By Siyu, China
Hello brothers and sisters of Spiritual Q&A,
I have a question I’d like to ask. As Christians, we all want to act in accordance with God’s will and honor God as great in all things. However, in real life, when it comes to something, we have a propensity to follow our own wishes and don’t know how to practice to honor God as great. So, I hope you can fellowship about it with me.
Hello Siyu,
I’m glad to share some of our understanding and communicate about this question with you. About this aspect, we sum up four points and hope they will be helpful to you.
1. We should put the Lord first in our heart and obey God, not man.
Since we believe in and follow the Lord, we should venerate Him as great and supreme, let Him be in the first place in our heart, and follow His words in all things, instead of listening to people or being restrained by others. It is recorded in the Bible: “Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men. The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom you slew and hanged on a tree. Him has God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Savior, for to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins. And we are his witnesses of these things; and so is also the Holy Ghost, whom God has given to them that obey him” (Acts 5:29-32). From the answer of Peter and the other apostles, it can be seen that no matter how the Pharisees at that time made up rumors about and slandered the Lord Jesus, they didn’t listen to the Pharisees but instead only listened to the Lord and witnessed the gospel of the Lord. While the Jewish people of those days, who believed in God, didn’t have a place for God in their heart. Rather, they looked up to those Pharisees who possessed profound Bible knowledge and thought what those Pharisees said was all correct, so they blindly listened to and obeyed those Pharisees without discernment. In the end, by following those Pharisees, they stepped onto the path of resisting God. Therefore, today when we are faced with some matter, we cannot listen to everything pastors, elders, and preachers say, but we must discern whether their words are in accordance with the Lord’s will and are supported by God’s words. If so, we will obey them, because in doing this we are submitting to God’s will, not man; if not, we cannot obey them. This shows that we have a heart that is obedient to God and that we honor the Lord as great.
2. No matter what trouble and hardship befall us, we must not deny or betray God but do our utmost to maintain God’s work and not compromise with the forces of darkness.
Matthew 5:10-12 states: “Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.” The Lord Jesus’ words tell us that it is meaningful and is commemorated by the Lord to undergo suffering and tribulations to obtain the truth, defend God’s work, and bear witness for God. By doing so, we’ll be blessed by the Lord. So we must possess a will to suffer. No matter how great and rampant Satan’s dark influences are, we must not compromise with them but hold to the principles of the truth and sacrifice everything to defend God’s name and God’s work, making Satan flee with its head in its hands in humiliation. Just as during the agony of Job’s trial, despite losing a mountain of sheep and cattle, his property and his sons and daughters, he didn’t sin with his lips or offend God but continued to praise the name of Jehovah. When his wife acted as Satan to force him and ask him to abandon God and die, he didn’t betray God but reprimanded his wife for being an ignorant and stubborn woman. In such pain and suffering, he overcame Satan’s temptations and bore strong and resounding testimonies. He was the one that feared God and shunned evil, and also the one that honored God as great. The disciples of the Lord Jesus are another example. Faced with the Pharisees’ coercion and the Roman authorities’ persecution, they still spread the Lord Jesus’ name and would rather sacrifice their lives than deny the Lord. Likewise, we’ll encounter the obstruction and coercion of our unbelieving families and the persecution of satanic regimes. When this happens, we also should rely on God’s words to stand firm in our position and not yield to or compromise with satanic forces but stand firm in our testimony for God. As God’s words say: “You must have My courage within you and you must have principles when facing relatives who do not believe. But for My sake, you must also not yield to any of the dark forces. Rely on My wisdom to walk the perfect way; do not allow the conspiracies of Satan to take hold. Put all your efforts into placing your heart before Me.” Only this is being a person that has a place for God in his heart and is a mark of honoring God as great.
3. For us believers in the Lord, satisfying and being loyal to God are our first priority.
Matthew 6:24 states: “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.” We can see from the scripture that the Lord’s demand of us is that we believers serve Him with a single-minded heart and shouldn’t consider or plan for our own future but sacrifice and spend only in order to satisfy Him and be considerate to His will. However, as we believe in and serve the Lord, some of us think about how to earn more money and how to enjoy a better life. So, even though we spend for the Lord, our heart cannot be loyal to Him but is always possessed by money. At this time, we should understand the Lord’s words: “Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much better than they? … Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knows that you have need of all these things. But seek you first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added to you” (Matthew 6:26, 31-33). Actually, we are lacking in nothing, because what the Lord has bestowed upon us is enough for us to enjoy. From these words of the Lord, we can know the Lord wills us not only to be content with food and clothes, but moreover to focus on pursuing the truth, spread the gospel and witness God, and carry out God’s will. It’s like Peter: After accepting the Lord’s commission, he shepherded the Lord’s sheep with all his heart and soul, and he never considered his own future but merely focused on practicing the Lord’s words and shepherding the church according to the Lord’s will. In the end, because of his loyalty to the Lord, he was saved, perfected and made into a firstfruit by the Lord. On the contrary, those who pay attention to making money will never gain the truth and life even if they follow the Lord Jesus. Their heart is always possessed by money and they always worry if they spend for the Lord they will suffer from hardship and poverty, with the result that even if they believe in the Lord they cannot be faithful to the Lord or honor Him as great, but rather are loyal to money and consider money very important. At last, they will not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Just as the Lord Jesus said: “And again I say to you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God” (Matthew 19:24). From this we can see since we believe in God, we should be loyal to God instead of considering or planning for our future and that it is a mark of magnifying God.
4. We should have a God-fearing heart in all things, and humbly seek and not arbitrarily judge or make conclusions on the matters that we cannot understand.
Now it is already the last days. The Lord prophesied that He would come back. So when it comes to the Lord’s arrival, we must have a God-fearing heart and not arbitrarily judge or make conclusions. As we all know, in the Age of Grace, the Jewish believers and the Pharisees serving Jehovah God in the temple all year around longed and waited for the arrival of Messiah. However, because they didn’t have a God-fearing heart at all, when the Lord Jesus came to express words and do the work of redeeming mankind, they made improper judgments and condemned so that they offended God’s disposition and were subjected to punishment. The failure of the Jewish faith teaches us a lesson. With regard to waiting for the Lord’s arrival, we cannot follow in their footsteps. When we hear the news about the Lord’s return, if we don’t see through it, we should have an attitude of seeking, have a God-fearing heart, and not arbitrarily judge or make conclusions. Only thus can we be sure to welcome the Lord’s coming and not lose God’s salvation in the last days. Because the Lord Jesus said: “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you: For every one that asks receives; and he that seeks finds; and to him that knocks it shall be opened” (Matthew 7:7-8).
We practice and enter according to the four aspects above, obeying God, being loyal to Him and fearing Him in all things, and that way we will have direction of actions, gain God’s approval, and honor Him as great.
Sincerely yours,
Spiritual Q&A
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