2:41 AM A Movie Line Helps Me Learn to Seek Humbly |
|
By Mu Yi
“God’s profuse love is gratuitously bestowed upon man, surrounds man; man is naive and innocent, unencumbered and carefree, blissfully living under God’s eye. … If you are a person with a conscience, with humanity, then you would feel differently. You would feel warmth, you would feel cared for and loved, and you would feel happiness” (“How Important God’s Love for Man Is”). Every time when I hear this hymn of God’s words, I’m always touched by it. I once strayed from God and resisted God. I, just like a lost lamb, couldn’t find the way home. It is God’s great love that has brought me back to His family. I would like to share my experience of returning to God’s family with brothers and sisters in the Lord and friends who have yet to return to God.
Because my parents always quarreled when I was young, I lived in fear every day. I felt that my life had no meaning, but I feared death, not knowing why we exist or why we die; yet somehow I felt that there is a pair of hands supporting me to live on.
After I graduated from high school, my mother believed in the Lord Jesus driven by our neighbor and I also went to the church with her. Since then, I have known that God is the Lord of all creations, and it is Him who redeemed mankind from sin. He personally became flesh and was nailed to the cross as a sin offering. The Lord’s love for man is truly great. Galvanized by the Lord’s love, I determined to be a good believer in the Lord Jesus to repay His love. From that day onward, I had a direction and goal in life. Afterward, I often attended meetings, read the Bible and praised the Lord. Gradually, I felt happy within my heart. In particular, when I read verses in the Bible which told the Lord will descend on a cloud in the last days to bring us into the kingdom of heaven, my heart was full of expectations. Furthermore, the pastors also often explained the scripture in meetings, “Which also said, You men of Galilee, why stand you gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as you have seen him go into heaven” (Acts 1:11). This made me believe even more firmly that the Lord Jesus would descend on a cloud and bring us back to the home in heaven.
In 2005, I got a Korean boyfriend and I followed him to Korea. I couldn’t find a Chinese church there due to the language barrier. Gradually, I became weak in my spirit and unwittingly strayed from God. After marriage, because of the huge difference between the Chinese and Korean culture, we couldn’t live together peacefully and we divorced not long after. The divorce was a heavy blow to my soul and I suffered greatly in my heart. Moreover, I had no relatives and friends in this foreign country, which made me feel more lonely. The only thing I could do was to pray to God silently. I told God all my sufferings and asked Him to guide me to find a Chinese church.
A year later, I found a Chinese department of a Presbyterian Church. At that time, I was very happy because I could finally worship God in the church again. However, to my disappointment, the pastors there only read to us Bible verses and explained the literal meanings during meetings, without any light. We couldn’t obtain the provision of life and having meetings were just completely going through motions. During meetings, some people were whispering to each other, some were playing mobile games, some were sleeping, some were looking for a partner and some were even hooking arms. I thought, “The church is a place for worshiping God, and it is holy, but we are here having meetings without a heart that reveres God. God definitely detests this. Will the Lord abandon this filthy place?” However, the pastors and preachers acted as if they were blind and ignored them.
I lived in this morass of evil, so gradually I became debauched. I often went out to drink with my friends during free time. I was totally behaving like a non-believer. However, every time when my heart strayed from God, the Lord Jesus’ words would show up in my head, “When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walks through dry places, seeking rest, and finds none. Then he said, I will return into my house from where I came out; and when he is come, he finds it empty, swept, and garnished. Then goes he, and takes with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first” (Matthew 12:43-45). The Lord’s words gave me restraints and protections. I dare not go too far from the Lord and do things excessively because I was afraid that I would be detested and abandoned by the Lord if I aggravated Him, and then I would end up in the hands of the unclean spirits.
On the Christmas of 2016, in order to lighten the atmosphere, the church asked some talented brothers and sisters to perform. A sister whom I had never met before sang a hymn for all of us, “The scene painted in the Bible ‘God’s command to Adam’ is both touching and heartwarming. Although the picture contains only God and man, the relationship between the two is so intimate we start to feel wonder, wonder and admiration. God’s love overflowing is freely given to man, God’s love is around him. Man, innocent and pure, without a care to tie him down, lives in bliss in the eyes of God. God takes care of man, and man lives under His wings. All that man does, all his words and deeds, are bound up with God, can’t be apart. From the first moment God created the human race, God had them in His charge. What kind of charge is that? It’s for Him to protect man and to watch over man. He hopes for man to trust in, to trust in and obey His words. This was the first thing God expected of the human race. … Is there love in His heart? Isn’t there care and concern? God’s love and care is something that can be both felt and sensed. If you are a person of conscience and with humanity, you will feel warm, being cared for and loved, you will feel blessed with happiness. When you feel these things, how will you act towards God? Will you cleave to Him? Will reverential love, will reverential love not grow in your heart? Will your heart draw close to Him? From this we see, how important God’s love for man is. But even more important than this is that man can feel and comprehend God’s love” (“How Important God’s Love for Man Is”).
While I was listening to every word and phrase in this hymn, my heart was beating faster and faster and I was so touched that I burst into tears. I felt like I was in this beautiful picture, accompanied by God, loved by God, and enjoyed all things God has given, such as air, sunlight, water. All of them contain God’s love. I was enjoying everything God has given, but my heart was straying from God. God must be very upset. I felt that God was calling to my heart and soul, especially when I heard the phrase, “If you are a person of conscience and with humanity, you will feel warm, being cared for and loved, you will feel blessed with happiness.” Look back to the year of 2007 when I didn’t want to live with my husband anymore: When I had no place to go, it was God that prepared for me a place in Female Protection Center for Foreigners, where they provided me with food and shelter, found a lawyer to help me with my divorce, all were for free; when I needed a guarantor for applying citizenship, God again prepared a Head of Department of the Presbyterian church to be my guarantor (Normally, Koreans would never be someone’s guarantor that easily, especially when I was a foreigner, not to mention that I only went to that church three or four times. I knew it was God who helped me secretly); applying the citizenship needs 30 million KRW (Korea Won) of real estate, but I didn’t even have 3 million KRW, and however the people at the customs just asked me to show them my incumbency certificate to prove that I had a job to support myself and did not hassle me at all; … God is always showing me miracles when I needed help the most. They are all under God’s sovereignty. God’s love is truly broad and profound, but I was being so rebellious that I had forgotten about God and hurt God’s heart. This hymn touched my soul. I resolved to regain the faith that I had in the beginning and not to degenerate and hurt God’s heart again.
On February 19, 2017, my head and eyes were hurting so badly and they couldn’t be cured by the doctors in the hospital. Then sister Li from my church introduced to me her friend, a Chinese physician, and said that I could be cured in just a week of treatment. So I went to see her friend. On that day, we also met brother Jin, the Chinese physician’s friend. It was surprising to meet a brother in the Lord here, I thought it must be God’s arrangement, so we started talking about the Bible. Brother Jin read to us a passage from the Bible about the Parable of the Ten Virgins. Then he asked me, “Sister, are you hoping for the return of the Lord Jesus?” I replied, “Of course!” He asked again, “Then did you know how the Lord comes?” I replied without hesitation, “The Bible says that He will come with clouds.” Brother Jin said, “Did you know that the Lord Jesus has returned?” I was surprised and said, “Mark 13:32 records, ‘But of that day and that hour knows no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.’ No one knows the day of the Lord Jesus’ return, how did you know?” Brother Jin did not tell me the answer right away, instead he picked out some prophecies in the Bible about the return of the Lord Jesus, “Be you therefore ready also: for the Son of man comes at an hour when you think not” (Luke 12:40). “For as the lightning, that lightens out of the one part under heaven, shines to the other part under heaven; so shall also the Son of man be in his day. But first must he suffer many things, and be rejected of this generation. And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man” (Luke 17: 24-26). “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me” (Revelation 3:20). “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me” (John 10:27).
After reading these Bible verses, Brother Jin said, “The Lord told us to watch and wait because no one knows the day of His return. However, according to the prophecies, the Lord will return in the image of the Son of man. When we say ‘the Son of man,’ it means God becoming human, in other words God becoming flesh. Although we do not know the exact time when God comes, we can recognize Him through His voice because God’s sheep will hear His voice and follow Him.” At that time, I thought of what the pastors said in the past, “Whoever witnessed about the Lord Jesus returning in flesh was a fraud.” I didn’t want to listen to whatever brother Jin was saying anymore, so I sent a text message to the pastor, “Someone told me that the Lord has returned to flesh. Which church are they from?” The pastor replied, “They are from the Eastern Lightning.” He asked me to leave them quickly. He also told me not to have any contact with them anymore or read any of their books, and then he sent me some articles on guarding against heresies. I thought what the pastor had said was right, so I decided to stop listening to their fellowships and ignore them.
However, who would have known that on February 20, brother Jin and his younger sister came to the place where I received treatment again and told me a lot of things about the work of the Lord Jesus’ second coming. Because I had just received the news of my mother’s death that morning coupled with my doubts about what they were saying, I couldn’t listen to what they had said at all. They continued in that way for three days and brother Jin seemed to be very determined to spread the gospel to me. I was very annoyed, so I tried to chase him away and said, “Stop! If you still continue and not leave, then I will leave!” Brother Jin realized that I really didn’t want to listen to him anymore, so he left. I thought he would not come back again. However, much to my surprise, he came back the next day and brought along brother Cheng to continue spreading the gospel to me. I thought, “Is there an end to this? I can’t stand it!” For the sake of my face, I didn’t chase them away and only had very little conversation with them. Although I expressed an attitude of indifference, brother Cheng was still talking to me very patiently. He said, “The Lord has become flesh and come among people to do the work of judgement and chastisement.” He then read to me a passage of God’s words, “It is My hope that the brothers and sisters who seek the appearance of God will not repeat the tragedy of history. You must not become the Pharisees of modern times and nail God to the cross again. You should carefully consider how to welcome the return of God, and should have a clear mind of how to be someone who submits to the truth. This is the responsibility of everyone who is waiting for Jesus to return with the clouds. We should rub our spiritual eyes, and not fall prey to the words full of flights of fancy. We should think about the practical work of God, and should take a look at the real side of God. Do not get carried away or lose yourselves in daydreams, always looking forward to the day that the Lord Jesus suddenly descends among you on a cloud to take you who have never known Him or seen Him, and do not know how to do His will. It is better to think upon practical matters!” (“the Preface”) Although I didn’t absorb much of the God’s words, I could see that brother Cheng was very patient and loving when talking to me. I thought, “All the people in my church are becoming weak, their faith also is becoming small and they no longer have love for each other. Why do the people believing in the Eastern Lightning have so much faith and love? What kind of power is supporting them to be so persistent in spreading the gospel to me? If there’s no work of the Holy Spirit, no one can do it with only human strength.”
|
|
|
| Total comments: 0 | |