July 22, 2018 – John 14:23

Jesus answered and said to him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come to him, and make our stayed with him.

- John 14:23

The Story of Genesis: What Was God’s Will Behind Adam Naming the Animals?

By Lin Li

The Bible says: “And out of the ground Jehovah God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them: and whatever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field” (Genesis 2:19–20).

The Practice of Forsaking the Flesh

• A Hymn of God's Words
• The Practice of Forsaking the Flesh
• I
• If something happens that
• requires you to endure hardship,
• understand and be mindful
• of God's will at that time.
• Don't satisfy yourself,
• put yourself aside.
• Nothing's more abject than the flesh.
• You must seek and satisfy God
• and fulfill your duty.
• With such thoughts God will bring you
• special enlightenment in this matter,
• and your heart will find comfort.

How to Live in Harmony With a Stroppy Roommate

By Wang Liang

“I really can’t stand my roommate! Last night, when I was sleeping deeply, he suddenly woke me up and asked me to play computer games with him. He’s a real pain!”

“What was that? My roommate has gone even further that I just wanna have a fight with him someday.…”

Hearing my classmates’ complaints about their roommates, I recalled how my relationship with my roommate had changed from incompatibility to harmony, and then I offered my sincerest thanks to God.

Seeing Through the Material Marriage, I No Longer Complains About My Poor Husband

By Zhang Jun

One morning, a ray of sunshine shined into the house and painted the floor a golden color. Qianhui opened her eyes and stretched, but just as she was about to get out of bed, the phone rang. She picked up and heard her friend Lili on the other end of the line. “Qianhui, I’m getting married next Sunday, you have to come! …”

When she heard the good news of her friend’s marriage, Qianhui was happy for her. She thought, “So many people tried to introduce a boyfriend for Lili, and all the men’s families had good backgrounds, but she was never satisfied. Now she’s getting married, so her husband’s family must be very well off.”

On the day of Lili’s wedding, Qianhui woke up early to get dressed and do her makeup. She arrived at Lili’s house around 10, and when she walked in the door, she was shocked at the new house she saw, its wide living room, beautiful decoration, and fashionable, luxurious furniture…. The house could only be described as “magnificent.” The seed of admiration was planted in her heart: No wonder Lili got married! Her husband must be incredibly rich!

Coming Back to God, She Got Rid of the Life of Working Desperately Hard for Money

By Lianxin

After a tempest blew over, the air was so pure. Lianxin was sitting by the window of the light spacious bedroom reading God’s word, with a happy smile on her lips. She knew it was due to God’s love and salvation for her that she, who once struggled to make money and fell ill from constant overwork, could rid herself of the life of working desperately hard for money and thus live healthily and in the light.

Sermons and Fellowship: The True Significance of God Making Overcomers

God makes people perfect chiefly to carry out His will, to make you serve God. Those used by God during the Age of Grace and the Age of Law were not made perfect; it is in the Age of Kingdom that God will make perfect a group of people, and when the Millennial Kingdom truly becomes a reality, He shall use this group of people to serve Him on earth, to be priests; thus, in the future, God shall make great use of those who are made perfect. … On earth and in God’s kingdom, these people will be pillars, they will the ones who serve God, they will be priests, and thus there is great and far-reaching significance to God making people perfect.

People’s Beliefs Cannot Substitute for the Truth

There are some people who can bear hardships; they can pay the price; their outward behavior is very good; they are well respected; and they have the admiration of others. What do you think: Can this kind of outward behavior be regarded as putting truth into practice? Can you say that this person is satisfying God’s intentions? Why is it that time and time again people see this kind of individual and think that they are satisfying God, think that they are walking the path of putting truth into practice, that they are walking in God’s way? Why do some people think this way? There’s only one explanation for it.

2 Ways to Resist Temptation

By Xiaohong, China

First, Always Pray to God and Live Before God, Thus Actively Staying Away From Temptations

Every corner of this materialistic and money-centered society—particularly fancy hotels, expensive restaurants, KTVs and other entertainment places—is full of Satan’s temptations. Without the capability to overcome sin, we are so envious of those with wealth and power that our desires to make big money and be one of them are stirred up when we see them enjoying their wealth in these places.

Testimony of a Christian: I Have Wealth More Valuable Than Money

By Shunxin, Thailand

Editor’s Note: If you have someone like this in your life, someone who wants to become wealthy but never succeeds, and who lives in torment, how should you help him escape his misery? What follows is the experience of author Shun Xin, whose predicament was precisely this, but today she can calmly evaluate her monetary gains and losses, and has found a wealth more valuable than riches. How did she emerge from her torment? And what is this wealth more valuable than money? Let’s discover these things through her story.

What is the Correct Attitude Towards Social Elites?

I was a cashier at a fast food restaurant, working on the ground floor of an office building. Every day there were people from all walks of life having meals in our restaurant, and my workmates often said to me excitedly, “Look, that man is a court judge.” “Hey, have you seen the man over there? He is a doctor, an expert on operations…” Each time, I could not help looking at those people with admiration and envy.

Most people in our church cannot tell the difference between being discerning with people and judging people. I’d like to ask, with regard to dissecting and discerning the God-defying essence of the pastors and elders, and calling them the Pharisees of the present age, is this not judging people?

Bible Verses for Reference:

Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his lord has made ruler over his household, to give them meat in due season? Blessed is that servant, whom his lord when he comes shall find so doing. Truly I say to you, That he shall make him ruler over all his goods. But and if that evil servant shall say in his heart, My lord delays his coming; And shall begin to smite his fellow servants, and to eat and drink with the drunken; The lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looks not for him, and in an hour that he is not aware of, And shall cut him asunder, and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth (Mat 24:45-51).

Running Toward the Bright Path of Human Life

Wang Tao

Both Xiaoliu and I ran auto repair shops. Our shops were of the same size, and the equipment we used was also the same, except that there were more kinds of repair parts in my shop. But in recent years, there arose a great difference in our businesses level: His business was flourishing day by day, and more and more people drove to his shop to get their cars repaired, so much so that some cars had to be parked in front of my shop, while my shop was rather desolate.

Seeing God’s Hand in the Hardships of Selling and Buying a Home

Ma Ling

Part 1

Deep in the night when all was quiet, Ma Ling stood in silence by the window thinking about a conversation she had had with a church leader that day.

The leader, Sister Bai, said: “Sister Ma, one of the people taken in the most recent wave of arrests of brothers and sisters by the CCP government was a sister who used to stay at your home. We’re afraid that the police will track her movements through video surveillance recordings, and in that case you would certainly be implicated. The duty that you’re currently performing would be impacted too. I don’t know if you have any particular plans.”

Farewell to Those Days of Wrestling With Fate

Yixin

A rustic village fallen behind, my parents exhausted from their work, a life in financial straits … these gloomy memories were branded on to my young mind, they were my first impression of “fate.” After I started attending school, the first time I heard my teacher say that “You control your fate in your own hands,” I kept these words firmly in my mind. I believed that although I could not change the fact that I was born into poverty, I could still change my own fate through hard work. As a result, I exerted my full strength to wrestle with my “fate,” and gain a slice of heaven to call my own.

A Christian’s Diary: The Misunderstanding Between My Mother and Me Has Finally Been Resolved

Su Ping

January 8, 2018 Monday Cloudy

Recently, my mother’s health has not been good. It is not very convenient for her to leave the house. Our church leader was afraid that this would interfere with her attending meetings. As a result, he asked me to have meetings with my mother at home. Even though I did not say anything when I heard him say this, inside, I was not very happy. In a flash, the unhappy incidences between my mother and me that occurred in the past appeared in my mind like scenes from a movie.

Do You Possess the “Immunity” Needed to Defeat Temptation?

One day, I came across a story. This story mainly told about a mouse that came out of its hole and found that people had intentionally placed a piece of meat in a mousetrap in order to lure it in. The mouse knew that if it touched that piece of meat, then it would be killed by the trap, so it initially thought to refuse the lure, and that it would absolutely not touch that piece of meat. But when the smell of the meat reached its nose, it just couldn’t overcome the temptation, and against its own will it crept closer and closer to the trap. In the end, it couldn’t resist the enticement, and so when it went to eat the piece of meat, it was killed by the trap.

A Restaurant’s Harvest

Cong Xin worked as a waitress in a restaurant, and she had always been a conscientious worker. But for some reason, the manager had recently started to lose his temper with her indiscriminately. Ever since she was small, Cong Xin had always wanted to excel and to do her best at everything she did, and even her stepfather very seldom spoke ill of her. But now she had to face the restaurant manager who was purposefully making things difficult for her.

A Letter From a Recovered Cancer Patient to Her Sister

Little Sister:

Hello! I got your letter a few days ago and it made me really happy. We haven’t been in contact for a long time, so now that I know you’re all well and that you’re living the proper church life, my mind can rest easy. You asked why I hadn’t been in touch with you for such a long time; you must surely have been worried that something had happened to me, right? Actually, I’ve been going through a trial of illness during this time, and the doctor gave me a death sentence. But I miraculously survived under the guidance of God’s words, and now I’m completely fine. You probably want to know how God guided me through this trial of illness, don’t you? Let me take you through everything that’s happened.

Testimony of a Christian: How She Overcame the Temptation to Have an Affair (Part 2)

By Xiyue, Henan Province

Over the next few days, although Jingru had not fallen into Satan’s temptation and she knew that she could never be with Wang Wei, her meeting with Wang Wei that evening and his sincere confession replayed in her mind over and over like a scene in a movie …