These several fellowships have had a great impact on every single person. As of now, people can finally really feel the true existence of God and that God is actually very close to them. Although people have believed in God for many years, they have never truly understood His thoughts and ideas as they do now, neither have they truly experienced His practical deeds as they do now. Whether it’s knowledge or actual practice, most people have learned something new and achieved a higher understanding, and they have realized the error in their own past pursuits, realized the superficiality of their experience and that too much is not in line with God’s will, and realized that what man most lacks is knowledge of God’s disposition. This knowledge on the part of people is a type of emotional knowledge; to rise to the level of rational knowledge requires a gradual deepening and strengthening through their experiences. Before man truly understands God, subjectively it could be said that they do believe in the existence of God in their hearts, but they have no real understanding of specific questions such as what kind of God He actually is, what His will is, what His disposition is, and what His real attitude toward mankind is. This greatly compromises people’s faith in God—their faith simply cannot achieve purity or perfection. Even if you are face to face with God’s word, or feel that you have encountered God through your experiences, it still cannot be said that you completely understand Him. Because you don’t know God’s thoughts, or what He loves and what He hates, what makes Him angry and what brings Him joy, you do not have a true understanding of Him. Your faith is built on a foundation of vagueness and imagination, based on your subjective desires. It is still far from an authentic belief, and you are still far from being a true follower. Explanations of the examples from these Bible stories have allowed humans to know God’s heart, what He was thinking at every step in His work and why He did this work, what His original intention and His plan were when He did it, how He achieved His ideas, and how He prepared for and developed His plan. Through these stories, we can gain a detailed, specific understanding of God’s every specific intention and every real thought during His six thousand years of management work, and His attitude toward humans at different times and in different eras. Understanding what God was thinking, what His attitude was, and the disposition He revealed as He faced every situation, can help every person more deeply realize His true existence, and more deeply feel His realness and authenticity. My goal in telling these stories is not so that people can understand biblical history, nor is it to help them become familiar with the books of the Bible or the people in it, and it’s especially not to help people understand the background of what God did during the Age of Law. It is to help people understand God’s will, His disposition, and every little part of Him, and gain a more authentic and more accurate understanding and knowledge of God. This way, people’s hearts can, little by little, open up to God, become close to God, and they can better understand Him, His disposition, His essence, and better know the true God Himself.
12. Jesus’ Words to His Disciples After His Resurrection
(John 20:26-29) And after eight days again his disciples were within, and Thomas with them: then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the middle, and said, Peace be to you. Then said he to Thomas, Reach here your finger, and behold my hands; and reach here your hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing. And Thomas answered and said to him, My LORD and my God. Jesus said to him, Thomas, because you have seen me, you have believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.
(John 21:16-17) He said to him again the second time, Simon, son of Jonas, love you me? He said to him, Yes, Lord; you know that I love you. He said to him, Feed my sheep. He said to him the third time, Simon, son of Jonas, love you me? Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, Love you me? And he said to him, Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you. Jesus said to him, Feed my sheep.
What these passages recount are some things that the Lord Jesus did and said to His disciples after His resurrection. First, let’s take a look at any differences between the Lord Jesus before and after the resurrection. Was He still the same Lord Jesus of past days? The scripture contains the following line describing the Lord Jesus after the resurrection: “then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the middle, and said, Peace be to you.” It’s very clear that the Lord Jesus at that time was no longer a flesh, but a spiritual body. This was because He had transcended the limitations of the flesh, and when the door was closed He could still come into the midst of the people and allow them to see Him. This is the greatest difference between the Lord Jesus after the resurrection and the Lord Jesus living in the flesh before the resurrection. Even though there was no difference between the appearance of the spiritual body of that moment and the appearance of the Lord Jesus from before, Jesus in that moment had become a Jesus that felt like a stranger to the people, because He had become a spiritual body after being resurrected from the dead, and compared to His previous flesh, this spiritual body was more puzzling and confusing for people. It also created more distance between the Lord Jesus and the people, and people felt in their hearts that the Lord Jesus in that moment had become more mysterious. These understandings and feelings on the part of the people suddenly brought them back to an age of believing in a God that could not be seen or touched. So, the first thing that the Lord Jesus did after His resurrection was to allow everyone to see Him, to confirm that He exists, and to confirm the fact of His resurrection. In addition, it restored His relationship with the people to the relationship He had with them when He was working in the flesh, and He was the Christ they could see and touch. This way, one outcome is that the people had no doubt that the Lord Jesus had been resurrected from death after being nailed to the cross, and there was no doubt in the Lord Jesus’ work to redeem mankind. And another outcome is that the fact of the Lord Jesus appearing to people after His resurrection and allowing people to see and touch Him firmly secured mankind in the Age of Grace. From this time on, people could not return to the previous age, the Age of Law, because of the Lord Jesus’ “disappearance” or “desertion,” but they would continue forward, following the Lord Jesus’ teachings and the work He had done. Thus, a new phase in the work in the Age of Grace was formally opened up, and the people who had been under the law formally came out from the law from then on, and entered into a new era, with a new beginning. These are the manifold meanings of the Lord Jesus’ appearance to mankind after the resurrection.
Almighty God says, "This time, God comes to do work not in a spiritual body but in a very ordinary one. Not only is it the body of God’s second incarnation, but also the body in which God returns. It is a very ordinary flesh. In Him, you cannot see anything that is different from others, but you can receive from Him the truths you have never heard before. This insignificant flesh is the embodiment of all the words of truth from God, that which undertakes God’s work in the last days, and an expression of the whole of God’s disposition for man to come to know. Did you not desire greatly to see the God in heaven? Did you not desire greatly to understand the God in heaven? Did you not desire greatly to see the destination of mankind? He will tell you all these secrets that no man has been able to tell you, and He will even tell you of the truths that you do not understand. He is your gate into the kingdom, and your guide into the new age."
from "Do You Know? God Has Done a Great Thing Among Men" in The Word Appears in the Flesh
Harvest after watching:
Amen! God does nothing meaningless. Though some things don't match our conceptions, there is God's good intention. Just these things can show whether we truly listen to God's word, and whether we have true obedience of God.
Having learned of how Job went through the trials, most of you will likely want to know more details about Job himself, particularly with regard to the secret by which he gained God’s praise. So today, let us talk about Job!
In Job’s Daily Life We See His Perfection, Uprightness, Fear of God, and Shunning of Evil
If we are to discuss Job, then we must start with the assessment of him uttered from God’s own mouth: “there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that fears God, and eschews evil.”
Let us first learn about Job’s perfection and uprightness.
What is your understanding of the words “perfect” and “upright”? Do you believe that Job was without reproach, and honorable? This, of course, would be a literal interpretation and understanding of “perfect” and “upright.” Integral to a true understanding of Job is real life—words, books, and theory alone won’t provide any answers. We’ll start by looking at Job’s home life, at what his normal conduct was like during his life. This will tell us about his principles and objectives in life, as well as about his personality and pursuit. Now, let us read the final words of Job 1:3: “this man was the greatest of all the men of the east.” What these words are saying is that Job’s status and standing were very high, and though we are not told whether he was the greatest of all men of the east because of his abundant assets, or because he was perfect and upright, and feared God and shunned evil, overall, we know that Job’s status and standing were much prized. As recorded in the Bible, people’s first impressions of Job were that Job was perfect, that he feared God and shunned evil, and that he was possessed of great wealth and venerable status. For a normal person living in such an environment and under such conditions, Job’s diet, quality of life, and the various aspects of his personal life would be the focus of most people’s attention; thus we must continue reading the scriptures: “And his sons went and feasted in their houses, every one his day; and sent and called for their three sisters to eat and to drink with them. And it was so, when the days of their feasting were gone about, that Job sent and sanctified them, and rose up early in the morning, and offered burnt offerings according to the number of them all: for Job said, It may be that my sons have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts. Thus did Job continually” (Job 1:4-5). This passage tells us two things: The first is that Job’s sons and daughters regularly feasted, eating and drinking; the second is that Job frequently offered burnt sacrifices because he often worried for them, fearful that they were sinning, that in their hearts they had cursed God. In this are described the lives of two different types of people. The first, Job’s sons and daughters, often feasted because of their affluence, they lived extravagantly, they wined and dined to their heart’s content, enjoying the high quality of life brought by material wealth. Living such a life, it was inevitable that they would often sin and offend God—yet they did not sanctify themselves or offer burnt offerings as a result. You see, then, that God had no place in their hearts, that they gave no thought to God’s graces, nor feared offending God, much less did they fear renouncing God in their hearts. Of course, our focus is not on Job’s children, but on what Job did when faced with such things; this is the other matter described in the passage, and which involves Job’s daily life and the substance of his humanity. When the Bible describes the feasting of Job’s sons and daughters, there is no mention of Job; it is said only that his sons and daughters often ate and drank together. In other words, he did not hold feasts, nor did he join his sons and daughters in eating to extravagance. Though affluent, and possessed of many assets and servants, Job’s life was not a luxurious one. He was not beguiled by his superlative living environment, and he did not gorge himself on the enjoyments of the flesh or forget to offer burnt offerings because of his wealth, much less did it cause him to gradually shun God in his heart. Evidently, then, Job was disciplined in his lifestyle, and was not greedy or hedonistic, nor did he fixate upon quality of life, as a result of God’s blessings to him. Instead, he was humble and modest, and cautious and careful before God, he often gave thought to God’s graces and blessings, and was continually fearful of God. In his daily life, Job often rose early to offer burnt offerings for his sons and daughters. In other words, not only did Job himself fear God, but he also hoped that his children would likewise fear God and not sin against God. Job’s material wealth held no place within his heart, nor did it replace the position held by God; whether for the sake of himself or his children, Job’s daily actions were all connected to fearing God and shunning evil. His fear of Jehovah God did not stop at his mouth, but was put into action, and reflected in each and every part of his daily life. This actual conduct by Job shows us that he was honest, and was possessed of a substance that loved justice and things that were positive. That Job often sent and sanctified his sons and daughters means he did not sanction or approve of his children’s behavior; instead, in his heart he was fed up with their behavior, and condemned them. He had concluded that the behavior of his sons and daughters was not pleasing to Jehovah God, and thus he often called on them to go before Jehovah God and confess their sins. Job’s actions show us another side of his humanity: one in which he never walked with those who often sinned and offended God, but instead shunned and avoided them. Even though these people were his sons and daughters, he did not forsake his own principles because they were his own kin, nor did he indulge their sins because of his own sentiments. Rather, he urged them to confess and gain Jehovah God’s forbearance, and he warned them not to forsake God for the sake of their own greedy enjoyment. The principles of how Job treated others are inseparable from the principles of his fear of God and shunning of evil. He loved that which was accepted by God, and loathed that which repulsed God, and he loved those who feared God in their hearts, and loathed those who committed evil or sinned against God. Such love and loathing was demonstrated in his everyday life, and was the very uprightness of Job seen by God’s eyes. Naturally, this is also the expression and living out of Job’s true humanity in his relations with others in his daily life that we must learn about.
During the same period as Abraham, God also destroyed a city. This city was called Sodom. Without doubt, many people are familiar with the story of Sodom, but none are acquainted with the thoughts of God that were background to His destruction of the city.
And so today, through God’s exchanges with Abraham below, we will learn of His thoughts at that time, while also learning of His disposition. Next, let us read the following passages of scripture.
B. God Must Destroy Sodom
(Gen 18:26) And the LORD said, If I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will spare all the place for their sakes.
(Gen 18:29) And he spoke to him yet again, and said, Peradventure there shall be forty found there. And he said, I will not do it.
(Gen 18:30) And he said to him, Peradventure there shall thirty be found there. And he said, I will not do it.
(Gen 18:31) And he said, Peradventure there shall be twenty found there. And he said, I will not destroy it.
(Gen 18:32) And he said, Peradventure ten shall be found there. And he said, I will not destroy it.
These several fellowships have had a great impact on every single person. As of now, people can finally really feel the true existence of God and that God is actually very close to them. Although people have believed in God for many years, they have never truly understood His thoughts and ideas as they do now, neither have they truly experienced His practical deeds as they do now. Whether it’s knowledge or actual practice, most people have learned something new and achieved a higher understanding, and they have realized the error in their own past pursuits, realized the superficiality of their experience and that too much is not in line with God’s will, and realized that what man most lacks is knowledge of God’s disposition. This knowledge on the part of people is a type of emotional knowledge; to rise to the level of rational knowledge requires a gradual deepening and strengthening through their experiences. Before man truly understands God, subjectively it could be said that they do believe in the existence of God in their hearts, but they have no real understanding of specific questions such as what kind of God He actually is, what His will is, what His disposition is, and what His real attitude toward mankind is. This greatly compromises people’s faith in God—their faith simply cannot achieve purity or perfection. Even if you are face to face with God’s word, or feel that you have encountered God through your experiences, it still cannot be said that you completely understand Him. Because you don’t know God’s thoughts, or what He loves and what He hates, what makes Him angry and what brings Him joy, you do not have a true understanding of Him. Your faith is built on a foundation of vagueness and imagination, based on your subjective desires. It is still far from an authentic belief, and you are still far from being a true follower. Explanations of the examples from these Bible stories have allowed humans to know God’s heart, what He was thinking at every step in His work and why He did this work, what His original intention and His plan were when He did it, how He achieved His ideas, and how He prepared for and developed His plan. Through these stories, we can gain a detailed, specific understanding of God’s every specific intention and every real thought during His six thousand years of management work, and His attitude toward humans at different times and in different eras. Understanding what God was thinking, what His attitude was, and the disposition He revealed as He faced every situation, can help every person more deeply realize His true existence, and more deeply feel His realness and authenticity. My goal in telling these stories is not so that people can understand biblical history, nor is it to help them become familiar with the books of the Bible or the people in it, and it’s especially not to help people understand the background of what God did during the Age of Law. It is to help people understand God’s will, His disposition, and every little part of Him, and gain a more authentic and more accurate understanding and knowledge of God. This way, people’s hearts can, little by little, open up to God, become close to God, and they can better understand Him, His disposition, His essence, and better know the true God Himself.
From the beginning until today, only man has been capable of conversing with God. That is, among all living things and creatures of God, none but man has been able to converse with God. Man has ears that enable him to hear, and eyes that let him see, he has language, and his own ideas, and free will. He is possessed of all that is required to hear God speak, and understand God’s will, and accept God’s commission, and so God confers all His wishes upon man, wanting to make man a companion who is of the same mind with Him and who can walk with Him. Since He began to manage, God has been waiting for man to give his heart to Him, to let God purify and equip it, to make him satisfactory to God and loved by God, to make him revere God and shun evil. God has ever looked forward to and awaited this outcome. Are there any such people among the records of the Bible? That is, are there any in the Bible capable of giving their hearts to God? Is there any precedent before this age? Today, let us continue reading the accounts of the Bible and take a look at whether what was done by this figure—Job—has any connection to the topic of “giving your heart to God” that we’re talking about today. Let us see whether Job was satisfactory to God and loved by God.
What is your impression of Job? Citing original scripture, some people say that Job “feared God, and eschewed evil.” “Feared God, and eschewed evil”: Such is the original assessment of Job recorded in the Bible. If you used your own words, how would you pin down Job? Some people say that Job was a good and reasonable man; some say that he had true faith in God; some say that Job was a righteous and humane man. You have seen the faith of Job, which is to say, in your hearts you attach great importance to and are envious of Job’s faith. Today, then, let us look at what was possessed by Job that God is pleased with him so. Next, let us read the scriptures below.
3. God Makes the Rainbow as a Symbol of His Covenant With Man
(Gen 9:11-13) And I will establish my covenant with you, neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth. And God said, This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations: I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth.
Next, let’s take a look at this part of the scriptures about how God made the rainbow as a symbol of His covenant with man.
Most people know what a rainbow is and have heard of some stories related to rainbows. As for the story about the rainbow in the Bible, some people believe it, some treat it as legend, while others don’t believe it at all. No matter what, everything that happened in relation to the rainbow is all things God once did, and things that took place during the process of God’s management of man. These things have been recorded exactly in the Bible. These records do not tell us what mood God was in at the time or the intentions behind these words God said. Moreover, no one can appreciate what God was feeling when He said them. However, God’s state of mind regarding this entire thing is revealed between the lines of the text. It is as though His thoughts at the time leap off the page through each word and phrase of God’s word.
God’s thoughts are what people should be concerned about and what they should be trying to get to know the most. This is because God’s thoughts are closely related to man’s understanding of God, and man’s understanding of God is an indispensable link to man’s entry into life. So what was God thinking at the time when these things happened?
Originally, God created a humanity that in His eyes was very good and close to Him, but they were destroyed by flood after rebelling against Him. Did it hurt God that such a humanity just instantly vanished like that? Of course it hurt! So what was His expression of this pain? How was it recorded in the Bible? It was recorded in the Bible as: “And I will establish my covenant with you, neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth.” This simple sentence reveals God’s thoughts. This destruction of the world pained Him very much. In man’s words, He was very sad. We can imagine: How did the earth that was once full of life look like after being destroyed by the flood? How did the earth that was once full of human beings look like now? No human habitation, no living creatures, water everywhere and an absolute mess on the surface of the water. Was such a scene God’s original intention when He created the world? Of course not! God’s original intention was to see life all across the land, to see the human beings He created worshiping Him, not just for Noah to be the only one worshiping Him or the only one who could answer His call to complete what he was entrusted. When humanity disappeared, God saw not what He had originally intended but the complete opposite. How could His heart not be in pain? So when He was revealing His disposition and expressing His emotions, God made a decision. What kind of a decision did He make? To make a bow in the cloud (note: the rainbow that we see) as a covenant with man, a promise that God would not destroy mankind with a flood again. At the same time, it was also to tell people that God had once destroyed the world with a flood, to let mankind forever remember why God did such a thing.
Was the destruction of the world this time something God wanted? It was definitely not what God wanted. We might be able to imagine a small part of the pitiful sight of the earth after the destruction of the world, but we cannot come close to imagining what the scene was like at the time in God’s eyes. We can say that, whether it is the people of now or then, nobody is able to imagine or appreciate what God was feeling when He saw that scene, that image of the world following its destruction by flood. God was forced to do this due to man’s disobedience, but the pain suffered by God’s heart from this destruction of the world by flood is a reality no one can fathom or appreciate. That’s why God had made a covenant with mankind, which was to tell people to remember that God once did something like this, and to swear to them that God would never destroy the world in such a way again. In this covenant we see God’s heart—we see that God’s heart was in pain when He destroyed this humanity. In the language of man, when God destroyed mankind and saw mankind disappearing, His heart was weeping and bleeding. Isn’t that as best as we can describe it? These words are used by humans to illustrate human emotions, but since man’s language is too lacking, using them to describe God’s feelings and emotions doesn’t seem too bad to Me, and nor are they too excessive. At least it gives you a very vivid, very apt understanding of what God’s mood was like at the time. What will you think of now when you see a rainbow again? At least you will remember how God was once in sorrow over destroying the world by flood. You will remember how, even though God hated this world and despised this humanity, when He destroyed the human beings He created with His own hands, His heart was hurting, struggling to let go, feeling reluctant, and finding it hard to bear. His only comfort was in Noah’s family of eight. It was Noah’s cooperation that made His painstaking efforts of creating all things worthwhile. At a time when God was suffering, this was the only thing that could make up for His pain. From that point, God placed all of His expectations of humanity on Noah’s family, hoping they could live under His blessings and not His curse, hoping that they would never see God destroy the world with a flood again, and also hoping that they would not be destroyed.
What part of God’s disposition should we understand from here? God had despised man because man opposed Him, but in His heart, His care, concern, and mercy for humanity remained unchanged. Even when He destroyed mankind, His heart remained unchanged. When humanity was full of corruption and disobedient toward God to a certain extent, God had to, because of His disposition and His essence, and in accordance with His principles, destroy this humanity. But because of God’s essence, He still pitied mankind, and even wanted to use various ways to redeem mankind so they could continue to live. Instead, man opposed God, continued to disobey God, and refused to accept God’s salvation, that is, refused to accept His good intentions. No matter how God called to them, reminded them, supplied them, helped them, or tolerated them, man did not understand or appreciate it, nor did they pay attention. In His pain, God still did not forget to give man His maximum tolerance, waiting for man to turn around. After He reached His limit, He did what He had to do without any hesitation. In other words, there was a specific time period and process from the moment God planned to destroy mankind to the official start of His work in destroying mankind. This process existed for the purpose of enabling man to turn around, and was the last chance God gave to man. So what did God do in this period before destroying mankind? God did a significant amount of reminding and exhorting work. No matter how much pain and sorrow God’s heart was in, He continued to exercise His care, concern, and abundant mercy on humanity. What do we see from this? Undoubtedly, we see that God’s love for mankind is real and not just something He is paying lip service to. It is actual, tangible and appreciable, not fake, adulterated, deceitful or pretentious. God never uses any deception or creates fake images to make people see that He is lovable. He never uses false testimony to let people see His loveliness, or to flaunt His loveliness and holiness. Aren’t these aspects of God’s disposition worthy of man’s love? Aren’t they worth worshiping? Aren’t they worth cherishing? At this point, I want to ask you: After hearing these words, do you think God’s greatness is merely words on a sheet of paper? Is God’s loveliness just empty words? No! Certainly not! God’s supremacy, greatness, holiness, tolerance, love, and so forth—all of these various aspects of God’s disposition and essence are put into effect every time He does His work, embodied in His will toward man, and also fulfilled and reflected on every person. Regardless of whether you have felt it before, God is caring for every person in every possible way, using His sincere heart, wisdom, and various methods to warm each person’s heart, and awaken each person’s spirit. This is an indisputable fact. No matter how many people are sitting here, each person has had different experiences of and feelings toward God’s tolerance, patience, and loveliness. These experiences of God and these feelings or acknowledgments of Him—in short, all of these positive things are from God. So by integrating everyone’s experiences and knowledge of God and combining them with our readings of these Bible passages today, do you now have a more real and proper understanding of God?
After reading this story and understanding some of God’s disposition revealed through this event, what kind of brand new appreciation do you have of God? Has it given you a deeper understanding of God and His heart? Do you feel different now when you look at Noah’s story again? According to your views, would it have been unnecessary to communicate these Bible verses? Now that we have communicated them, do you think it was unnecessary? It was necessary, right? Even though what we read is a story, it is a true record of the work God had once done. My aim was not to let you comprehend the details of these stories or this character, nor was it so you can go study this character, and certainly not so you will go back and study the Bible again. Do you understand? So have these stories helped your knowledge of God? What has this story added to your understanding of God? Tell us, brothers and sisters from the Hong Kong churches. (We saw that God’s love is something none of us corrupt humans possess.) Tell us, brothers and sisters from the Korean churches. (God’s love for man is real. God’s love for man carries His disposition and carries His greatness, holiness, supremacy, and His tolerance. Through such a story we can better appreciate that all of these are part of God’s disposition, and that it is worth us trying to gain a deeper understanding of it.) (Through the communication just then, we can on the one hand see God’s righteous and holy disposition, and we can also see the concern God has for mankind, God’s mercy toward mankind, and that everything God does and every thought and idea He has all reveals His love and concern for humanity.) (Our understanding in the past was that God used a flood to destroy the world because mankind had become evil to a certain extent, and it was as though God destroyed this humanity because He loathed them. It was only after God talked about Noah’s story today and said that God’s heart was bleeding that we realize that God was actually reluctant to let go of this humanity. It was only because mankind was too disobedient that God had no choice but to destroy them. In fact, God’s heart at this time was very sad. From this we can see in God’s disposition His care and concern for mankind. This is something we didn’t know before. We used to think it was because mankind was too evil, so God destroyed them. That’s how superficial our understanding was.) Very good! You can go next. (I was very affected after listening. I’ve read the Bible in the past, but I’ve never had an experience like today where God directly dissects these things so we can get to know Him. For God to take us along like this to get to see the Bible let me know that God’s essence before man’s corruption was love and care for mankind. From the time man became corrupted to the last days of now, even though God carries a righteous disposition, His love and care remains unchanged. This shows that the essence of God’s love, from creation until now, regardless of whether man is corrupted, never changes.) (Today I saw that God’s essence will not alter due to a change in time or the location of His work. I also saw that, no matter if God is creating the world or destroying it after man becomes corrupted, everything He does has meaning and contains His disposition. I therefore saw that God’s love is infinite and immeasurable, and I also saw, like what the other brothers and sisters mentioned, God’s care and mercy toward mankind when He destroyed the world.) (These were things I indeed did not know about before. After listening today, I feel that God is truly credible, truly trustworthy, worth believing in, and that He indeed exists. I can genuinely appreciate in my heart that God’s disposition and love is really this concrete. This is a feeling I have after listening today.) Excellent! It seems you have all taken what you’ve heard to heart.
Have you noticed a particular fact from all Bible verses, including all of the Bible stories we communicated today? Has God ever used His own language to express His own thoughts or explain His love and care for humanity? Is there a record of Him using plain language to state how much He is concerned for or loves mankind? No! Isn’t that right? There are so many among you who have read the Bible or books other than the Bible. Have any of you seen such words? The answer is definitely no! That is, in the records of the Bible, including God’s words or the documenting of His work, God has never in any era or any period used His own methods to describe His feelings or express His love and care for mankind, nor has God ever used speech or any actions to convey His feelings and emotions—isn’t that a fact? Why do I say that? Why do I have to mention this? It is because this also contains God’s loveliness and His disposition.
God created mankind; regardless of whether they have been corrupted or whether they follow Him, God treats human beings as His loved ones—or as human beings would say, the people dearest to Him—and not His playthings. Although God says He is the Creator and that man is His creation, which may sound like there is a bit of a difference in rank, the reality is that everything God has done for mankind far exceeds a relationship of this nature. God loves mankind, cares for mankind, and shows concern for mankind, as well as constantly and unceasingly provides for mankind. He never feels in His heart that this is additional work or something that deserves a lot of credit. Nor does He feel that saving humanity, supplying them, and granting them everything, is making a huge contribution to mankind. He simply provides for mankind quietly and silently, in His own way and through His own essence and what He has and is. No matter how much provision and how much help mankind receives from Him, God never thinks about nor tries to take credit. This is determined by the essence of God, and is also precisely a true expression of God’s disposition. This is why, regardless of whether it is in the Bible or any other books, we never find God expressing His thoughts, and we never find God describing or declaring to humans why He does these things, or why He cares so much for mankind, in order to make mankind be grateful toward Him or praise Him. Even when He is hurt, when His heart is in extreme pain, He never forgets His responsibility toward mankind or His concern for mankind, all while He bears this hurt and pain alone in silence. To the contrary, God continues to provide for mankind as He always does. Even though mankind often praises God or bears witness to Him, none of this behavior is demanded by God. This is because God never intends for any of the good things He does for mankind to be exchanged for gratitude or for it to be paid back. On the other hand, those who fear God and shun evil, those who truly follow God, listen to Him and are loyal to Him, and those who obey Him—these are the people who will often receive God’s blessings, and God will bestow such blessings without reservation. Moreover, the blessings people receive from God are often beyond their imagination, and also beyond anything human beings can exchange for what they have done or the price they have paid. When mankind is enjoying God’s blessings, does anyone care about what God is doing? Does anyone show any concern for how God is feeling? Does anyone try to appreciate God’s pain? The precise answer to these questions is: No! Can any human being, including Noah, appreciate the pain God was feeling at that moment? Can anyone comprehend why God would set up such a covenant? They cannot! Mankind doesn’t appreciate God’s pain not because they cannot understand God’s pain, and not because of the gap between God and man or the difference in their status; rather, it is because mankind doesn’t even care about any of God’s feelings. Mankind thinks God is independent—God doesn’t need people to care about Him, to understand Him or show Him consideration. God is God, so He has no pain, no emotions; He won’t be sad, He doesn’t feel sorrow, He even doesn’t cry. God is God, so He doesn’t need any emotional expressions and He doesn’t need any emotional comfort. If He does need these under certain circumstances, then He will resolve it Himself and won’t require any assistance from mankind. Conversely, it is the weak, immature humans who need God’s consolation, provision, encouragement, and even for Him to comfort their emotions, anytime, anywhere. Such a thought hides deep inside the hearts of mankind: Man is the weak one; they need God to look after them in every way, they deserve all the care they receive from God, and they should demand from God whatever they feel should be theirs. God is the strong one; He has everything, and He ought to be mankind’s guardian and bestower of blessings. Since He already is God, He is omnipotent and doesn’t ever need anything from mankind.
As man doesn’t pay attention to any of God’s revelations, he has never felt God’s sorrow, pain, or joy. But conversely, God knows all of man’s expressions like the palm of His hand. God supplies everyone’s needs at all times and in all places, observing each person’s changing thoughts and thus comforting and exhorting them, and guiding and illuminating them. In terms of all the things God has done on mankind and all of the prices He has paid because of them, can people find a passage in the Bible or from anything God has said until now that clearly states that God will demand something from man? No! To the contrary, no matter how people ignore God’s thinking, He still repeatedly leads mankind, repeatedly supplies mankind and helps them, to let them follow God’s way so they can receive the beautiful destination He has prepared for them. When it comes to God, what He has and is, His grace, His mercy, and all His rewards, will be bestowed without reservation upon those who love and follow Him. But He never reveals to any person the pain He has suffered or His state of mind, and He never complains about anyone not being considerate toward Him or not knowing His will. He simply bears all of this in silence, waiting for the day mankind will be able to understand.
Why do I say these things here? What do you see from the things I have said? There is something in God’s essence and disposition that is easiest to overlook, something that is only possessed by God and not by any person, including those others think of as great people, good people, or the God of their imagination. What is this thing? It is God’s selflessness. When we speak of selflessness, you might think you are also very selfless, because when it comes to your children, you never bargain with them and you are generous toward them, or you think you are also very selfless when it comes to your parents. No matter what you think, at least you have a concept of the word “selfless” and think of it as a positive word, and that being a selfless person is very noble. When you are selfless, you think you are great. But there is no one who can see God’s selflessness among all things, among people, events, and objects, and through God’s work. Why is that the case? Because man is too selfish! Why do I say that? Mankind lives in a material world. You may follow God, but you never see or appreciate how God supplies you, loves you, and shows concern for you. So what do you see? You see your blood relatives who love you or dote on you. You see the things that are beneficial to your flesh, you care about the people and things you love. This is man’s so-called selflessness. Such “selfless” people, however, are never concerned about the God that gives life to them. In contrast to God, man’s selflessness becomes selfish and despicable. The selflessness man believes in is empty and unrealistic, adulterated, incompatible with God, and unrelated to God. Man’s selflessness is for himself, while God’s selflessness is a true revelation of His essence. It is precisely due to God’s selflessness that man receives a steady stream of supply from Him. You might not be too deeply affected by this topic I am talking about today and are merely nodding in approval, but when you try to appreciate God’s heart in your heart, you will unwittingly discover: Among all the people, matters, and things you can sense in this world, only God’s selflessness is real and concrete, because only God’s love for you is unconditional and unblemished. Apart from God, anyone else’s so-called unselfishness is all fake, superficial, disingenuous; it has a purpose, certain intentions, carries a tradeoff, and cannot stand to be tested. You could even say that it is filthy, contemptible. Do you agree?
I know you are very unfamiliar with these topics and need a bit of time for them to sink in before you can truly understand. The more unfamiliar you are with these issues and topics, the more it proves that these topics are missing in your heart. If I never mention these topics, would any among you know a bit about them? I believe you would never get to know them. That is for certain. No matter how much you can comprehend or understand, in short, these topics I speak of are what people are most lacking and what they should know about the most. These topics are very important for everyone—they are precious and they are life, and they are things you must be possessed with for the road ahead. Without these words as guidance, without your understanding of God’s disposition and essence, you will always carry a question mark when it comes to God. How can you believe in God properly if you don’t even understand Him? You know nothing of God’s emotions, His will, His state of mind, what He’s thinking, what makes Him sad, and what makes Him happy, so how can you be considerate toward God’s heart?
Whenever God is upset, He faces a mankind that doesn’t pay any attention to Him at all, a mankind that follows Him and claims to love Him but completely neglects His feelings. How can His heart not hurt? In God’s management work, He sincerely carries out His work on and speaks to each person, and faces them without reservation or concealment, but conversely, every person who follows Him is closed off toward Him, and no one is willing to actively get closer to Him, understand His heart, or pay attention to His feelings. Even those who want to become God’s confidants don’t want to get close to Him, to be considerate toward His heart, or try to understand Him. When God is joyful and happy, there is no one to share His happiness. When God is misunderstood by people, there is no one to comfort His wounded heart. When His heart is hurting, there is not a single person willing to listen to Him confide in them. Through these thousands of years of God’s management work, there is no one who understands God’s emotions, nor anyone who comprehends or appreciates them, let alone anyone who could stand alongside God to share in His joys and sorrows. God is lonely. He is lonely! God is lonely not just because corrupted mankind opposes Him, but more because those who pursue to be spiritual, those who seek to know God and understand Him, and even those who are willing to devote their entire lives to Him, also don’t know His thoughts and don’t understand His disposition and His emotions.
At the end of Noah’s story, we saw God use an unusual method to express His feelings at the time. This method is very special, and that’s to make a covenant with man. It is a method that declares the end to God’s use of floods to destroy the world. From the outside, making a covenant seems like a very ordinary thing. It is nothing more than using words to bind both parties from infringing acts, so as to help achieve the purpose of protecting the interests of both sides. In form, it is a very ordinary thing, but from the motivations behind and meaning of God doing this thing, it is a true revelation of God’s disposition and state of mind. If you just put these words aside and ignore them, if I never tell you the truth of things, then humanity will really never know God’s thinking. Perhaps in your imagination God is smiling when He makes this covenant, or perhaps His expression is serious, but regardless of what the most common type of expression God has in people’s imaginations, no one can see God’s heart or His pain, let alone His loneliness. No one can make God trust them or be worthy of God’s trust, or be someone He can express His thoughts or confide His pain to. That is why God had no choice but to do such a thing. On the surface, God did an easy thing to farewell the previous humanity, settling the past and drawing a perfect conclusion to His destruction of the world by flood. However, God had buried the pain from this moment deep inside His heart. At a time when God did not have anyone to confide in, He made a covenant with mankind, telling them that He would not destroy the world by flood again. When the rainbow appears it is to remind people that such a thing had once happened, to warn them not to do evil things. Even in such a painful state, God did not forget about mankind and still showed so much concern for them. Is this not God’s love and unselfishness? But what do people think of when they are suffering? Isn’t this the time they need God the most? At times like this, people always drag God over so God can comfort them. No matter when, God will never let people down, and He will always let people walk out of their predicaments and live in the light. Although God so supplies mankind, in man’s heart God is none other than just a reassurance pill, a comfort tonic. When God is suffering, when His heart is wounded, having a created being or any person keep Him company or comfort Him is undoubtedly just an extravagant wish for God. Man never pays attention to God’s feelings, so God never asks nor expects there to be someone who can comfort Him. He merely uses His own methods to express His mood. People don’t think it is a big deal for God to go through some suffering, but only when you truly try to understand God, when you can genuinely appreciate God’s earnest intentions in everything He does, can you feel God’s greatness and His selflessness. Even though God made a covenant with mankind using the rainbow, He never told anyone why He did this, why He established this covenant, meaning He never told anybody His real thoughts. This is because there is no one who can comprehend the depth of the love God has for the mankind He created with His own hands, and there is also no one who can appreciate just how much pain His heart suffered when He destroyed humanity. Therefore, even if He tells people how He feels, they cannot undertake this trust. Despite being in pain, He still goes on with the next step of His work. God always gives His best side and the best things to mankind while quietly bearing all the suffering Himself. God never openly discloses these sufferings. Instead, He endures them and waits in silence. God’s endurance is not cold, numb, or helpless, nor is it a sign of weakness, but it is that God’s love and essence has always been selfless. This is a natural revelation of His essence and disposition, and a genuine embodiment of God’s identity as the true Creator.
Having said that, some people might misinterpret what I mean. Was describing God’s feelings in such detail, with so much sensationalism, intended to make people feel sorry for God? Was there such an intention? (No!) The only purpose of Me saying these things is to make you know God better, to understand every part of Him, understand His emotions, to appreciate that God’s essence and disposition are, concretely and bit by bit, expressed through His work, as opposed to depicted through man’s empty words, their letters and doctrines, or their imaginations. That is to say, God and God’s essence actually exist—they are not paintings, not imagined, not constructed by man, and certainly not fabricated by them. Do you recognize this now? If you do recognize it, then My words today have achieved their goal.
We discussed three topics today. I trust everyone has gained a lot from the fellowship about these three topics. I can say definitively that, through these three topics, the thoughts of God I described or the disposition and essence of God I mentioned have flipped people’s ideas and understanding of God, even overturned everyone’s belief toward God, and moreover, overturned the image of the God admired by everyone in their hearts. No matter what, I hope what you’ve learned about God’s disposition in these two parts of the Bible is beneficial to you, and I hope after you return you will try to ponder it more. Today’s meeting concludes here. Goodbye!
From Continuation of The Word Appears in the Flesh
Recommendation：
Why does the religious world put so much effort into condemning and madly resist Almighty God andthe Church of Almighty God?
God is a living God, and just as people perform differently in different situations, God’s attitude toward these performances differs because He is not a puppet, nor is He empty air. Getting to know God’s attitude is a worthy pursuit for mankind. People should learn how, by knowing God’s attitude, they can know God’s disposition and understand His heart bit by bit. When you come to understand God’s heart bit by bit, you won’t feel that fearing God and shunning evil is a difficult thing to accomplish. What’s more, when you understand God, it’s harder for you to make conclusions about Him. When you stop making conclusions about God, you’re less likely to offend Him, and unwittingly God will lead you to have a knowledge of Him, and thereby you will fear God in your heart. You will stop defining God using the doctrines, the letters, and the theories you’ve mastered. Rather, by always seeking out God’s intentions in all things, you will unconsciously become a person who is after God’s heart.
God’s work is unseen and untouchable by mankind, but as far as God is concerned, the actions of each and every person, along with their attitude toward Him—these are not just perceptible by God, but visible as well. This is something that everyone should recognize and be clear about. You might be always asking yourself: “Does God know what I’m doing here? Does God know what I’m thinking about right now? Maybe He does, maybe He doesn’t.” If you adopt this kind of viewpoint, following and believing in God yet doubting His work and His existence, then sooner or later there will come a day when you anger Him, because you’re already teetering on the edge of a dangerous precipice. I’ve seen people who have believed in God for many years, but they still haven’t gained the reality of the truth, nor do they even understand God’s will. Their life stature doesn’t make any progress, adhering only to the shallowest of doctrine. This is because these people have never taken God’s word as their own life, and they have never faced up to and accepted His existence. Do you think that God sees such people and is filled with enjoyment? Do they comfort Him? In that case, it’s the method of people’s belief in God that decides their fate. Whether it’s the question of how you seek after God or how you treat God, it’s your own attitude that is the most important thing. Don’t neglect God like He is empty air in the back of your head. Always think of the God of your belief as a living God, a real God. He’s not up there in the third heaven with nothing to do. Rather, He’s constantly looking into everyone’s hearts, looking at what you’re up to, into every little word and every little deed, looking into how you behave and what your attitude toward God is. Whether you’re willing to give yourself to God or not, all of your behavior and your innermost thoughts and ideas are before God, being looked upon by Him. It’s according to your behavior, according to your deeds, and according to your attitude toward God, that His opinion of you, and His attitude toward you, is constantly changing. I’d like to offer some advice to those who would place themselves like a little baby in the hands of God, as if He should dote on you, as if He could never leave you, as if His attitude toward you is fixed and could never change: Quit dreaming! God is righteous in His treatment of each and every person. He approaches the work of mankind’s conquest and salvation earnestly. That’s His management. He treats every single person seriously, not like a pet to play with. God’s love for man is not the pampering or spoiling kind; His mercy and tolerance toward mankind is not indulgent or unmindful. On the contrary, God’s love for mankind is to cherish, to pity, and to respect life; His mercy and tolerance convey His expectations of man; His mercy and tolerance are what humanity needs to survive. God is alive, and God actually exists; His attitude toward mankind is principled, not a dogmatic rule at all, and it can change. His will for humanity is gradually changing and transforming with time, with circumstance, and with the attitude of each and every person. So you should be crystal clear on this, and understand that the essence of God is immutable, and His disposition will issue forth at different times, and in different contexts. You might not think that this is a serious issue, and you use your own personal conceptions to imagine how God should do things. But there are times when the total opposite of your viewpoint is true, and that by using your own personal conceptions to try and gauge God, you’ve already angered Him. This is because God doesn’t operate like you think He does, and God won’t treat this matter like you say He will. And so I remind you to be careful and prudent in your approach to everything around you, and learn how to follow the principle of walking in God’s way in all things—fearing God and shunning evil. You must develop a firm understanding on matters of God’s will and God’s attitude; find enlightened people to communicate it to you, and seek earnestly. Don’t view the God of your belief as a puppet—arbitrarily judging, arriving at arbitrary conclusions, not treating God with the respect He deserves. In the process of God’s salvation, when He defines your outcome, no matter if He grants you mercy, or tolerance, or judgment and chastisement, His attitude toward you is not fixed. It depends on your attitude toward God, and your understanding of God. Don’t let one passing aspect of your knowledge or understanding of God define Him in perpetuity. Don’t believe in a dead God; believe in a living one. Remember this! Though I’ve discussed some truths here, truths you needed to hear, in light of your present state and present stature, I won’t make any greater demands so as not to sap your enthusiasm. Doing so could fill your hearts with too much bleakness, and make you feel too much disappointment toward God. Instead I hope you can use the love of God in your hearts, and use an attitude that is respectful of God when walking the path ahead. Don’t muddle through the matter of how to treat the belief of God. Treat it as one of the biggest questions there is. Place it in your heart, put it into practice, connect it with real life—don’t just pay it lip service. For this is a matter of life and death, and it’s one that will determine your destiny. Don’t treat it like a joke, like a child’s game! After sharing these words with you today, I wonder what the harvest of understanding has been in your minds. Are there any questions you wish to ask about what I’ve said here today?
Understand God’s Attitude and Drop All Misconceptions of God
This God that you currently believe in, have you ever thought about what kind of God He is? When He sees an evil person doing evil things, does He despise it? (He despises it.) When He sees the mistakes of ignorant people, what is His attitude? (Sadness.) When He sees people stealing His offerings, what is His attitude? (He despises them.) This is all very clear, right? When He sees someone being careless in their belief in God, and in no way seeking after the truth, what is God’s attitude? You’re not totally clear on this one, right? Carelessness is an attitude that isn’t a sin, and it isn’t offending God. People believe that it shouldn’t be considered a blunder. Then what do you think God’s attitude is? (He’s unwilling to respond to it.) Unwilling to respond to it—what attitude is this? It’s that God looks down on these people, scorns these people! God deals with these people by giving them the cold shoulder. His approach is to set them aside, not engaging in any work on them, including enlightenment, illumination, chastening, or discipline. This type of person just does not count in God’s work. What is God’s attitude toward people who aggravate His disposition, and offend His administrative decrees? Extreme loathing! God is extremely enraged by people who are unrepentant about aggravating His disposition! “Enraged” is just a feeling, a mood; it can’t represent a clear attitude. But this feeling, this mood, will bring about an outcome for this person: It will fill God with extreme loathing! What is the consequence of this extreme loathing? It’s that God will set this person aside, and not respond to them for the time being. He will wait for them to be sorted out during the retribution. What does this imply? Does this person still have an outcome? God never intended to give this type of person an outcome! So is it not then normal that God currently doesn’t respond to this type of person? (Yes.) How should this type of person prepare now? They should prepare to take on the negative consequences caused by their behavior, and the evil they’ve done. This is God’s response to this kind of person. So I now clearly say to this type of person: Do not hold on to delusions anymore, and don’t engage in wishful thinking anymore. God will not be tolerant of people indefinitely; He will not endure their trespasses or disobedience indefinitely. Some people will say: “I’ve also seen a few people like this. When they pray they are especially touched by God, and they weep bitterly. Usually they’re also very happy; they seem to have God’s presence, and God’s guidance.” Don’t say that nonsense! Weeping bitterly is not necessarily being touched by God or having God’s presence, let alone God’s guidance. If people anger God, will God still guide them? Generally speaking, when God has determined to eliminate someone, to abandon them, that person already doesn’t have an outcome. It doesn’t matter how complacent they feel about themselves when they pray, and how much confidence they have in God in their heart; this is already unimportant. The important thing is that God doesn’t need this kind of confidence, that God has already spurned this person. How to deal with them afterward is also unimportant. What is important is that in the moment this person angers God, their outcome is already established. If God has determined to not save this type of person, then they will be left behind to be punished. This is God’s attitude.
How God Establishes Man’s Outcome and the Standard by Which He Establishes Man’s Outcome
Before you have any of your own views or conclusions, you should first understand God’s attitude toward you, what God is thinking, and then decide whether or not your own thinking is correct. God has never used units of time to establish a person’s outcome, and He has never used the amount of suffering endured by someone to establish their outcome. Then what does God use as a standard for establishing man’s outcome? Using time units to establish a person’s outcome—this is what most conforms to people’s conceptions. And there are also those individuals who you often see, those who at one point devoted a lot, spent a lot, paid a lot, suffered a lot. These are ones who, in your views, can be saved by God. All that these people show, all that they live out, is precisely mankind’s conception of the standard by which God establishes the outcome of man. Regardless of what you believe, I won’t list out these examples one by one. In short, so long as it isn’t the standard of God’s own thinking, then it comes from man’s imagination, and it’s all man’s conception. What’s the consequence of blindly insisting on your own conception and imagination? Obviously, the consequence can only be God spurning you. This is because you always flaunt your qualifications before God, compete with God, and dispute with God, and you do not try to truly comprehend God’s thinking, nor do you try to comprehend God’s intentions and God’s attitude toward humanity. Proceeding like this is honoring yourself above all, not honoring God. You believe in yourself; you don’t believe in God. God doesn’t want this type of person, and God won’t save this type of person. If you can let go of this kind of viewpoint, and then rectify these incorrect viewpoints of the past; if you could proceed according to God’s demands; start practicing the way of fearing God and shunning evil from this point forward; manage to honor God as great in all things; don’t use your own personal fancies, viewpoints, or beliefs to define yourself, define God. And instead, you seek out God’s intentions in all respects, you achieve a realization and understanding of God’s attitude toward humanity, and you use God’s standard to satisfy God—that would be wonderful! This would mean you are about to embark on the way of fearing God and shunning evil.
Since God doesn’t use how people think this way or that way, their ideas and viewpoints, as a standard to establish the outcome of man, then what kind of standard does He use? God uses trials to establish the outcome of man. There are two standards for using trials to establish man’s outcome: The first is the number of trials that people undergo, and the second is the people’s result in these trials. It is these two indicators that establish man’s outcome. Now we will elaborate on these two standards.
There’s a saying you should take note of. I believe this saying is very important, because for Me it comes to mind countless times every single day. Why is that? Because every time I’m faced with someone, every time I hear someone’s story, every time I hear of someone’s experience or their testimony of believing in God, I always use this saying to weigh whether or not this individual is the type of person God wants, the type of person God likes. So what’s this saying, then? Now you are all eagerly waiting. When I reveal the saying, perhaps you will feel disappointed because there are those who have been paying it lip service for many years. But as for Me, I’ve never paid it any lip service. This saying resides in My heart. So what is this saying? It’s “walk in God’s way: fear God and shun evil.” Is this not an exceedingly simple phrase? Yet though the saying may be simple, someone who genuinely has a deep understanding of it will feel that it’s of great weight; that it has a lot of value for practice; that it’s language of life with the reality of the truth; that it’s a lifelong objective to strive toward for those seeking to satisfy God; and that it’s a lifelong way to be followed by anyone who’s considerate of God’s intentions. So what do you think: Is this saying truth? Does it have this kind of significance? Perhaps there are some people who are thinking about this saying, trying to figure it out, and some yet who are suspicious of it: Is this saying very important? Is it very important? Is it so necessary and worthy of emphasis? Perhaps there are some people who don’t much like this saying because they think taking God’s way and distilling it into this one saying is too much of an oversimplification. To take all of which God said and boil it down to one saying—isn’t this making God out to be a little too insignificant? Is that how it is? It could be that most of you don’t fully understand the profound meaning behind these words. Though you have made note of it, you don’t intend to place this saying in your heart; you just write it down, and revisit it and mull it over in your spare time. There are some other people who won’t even bother memorizing the saying, let alone trying to put it to good use. But why do I discuss this saying? Regardless of your perspective, or what you will think, I have to discuss this saying because it is extremely relevant to how God establishes the outcomes of man. No matter what your current understanding of this saying is, or how you treat it, I’m still going to tell you: If someone can properly practice this saying and achieve the standard of fearing God and shunning evil, then they’re assured as a survivor, then they’re assured as someone with a good outcome. If you can’t attain the standard laid out by this saying, then it could be said that your outcome is an unknown. Thus I speak to you about this saying for your own mental preparation, and so that you know what kind of standard God uses to measure you. As I just discussed, this saying is extremely relevant to God’s salvation of man, and how He establishes man’s outcome. Where does this relevance lie? You would really like to know, so we will talk about it today.
