By Li Xing
All
devout Christians yearn for the return of the Lord and entering the
wonderful kingdom of heaven prepared by Him. Yet very few of them have
reflected on whether God approves of their belief in Him, nor have they
rethought what kind of belief is following God
and what kind of belief is following men. Today, let’s fellowship some
key truths determining the success or failure of our belief in God and
discuss what genuinely following God is.
First, one who follows God must obey His words and depend on Him in everything.
Honoring
God as great does not just refer to us reciting many chapters of the
Scripture, praying to and praising God, or working and spending for the
Lord outwardly; it mainly refers to us living by His words after reading
them, and truly relying on Him in practical life. Though we can’t see
God, we shall obey everything from Him; especially when we read His
words, we should accept them, act in accordance with His intention, and
treasure His words as our principle of life and guidance of action. And
when anything happens to us, we shouldn’t speak or act according to our
personal hobbies or desires. Particularly when it comes to important
issues, we should even more seek God’s will
in His words to act on His intention precisely; even if it might do
harm to our benefits, we shouldn’t give up practicing His words. Only
when we regard God’s words as our principle, give first place to
satisfying God, and fulfills His requirement: “you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength” (Mark 12:30), can we be called a true follower of God.
Abraham is a good example. God bestowed a son on him when he was about 100 years old, which made him so happy. Later on, however, God asked him to offer up his son as a sacrifice. Though he didn’t know why God made this demand, he, with a heart of obedience to Him, gave back his only son to God to satisfy Him without considering his personal gain or loss. Because of this, God greatly blessed Abraham, making him a father of many nations. Abraham was able to put obeying God’s words and satisfying Him first, which means God reigned as King in his heart. This is the man who depends on God in all things and honors God as great in his heart.
Second, one who follows God must possess true faith in God, and believe that God is almighty and that all is in His hand.
He who truly follows God is supposed to possess true faith in Him. God says, “What
does faith refer to? Faith is the genuine belief and the sincere heart
that humans should possess when they cannot see or touch something, when
God’s work is not in line with human notions, when it is beyond human
reach. This is the faith that I speak of. … No matter how God works or
what kind of environment you are in, you will be able to pursue life,
pursue the development of God’s work in you, and pursue the truth. You
will have an understanding of God’s actions and you will be able to act
according to the truth. This is your genuine faith, and this shows that
you have not lost hope in God. You will still seek the truth in
refinement, you will be able to truly love God and will not develop
doubts of Him. No matter what He does, you will still practice the truth
to satisfy Him, and you will be able to deeply seek out His will and be
considerate of His will. Only this is true faith in God.” As long
as we have true faith in God, we will not deny Him whatever comes to us,
and still follow and satisfy Him as before. For instance, when deprived
of his property and children, Job, with a heart of obedience to God,
didn’t judge God’s work at will or complain against Him but still
praised Him, saying: “Jehovah gave, and Jehovah has taken away; blessed
be the name of Jehovah,” standing witness for God; and such is a true
faith in God. As the Lord Jesus healed a blind man and the woman who
diseased with an issue of blood, He said to them: “Your faith has made you whole.”
From this we can see that, though neither of them had done anything for
the Lord before, they firmly believed the Lord is almighty and that all
is in His hand; it was their genuine faith that made them gain the
approval of God. Thus, possessing a true faith is of great importance in
following God.
Third, one who follows God must only sanctify and obey Christ in his heart without looking up to or worshiping any person.
God exhorted us in the Age of Law: “Look to me, and be you saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else” (Isaiah 45:22). And the Lord Jesus said: “I am the way, the truth, and the life”
(John 14:6). In the process of following God, we shall affirm that none
but Christ is the truth, the way, and the life. Only God is the source
of man’s life, and all the truths come from Him. The sermon given by
people, no matter how good or lofty it sounds, cannot be our life. Even
if it is in conformity with the truth, it cannot be called the truth,
but can only be called words in accord with the truth. If we can justly
look upon this fact, we will not worship man because of his caliber and
gifts. Moreover, we must be able to discern whether man’s sermon is the
letters and doctrines in the Bible, and whether it is from God and in
accord with His words. If we are not able to discern these, we will be
easily led astray by a variety of fallacies of people, and then believe
in God with our lips but worship people in our hearts, thus missing the
chance of salvation. As it is written in the Bible, “As for us, our eyes as yet failed for our vain help” (Lamentations 4:17).
In
addition, we shall not be restrained by people; we ought to obey and
follow what comes from God, and refuse what comes from man. No matter he
is a pastor, an elder, or a preacher, if his talk confirms with God’s
words, then we shall accept it; but if it is against God’s will, we
shall reject it and obey God’s words. We should never fear influence or
status but should only sanctify the truth and Christ. As God says, “People
who believe in God should obey God and worship Him. You should not
exalt or look up to any person; you ought not to give first place to
God, second place to the people you look up to, and third place to
yourself. No person should hold a place in your heart, and you should
not consider people—particularly those you venerate—to be on a par with
God, to be His equal. This is intolerable to God.”
Only
when we are able to act according to these truths in our life can we be
considered as true followers of God who are possessed of reality; if we
just verbally acknowledge these words or simply accept them in mind, it
doesn’t represent that we are true followers of God.
In
this light, people who don’t have the reality of the truths above are
no doubt following men. Those who follow men don’t honor Christ as great
or have genuine faith in God. So they feel it more practical and
convenient to seek for man’s help when encountering things. And they
always listen to those who possess status and gifts, and never pay
attention to looking unto or depending on God with their hearts. As they
always do so, unconsciously, God’s place in their hearts becomes ever
smaller and the place of the people they worship becomes ever greater.
Eventually, they believe in God outwardly but in essence worship,
believe in, and follow people. And such believers can be seen in each
church; they completely believe in and follow their pastors, who seem to
have become their lords and gods. As they slide from the path of
believing in God into obeying and following people, they never rely on
God in anything but look unto and worship men, always asking men what to
do and listening to men’s words. There is no doubt that those who
always look unto and worship men are actually believing in and following
men.
Following
people means that they follow their leaders or coworkers whom they
worship, and that God does not have much of a place in their hearts.
Having merely hung a sign saying they believe in God, they never seek
God’s will, but imitate and copy people; particularly when it’s
something major, they let people decide and control their fate. They
have no discernment of what is spoken by people, but accept it and
listen to it as long as it sounds reasonable, regardless of whether it
is in accord with the truth. Such people’s belief in God has no
principles and there is no truth to their actions; they listen to
whoever speaks sense, and even if their idols take the wrong path, they
follow them to the very end. If God condemns their idols, then they will
have conceptions toward God, and cling tightly to their idols. Their
reasons are that “we should listen to whoever is in charge of us; the
nearer power is better than the higher power.” Such people are purely
those who follow people and are possessed of a muddled belief.
It
can be said that whoever looks unto and follows men doesn’t have true
faith in God, much less a heart of reverence for Him. For their belief
is totally built on enjoying the grace, which is generally called
“seeking bread to satisfy hunger.” For example, the five thousand people
in the Age of Grace, fed with five loaves and two fish by the Lord
Jesus, had no genuine faith in Him, hoping merely for some grace. Their
belief is merely a simple conviction and spiritual sustenance, like that
of the unbelievers believing the existence of the Old Man in the Sky,
and cannot be approved by the Lord. So the Lord treated them with no
more than some grace and didn’t give sermons or supply the truth among
them. As God says, “There are some people whose belief has never been
acknowledged in God’s heart. In other words, God does not recognize
that these people are His followers, because God does not praise their
belief. For these people, regardless of how many years they have
followed God, their ideas and views have never changed. They are like
the non-believers, adhering to the non-believers’ principles and manner
of doing things, adhering to their laws of survival and belief. They
never accepted the word of God as their life, never believed that God’s
word is truth, never intended on accepting God’s salvation, and never
recognized God as their God. They regard believing in God as some kind
of amateur hobby, treating God merely as spiritual sustenance, so they
don’t think it’s worth it to try and understand God’s disposition, or
God’s essence. … How does God look upon these people? He views them as
non-believers.”
Knowing
the difference between following God and following man, we should learn
the result of following man lest we walk on such path. The words with
which the Lord cursed the Pharisees are well known to us, but we’ve
never paid attention to the ending of those who looked unto and followed
them. The Lord Jesus said, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees,
hypocrites! for you compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when
he is made, you make him twofold more the child of hell than
yourselves” (Matthew 23:15). “Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch”
(Matthew 15:14). From the Lord’s words, we can see the result of the
followers of the Pharisees. Because they saw the Pharisees had believed
in Jehovah God for so many years and served Him for generations, and had
much knowledge of the Scripture, they thought that the Pharisees should
be approved by God according to their own mind. Therefore, they didn’t
accept the Lord Jesus even when seeing Him perform the signs that no one
could perform and hearing Him express the truth that no one could
utter. Seeing that the chief priests and Pharisees didn’t follow the
Lord Jesus but persecuted Him, they followed them in crucifying Him
without discernment, committing a heinous crime.
Reviewing
the history, we should reflect on ourselves: Aren’t we the same as
them? Noble and dignified in appearance and good at reciting the Bible and
giving sermons, the pastors, who graduated from theological schools,
have been giving sermons for several decades and captured our hearts. We
consider that they are always right whatever they talk, that the Lord
must first give revelation to them when He returns, and that they will
definitely gain salvation. So in our view, listening to the pastors is
listening to God, and we will certainly enter into the kingdom of heaven
as long as following them. Yet, we have never measured their deeds with
God’s words, but blindly obey them without discernment even when seeing
them do something not in accordance with the truth. Then how could we
be called a follower of God? If we live in our conceptions and illusions
all the time, will we be approved by the Lord Jesus? We believe in God
with our lips, but worship people in our hearts, which is just like the
revelation of the Lord Jesus: “This people draws near to me with
their mouth, and honors me with their lips; but their heart is far from
me. But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the
commandments of men” (Matthew 15:8-9).
Considering
those behaviors above, whom do we truly follow, God or men? Have we
realized the seriousness of following men? I hope that if we have the
answer, then we can walk on the path of following God as soon as
possible, so as to realize our dream of entering the kingdom of heaven.
Source: Daily Devotionals
Source: Daily Devotionals
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