Since the beginning of His work in the entire universe, God has predestined many people to serve Him, including people from every walk of life. His purpose is to fulfill His own will and to ensure that His work on earth is brought to fruition. This is God’s purpose in choosing people to serve Him. Every person who serves God must understand this will of God. Through this work of His, people are better able to see God’s wisdom and God’s almightiness, and to see the principles of His work on earth. God practically comes to earth to do His work and contact people so that they will know His deeds more clearly. Today, it is the privilege of you group of people to serve the practical God. This is a great blessing for you. God is truly raising you up. When God selects a person to serve Him, He always has His own principles. Serving God is not merely a matter of enthusiasm, as people imagine. Today a person can serve God in His presence, as you can see, because they are guided by God and have the work of the Holy Spirit; and because they are seekers after the truth. These are the minimum requirements for a servant of God.
Serving God is no simple task. Those whose corrupt disposition is not changed can never serve God. If your disposition has not been judged and chastised by God’s word, then your disposition still represents Satan. This is sufficient to prove that your service of God is out of your own good intention. It is service based on your satanic nature. You serve God with your natural character, and according to your personal preferences; what’s more, you keep thinking that God loves whatever you like, and that God hates whatever you do not like, and your work is guided entirely by your own preferences. Can this be called serving God? Ultimately your life disposition will not be changed one iota. In fact, you will become more stubborn because you have been serving God, and it will make your corrupt disposition deeply ingrained. Inside yourself, you will develop doctrines of service to God based on nothing more than your own character, and the experience derived from your serving according to your own disposition. This is human experience and lessons. It is man’s philosophy of life. People like this are among the Pharisees and the religious officials. If they never wake up and repent, then they will ultimately turn into the false Christs who will appear in the last days. They will be deceivers. The false Christs and deceivers that were spoken of shall come from this type of people. If those who serve God follow their character and act according to their own will, then they are in constant danger of being cast out. Those who apply their many years of experience to serving God to ensnare the hearts of people, lecture and control people, elevate themselves—and who never repent, never confess, never renounce the benefits of position—these people will fall down before God. They are people of the same type as Paul, conceited with and showing off their seniority. God will not perfect people like this. This kind of service interferes with the work of God. People love to cling to the old. They cling to the notions of the past, cling to things from the past. This is a great obstacle to their service. If you cannot throw them off, those things will throttle your whole life. God will not commend you, not in the slightest, not even if you run your legs off or break your back laboring, nor even if you are martyred in your service of God. Quite the contrary: He will say that you are an evil-doer.
As of today, God will formally perfect those who have no religious notions, who are ready to set aside their old selves, and who simply obey God, and perfect those who long for the word of God. These people should stand up and serve God. In God there is endless abundance and fathomless wisdom. His amazing work and precious words are there for more people to enjoy. As it stands, these new things cannot be accepted by those with religious notions, those who assume seniority, and those who will not put their old selves aside. The Holy Spirit has no chance to perfect those people. If a person does not have the will to obey, and does not thirst for the word of God, then they will be unable to receive the new things. They will just become more and more rebellious, more and more crafty, and end up on the wrong track. In God’s work now, He will raise up more people who truly love Him and who can accept the new light. And He will completely cut down the religious officials who flaunt their seniority. He does not want a single person who resists change. Do you want to be one of those people? Do you perform your service according to your own preferences, or do you do what God wants? This is something you must know for yourself. Are you one of the religious officials, or are you a newborn babe being made perfect by God? How much of your service is commended by the Holy Spirit? How much of it will God not even remember? After many years of service, how much difference have you made in your life? Are you clear about all these? If you have true faith, then you will cast aside your old religious notions, and serve God better in a new way. If you step up now, it is not too late. Old religious notions will strangle a person’s life. The experience a person acquires will lead them away from God, to do things in their own way. If you do not give these things up, they will become a stumbling block to your growth in life. God has always perfected those who serve Him. He does not cast them out lightly. There is a future for you if you truly accept the judgment and chastisement of God’s word, if you can put aside your old religious practices and doctrines, and avoid using old religious notions as the measure of God’s word today. But if you cling to old things, if you still treasure them, then you cannot be saved. God will take no notice of people like that. If you really want to be made perfect, then you must resolve to completely abandon everything from before. Even if what was done before was right, even if it was God’s work, you shall put it aside; you must not cling to it. Even if it was clearly the work of the Holy Spirit, done directly by the Holy Spirit, today you must put it aside. You must not hold onto it. This is what God demands. Everything must be renewed. In God’s work and God’s word, He makes no reference to the old things that went before, and He does not dig into old history. God is always new and never old. He does not cling even to His own words from the past. This shows that God does not follow any doctrine. If you always cling tightly to the things of the past and rigidly apply them as formulas while God is no longer working in the ways He did before, then are your words and actions as a human not disruption? Have you not become an enemy of God? Are you willing to waste your entire life over these old things? These old things make you into a person who obstructs God’s work. Is that the kind of person you want to be? If you truly do not want that, then quickly stop what you are doing and turn around; start all over again. God does not remember past service.
from The Word Appears in the Flesh
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