July 10, 2018 – James 2:9

　　For the turning away of the simple shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them.

- Proverbs 1:32

            Thoughts on Today’s Verse…

　　It can be seen from this verse that God doesn’t hope we judge people by appearance. But in reality, when we deal with people, we tend to judge and treat people by their appearance. If one is good-looking with charm, influence and power, we will look up to him. If he is plain-looking and comes from a deprived background, we will look down upon him. Obviously, treating people in this way has deviated from the instructions of the Bible and contradicted the will of the Lord. Then How does God treat man? God’s words say: “I often say that God looks within people’s hearts, and people look at people’s exteriors. Because God looks within people’s hearts, He understands their substance, whereas people define other people’s substance based on their exterior.” “What does God look at in a person? God looks at a person’s heart. All of a person’s behavior is controlled by his heart. If your heart is honest, then you have good humanity and can gradually understand truth, and when you understand a certain amount of truth you can satisfy God’s requirements and be considerate of God’s intention.”

　　God’s words tell us that God looks at whether a person’s heart can love God, whether his heart is honest, whether this heart fears God and obeys God. So we should judge people, as well as ourselves by God’s words. Only practicing in this way is after God’s heart.

Source: Daily Devotionals

God's Love | God Treats Man as His Dearest One | Lovely Music

Personal thoughts:   

Here I share with you a song. Let's together praise God. Amen.God bless you!  

Accompaniment: God created mankind. Whether mankind has been corrupted or mankind can follow Him, He treats mankind as His nearest relation, as His dearest one spoken of by mankind, rather than a plaything, a plaything.

1. God says that He is the Creator and mankind is the created being. It sounds as if there is some difference between them in rank, sounds as if there is some difference between them in rank. But in fact, all that God has done for mankind is far beyond this relationship. God loves mankind, takes care of mankind, and shows concern for mankind, shows concern for mankind. God loves mankind, takes care of mankind, and shows concern for mankind, shows concern for mankind, and He also unfailingly supplies mankind. In His heart, He has never felt that these are extra things or felt that these do great credit to Him, felt that these do great credit to Him.

Knowing God Is the Path to Fearing God and Shunning Evil

    Every one of you should examine anew how you have believed in God throughout your lives, so that you may see whether, in the process of following God, you have truly understood, truly comprehended, and truly come to know God, whether you truly know what attitude God bears to the various types of human beings, and whether you truly understand the work that God is enacting upon you and how God defines your every act. This God, who is by your side, guiding the direction of your progress, ordaining your destiny, and supplying your needs—how much do you understand this God, when all is said and done. How much do you really know about this God? Do you know what work He enacts on you every single day? Do you know the principles and purposes on which He bases His every action? Do you know how He guides you? Do you know the means by which He provides for you? Do you know the methods by which He leads you? Do you know what He wishes to obtain from you and what He wishes to achieve in you? Do you know the attitude He holds toward the various ways in which you behave? Do you know whether you are a person beloved of Him? Do you know the origin of His joy, anger, sorrow, and delight, the thoughts and ideas behind them, and His essence? Do you know, ultimately, what kind of God is this God that you believe in? Are these and other questions of the sort something that you have never understood or thought about? In pursuing your belief in God, have you, through real appreciation and experience of God’s words, dispelled your misunderstandings about Him? Have you, after receiving God’s discipline and chastening, attained genuine obedience and caring? Have you, in the midst of God’s chastisement and judgment, come to know the rebelliousness and satanic nature of man and gained a modicum of understanding about God’s holiness? Have you, under the guidance and enlightenment of God’s words, begun to hold a new outlook on life? Have you, in the midst of the trials sent by God, felt His intolerance for man’s offenses as well as what He requires of you and how He is saving you? If you do not know what it is to misunderstand God, or how to dispel this misunderstanding, then one can say that you have never entered into true communion with God and have never understood God, or at least one can say you have never wished to understand Him. If you do not know what is God’s discipline and chastening, then you surely do not know what are obedience and caring, or at least you have never truly obeyed or cared for God. If you have never experienced God’s chastisement and judgment, then you will surely not know what is His holiness, and you will be even less clear as to what man’s rebellion is. If you have never truly had a correct outlook on life, or a correct aim in life, but are still in a state of perplexity and indecision over your future path in life, even to the point of being hesitant to move forward, then it is certain that you have never received God’s enlightenment and guidance; one can also say that you have never truly been supplied or replenished by God’s words. If you have not yet undergone God’s trials, then it goes without saying that you will certainly not know what is God’s intolerance for man’s offenses, nor would you understand what God ultimately requires of you, and even less what, ultimately, is His work of managing and saving man. No matter how many years a person has believed in God, if they have never experienced or perceived anything in God’s words, then assuredly they are not walking the path toward salvation, their faith in God is assuredly without actual content, their knowledge of God too is assuredly zero, and it goes without saying that they have no idea at all what it is to revere God.
    God’s possessions and being, God’s essence, God’s disposition—all has been made known in His words to humankind. When he experiences God’s words, man will in the process of putting them into practice come to understand the purpose behind the words God speaks, and to understand the source and background of God’s words, and to understand and appreciate the intended effect of God’s words. For humanity, these are all things that man must experience, grasp, and attain in order to attain truth and life, grasp God’s intentions, become transformed in his disposition, and become able to obey God’s sovereignty and arrangements. At the same time that man experiences, grasps, and attains these things, he will gradually have gained an understanding of God, and at this time he will also have gained different degrees of knowledge about Him. This understanding and knowledge does not come out of something man has imagined or composed, but rather from what he appreciates, experiences, feels, and confirms within himself. Only after appreciating, experiencing, feeling, and confirming these things does man’s knowledge of God acquire content; only the knowledge that man obtains at this time is actual, real, and accurate, and this process—of attaining genuine understanding and knowledge of God through appreciating, experiencing, feeling, and confirming His words—is no other than true communion between man and God. In the midst of this kind of communion, man comes truly to understand and comprehend God’s intentions, comes truly to understand and know God’s possessions and being, comes truly to understand and know God’s essence, comes gradually to understand and know God’s disposition, arrives at real certainty about, and a correct definition of, the fact of God’s dominion over all creation, and gains a substantive bearing on and knowledge of God’s identity and position. In the midst of this kind of communion, man changes, step by step, his ideas about God, no longer imagining Him out of thin air, or giving rein to his own suspicions about Him, or misunderstanding Him, or condemning Him, or passing judgment on Him, or doubting Him. Thus, man will have fewer disputes with God, he will have fewer conflicts with God, and there will be fewer occasions on which man rebels against God. Conversely, man’s caring for and obedience to God will grow greater, and his reverence for God will become more real and more profound. In the midst of such communion, man will not only attain the provision of truth and the baptism of life, but he will at the same time also attain true knowledge of God. In the midst of such communion, man will not only be transformed in his disposition and receive salvation, but he will at the same time also garner the true reverence and worship of a created being toward God. Having had this kind of communion, man’s faith in God will no longer be a blank sheet of paper, or a promise offered up in lip service, or a form of blind pursuit and idolization; only with this kind of communion will man’s life grow toward maturity day by day, and only now will his disposition gradually become transformed, and his faith in God will, step by step, pass from a vague and uncertain belief into genuine obedience and caring, into real reverence, and man will also, in the process of following God, gradually progress from a passive to an active stance, from one who is acted upon into one who takes positive action; only with this kind of communion will man arrive at true understanding and comprehension of God, at true knowledge of God. Because the great majority of people have never entered into true communion with God, their knowledge of God stops at the level of theory, at the level of letters and doctrines. That is to say, the great majority of people, no matter how many years they have believed in God, are as far as knowing God is concerned still in the same place where they started, stuck in the basic stage of traditional forms of homage, with their associated feudal superstitions and romantic tinges. That man’s knowledge of God should be stalled at its starting point means that it is practically non-existent. Apart from man’s affirmation of God’s position and identity, man’s faith in God is still in a state of vague uncertainty. This being so, how much true reverence can man hold for God?

Eastern Lightning | Posters | Adam and Eve Living in the Garden of Eden

Jehovah God made Adam and Eve in His own image with His own hands, and breathed His very life into them. He placed them in the Garden of Eden.

My understanding:

In Eden, Adam was living happily under God's keep, but then Eve was bewitched by Satan and ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. From then on sin began to come to us, and as we began to become more and more abortion, more and more destructive. So that, in the present, the whole human beings all advocate evil, all live in sin. Whether it's a family or a place to work, whether it's friends or co-workers, we feel tired but we can't get rid of it. Who can save us from this heavy bundle? Only “The One Who Holds Sovereignty Over Everything”!

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A Narrated Reenactment of a Real-Life Story | "God's True Love" | The Church of Almighty God

A Narrated Reenactment of a Real-Life Story | "God's True Love" | The Church of Almighty God

In order to make a place of her own on this earth, the protagonist was obliged to follow the trends of this world, rushing about and working hard for the sake of fame and status. Her life was particularly empty and painful. After she believed in Almighty God, she found in the words of Almighty God the meaning of human life and, filled with joy, she followed God and fulfilled her duties. However, as her heart was under the control of fame and status, in fulfilling her duties she often acted in accordance with her own ideas, and she was arbitrary and dictatorial. For this reason, she was pruned and dealt with by the brothers and sisters. To begin with, she argued and would not concede. Through the judgment and chastisement of God's words, she came to know the truth of her corruption. However, because she did not understand God's intent, she misunderstood God and thought God would not save her. At this time, God's word little by little enlightened her, guided her, and made her understand God's earnest intention in saving man, and she experienced God's true love of mankind …

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1. One must eat and drink God’s word strictly according to the principles as stipulated by the work arrangements from the above in order to keep apace with the Holy Spirit’s work.

2. One must eat and drink God’s word in combination with the existing problems of the church and the actual situations of the majority of God’s chosen people, with emphasis on solving the problems with the truth.

3. Conduct eating and drinking of God’s word with piety. Be quiet before God, pray and ponder on God’s word earnestly so as to receive the Holy Spirit’s work and understand the truth.

4. The purpose of congregating to eat and drink God’s word is to understand the truth, resolve problems and enter into the reality of the truth. It must not devolve into religious rituals and ceremonial procedures.

(5) - Testimonies of Experiencing the Judgment Before the Seat of Christ and Receiving Life

The Church of Almighty God | (5) - Testimonies of Experiencing the Judgment Before the Seat of Christ and Receiving Life

Almighty God has initiated the work of judgment beginning with the house of God by expressing the truth. The prelude to the judgment before the great white throne has started. How do we experience God's judgment and chastisement? What kind of cleansing and transformation can be gained after experiencing God's judgment and chastisement? What true knowledge of God can be learned?

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Eastern Lightning | God's voice | Chapter 17. Knowledge of the Incarnation

Knowing God must be done through reading God’s word and understanding God’s word. Some people say: “I haven’t seen God incarnate, so how can I know God?” God’s word is actually an expression of God’s disposition. From God’s word you can see God’s love for mankind, His salvation of mankind, and the way He saves them … because God’s word is expressed by God as opposed to God using man to write it out. It is personally expressed by God. It is God Himself expressing His own words and His inner voice. Why do we call them heartfelt words? Because they are issued from deep down, expressing His disposition, His will, His thoughts, His love for mankind, His salvation of mankind, and His expectations of mankind. Among God’s words are severe words, gentle and soft words, some considerate words, and there are some revelatory words that are inhumane. If you look only at the revelatory words, you feel that God is quite stern. If you look at only the gentle and soft side, God appears to not have much authority. You must therefore not understand out of context in this. You must look at it from every angle. Sometimes God speaks from a gentle and compassionate perspective, and people see God’s love for mankind; sometimes He speaks from a strict perspective, and people see God’s unoffendable disposition. Man is deplorably filthy and is not worthy of seeing God’s face, and is not worthy of coming before God. People’s coming before God now is purely out of God’s grace. God’s wisdom can be seen from the way God works and the meaning of His work. Even if people don’t come into contact with God, they will still be able to see these things in God’s word. When someone who has true understanding comes in contact with Christ, his understanding can match Him, but when someone who has only theoretical understanding comes in contact with God, it cannot match Him. This aspect of truth is the deepest profound mystery, difficult to fathom. Summarize the words that God says about the mystery of the incarnation, look at them from various angles, then discuss these things among yourselves. You may pray, and do a lot of pondering and discussion of these things. Perhaps the Holy Spirit enlightens you and lets you understand them. This is because you have no chance to come in contact with God, and you must rely on experience in this way to feel your way in a little bit at a time, to achieve true understanding of God.

The Testimony of a Christian | Breaking Through Satan’s Tight Encirclement (Part 2)

The Church of Almighty God | The Testimony of a Christian | Breaking Through Satan’s Tight Encirclement (Part 2)

Zhao Gang

My wife told the sisters what Brother Guan had said to us when he came to our house, and Sister Zhang asked me how I felt about this whole thing. So I told the sisters about the weakness that I was feeling and about the knowledge that I had just come across. Sister Zhang smiled, saying: “Thanks be to God! This is such a pure understanding, this is God’s guidance!” My wife asked, confused, “Since we haven’t made any missteps, why is Brother Guan saying those things? He is a major leader who has believed in the Lord for many years!” I looked at my wife and said: “Hey, he just wants us to come back to our former church!” Sister Zhang smiled, saying: “Right now all that we are looking at is their outward appearance, but we haven’t looked into the substance of their nature! The Lord Jesus once said: “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for you neither go in yourselves, neither suffer you them that are entering to go in” (Matthew 23:13). “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you are like to white washed sepulchers, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness” (Matthew 23:27). If you look at someone from their outward appearance, then the Pharisees were very loyal in their service to God. In people’s minds the Pharisees were devout servants to God, and they were the most trustworthy of religious leaders. However, when the Lord Jesus came to carry out His work, the God-resisting nature of the Pharisees was revealed. It was these Pharisees who frantically resisted and condemned the work of the Lord Jesus. They fabricated all kinds of rumors and bore false witness to deceive the common people: They said that the Lord Jesus was deceiving all under heaven, that He cast out demons through Beelzebub, the prince of the demons. And once the Lord Jesus was resurrected three days after being nailed to the cross, they bribed soldiers to spread rumors about the Lord Jesus’ body being stolen away by His disciples. The Pharisees fabricated all kinds of lies and used all the tricks at their disposal to block people from seeking out and inspecting the true way. Their goal was to suppress the work of God so that they could forever hold dominion over God’s chosen people. Although they appeared devout on the outside, in essence they hated the truth and were antichrists who stood as enemies to God. It’s just like what the Lord Jesus said when He exposed and condemned them: “You serpents, you generation of vipers, how can you escape the damnation of hell?” (Matthew 23:33). So now think about it. Are these religious leaders of today any different from the Pharisees?” As I took this in, the sisters found a passage of Almighty God’s word for me to read: “Those who read the Bible in grand churches recite the Bible every day, yet not one understands the purpose of God’s work. Not one is able to know God; moreover, not one is in accord with the heart of God. They are all worthless, vile men, each standing on high to teach God. Though they brandish the name of God, they willfully oppose Him. Though they label themselves believers of God, they are ones who eat the flesh and drink the blood of man. All such men are devils who devour the soul of man, demons who purposefully disturb those who try to step onto the right path, and stumbling blocks that impede the path of those who seek God. Though they are of ‘robust flesh,’ how are their followers to know that they are antichrists who lead man in opposition to God? How are they to know that they are living devils who specially seek souls to devour?” (“All Who Do Not Know God Are Those Who Oppose God” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). The sisters gave me a detailed fellowship according to these words of God, dissecting all the actions of religious leaders along with the substance of their nature, until finally I came to realize that by persistently disturbing and obstructing us from believing in Almighty God and even threatening and menacing us, the leaders were not in order to protect us, rather, they did this so that they could hold dominion over God’s chosen people, so that we could treat them as if they were God, worshiping and enshrining them. So actually, they are just like the Pharisees. They all are antichrists who hate the truth and resist God. God has come to save us, but they think up every possible method to stop us from accepting God’s work and to stop us from reading God’s words. Isn’t this the same as them pulling us down into hell? They truly are so malicious! If it weren’t for Almighty God’s words revealing the substance of how these people resist God and fight with God over man, then I would have nearly fallen for their tricks, ruining my own chance of receiving salvation. At this time my wife said in astonishment: “As it turns out they were here to do harm to us! Humph! These people really won’t finish until they drag us down into hell! I will no longer believe what they say.”

Mighty To Save | "During the Last Days, God Principally Uses the Word to Accomplish All"

The Church of Almighty God | Mighty To Save | "During the Last Days, God Principally Uses the Word to Accomplish All"

Almighty God, Christ of the last days, has expressed a variety of truths. He leads the whole of mankind with the word, which accomplishes the actual significance of the Word appearing in the flesh. From Almighty God’s word, people come to know God’s work, God’s disposition, and what God has and is, see God’s supremacy, wisdom, and almightiness, and also understand God’s kind intention for man’s salvation. … In the end, God’s word will show authority and let all people see that “God is as good as His word, and His word shall be accomplished, and that which is accomplished lasts forever,” and that God’s word accomplishes everything!

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kingdom of God | The Church of Almighty God App Introduction

kingdom of God | The Church of Almighty God App Introduction

The Church of Almighty God app leads you to follow the Lamb's footsteps. Investigate God's work of the last days, and you will see the appearance of God.

New Songs of the Kingdom
Listen to the hymns that praise the Creator.
Synchronized lyrics allow you to learn the hymns easily.
One-touch download renders you a more convenient offline use.

We welcome those who truly seek the truth and long for God’s appearance to contact us! You may call us or leave us a message, and we’ll contact you as soon as possible.

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Faith, China

I am an ordinary worker. At the end of November, 2013, a coworker saw that my wife and I would always make a lot of noise about little things, that every day we were worried and distressed, so he passed on the work of Almighty God in the last days to us. From the word of Almighty God, we have learned that the heavens and earth and all things were created by God, and that man’s life is bestowed on him by God. We have also understood the truth of the mystery of the six-thousand-year management plan, the mystery of the incarnation, God’s three stages of work in saving mankind, the significance of God’s work of judgment in the last days, and other respects. My wife and I thought that happening upon God having come to save mankind during our lifetimes was a great blessing. We happily accepted God’s work in the last days, and led a church life. Under the guidance of the word of God, we both pursued the truth and to transform ourselves, and whenever something happened and we started to argue, we wouldn’t just find fault with each other like we used to, but rather we would reflect on ourselves and try to know ourselves. After that, we acted in a way that forsook the flesh in accordance with God’s demands, and our marital relations became better and better, and our hearts became peaceful and steady. We felt that believing in God was truly good. However, while we were joyous and happy to follow God, when we were enjoying the blessed life, we were faced with a violent attack coming from our families…. Just when I was losing my way, it was the word of God that guided me to see through Satan’s scheme, and to break through the fog and enter onto the radiant and correct path for life.

God's voice | Chapter 14. View Yourself Correctly and Do Not Give Up on Truth

The Church of Almighty God | God's voice | Chapter 14. View Yourself Correctly and Do Not Give Up on Truth

People are always unable to correctly view their own strengths and weaknesses, which unconsciously influences their knowledge of God. There are some people who even give up on themselves and lose hope, who do not seek to change their disposition, and are not willing to suffer hardships to put the truth into practice; these people think they have never changed. Actually, these people have changed, yet they themselves are not able to realize it: Instead they only look at their problems, and are not willing to cooperate with God. This not only delays their normal entry, but will also increase their misunderstandings about God, and even more so have an effect on their destination. Therefore, this issue must be one you should carefully study so as to gain deeper entry, and reach the change effects that you should be obtaining.

New Heaven and New Earth | Musical "Chinese Gospel Choir 13th Performance"

The Church of Almighty God | The New Heaven and Earth | Musical Drama "Gospel Choir 13th Performance"

The 13th performance by the Church of Almighty God is a musical, a chorus of praise which fuses together Beijing opera, rock and roll, traditional work songs, Latin dance, animation, drama and other forms of expression, to give a vivid interpretation of the journey made by mankind—that has been deceived and corrupted by Satan—as they cast Satan aside and return before God to come under His salvation.

With Satan in power, demons running amok, and with the world in an abyss of darkness, in utter misery, like a hell on earth, mankind painfully struggles on through evil and, even more so, God's chosen people suffer over and over the repression and slaughter at the hands of Satan's demons. Just when Satan, the great red dragon's savage evil and its wild defiance of God is at its height, lightning flashes from the East, and the Christ of the last days—the Almighty Himself—comes to earth to express His Word, bringing the true light, bringing wrath and bringing judgment. Under God's majestic judgment, Satan reveals its true form and God's chosen people use the word of God as a sharp sword to defeat Satan, never again to endure Satan's control or manipulations. Finally, Satan is reduced to ashes by the fire of God's wrath, and the whole world is returned to its former holiness. God's chosen people gather together before God's throne, and they happily sing and dance to celebrate the utter accomplishment of God's great work!

Chapter 13. The Meaning of People’s Performance Determining Their Outcome

The Church of Almighty God | God's voice | Chapter 13. The Meaning of People’s Performance Determining Their Outcome

1. No One Could Be Saved If God Only Looked at the Expression of People’s Nature

Currently, people’s performance determines their outcome, but what performance is this? Do you know? You might think that this refers to people’s corrupt disposition expressing itself in their work, but that is not actually what this means. This performance refers to whether or not you are able to put the truth into practice and whether or not you are able to stay loyal and devoted while performing your duty, as well as your perspective on believing in God, your attitude toward God, your resolve to suffer hardships, your attitude toward accepting judgment and pruning, your level of transformation and the number of your serious transgressions. All of these contribute to your performance. This performance does not refer to the maximum extent of revealing your corrupt disposition, but rather how much you have achieved in your belief in God. If people’s outcomes were determined according to the expression of their nature, then no one could be saved. How could this be the righteousness of God? If you are a leader, your nature will express itself more, and whoever expresses more will be less assured of remaining. If this determined people’s outcomes, then the more that people worked on a higher level, the faster they would be finished; the higher the level they were on, the greater the extent to which they would express their nature. If this were the case, who then would dare to do their duty? This way, wouldn’t it be that those who do not perform their duty would all be saved?