By Ai Yi, China

One day in October 2018, a leader told me, “Your parents were cleared out from the church.” I was stunned—I simply couldn’t believe it. My parents had done disruptive things, I knew, but surely not bad enough to get them cleared out? I just sat there, with my heart in turmoil. My older sister had previously been kicked out by the church for being an accomplice to an antichrist and failing to repent regardless of all efforts to fellowship with her. Now my parents were cleared out, too, leaving me as our family’s only believer. In that moment, I felt so alone. It had been over two decades since our family joined the faith and we’d endured CCP oppression throughout that time. My dad had been arrested twice for sharing the gospel, and had spent five years in prison. My mom, my sister and I had lived without a fixed home, moving all over the place to avoid arrest. We had been through all sorts of ups and downs, and now God’s work was nearly at an end. So how could they be cleared out of the church? They’d had a really tough time and suffered a lot. Was it all in vain? At that thought, I couldn’t hold back the tears. In my heart I tried reasoning with God: My parents may not have achieved distinction, but they had suffered plenty. Considering their many years of sacrifice, didn’t they deserve one more chance to repent? Even if it just meant staying on as laborers! The more I thought that way, the more painful and dark it was for me, and I lost the drive to do my duty. The sister I was paired with offered a word for the wise: “When something like this happens, you have to accept it from God—you can’t complain. Whatever God does is righteous.” Although I understood her reasoning at the time, I just couldn’t shift my thinking.

A couple of weeks later I read the papers on my parents being cleared out. They told how my dad was particularly arrogant, always going his own way in handling general affairs rather than doing his duty according to principle. He wouldn’t accept suggestions from the brothers and sisters, which had caused the church to suffer significant monetary losses. What’s more, he had continued delivering books of God’s words despite being fully aware of safety concerns relating to him specifically. He had simply dismissed the advice of brothers and sisters and carried on regardless, with the result that he was arrested and imprisoned and the books were seized. This had damaging consequences for the church. My dad had also twisted things when my sister was expelled, saying it only happened because the leader had it in for her. He’d also made a big deal about some corruption displayed by the leader, threatening to discredit her and bring her down. Some of the others, having been misled into taking his side, had become biased against the leader, and this had hindered the leader from doing her duty as normal. The work of the church had been seriously disrupted by my dad’s actions and conduct, and he had shown zero remorse or repentance for the evil that he had done. It ended with him being classified as an evil person and cleared out from the church. For her part, my mom was cleared out—also in accordance with principle—because she wouldn’t stop arguing against my sister’s expulsion. She had kept on complaining about the leader in front of the other brothers and sisters, provoking distrust on both sides, and had twisted facts during gatherings, arguing the case for several people who had been expelled and saying that the leader had been out to get them. That, too, had seriously disrupted the life of the church. Despite plenty of efforts by brothers and sisters to fellowship with her, she had flatly refused to accept the truth. She hadn’t seen things in accordance with the truth principles, and had taken the side of evil people in interrupting the church’s work. With no sense of repentance, she was eventually cleared out from the church. Given all of their evil deeds, I knew in principle it was right that my mom and dad should be cleared out, but when I thought about it actually happening I didn’t know how I’d manage. It was very distressing. Reading the materials on their being cleared out left me feeling numb, and I couldn’t stop crying. I started reasoning with God: “God, You love humankind. My parents have been believers for more than 20 years and have been through so much hardship. Aren’t they due some recognition for everything they’ve sacrificed?” I was living in negativity and misunderstanding. With all of my family cleared out, leaving myself as the only believer, I wondered how I could continue on the path. For over two years I remained in this confused state, and eventually I was dismissed for not achieving anything in my duty. I felt such anguish, and prayed over and over in tears, “Oh God! I have resented and misunderstood You on account of my parents’ being cleared out from the church. I know this is a dangerous state to be in, but I don’t have the strength to shake it off. God, please guide and save me.”

Then, in my devotionals, I read some of God’s words. Almighty God says: “Upon knowing that God loves humankind, they define Him as a symbol of love: They believe that no matter what people do, no matter how they behave, no matter how they treat God, and no matter how rebellious they might be, none of this really matters, for God has love, and His love is unlimited and immeasurable; God has love, so He can be tolerant of people; and God has love, so He can be merciful toward people, merciful toward their immaturity, merciful toward their ignorance, and merciful toward their rebelliousness. Is this really the way it is? For some people, when they have experienced God’s patience once or even a few times, they will treat these experiences as capital in their own understanding of God, believing that He will forever be patient and merciful toward them, and then, over the course of their lives, they take this patience of God and regard it as the standard by which He treats them. There are also those who, after having experienced God’s tolerance once, will forever define God as tolerant—and in their minds, this tolerance is indefinite, unconditional, and even totally unprincipled. Are such beliefs correct?” (The Word, Vol. 2. On Knowing God. How to Know God’s Disposition and the Results His Work Shall Achieve). “God is righteous in His treatment of each and every person, and He is earnest in His approach to the work of conquering and saving people. This is His management. He treats every single person seriously, and not like a pet to play with. God’s love for humans is not the pampering or spoiling kind, nor are His mercy and tolerance toward humankind indulgent or unmindful. On the contrary, God’s love for humans involves cherishing, pitying, and respecting life; His mercy and tolerance convey His expectations of them, and are what humanity needs to survive. God is alive, and God actually exists; His attitude toward humankind is principled, not at all a pack of dogmatic rules, and it can change. His intentions for humanity are gradually changing and transforming with time, depending on circumstances as they arise, and along with the attitude of each and every person. Therefore, you should know in your heart with absolute clarity that the essence of God is immutable, and that His disposition will issue forth at different times and in different contexts. You might not think that this is a serious matter, and you might use your own personal notions to imagine how God should do things. However, there are times when the polar opposite of your viewpoint is true, and by using your own personal notions to attempt to gauge God, you have already angered Him. This is because God does not operate the way you think He does, nor will He treat this matter like you say He will” (The Word, Vol. 2. On Knowing God. How to Know God’s Disposition and the Results His Work Shall Achieve). After reading God’s words I understood that God is loving, but God’s love for man is built on principle. It is not blind and unprincipled, like the kind of love that people have. God is a righteous God, and He takes a stance on the conduct and actions of every person. God has love and mercy for those who love the truth yet have transgressed. But as to evil people, those who are averse to the truth and disrupt the work of the church, He condemns and eliminates them. Just because God is loving doesn’t mean He has compassion and tolerance for evil people, and permits them to disrupt the church’s work. I had misunderstood God’s disposition and essence and defined Him according to my own notions. I had assumed that since God loves humans He would keep giving us chances to repent, no matter how much evil we do, provided that we follow and make sacrifices for Him. That was why I hadn’t been able to accept my parents being cleared out, and had started reasoning with God and resisting Him. Thinking back, the church had given my parents plenty of chances before clearing them out, and it was only because they never repented that things reached that point. God’s disposition is righteous and holy. So long as people are willing to repent for transgressions and displays of corruption, God is extremely merciful and tolerant. But people like my parents, who did so much evil without truly repenting and whose evildoing actually worsened, are in fact evil people, and God cannot keep on showing mercy and tolerance to such people. In particular, He cannot be lenient to them just because they’re long-time believers and have suffered much for the faith.

One day, I read another passage of God’s words: “People say that God is a righteous God, and that as long as man follows Him to the very end, He will surely be impartial toward man, for He is most righteous. If man follows Him to the very end, could He cast man aside? I am impartial toward all men, and judge all men with My righteous disposition, yet there are suitable conditions to the requirements I make of man, and that which I require must be accomplished by all men, regardless of who they are. I care not how your qualifications are, or how long you have held them; I care only whether you follow My way, and whether or not you love and thirst for the truth. If you lack the truth, and instead bring shame upon My name, and do not act according to My way, merely following without care or concern, then at that time I will strike you down and punish you for your evil, and what will you have to say then? Will you be able to say that God is not righteous? Today, if you have complied with the words I have spoken, then you are the kind of person whom I approve. You say you have always suffered whilst following God, that you have followed Him through thick and thin, and have shared with Him the good times and the bad, but you have not lived out the words spoken by God; you wish only to run about for God and expend yourself for God each day, and have never thought to live out a life of meaning. You also say, ‘In any case, I believe God is righteous. I have suffered for Him, run around for Him, and devoted myself for Him, and I have worked hard despite not receiving any recognition; He is sure to remember me.’ It is true that God is righteous, yet this righteousness is untainted by any impurities: It contains no human will, and it is not tainted by the flesh, or by human transactions. All who are rebellious and in opposition, all who are not in compliance with His way, will be punished; none is forgiven, and none is spared!” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. The Experiences of Peter: His Knowledge of Chastisement and Judgment). I learned from God’s words that God’s righteousness isn’t like I thought—that what we get back depends on how much we put in. God is not required to favor those who run around expending themselves, working and suffering for Him. For God, there is no such thing as “There is merit in working hard, regardless of contribution.” God doesn’t determine a person’s outcome based on how much they suffer for the work, or their seniority. He doesn’t look at how much they sacrifice externally. What matters is whether they pursue the truth and put it into practice, and whether there is a change in their life disposition. They’ll never win God’s approval if they don’t practice His words, no matter how great their seniority may be or how much they’ve suffered for the work. They’ll be righteously punished by God for the evil they have done. I had been gauging God’s righteousness with a transactional mindset. I’d thought that because my parents had sacrificed and suffered plenty during their years of faith, they ought to have more chances to repent and be kept in the church, no matter how much evil they did. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be fair to them. But my way of thinking was all wrong. I thought of Paul, crisscrossing Europe to spread the gospel of the Lord. He was arrested a number of times and suffered plenty, but everywhere he went he stood high and bore witness to himself. Ultimately, he said that he lived as Christ, and dying would be a gain. As a result he was revered for two thousand years. In people’s minds he took a place that was higher than that of the Lord Jesus, and ultimately he was punished by God for resisting Him. I saw from this that God doesn’t look at how much people work and suffer externally. He takes retribution, according to their deeds, against those who do evil and offend His disposition yet stubbornly refuse to repent. My parents, for example, worked, suffered and sacrificed plenty for God, but they would never accept the truth. Everything they did served to disrupt church work and undermine normal church life, harming the brothers’ and sisters’ lives and damaging church interests. Clearing them out from the church complied with principle and was the righteousness of God. Not understanding God’s righteous disposition, I had clung to the transactional notion that “There is merit in working hard, regardless of contribution.” I had tried reasoning with God about it, and making a fuss, all the while living in a negative state and being defiant toward God. I was so rebellious! Realizing this, I felt terrible and remorseful, and I prayed, weeping, “God! I’ve had faith in You all these years without knowing You at all. I’ve gauged Your love and righteousness according to my own notions and imaginings, always going up against You and trying to reason with You. Oh God, now I can see that my parents being cleared out was Your righteousness.” I felt greatly at ease after saying that prayer.

Later on, I reflected that it was because of the strength of my affections for my parents that I had been so upset about the church clearing them out. It made me think of some of God’s words: “God created this world and brought man, a living being unto which He bestowed life, into it. Next, man came to have parents and kin, and was no longer alone. Ever since man first laid eyes on this material world, he was destined to exist within the ordination of God. The breath of life from God supports each and every living being throughout growth into adulthood. During this process, no one feels that man is growing up under the care of God; rather, they believe that man is doing so under the loving care of his parents, and that it is his own life instinct that directs his growing up. This is because man knows not who bestowed his life, or from whence it came, much less the way in which the instinct of life creates miracles. He knows only that food is the basis on which his life continues, that perseverance is the source of his existence, and that the beliefs in his mind are the capital upon which his survival depends. Of God’s grace and provision, man is utterly oblivious, and thus does he fritter away the life bestowed upon him by God…. Not a single one of this humanity that God cares for day and night takes it upon themselves to worship Him. God only continues to work on man, for whom He holds out no expectations, as He has planned. He does so in the hope that one day, man will awaken from his dream and suddenly realize the value and meaning of life, the price God paid for all that He has given him, and the eager solicitude with which God waits for man to turn back to Him” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. God Is the Source of Man’s Life). “Not a single nonbeliever has faith that there is a God, or that He created the heavens and earth and all things, or that man is created by God. There are even some who say, ‘Life is given to man by their parents, and they should honor them.’ Where does such a thought or view come from? Does it come from Satan? It is millennia of traditional culture that have educated and misled man in this way, causing them to deny God’s creation and sovereignty. Without Satan misleading and controlling people, mankind would investigate God’s work and read His words, and they would know that they are created by God, that their life is given by God; they would know that everything they have is given by God, and that it is God whom they should thank. Should anyone do us a good turn, we should accept it from God—in particular our parents, who gave birth to and raised us; this is all arranged by God. God holds sovereignty over all; man is just a tool for service. If someone can set their parents aside, or their husband (or wife) and children, in order to expend themselves for God, then that person will be stronger and have a greater sense of justice before Him” (The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. Only by Recognizing One’s Own Misguided Views Can One Truly Transform). From God’s words I understood that God is the source of human life, and everything we possess is bestowed on us by God; that we’ve only gotten to where we are today through God’s care and protection, and that those who are gracious or helpful toward us are so at the arrangement of God. We should accept this from God and be grateful to God for His love. I realized that instead of going by God’s words I had only been thinking of the goodness my parents had shown me. I hadn’t seen how God’s rule and arrangements were behind everything my parents did, and that it was God’s care, protection and guidance that brought me to the present day. I hadn’t thanked God for His care and protection or repaid His love. Instead, I had been rebellious and defiant toward God. The more I reflected on this, the more unconscionable I felt I had been. I had let God down!

I read another passage of God’s words later: “Who is Satan, who are demons, and who are God’s enemies if not resisters who do not believe in God? Are they not those people who are rebellious against God? Are they not those who claim to have faith, yet who lack truth? Are they not those who merely seek to obtain blessings while being unable to bear witness for God? You still mingle with those demons today and treat them with conscience and love, but in this case are you not extending good intentions toward Satan? Are you not in league with demons? If people have made it to this point and are still unable to distinguish between good and evil, and continue to blindly be loving and merciful without any desire to seek God’s intentions or being able in any way to take God’s intentions as their own, then their endings will be all the more wretched. Anyone who does not believe in the God in the flesh is an enemy of God. If you can bear conscience and love toward an enemy, do you not lack a sense of justice? If you are compatible with those which I detest and with which I disagree, and still bear love or personal feelings toward them, then are you not rebellious? Are you not intentionally resisting God? Does such a person possess truth? If people bear conscience toward enemies, love for demons, and mercy for Satan, then are they not intentionally disrupting God’s work?” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. God and Man Will Enter Into Rest Together). God’s words revealed my precise state. God requires that we love what He loves and hate what He hates. Those who hate the truth and resist God are essentially evil people who God detests and hates, so we should hate them, too. I hadn’t been discerning my parents’ essence in accordance with God’s words. No matter how much they harmed the church’s work, I had taken their side, reasoning with God and resisting Him. I had even lost heart for doing my duty. But now I understood why God said: “Feelings are His enemy” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Interpretations of the Mysteries of “God’s Words to the Entire Universe,” Chapter 28). Out of affections, I had borne love and mercy toward evil people. I had even hoped that God would give them another chance to repent and stay on in the church. I had been so foolish! Evil people never truly repent, no matter what. It’s something that is determined by their essence. Allowing my parents to remain in the church would have been to condone the evil they were continuing to do and their disruption of church work. It would have been standing with evil people against God!

Another passage of God’s words that I read later, somewhat enlightened me. God’s words say: “One day, when you understand some of the truth, you will no longer think that your mother is the best person, or that your parents are the best people. You will realize that they are also members of the corrupt human race, and that their corrupt dispositions are all the same. All that sets them apart is the physical blood relationship with you. If they don’t believe in God, then they are the same as the nonbelievers. You will no longer look at them from the perspective of a family member, or from the perspective of your fleshly relationship, but from the side of the truth. What are the main aspects you should look at? You should look at their views on belief in God, their views on the world, their views on handling matters, and most importantly, their attitudes toward God. If you assess these aspects accurately, you will be able to see clearly whether they are good or bad people. One day you may see clearly that they are people with corrupt dispositions just like you. It may be even clearer that they are not the kind-hearted people who have real love for you that you imagined them to be, nor are they able to lead you to the truth or onto the right path in life at all. You may see clearly that what they have done for you is of no great benefit to you, and that it is of no use to you in taking the right path in life. You may also find that many of their practices and opinions are contrary to the truth, that they are of the flesh, and that this makes you despise them, and feel repulsed and averse. If you come to see these things, you will then be able to treat your parents correctly in your heart, and you will no longer miss them, worry about them, or be unable to live apart from them. They have completed their mission as parents, so you will no longer treat them as the closest people to you or idolize them. Instead, you will treat them as ordinary people, and at that time, you will completely escape the bondage of feelings and truly emerge from your feelings and family affection” (The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. Only Resolving One’s Corrupt Disposition Can Bring About True Transformation). This was deeply moving to read. Because of the strength of my affections for my parents, I had seen only how good they were to me, and not their attitude toward the truth and toward God. I hadn’t been able to clearly see their essence or the path they were on, and that’s why I hadn’t correctly dealt with the matter of their being cleared out. Caught up in affections, I’d tried reasoning with God, and for over two years I had been negative and defiant. My life had been badly damaged, and I’d committed transgressions. Little by little, through the watering and sustenance of God’s words, my hard, rebellious heart had been awakened and my misunderstanding of God erased. I now feel much freer and have recovered the drive to do my duty. Thanks be to God for His salvation.