The Church of Almighty God | The Loss and Gain of Gatherings
Guozi, USA
My name is Guozi, and I’m a high school student studying abroad in the USA. I was born in a Christian family, and my mother accepted the work of Almighty God in the last days when I was one year old. I remember when I was very young that my mother would always say to me: “God created heavens, earth, and everything that exists. We humans were also created by God, and God loves us more than anything. Whenever something happens to you, remember to pray to Almighty God, and He will watch over and protect you.” So when I was very young I learned that God exists, and when anything happened to me and I prayed to God, I experienced God’s protection for me. But truly having knowledge of God and God’s work was something I gradually gained in the course of attending gatherings and fellowshiping about the truth together with brothers and sisters of the Church of Almighty God and practicing entering into the word of God …
In December of 2015, my mother suggested I attend a meeting with the brothers and sisters and said, “The work of God in the last days will end right away, and if you don’t attend gatherings and don’t fellowship about the word of God together with the brothers and sisters, it will be very difficult to understand the truth if you just read the word of God by yourself. It won’t be easy to receive salvation.” At the time I thought my mother was just saying that without thinking about it, so I just agreed with her perfunctorily, but I didn’t think that she had actually contacted the church and gotten the sisters to convene a gathering with me online. When the sisters set the meeting time with me, I was really reluctant to do so. I thought that if I had to attend a gathering every single week it would eat into my free time, and there would be less time for me to go out eating, drinking, and having fun with my friends. In my heart I didn’t want to attend the gathering, and just wanted to keep my current situation the same: When something happened to me, I would pray to God, and occasionally experience God’s protection, and it would be sufficient to have God in my heart. But I was too embarrassed to directly refuse the sisters, so all I could do was reluctantly agree. But when the time of the gathering arrived, I was always trying to come up with an excuse to get out of it. Even though I attended the gathering, my heart did not become at peace, and when I prayed to God all I could do was utter some words of praise or ask God to help me have success on an exam or things like that. When fellowshiping about the word of God, I was really afraid when it would be my turn, because I had no light in my heart. I didn’t know what I should fellowship about, and all I could do was look for what I thought were some key passages and read them. Then I would explain a little about the literal meaning, like it was doing a reading comprehension. Because I didn’t have a proper attitude in dealing with the word of God and I didn’t pay careful attention in the gathering, I didn’t have any enlightenment and illumination by the Holy Spirit—I didn’t have any rewards. The more it went on like this, the more boring I thought it was. I thought: Going out to have fun with my classmates is so much better than this. Especially when I saw that I had gotten a bunch of text messages on my phone, I just couldn’t help myself from thinking about going out with my classmates and friends. I then mentioned to my mother that I didn’t want to attend the gathering, and it would be fine if I just read the word of God on my own. But my mother said, “If you don’t attend gatherings, will you consciously read the word of God? The word of God isn’t like that in the textbooks you read in school. It’s not something you can just understand by getting the literal meaning of the words; you have to fellowship about it by attending gatherings with brothers and sisters and share experiences and knowledge with each other. Only that way can you gradually understand it clearly.” I had never thought that attending gatherings was so important. Since it was able to give me more of an opportunity to read the word of God, and also to allow me to understand the truth even more, I wasn’t able to say anything else. But since I was only interested in having a good time, I would not forsake my flesh and put the truth into practice even though I understood a little bit of it. So afterward, every time I attended a gathering, I would still go through the motions of fellowshiping about the word of God then start to play with my phone and look at some gossip news, check out the newest recent TV series, and sometimes chat with my friends. In this way, every time I attended a gathering I continued to get nothing out of it. Continue reading “The Church of Almighty God | The Loss and Gain of Gatherings”
ALMIGHTY GOD IS MY SUNSHINE 