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Always Seek The Profit of God Only
< Genesis 3:1-24 >
“Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast
of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman,
‘Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?’
And the woman said to the serpent, ‘We may eat the fruit of the
trees of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the
midst of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat it, nor shall
you touch it, lest you die.’’ Then the serpent said to the woman,
‘You will not surely die.’ For God knows that in the day you eat
of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing
good and evil.’ So when the woman saw that the tree was good for
food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to
make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her
husband with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both of them were
opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves
together and made themselves coverings. And they heard the sound
of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and
Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God
among the trees of the garden. Then the LORD God called to Adam
and said to him, ‘Where are you?’ So he said, ‘I heard Your voice
in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself.’
And He said, ‘Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from
the tree of which I commanded you that you should not eat?’ Then
the man said, ‘The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me
of the tree, and I ate.’ And the LORD God said to the woman, ‘What
is this you have done?’ The woman said, ‘The serpent deceived me,
and I ate.’ So the LORD God said to the serpent:
‘Because you have done this,
You are cursed more than all cattle,
And more than every beast of the field;
On your belly you shall go,
And you shall eat dust
All the days of your life.
And I will put enmity
Between you and the woman,
And between your seed and her Seed;
He shall bruise your head,
And you shall bruise His heel.’
To the woman He said:
‘I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception;
In pain you shall bring forth children;
Your desire shall be for your husband,
And he shall rule over you.’
Then to Adam He said, ‘Because you have heeded
the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree of which I
commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat of it’:
‘Cursed is the ground for your sake;
In toil you shall eat of it
All the days of your life.
Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you,
And you shall eat the herb of the field.
In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread
Till you return to the ground,
For out of it you were taken;
For dust you are,
And to dust you shall return.’
And Adam called his wife’s name Eve, because she
was the mother of all living. Also for Adam and his wife the LORD
God made tunics of skin, and clothed them. Then the LORD God said,
‘Behold, the man has become like one of Us, to know good and evil.
And now, lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life,
and eat, and live forever’—therefore the LORD God sent him
out of the garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken.
So He drove out the man; and He placed cherubim at the east of the
garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard
the way to the tree of life.”
The Bible says that Satan is cunning and wily. When
people fall into Satan’s cunning deception, they come to commit
acts of hypocrisy. The very fact that Adam made garments of fig
leaves and put them on is one such instance. The more one acts as
a hypocrite, the farther he drifts away from God, for he would be
relying on his own strength and trying to establish his own righteousness,
rather than seeking God’s grace in his life and placing his faith
in God’s righteousness.
Chapter three of Genesis describes how Adam and Eve
fell deceived by Satan, and how they were cursed by God as a result.
The serpent said to Eve, “Has God indeed said,
‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?” The cunning
serpent used the word “indeed” here, and because of this word, Eve
was ensnared by Satan’s devious trap. Satan deliberately phrased
his question like this to distort God’s Word and raise doubts in
Eve’s mind, thus ensuring that she would respond and luring her
into his trap.
But where did God ever say that Adam and Eve were
not to eat of every tree? What God actually said was this: “Of
every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of
the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day
that you eat of it you shall surely die” (Genesis 2:16-17).
Satan no doubt knew all about this, and yet he came to Eve and asked
her if God indeed told her not to eat of every tree of the garden.
This can only mean that Satan had an ulterior, malicious motive
in his mind.
If someone says something completely ridiculous and
implausible, no one would listen to him. But if he couches his words
to appear somewhat plausible, people would at least be willing to
listen to him. In this age also, the cunning Devil is using the
same deception to lead mankind to misbelieve in Jesus and fall into
destruction. If Satan were to outright prevent people from believing
in Jesus, this would backfire. So, at first the Devil leaves them
alone to believe in Jesus, but he makes sure that they are deceived
into believing according to false teachings, so that they would
not be saved from their sins despite believing in Jesus. Now as
back in the days of Adam and Eve, Satan is extremely cunning.
Satan is so cunning and wily that he came armed with
deceptive words determined to undercut man’s faith.
So the Devil said, “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall
not eat of every tree of the garden’?” Eve then said to him,
“We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the
fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said,
‘You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.’”
Because of this, Eve was not only deceived by Satan,
but she was fatally wounded also. In other words, her faith was
shaken by the wily Devil. She had kept in her mind what God had
said to her until then, but her faith was now all shaken by Satan’s
single blow. So when someone is once ensnared by the Devil’s cunning
trap, his faith gets corrupted like this.
We must therefore know how to discern spiritual work
from carnal work. If God’s workers cannot discern the work of the
Spirit from that of the flesh, they will inevitably make countless
blunders. Unless a minister knows what is spiritual work and what
is carnal work, he will fall into the wily deception of Satan. As
such, we must clearly discern what is spiritual from what is carnal.
Can anyone, then, discern the spiritual from the carnal
all by himself? No. That is why there must be leaders in God’s Church,
and every worker and saint must be led by these servants of God.
When God appoints His servants, He gives them spiritual discernment.
By ensuring that His servants are able to see how Satan is now trying
to deceive the saints in what areas, God enables them to lead the
saints correctly. God has established His Church and appointed His
servants to work in it, so that the saints would be led appropriately
so as not to be deceived by Satan’s cunning tricks.
As we can see in today’s Scripture passage, the Devil
did not say something that was 100% wrong. About 5% of what he said
were fallacious, and the remaining 95% were valid. He did not mention
the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that was in the middle
of the garden, but instead, he added “indeed” to his words and asked,
“Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?”
The Devil added the word “indeed” here, but the rest
of his question was couched almost identically to what God had said.
Then Eve answered him by saying, “No. We may eat the fruit of
the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in
the midst of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat it, nor
shall you touch it, lest you die.’” So, as we can see here,
it was under the serpent’s influence that Eve came to utter faithless
words.
People are also influenced by their company. When
they are with someone spiritual, their minds are also bound to become
spiritual, but when they are with carnal people, their minds are
bound to become carnal as well. And when someone is with the Devil,
he is bound to come under the Devil’s cunning influence without
even realizing, no matter hard he might try not to be influenced
by Satan. Like this, Eve was now under the influence of Satan here.
That is why instead of believing in God’s Word exactly as He said—that
she would “surely die” if she ate the forbidden fruit—Eve
said that God told her not to eat the fruit, “Lest you die.”
Even after being born again, if we still continue
to maintain our relationship with the religionists whom we knew
before, then we are prone to be influenced by them. Although what
these people say is nonsense, if we keep seeing them, it’s inevitable
that we would be drawn to them. Indeed, if we continue to get together
with those who have nothing to do with the Word of God, listen to
their sermons, participate in their gatherings, and pray with them,
then we will gradually get attracted to their falsehood.
Since their falsehood at first appears very similar
to the Truth, we get accustomed to it gradually without much aversion.
So in the end, we come to lose our faith completely—none other
than this is Satan’s cunning and wily work. That is why the Lord
said, “Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and
the Sadducees” (Matthew 16:6). If the righteous keep listening
to the worldly people, their faith is bound to collapse. Eve’s faith
was also undermined because she listened to the serpent. As a result,
she said, “God has said, ‘You shall not eat it, nor shall you
touch it, lest you die.’”
It is clearly written in the Bible that Jesus took
away all the sins of the world by being baptized by John. Yet there
are many Christians who confess, “Although I believe in Jesus as
my Savior, there still is sin in my heart.” This is just another
way of saying, “All my sins were not actually taken away by Jesus,”
meaning, in essence, “He is not my Savior.” We see so many people
whose faith is corrupted like this.
Every house must have a fence and a door. The inside
of the house must be clearly distinguished from the outside. If
people’s faith in the gospel of the water and the Spirit has changed,
it is because they did not put up a fence of faith. Such people
keep going to false prophets, lurking around to see if there is
something they can gain there, they continue to expose themselves
to falsehood, and they eventually end up becoming faithless people.
We must have the eye that can see the whole picture.
Even our spiritual enemies have some elements right. If we look
at only certain aspects, we would indeed find out that, on some
accounts, our spiritual enemies are not entirely wrong. But if we
were to forget about their whole fallacies because of this tiny
merit, then we will become just like them on the whole. As I have
said time after time, we must clearly mark the border of the Truth
between these enemies and us. That’s because only then does our
faith stand upright and can we defend this faith in our lives.
God’s Church is the gathering of the people of God
who believe in His Word. There is no spiritual leaven there. If
any leaven has come in, then it is God’s Church that removes all
this leaven. Mankind’s own ways of thinking and its value systems
are leavens, and God’s Church removes these leavens with the Word
of God.
If this world did not have God’s Church, people would
be living in a world filled with only leaven. Where there is the
leaven of mankind, there never arises any gospel work of the water
and the Spirit. Books written by those who have not been born again
are no more than a pile of leaven, and if anyone continues to tolerate
such things, his soul will die in the end. God told us, “Do not
eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that is in the
middle of the garden. If you do, you will die for sure.” But if
we don’t believe this, then we will fall into Satan’s cunning deception
and end up losing whatever little faith that we might have had.
Satan challenges us endlessly enticing us become hypocrites.
His challenge is extremely cunning. This is how the Devil approaches
us so cunningly: He approaches us as someone who understands and
sympathizes with our carnal needs, or as someone who incites us
to demand God’s servants to compromise and accommodate our carnal
desires.
In Christ, we do understand those who are struggling
with their carnal desires. But even so, what must be made clear
is that the Church should not tolerate the intentions of the carnal
people. Since we, too, have the flesh, sometimes we find ourselves
seeking our own carnal desires, but this is not the right faith.
If we ourselves follow our carnal minds and the Church also allows
all our fleshly desires, then we will be left with only a handful
of Christian doctrines and human relationship, true faith will be
corrupted, and, consequently, we will come to espouse that the gospel
is found elsewhere in every church as well.
If the Church places too much emphasis on carnal affairs,
it’s a foregone conclusion that the Church would not be able to
lead souls properly. For instance, let’s assume here that a certain
family is so poor that we need to provide financial help. Of course,
if financial help would benefit these souls, then it’s more than
possible for us to provide this help. However, there is a pitfall
here, in that someone who gets financial benefits from the Church
is quite likely to want only material benefits, and when such benefits
are not provided to his satisfaction later on, he is likely to leave
the Church. I have seen this far too many times.
1 John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins, He is
faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from
all unrighteousness.” What is the difference between worldly
Christianity and God’s Church that believes in the gospel of the
water and the Spirit? Worldly Christians also say that they have
no sin, as Jesus took away all their sins. However, they also say
that the remission of sin is received every time they confess their
daily sins and give prayers of repentance day after day.
In contrast, we believe that even if we do not confess,
Jesus already took away all the sins of the world. God convicts
our hearts to teach us what we have done wrong. It is for this reason
that we admit our wrongdoings and confess our sins, not because
there is sin in our hearts and we seek to be remitted from our sins
by doing so.
In reality, Adam was Eve’s leader. Wherever there
are two or more people, God invariably raises a leader. When two
of our workers along with their families went to Yanbian, China,
to preach the gospel there, the Church appointed Evangelist Chang
as their leader. The Church told Evangelist Chang to lead and Evangelist
Park to ask him in all things and never decide or act by himself.
By doing so, they had served the gospel there well. Like this, there
must be clear leaders in God’s Church.
Just because you and I are serving the gospel, this
does not mean that we would all become people of faith. When the
dross of our flesh comes up continuously, we must remove it and
follow the Lord. We do not become leaders just by receiving the
remission of our sins and being zealous. God’s servants must be
able to clearly discern what is spiritual from what is carnal, know
what Satan’s wiles are, and deal with them wisely. Only then can
God’s Church lead the saints properly.
And church leaders must prevent Satan from disturbing
God’s Church. Everyone thinks that all his thoughts are right and
spiritually sound. So in the absence of a leader, there is no way
for us to discern whether the many thoughts that come to our minds
are spiritual or carnal. Only when we have someone who guides us
can we defend our own faith, lead other souls properly, and not
be deceived by Satan’s wiles.
Satan is extremely cunning. The Devil is so cunning
that even God’s servants may be deceived. In order to ensure that
you are not deceived by Satan, you must stand spiritually upright.
In other words, you must stand firm on the Word. Our minds have
both carnal thoughts and spiritual thoughts, but it is on the spiritual
thoughts that we must stand by faith.
That is why those who are spiritual do not assert
their own rightfulness of the flesh. They do not trust in their
own flesh, as the Apostle Paul said, “For we are the circumcision,
who worship God in the Spirit, rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have
no confidence in the flesh” (Philippians 3:3). While working
to serve God, spiritual people never insist on their own carnal
thoughts. They deny themselves and follow the Lord. That’s because
they know that they are mere flesh and only the Lord is Spirit,
and that is why they come to deny themselves and follow the Lord.
In the Church, following God’s Word and the guidance of the Church
does not come by for nothing, but it is made possible only if we
deny ourselves.
The Bible says, “A mist went up from the earth
and watered the whole face of the ground” (Genesis 2:6). This
means that the thoughts from our minds are always evil and seek
our carnal desires only, and that such a carnal mind is of no profit
to our spiritual lives. How, then, can we deny ourselves? We can
deny ourselves only when we believe that our thoughts are always
wrong, and what God’s Church does is always right. The saints must
realize that they are of the flesh and the Lord is Spirit, and they
must know and believe that God has raised His servants in His Church,
that He has given them spiritual minds and faith, and that this
is how God leads His Church. It is then that the saints can deny
themselves and be led by the Church.
If God’s Church were so full of carnal love that it
would blindly tolerate just about everyone and gloss over even problematic
members, people would love this. When viewed in carnal terms, it
may seem as though the Church would prosper and more saints and
a greater revival would arise if we were to minister like this,
but when viewed spiritually, this would only kill the soul. If God’s
servants were to tolerate all the carnal desires of the saints,
they may like this at that time, but their souls would not be able
to grow and be transformed spiritually.
When a saint’s carnal wickedness is revealed and a
church leader rebukes him sharply, he may think, “This guy must
be a cold-hearted leader; he is so uncaring,” but once this moment
passes by, the Lord will awaken him. The Lord will teach him properly,
saying, “He had to do so to train you. And your thoughts were not
right.”
Our Lord has the Truth and love. His love is not the
kind of love that blindly tolerates everything. There is justice
to the Lord. In other words, there is both justice and love to our
Lord. When the saints need our help, we must help them even if they
do not want our help.
No matter how someone might be nice and generous to
you in the flesh, and how he might be so agreeable to you in the
flesh, this carnal relationship cannot last long. It will fall apart
in no time, for it is like a house built on sand. We must discern
what is spiritual. While we may not be able to live spiritually
for 100% of the time, in our hearts, we must discern what is spiritual
and what is carnal, and we must live by the Holy Spirit. God will
then work in our lives, the Truth will keep us, and our spiritual
faith will protect us. That is how the Church is born.
As a matter of fact, God’s Church cannot be established
by just anyone. Just because we have received the remission of our
sins by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, this
does not mean that any of us can establish God’s Church if only
we would preach this gospel. First of all, a servant of God is needed
to establish His Church. God’s servants must have the ability to
foresee what might happen to the saints in the future, and they
must know how to discern the spiritual from the carnal and to lead
souls properly. Only then can a Church of God be established and
do its ministries. Only then are the servants of Satan driven out
from the Church even as they sneaked in, and God Himself fulfills
goodness in the Church. However, if we try to serve the gospel and
lead the Church even as we can’t discern the spiritual from the
carnal, we will only end up serving the Devil.
My fellow believers, what would happen if we were
so faithless to say, “Lest you die,” instead of “you shall surely
die”? It would be all over for us. What would be the result of preaching
the gospel to people then? After listening to all the gospel Truth,
they might say, “Jesus took away all my sins. Hallelujah! But since
I still commit sin everyday, I have to be remitted from my personal
sins by giving prayers of repentance. That is biblically sound.
Look here. Look at 1 John 1:9. Doesn’t it say that I should give
prayers of confession?” This is the very claim of those whose faith
is bankrupt.
I’ve mentioned prayers of confession in my previous
discussion. It’s because our conscience is troubled on our side
that we confess, not because God wants to accept our confession
on His side. Because God has already blotted out all our sins with
the gospel of the water and the Spirit, when looked by faith, all
our sins have already disappeared. It is to free ourselves from
evil that we confess, not because we have sin. Do you understand
what I mean here?
If, however, we were to say out of our faithlessness,
“The remission of sin is received by confessing,” then from then
on, we would be standing against God and building the kingdom of
the Devil. Even as we toil away and suffer, the more we preach the
gospel without having proper faith, the more people will actually
end up joining the Devil’s army. Even though this would not be our
intention, it would be the result. In fact, it would be better for
such people not to lead their lives of faith.
However, there are those among such people who really
want to lead an earnest life. They try so hard that they would never
spend money for themselves but only for others. But when looked
at spiritually, they would actually be more beneficial to God by
doing nothing at all. Such people do such things precisely because
they cannot discern the spiritual from the fleshly. In other words,
it’s because they fell into the wily tricks of Satan that this happened.
As we carry on with our lives of faith, we experience
for ourselves how all kinds of filthy thoughts arise in us from
time to time. It is when we fall into our carnal thoughts instead
of following the Spirit that filthy and selfish thoughts arise.
So it is wise to be led from the beginning and follow the Word of
God. Just as the people of Israel all followed the Ark of the Covenant,
so must we follow God’s Word.
We must become such workers who know what is spiritual,
and who really follow the Spirit by faith. We must discern what
is spiritual. For instance, the trainees of our Mission School are
not mainly taught how to preach the Word of God. Rather, they are
trained to follow the will of God by learning how to discern the
desires of the Holy Spirit from the desires of the flesh. Put differently,
they are disciplined to deny themselves in order to serve the gospel
of the water and the Spirit more faithfully. Their purpose of coming
to the Mission School is to realize what kind of life is the right
life to live. If they realize this and indeed practice it by faith
in their lives, then there will be nothing more to learn.
You must listen to the Word of God, grow in faith,
follow your predecessors of faith, obey them, and unite with them.
Let me tell you a small story here. Long ago, there were a kingdom
filled with smart people and another kingdom filled with fools,
and these two kingdoms happened to get into war. Everyone in the
smart kingdom was full of wisdom, from its king to the minister
of defense all the way down to the rank and file. On the other hand,
everyone in the dimwitted kingdom was stupid, from its king to the
minister of defense and all its soldiers. War broke out between
these two completely opposite kingdoms.
The commanding officer of the smart kingdom shouted
out, “Charge!” But its soldiers all thoughts, “If I charge ahead
like this, I’ll be the first to die. I should hide myself in a hole
first, and when the enemy is all tired out, I will go out into the
battlefield and distinguish myself greatly.” So they all dug themselves
into the ground and hid. In contrast, when the commanding officer
of the dumb kingdom shouted out, “Charge!” its soldiers continued
to charge ahead. So one by one, they proceeded to stab to death
the smart kingdom’s soldiers who had dug themselves into holes.
Who won the war? The kingdom of fools won the war.
Likewise, we can follow the rule of God’s Church only
if we become dumb. In fact, you are all dimwitted. The people of
the world say that they just can’t understand us, since we seem
so stupid in their carnal eyes. And they say that no one believes
like we do, even if God’s Word says so. So when viewed by the standard
of the world, we are fools. We are idiots. Worldly Christians call
us fools and treat us as idiots, since they can compromise with
the world so easily and are so flexible in their dealings, but we
follow only the Word of God and preach only the gospel of the water
and the Spirit exclusively.
When viewed by the standard of mankind, we would indeed
think that it is stupid to follow God’s Church. In fact, it we follow
the Lord properly, then it is only a matter of course that we should
be treated like this. As the Lord said, “Woe to you when all
men speak well of you, For so did their fathers to the false prophets”
(Luke 6:26).
Sometimes, God’s Church also seems to have little
compassion over the saints. There is hardly any private life, and
when we reveal our own thoughts, we only get rebuked in return.
However, it is because our thoughts are not right before God that
the Church rebukes us to correct our flaws; if we spoke our opinions
by really believing in the Word, the Church would then approve these
as right.
To follow God’s Church is to follow the Lord. Only
when we are spiritual can we follow God’s Church, and only when
we know and follow God’s will through His Church can we follow the
Lord. My fellow believers, do you want to follow the will of God?
Do you desire to follow God’s will no matter what happens to you?
If you have such a desire, then you can follow the Lord.
As carry on with our work, there are times when the
results are not so good, but if our hearts yearn to follow the Lord,
He will fulfill everything. If it is the Lord’s will for us to lay
bricks, then we must lay them, and if it is the Lord’s will to bring
down the wall again, then we must bring it down with a joyful heart.
If we want to obey the will of the Lord, we can do everything and
anything. Only someone who goes wherever the Lamb leads him can
walk with the Lord (Revelation 14:4).
There is definite order in the Kingdom of the Lord.
Though unseen in the eye, there are order and wisdom in God’s Church.
Though unseen, there are authority and true faith in it. When we
see how a certain task is carried out, sometimes it looks so clumsy
to us that we think, “What kind of work is done without any discussion
and any plan?”
But down the road, we eventually see for ourselves
and agree, “Oh, so the leader started the work under such a plan.
He did this with a foresight, even though there was nothing in place.”
God’s Church does not do anything for no reason. Although it takes
due time for the results to show up, it is with a far foresight,
meticulous planning, and ceaseless prayers that the leader-servant
lays each block one by one according to the whole picture in his
mind.. This is God’s wisdom and His will.
In our lives of faith, we must learn spiritual discernment
from our leader-servant. What is the will of God? If it pleases
God, then we must subdue ourselves even if we are not happy and
our thoughts run contrary. We must die, but the Lord must live,
and we must fail, but the Lord must succeed. “Your desires and mine
must be denied, but the will of the Lord must be fulfilled.” With
this spiritual discernment, we must deny and subdue ourselves, and
we must seek after what benefits the Lord. Whatever glorifies the
Lord and benefits His Kingdom, we must do without any hesitation.
If the Lord says to us, “Now that you have received
the remission of your sins, you should separate yourselves from
the world,” then we must separate ourselves unconditionally, regardless
of whether we lose our face or not. And if the gospel of the water
and the Spirit can be spread more and further, then we should do
whatever it takes to achieve this. How could we ever please the
Lord, if we are mindful of our own pride and our own comfort? If
the Lord is pleased, we must dedicate all our hearts. This is the
mind that we should have.
The Lord said, “Seek first the kingdom of God and
His righteousness.” We must be beneficial to the Lord and God’s
Church, even if this would entail our loss. You and I must seek
the Lord’s profit foremost. It is when we have such a heart that
we can follow God faithfully. And it is then that we can experience
the living God.
Do our hearts seek our own benefit or the Lord’s benefit?
Do we follow the Lord’s will or our own will? We have to discern
this clearly, and live the kind of life that pursues the Lord’s
profit. And we must pray to the Lord to attain such a heart. With
this heart obtained by praying, we must march forth step by step.
We must be led by God every step of the way and run toward the goal.
Here in today’s Scripture passage, had Eve sought
the Lord’s benefit, she would have seen through the wiles of Satan,
but instead she was seized by her own thoughts and ended up ensnared
by Satan’s trap.
When the Devil said to her, “Did God tell you not
to eat from every tree of the garden?” his temptation would have
been over, had Eve been upright with her words. She should have
said, “No. I’ll make it clear to you. God said that I can eat from
every tree in the garden, but He told me not to eat from the tree
of the knowledge of good and evil that is in the middle of the garden.
Get it now? Don’t waste your breath on me.” But Eve did not seek
God’s profit and glory.
God has enabled human beings to eat from the tree
of life and live forever. Of course, there is a reason why God made
mankind weak. We know that God made us weak so that we would be
born again through the Lord and become His children as a result.
Now, we have already been born again. If we were now
facing the same situation as Eve did, what should we do then? We
should seek God’s benefit. It is precisely because we have been
born again that we must seek God’s interest. We should seek God’s
profit in all things. Since we became God’s children the very moment
we believed in the gospel of the water and the Spirit and were born
again, we must seek the interest of God’s Church and of the gospel.
It is then that we are able to do anything. When God tells us to
preach the Word, we can preach the Word, and when He tells us to
earn material means to serve the gospel, we can also earn them to
offer to Him.
From God’s view, those whom He can command to do anything
are those who first follow God’s profit and think of His will before
everything else. It is those who seek God’s benefit, the gospel’s
benefit, and the Church’s benefit, whom God raises as His servants
and through whom He is glorified. Do you understand what I mean
here? You must become such people who seek God’s profit first.
Our present ministry itself is not for our own denomination.
To be quite frank, it is simply ridiculous that so many Christians
would regard any Christian community other than their own denomination
as heresy. This is not seeking the Lord’s profit. Human beings are
so narrow-minded that they seek only their own benefits instead
of God’s benefit. But since we have been born again, it is God’s
interest that we must seek. That we must seek God’s benefit does
not mean that we should blindly do whatever work, but we must seek
God’s profit wisely and plan our work appropriately suitable to
time, so that the Devil may not take advantage of us, and the Kingdom
of God would rise even more forcefully.
You and I must live the kind of life that seeks God’s
benefit. It is to live such a life that we are running the Mission
School. The Mission School issues neither grade nor diploma, nor
is it accredited by the secular world. However, I am sure that the
best place that trains the workers to grow into God’s army seeking
His interest is our Mission School.
It is my hope and prayer that the trainees at our
Mission School would all grow in faith and live for the Lord in
their actual lives once they complete the Mission School. We all
are God’s soldiers who remain on this earth after receiving the
remission of our sins for God’s benefit. Realizing this truth and
trusting in it, let us live our lives before God by faith.
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