By Li Jie, China

At the end of 2022, one morning when I got up, I suddenly felt dizzy. I thought this was because I’d gotten up too abruptly, so I closed my eyes quickly, and after a while, the feeling abated. But in the evening, my dizziness returned, coming and going four or five times, and I began to worry if I had some illness. At the hospital, they found my blood pressure was as high as 195 mmHg. I was shocked, thinking, “I’ve always sacrificed and expended myself in my faith over these years, suffering a lot, and God has kept me in good health. How can my blood pressure suddenly be so high?” On the way home, I felt heavy-hearted, thinking about how my father had passed away after being left half-paralyzed and bedbound for over ten years from a stroke caused by high blood pressure. I thought, “With my blood pressure so high, what if I end up like my father? I need to take good care of my health. I can’t overwork myself as much. If my health worsens and I can’t do my duty, wouldn’t that make me useless? What if I die and miss my chance at salvation?” I lived in a state of panic and worry. Later, at gatherings, as long as I heard about remedies for high blood pressure from brothers and sisters, I’d quickly try them at home. I monitored my blood pressure every morning and evening, and didn’t dare to forget blood pressure medication. I paid special attention to my diet and constantly thought about how to improve my health. After a while, my blood pressure stabilized and my dizziness disappeared. I thought, “I need to keep improving my health and not work as hard as before, so my condition doesn’t worsen. So long as I stay healthy and can do my duty, I’ll have a chance at salvation.” Later, although I appeared to be doing my duty, I felt unmotivated inside, and in times of trouble, my first concern was my health. During the day I found issues in the church during gatherings, and I thought about seeking the truth to resolve them in the evening. But whenever I saw it was getting late, I worried that staying up might raise my blood pressure, so I’d hurry to rest. In a church I was responsible for, some newcomers hadn’t attended gatherings for three months. I wanted to go water and support them, but since they worked during the day, I could only go to water them at night, and if I went, it would affect my rest. Also, supporting newcomers wouldn’t be effective with just one or two rounds of fellowship, and it would require significant time and energy. I wondered whether my body would be able to handle it. If I got too tired and my blood pressure went up, what would I do if I had a stroke and became paralyzed like my father? With this in mind, I passed off these newcomers to other brothers and sisters to support. During that time, although I was doing my duty, I lived in constant distress and worry.

One time, at a gathering, a leader asked if I could supervise the gospel work. I thought, “My blood pressure is still a bit high, and I can preach the gospel, but handling the responsibilities of a supervisor involves so much work. How will my body handle it?” I quickly told the leader, “My blood pressure is too high and my body can’t handle it, so I can’t do this duty.” The leader asked me to seek further. That night, lying in bed, tossing and turning, I couldn’t sleep. I knew the gospel expansion urgently needed cooperation, but I worried about the large workload and the numerous concerns of being a supervisor. I was afraid that overworking myself might worsen my condition and cause a stroke, and that even if I didn’t die, I might end up paralyzed, so I wondered what use I’d be if I couldn’t do my duty in the future. After thinking it over, I decided that taking care of my health was more important, and when I saw the leader again, I made excuses to shirk the responsibility. One day, I came across a passage of God’s words that deeply moved me. God says: “There is another sort: those who refuse to do duties. Whatever request God’s house makes of them, whatever kind of work it would have them do, whichever duty it would have them do, in large and small matters alike, even in something so simple as having them pass along an occasional message—they do not want to do it. They, self-proclaimed believers in God, cannot even do tasks that a nonbeliever could be sought out to help with. This is a refusal to accept the truth and a refusal to do a duty. No matter how the brothers and sisters exhort them, they refuse and do not accept it; when the church arranges some duty for them to do, they ignore it and give copious excuses to decline it. These are people who refuse to do duties. To God, such people have already withdrawn. Their withdrawal is not a matter of God’s house having cleared them out or having stricken them from its rolls; rather, it is that they themselves do not have true faith—they do not acknowledge themselves to be believers in God” (The Word, Vol. 4. Exposing Antichrists. Item Twelve: They Want to Withdraw When They Have No Status or No Hope of Gaining Blessings). After reading God’s words, my heart skipped a beat, and I thought, “I didn’t realize that refusing to do one’s duty was such a serious matter that it could lead to being eliminated by God! Now that the gospel work needs people to cooperate, I should consider God’s heart and take on the duty of a supervisor, and do what I’m supposed to do, but I keep shirking my duty due to worrying that my health might fail. Is this not also refusing my duty? So then, won’t this also get me eliminated by God?” Thinking this made me very scared. I felt like it was over for me, and that there was no chance of salvation left, and I regretted ever rejecting my duty in the first place. But what’s done was done, just like spilled milk that couldn’t be retrieved. My heart immediately sank to the pit of my stomach, and I felt utterly despondent. During those days, my heart felt heavy, as if weighed down by a stone. I realized that my state was wrong, so I prayed to God, “God, I shouldn’t have refused my duty. I am willing to submit and seek Your intention.”

One day, I read a passage of God’s words: “When a person is exposed by God, how should they handle it, and what choice should they make? They must seek the truth, and should not, under any circumstances, become muddleheaded. It is good for you to experience God’s judgment and chastisement, and to see your corruption as it truly is, so why are you negative? God exposes you so that you gain an understanding of yourself, and in order to save you. Actually, the corrupt disposition you reveal stems from your nature. It is not that God wants to expose you, but if He does not expose you, won’t you still reveal it? Before you believed in God, He had not exposed you yet, so wasn’t everything you lived out a satanic corrupt disposition? You are someone who lives according to a satanic disposition. You shouldn’t be so shocked by these things. When you reveal a little bit of corruption it scares you to death, and you think it’s over for you, that God doesn’t want you, and that everything you’ve done is for naught. Don’t overreact. It is corrupt humans whom God saves, not robots” (The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. How to Identify the Nature Essence of Paul). The reminder from God’s words made me understand that by arranging environments and revealing me, God wasn’t condemning me or intending to eliminate me, but rather, He was using the severe judgment of His words to make me seek the truth, recognize what the wrong thoughts, viewpoints, and intentions were adulterated within myself, and purify and change my corrupt disposition. This was being responsible for my life. But I hadn’t sought God’s intention, and when faced with God’s words of severe judgment, I hadn’t reflected on myself or learned lessons. I had second-guessed and misunderstood God, thinking that God wanted to eliminate me, which had led me to feel negative and pass verdict on myself. I realized just how rebellious I had been! I didn’t want to carry on like this. I was willing to seek the truth and learn the lessons in this environment arranged by God.

During my seeking, I read a passage of God’s words. Almighty God says: “If a person wishes to live a valuable and meaningful life, they must pursue the truth. First and foremost, they should have a correct outlook on life, as well as the right thoughts and viewpoints on the various great and small matters that they face in life and on their life path. They should also view all of these matters from the right perspective and stance, rather than approaching the various problems they encounter in the course of their life or in their daily life using extreme or radical thoughts and viewpoints. Of course, they also must not view these things through a secular perspective, and instead they should let go of such negative and incorrect thoughts and viewpoints. … To give an example, say that a person has gotten cancer and they are afraid to die. They refuse to accept death and constantly pray for God to protect them from death and to extend their life for a few more years. They carry the negative emotions of distress, worry, and anxiety with them as they go through day after day…. Just like other people, they believed in God and did their duty, and on the surface, there didn’t appear to be any difference between them and anyone else. When they experienced illness and death, they prayed to God and still did not abandon their duty. They kept working, even to the same level that they did before. However, there is something that people ought to understand and see through to: The thoughts and viewpoints that this person harbored were consistently negative and erroneous. Regardless of the extent of their suffering or the price they paid while doing their duty, they harbored these erroneous thoughts and viewpoints in their pursuit. They were constantly governed by them and bringing their negative emotions into their duty, seeking to offer the performance of their duty to God in exchange for their own survival, to achieve their aim. The goal of their pursuit was not to understand or gain the truth, or to submit to all of God’s orchestrations and arrangements. The goal of their pursuit was the exact opposite of this. They wanted to live according to their own will and requirements, getting that which they wished to pursue. They wanted to arrange and orchestrate their own fate and even their own life and death. And so, at the end of the road, their outcome was that they gained nothing at all. They did not obtain the truth and they ultimately denied God, and lost faith in Him. Even as death approached, they still failed to understand how people should live and how a created being should treat the Creator’s orchestrations and arrangements. That is the most pitiful and tragic thing about them. Even on the verge of death, they failed to understand that throughout a person’s life, everything is under the sovereignty and arrangement of the Creator. If the Creator wants you to live, then even if you are plagued by a deadly illness, you will not die. If the Creator wants you to die, then even if you are young, healthy, and strong, when your time comes, you must die. Everything is under the sovereignty and arrangement of God, this is God’s authority, and no one can rise above it. They failed to comprehend such a simple fact—isn’t that pitiful? (Yes.) Despite their believing in God, attending gatherings, listening to sermons, and doing their duty, despite their belief in the existence of God, they repeatedly refused to acknowledge that human destiny, including life and death, is in the hands of God rather than subject to human will. No one dies simply because they want to, and no one survives solely because they want to live and fear death. They failed to grasp such a simple fact, they failed to see through it even when faced with impending death, and they still did not know that a person’s life and death are not determined by themselves but instead depend on the predestination of the Creator. Isn’t this tragic? (Yes.)” (The Word, Vol. 6. On the Pursuit of the Truth. How to Pursue the Truth (6)). After reading this passage of God’s words, I broke down in tears. I’d thought that having believed in God for so many years, I had gained some truth realities, but little did I realize that I hadn’t understood God’s sovereignty at all, and didn’t know how to experience His work. When illness had struck, I hadn’t accepted it from God, nor had I sought the truth or learned lessons from it. Instead, I had lived according to the viewpoints of nonbelievers, thinking that illness was caused by exhaustion and that I needed to focus on taking care of my body, believing that only by taking care of my body would I recover, otherwise, I would end up like my father and maybe even die from this illness one day. To get rid of the illness as quickly as possible, I had jumped to try any remedy I’d heard about. I had feared that worry and exhaustion would worsen my condition, so I had avoided solving problems in my work and passed the newcomers I was supposed to support off to others. I had carried less and less of a sense of burden for my duty. When the leader wanted to promote me to supervise work, I had refused that duty out of fear that worry and exhaustion would raise my blood pressure and give me a stroke. Though I had believed in God, I hadn’t trusted in His almightiness and sovereignty, or had faith that my life was in His hands. My thoughts had been entirely focused on how to maintain my health, as if people’s good health were solely the result of their own efforts, and nothing to do with God’s sovereignty. I hadn’t behaved like a believer at all! I thought about what God continually fellowships on, teaching us to view people and things with His words as the basis, and with the truth as the criterion. As for my health, what illness I might suffer, when I might get sick, and when I might die, God has predetermined all of this. If God wants me to die, then no matter how well I take care of myself, I cannot live, and if God wants me to live, then even if I have a serious illness, I will not die. It’s like those wealthy people who eat the finest foods day after day to maintain their health, yet can’t avoid death when their time comes, whereas, of the many ordinary people who can only get by on eating simple, frugal meals, quite a few go on to live long lives. Even nonbelievers acknowledge that people’s lives are predetermined by Heaven. After many years of believing in God and eating and drinking so many of His words, I still lacked even this basic understanding. My faith was utterly pathetic! I hadn’t viewed things according to God’s words or sought the truth. I had been constantly thinking about ways to maintain my health, with no place whatsoever for God in my heart. What difference was there between me and nonbelievers? God allowing this illness to befall me was meant to make me seek the truth and learn lessons from it, to cleanse and change the wrong intentions and viewpoints inside me, and to correct my errant path. This was God’s salvation for me. If I went on not learning lessons, then even if my illness subsided, I wouldn’t gain any truth, and it would have been a wasted experience. After understanding God’s intention, I no longer felt as constrained by my illness as I had been before. I adjusted my regular rest-work schedule appropriately, and my mind began to focus on my duty, so that whenever I got really busy, I forgot I was still ill. Sometimes I even forgot to take my medication or measure my blood pressure, without feeling discomfort. Deep down, I realized that no matter what illness befalls a person, it is in God’s hands, and their worries and concerns are unnecessary. These things not only change nothing, but they also cause one to be fooled and tormented by Satan, and to live in greater suffering.

Later, a sister reminded me that when faced with illness, if we are unwilling to take on important duties, and we live in negative emotions of distress and worry, then this has to do with our views on what to pursue and our intention to gain blessings. Through the sister’s reminder, I sought and reflected in this regard. I read a passage of God’s words: “Before deciding to do their duty, deep in their hearts, antichrists are brimming with expectations toward their prospects, gaining blessings, a good destination, and even a crown, and they have the utmost confidence in attaining these things. They come to the house of God to do their duty with such intentions and aspirations. So, does their performance of duty contain the sincerity, genuine faith and loyalty that God requires? At this point, one cannot yet see their genuine loyalty, faith, or sincerity, because everyone harbors an entirely transactional mindset before they do their duty; everyone makes the decision to do their duty driven by interests, and also based on the precondition of their overflowing ambitions and desires. What is the antichrists’ intention in doing their duty? It’s to make a deal, to make an exchange. It could be said that these are the conditions they set for doing duty: ‘If I do my duty, then I must obtain blessings and have a good destination. I must obtain all the blessings and benefits that god has said are prepared for humankind. If I can’t obtain them, then I won’t do this duty.’ They come to the house of God to do their duty with such intentions, ambitions, and desires. It seems like they do have some sincerity, and of course for those who are new believers and are just starting to do their duty, it can also be called enthusiasm. But there is no genuine faith or loyalty in this; there’s only that degree of enthusiasm. It can’t be called sincerity. Judging from this attitude antichrists have toward doing their duty, it is wholly transactional and filled with their desires for benefits like gaining blessings, entering the kingdom of heaven, obtaining a crown, and receiving rewards. So, it appears from the outside that many antichrists, before being expelled, are doing their duty and have even forsaken more and suffered more than the average person. What they expend and the price they pay are on par with Paul, and they do no less running about than Paul either. This is something everyone can see. In terms of their behavior and their will to suffer and pay the price, they ought not to receive nothing. However, God does not regard a person based on their outward behavior, but based on their essence, their disposition, what they reveal, and the nature and essence of every single thing that they do” (The Word, Vol. 4. Exposing Antichrists. Item Nine (Part Seven)). God’s words exposed my exact state. After coming to believe in God, no matter what duty the church arranged for me, I never shirked it, and despite facing hindrance from my nonbelieving family, persecution from the Communist Party, and ridicule and slander from the world, no matter how difficult or miserable it was, my determination to do my duty was never shaken. So I believed that God would surely remember all my sacrifices, but having high blood pressure completely revealed my desire for blessings. I thought that as long as I had good health and could continue doing my duty, there was hope for salvation. But when doing my duty required suffering and paying a price, I worried that it would worsen my health and I’d die without receiving blessings, so I treated my duty perfunctorily, without any real loyalty. The reason for this was completely due to the control of satanic thoughts and viewpoints like “Every man for himself and the devil take the hindmost,” and “Where there is life there is hope.” When faced with an illness that had the potential to endanger my life, I was unwilling to suffer and expend myself, spending all my time worrying about my outcome and destination, and handling my duty in a perfunctory way and without a sense of burden, even refusing it at times. I’d often said that I was doing my duty to satisfy God, but now I realized that the performance of my duty was driven by a desire for blessings. Although I seemed to make some sacrifices and expenditures as if I were loyal to God, in reality, I had no true sincerity toward God. It was all a matter of transaction and deceit. I saw that my disposition was truly deceitful and wicked, and that my suffering and expenditure were merely attempts to bargain with God. I was walking the path of an antichrist! I thought of how God incarnated to speak and provide us with abundant truths, how God has given so much for us without asking anything in return, and how God’s love and salvation are sincere and genuine, while I did my duty entirely for my own gain and blessings, and even my modest expenditure was an attempt to bargain with God, I realized just how selfish and devoid of conscience I was! I couldn’t carry on like this. I had to repent immediately. Regardless of whether I were to receive blessings or suffer misfortune, I had to submit to God’s sovereignty and arrangements and do my duty well.

Later, I read another passage of God’s words: “Everyone must face death in this life, that is, death is what everyone must face at the end of their journey. However, there are many different attributes to death. One of these is, at the time predestined by God, you have completed your mission and God draws a line under your fleshly life, and your fleshly life comes to an end, though this doesn’t mean that your life is over. When a person is without flesh, their life is over—is that the case? (No.) The form in which your life exists after death depends on how you treated God’s work and words while you were alive—this is very important. The form in which you exist after death, or whether you will exist or not, will depend upon your attitude toward God and toward the truth while you are alive. If while you are alive, when you face death and all manner of illnesses, your attitude toward the truth is one of rebelliousness, opposition, and feeling averse toward the truth, then when it comes time for your fleshly life to be over, in what way will you exist after death? You will certainly exist in some other way, and your life will certainly not continue. Conversely, if while you are alive, when you have awareness in the flesh, your attitude toward the truth and toward God is one of submission and loyalty and you have true faith, then even though your fleshly life comes to an end, your life will go on to exist in a different form in another world. This is one explanation of death” (The Word, Vol. 6. On the Pursuit of the Truth. How to Pursue the Truth (4)). After reading God’s words, my heart felt so much brighter! From God’s words, I understood that everyone will face death, but the nature of each death is different. Some people pursue the truth and do their duties with loyalty, and even if they die and their life ends, it doesn’t mean they haven’t been saved. They have completed their life’s mission and returned to God. This is living in another form. I also understood that salvation isn’t related to life or death, but rather it depends on one’s attitude toward God and the truth. One’s pursuit of the truth, focus on handling matters according to the truth principles, and having true submission and a genuine fear of God is the standard for salvation. However, when faced with my illness, I wallowed in my sickness, unable to submit to God’s sovereignty and arrangements, treating my duty lightly or even refusing it. Even if I took good care of my flesh, without pursuing the truth and changing my disposition, I still couldn’t be saved. I was constantly worried about my illness, and I didn’t want to worry or exhaust myself in doing my duty, much less accept important commissions. Although I didn’t worry too much or pay a high price, I hadn’t fulfilled the responsibilities expected of a created being, leaving behind irreparable regrets and debts. Whenever I thought about this, my conscience was unsettled. Only at that moment did I truly realize that regardless of one’s physical condition during their lifetime, only pursuing the truth and doing one’s best to do the duty well gives life value and meaning, and that even when sick or tired, this is far better than spending one’s whole life in emptiness. Realizing this, I gained the motivation to do my duty and I inwardly resolved to pursue the truth and do my duty diligently, and that if God gave me another opportunity, I would no longer heed my flesh.

Three months later, the leader arranged for me to supervise the gospel work once again. I knew this was God giving me an opportunity to repent, and I couldn’t keep worrying about my illness, so I accepted this duty. In the course of the actual cooperation of the duty, I faced many difficulties and sometimes felt a bit tired, and I still worried that my body might not keep up, so I prayed to God, entrusting my illness into His hands. Regardless of whether my illness worsened, I didn’t want to delay my duty anymore. After praying, my heart no longer felt constrained. I reasonably arranged my rest-work schedule, and when facing difficulties in the work, I discussed solutions with the sisters I cooperated with. Practicing like this wasn’t as exhausting as I had thought, and I found that the burdens God gave me were all within my capacity to bear. One day, I saw the host sister measuring her blood pressure, so I measured mine as well, and to my surprise, my blood pressure was normal. I thanked God from the bottom of my heart!

It was God’s words that corrected my fallacious viewpoints on what to pursue, and I gained some understanding and experience of God’s sovereignty and preordination. I also understood that believing in God shouldn’t be about merely seeking blessings, and that only by pursuing the truth, submitting to God’s orchestrations and arrangements, and doing the duty of a created being well can life be valuable and meaningful. Thank God!