Attaining clear, accurate knowledge and understanding of these truths regarding God’s sovereignty over human fate is a mandatory lesson for everyone, is the key to knowing human life and attaining the truth, is the life and basic lesson of knowing God that everyone faces each day, and which no one can evade. If one of you wishes to take shortcuts to reach this goal, then I say to you, that is impossible! If you want to escape God’s sovereignty, that is even more impossible! God is man’s only Lord, God is the only Master of human fate, and so it is impossible for man to dictate his own fate, impossible for him to surpass it. No matter how great one’s abilities, one cannot influence, much less orchestrate, arrange, control, or change the fates of others. Only the unique God Himself dictates all things for man, for only He possesses the unique authority that holds sovereignty over human fate; and so only the Creator is man’s unique Master” (“God Himself, the Unique III”). God’s word points out the only way for us to get rid of these pains. That is to recognize God’s sovereignty and predestination, change our mistaken viewpoints, put aside the extravagant desires in our hearts, and accept God as our sole Master. Only in this way can we live in joy and peace, freely and happily! In truth, when each of us comes into this world, our life destiny has already been arranged by God. God has long ago preordained everything for us, which includes the families we are born…

Man understands a little of the work of today and the work of the future, but he does not understand the destination into which mankind will enter. As a creature, man should perform the duty of a creature: Man should follow God in whatever He does; you should proceed in whatever way I tell you to. You have no way of managing things for yourself, and you have no mastery over yourself; all must be left to the mercy of God, and everything is grasped within His hands. If the work of God provided man with an end, a wonderful destination, ahead of time, and if God used this to entice man and cause man to follow Him—if He did a deal with man—then this would not be conquest, nor would it be to work the life of man. Were God to use the end to control man and gain his heart, then in this He would not be perfecting man, nor would He be able to gain man, but instead would be using the destination to control him. Man cares about nothing more than the future end, the final destination, and whether or not there is something good to hope for. If man were given a beautiful hope during the work of conquest, and if, prior to the conquest of man, he were given a proper destination to pursue, then not only would the conquest of man not achieve its effect, but the effect of the work of conquest would also be influenced. That is to say, the work of conquest achieves its effect by taking away the fate and prospects of man and judging and chastising the rebellious disposition of man. It is not achieved by doing a deal with man, that is, by giving man blessings and grace, but by revealing man’s loyalty through stripping him of his “freedom” and eradicating his prospects. This is the substance of the work of conquest. If man were given a beautiful hope at the very beginning, and the work of chastisement and judgment were done after, then man would accept this chastisement and judgment on the basis that he had prospects, and in the end, the unconditional obedience and worship of the Creator by all His creatures would not be achieved; there would only be blind, ignorant obedience, or else man would make blind demands of God, and so it would be impossible to fully conquer man’s heart. Consequently, such work of conquest would be incapable of gaining man, nor, moreover, of bearing testimony to God. Such creatures would be unable to perform their duty, and would only strike bargains with God; this would not be conquest, but mercy and blessing. The biggest problem with man is that he thinks of nothing but his fate and prospects, that he idolizes them. Man pursues God for the sake of his fate and prospects; he does not worship God because of his love for Him. And so, in the conquest of man, man’s selfishness, greed and the things that most obstruct his worship of God must all be eliminated. In doing so, the effects of man’s conquest will be achieved. As a result, in the earliest conquest of man it is necessary to first purge the wild ambitions and most grievous weaknesses of man, and, through this, to reveal man’s love of God, and change his knowledge of human life, his view of God, and the meaning of his existence. In this way, man’s love of God is cleansed, which is to say, man’s heart is conquered. But in His attitude toward all creatures, God does not conquer only for the sake of conquering; instead, He conquers in order to gain man, for the sake of His own glory, and in order to recover the earliest, original likeness of man. Were He to conquer only for the sake of conquering, then the significance of the work of conquest would be lost. That is to say that if, after conquering man, God washed His hands of man, and paid no heed to his life or death, then this would not be the management of mankind, nor would man’s conquest be for the sake of his salvation. Only the gaining of man following his conquest and his ultimate arrival at a wonderful destination is at the heart of all the work of salvation, and only this can achieve the aim of man’s salvation. In other words, only man’s arrival at the beautiful destination and his entry into rest is the prospects that should be possessed by all creatures, and the work that should be done by the Creator. If man were to do this work, then it would be too limited: It could take man to a certain point, but it would not be able to bring man to the eternal destination. Man is not able to decide man’s destiny, nor, moreover, is he able to ensure man’s prospects and future destination. The work done by God, however, is different. Since He created man, He leads him; since He saves man, He will thoroughly save him, and will completely gain him; since He leads man, He will bring him to the proper destination; and since He created and manages man, He must take responsibility for man’s fate and prospects. It is this which is the work done by the Creator. Though the work of conquest is achieved by purging man of his prospects, man must ultimately be brought into the proper destination prepared for him by God. It is precisely because God works man that man has a destination and his fate is assured. Here, the suitable destination referred to is not man’s hopes and prospects purged in times past; the two are different. That which man hopes for and pursues are the yearnings of his pursuit of the extravagant desires of the flesh, rather than the destination due to man. What God has prepared for man, meanwhile, are the blessings and promises…