Promises to Those Who Have Been Perfected
What is the path through which God perfects man? What aspects does it include? Are you willing to be perfected by God? Are you willing to accept His judgment and chastisement? What do you know of these questions? If you have no knowledge to speak of, then this is proof that you still do not know God’s work, that you have not been enlightened by the Holy Spirit at all. It is impossible for such people to be perfected. They are only given a small amount of grace to enjoy briefly, and it will not last long. People cannot be perfected by God if they only enjoy His grace. Some are satisfied when their flesh has peace and enjoyment, when their life is easy and without adversity or misfortune, when their whole family lives in harmony, without contention or dispute—and they may even believe this to be the blessing of God. In truth, it is merely God’s grace. You must not be satisfied with merely enjoying the grace of God. Such thinking is so vulgar. Even if you read the words of God every day, and pray every day, and your spirit feels great enjoyment and is especially at peace, if you ultimately have nothing to say of your knowledge of God and His work, and have experienced nothing, and no matter how much of God’s word you have eaten and drunk, if all you feel is spiritual peace and enjoyment, and that the word of God is sweet beyond compare, as though you cannot enjoy it enough, but you have no practical experience whatsoever of the words of God and are utterly devoid of the reality of His words, then what can you gain from such faith in God? If you cannot live out the essence of God’s words, then your eating and drinking of these words and your prayers are nothing but religious belief. Such people cannot be perfected by God and cannot be gained by Him. People who are gained by God are those who pursue the truth. What God gains is not the flesh of man, not the things which belong to him, but the part within him that belongs to God. Thus, when God perfects people, He does not perfect their flesh, but their hearts, allowing their hearts to be gained by God; which is to say, God perfecting man is, in essence, God perfecting the heart of man so that this heart may turn to God and so that it may love Him.
The flesh of man is mortal. It serves no purpose for God to gain the flesh of man, for the flesh of man is something that inevitably decays and cannot receive His inheritance or blessings. If the flesh of man were gained, and only the flesh of man were in this stream, then though man would nominally be in the stream, his heart would belong to Satan. That being the case, not only would people be unable to become the manifestation of God, but they would also become His burden, and God’s choosing of people would thus become meaningless. Those that God intends to perfect will all receive His blessings and His inheritance. That is, they take in what God has and is so that it becomes what they have within; they have all the words of God wrought into them; whatever God is, you are able to take it all in exactly as is, and thereby live out the truth. This is the kind of person who is perfected by God and who is gained by God. Only someone such as this is eligible to receive the blessings bestowed by God:
1. Gaining the whole of God’s love.
2. Acting in accordance with the will of God in all things.
3. Gaining the guidance of God, living in the light of God, and gaining God’s enlightenment.
4. Living out on earth the image that God loves; loving God truly as Peter did, crucified for God and worthy to die in recompense for God’s love; having the same glory as Peter.
5. Being beloved, respected, and admired by everyone on earth.
6. Overcoming every aspect of the bondage of death and Hades, giving no opportunity for Satan to do its work, being possessed by God, living within a fresh and lively spirit, and not growing weary.
7. Having an ineffable sense of elation and excitement at all times throughout life, as if one has beheld the arrival of the day of God’s glory.
8. Winning glory together with God and having a countenance that resembles God’s beloved saints.
9. Becoming that which God loves on earth, that is, a beloved son of God.
10. Changing form and ascending with God to the third heaven and transcending the flesh.
Only people who can inherit the blessings of God are perfected and gained by God. Have you gained anything at present? To what extent has God perfected you? God does not perfect man at random; His perfecting man is conditional, and has clear, visible results. It is not, as man imagines, that as long as he has faith in God, he can be perfected and gained by God, and he can receive on earth the blessings and inheritance of God. Such things are exceedingly difficult—to say nothing of the changing of people’s form. At present, what you should chiefly seek is to be perfected by God in all things, and to be perfected by God through all people, matters, and things with which you are faced, so that more of what God is will be wrought into you. You must first receive the inheritance of God on earth; only then will you become eligible to inherit more, and greater, blessings from God. These are all things that you should seek, and which you should understand before all else. The more you seek to be perfected by God in all things, the more you will be able to see the hand of God in all things, as a result of which you will, through different perspectives and in different matters, actively seek to enter into the being of God’s word and enter into the reality of His word. You cannot be content with such passive states as merely not committing sins, or having no notions, no philosophy of life, and no human will. God perfects man in a multitude of ways; in all matters lies the possibility of being perfected, and He can perfect you not only in positive terms but also in negative terms, to make what you gain more abundant. Every single day there are opportunities to be perfected and occasions to be gained by God. After experiencing thus for a time, you will be greatly changed, and will naturally understand many things of which you were previously ignorant. There will be no need for instruction from others; unbeknownst to you, God will enlighten you, so that you will receive enlightenment in all things and enter into all your experiences in detail. God will surely guide you so that you veer not to left or right, and you will thus set foot upon path to being perfected by Him.
Being perfected by God cannot be limited to perfection by eating and drinking God’s word. Such experiencing would be too one-sided, it would include too little, and could only restrict people to a very small scope. This being so, people would lack much of the spiritual nourishment they require. If you wish to be perfected by God, you must learn how to experience in all matters, and be able to gain enlightenment in everything that happens to you. Whether it be good or bad, it should bring you benefit, and should not make you negative. Regardless, you should be able to consider things while standing on the side of God, and not analyze or study them from the perspective of man (this would be a deviation in your experience). If you experience thus, then your heart will be filled with the burdens of your life; you will live constantly in the light of God’s countenance, not readily deviating in your practice. Such people have a bright future ahead of them. There are so many opportunities to be perfected by God. It all rests on whether you are someone who truly loves God and whether you possess the resolve to be perfected by God, to be gained by God, and to receive His blessings and inheritance. Mere resolve is not enough; you must have much knowledge, else you will always be deviating in your practice. God is willing to perfect each and every one of you. As it stands now, although most people have already accepted the work of God for a very long time, they have limited themselves to merely basking in the grace of God, and are only willing to allow God to give them a little comfort of the flesh, yet are unwilling to receive more, and higher, revelations. This shows that the heart of man is still always on the outside. Even though the work of man, his service, and his heart of love for God have fewer impurities, as far as his inner essence and his backward thinking are concerned, man still constantly seeks the peace and enjoyment of the flesh, and cares nothing for what the conditions for and purposes of God perfecting man may be. And so, the lives of most people are still vulgar and decadent. Their lives have not changed in the slightest; they simply do not regard faith in God as a matter of importance, it is as if they just have faith for the sake of others, going through the motions and getting by any old how, adrift in a purposeless existence. Few are those who are able to seek to enter into the word of God in all things, gaining more and richer things, becoming people of greater wealth in the house of God today, and receiving more of God’s blessings. If you seek to be perfected by God in all things, and are able to receive what God has promised on earth, if you seek to be enlightened by God in all things and do not let the years slip idly by, this is the ideal path to enter actively. Only thus will you become worthy and eligible to be perfected by God. Are you truly one who seeks to be perfected by God? Are you truly one who is earnest in all things? Do you have the same spirit of love for God as Peter did? Do you have the will to love God as Jesus did? You have had faith in Jesus for many years; have you seen how Jesus loved God? Is it truly Jesus that you believe in? You believe in the practical God of today; have you seen how the practical God in the flesh loves the God in heaven? You have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ; that is because Jesus’ crucifixion for the sake of redeeming mankind and the miracles He performed are generally accepted facts. Yet the faith of man comes not from knowledge and true understanding of Jesus Christ. You believe only in the name of Jesus, but you do not believe in His Spirit, because you do not pay any heed to how Jesus loved God. Your faith in God is far too naive. Despite believing in Jesus for many years, you do not know how to love God. Does this not make you the world’s greatest fool? This is proof that for years, you have been eating the food of the Lord Jesus Christ in vain. Not only do I dislike such people, I trust that the Lord Jesus Christ—whom you venerate—would also dislike them. How can such people be perfected? Are you not crimson with embarrassment? Do you not feel ashamed? Do you still have the gall to face your Lord Jesus Christ? Do you all understand the meaning of what I have said?
Source：The Church of Almighty God
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