Once I saw that a church leader in our place fell because of losing his position in God’s family. I thought, “It is so dangerous for one to be a leader; he will either attain a great success or incur a total failure. Just as the saying goes: The higher the climb, the heavier the fall. I will not pursue to be a leader of any level; if I am a leader and later revealed to fail to do the work well, I will be finished. I’d better be content with being a common follower.” From then on, I just followed lukewarmly, for fear that I would be greatly used by God’s family.

In this spring, a brother told me to go to some place to attend a meeting. After hearing that, I thought, “Why am I asked to go? What kind of meeting is it? A few days ago, they said that several more second-line teams would be established in the small district. Will I be asked to…?” As expected, the leading sister assigned me to lead a second-line team to a place and open up the gospel work there. “What shall I do now? If I say “No”, this is the arrangement of God’s family and refusing commission is disobeying God; if I accept it and fail to do it well and am dismissed, my years of pursuing, fleshly-interests abandoning, and expending will be in vain, isn’t it?” The more I thought, the more I was afraid. And cold sweat oozed out from my forehead.

Right at the time I was in a dilemma, the leading sister said, “When first accepting a commission from God’s family, some brothers and sisters dare not take it and fear that they may be revealed to be incapable of doing the work well. They think that taking charge of a work is a risky task and will result in either a great success or a total failure. Let’s think about this: Can God give people commissions in order to reveal them and then eliminate them?” Then the sister opened The Summary of Christ’s Preachings and Conversations and read these words of God: “Now, it is according to man’s performance to determine man’s outcome…. This performance refers to whether or not you are faithful to God, whether or not you have love for God, whether or not you put the truth into practice, and how much you have been transformed. Man is convicted according to this performance. It is not according to how many of his corrupt natures man has displayed; if you think so, you have misinterpreted God’s mind. … God knows the best the things in man’s innermost being; you needn’t hide them. God searches hearts and minds. You do the work above and have displayed a great many corruptions, and God has seen them. Then, suppose you did not do any work and displayed nothing, would God not know these corruptions? … If it were like your imagination, those followers below would all gain salvation in the end, whereas the leaders would all be finished. You dare not refuse to perform the duty given to you; but when performing this duty, you can’t help expressing corruptions at all times. It is as if you simply were sent to the scaffold. If a man’s outcome were determined according to his innate nature, then no one could be saved. If so, then where would God’s righteousness be? It would not be seen. You all have misunderstood God’s mind.” God’s words made me feel great relief and enlightened: A leader has failed and that was because he was unfaithful to God’s commission to him and did not pursue entering into the truth or walk along the right path. How could I place the blame on the God’s commission to him? I am really an unreasonable person, confusing right and wrong and reversing black and white. The sayings “those in charge of the work will either attain a great success or incur a total failure” and “the higher the climb, the heavier the fall” are completely evil words of satan and are very absurd. If I do not have my nature transformed, I will not be saved even if I am the least of the followers. As the word of God says: “You should know that if one can succeed, it is because of his own doings, and if one cannot succeed but fail, it is also because of his doings, not because of any other factor.” Whether I will succeed in belief in God is directly related to whether I perform my duty faithfully and whether I pursue the truth and pursue to be transformed. God’s commission to me is a path for God to perfect me and is for me to pursue my nature transformation to be saved.

Inspired by God, I, an ignorant person, woke up at last. O God! I will no longer shirk the commission for fear of being revealed to be doing it poorly. I will treasure your commission to me, live up to your intention, and do my utmost to be faithful to you. I will pay attention to knowing myself, pursue the truth, walk the path of having my nature transformed, so as to be in conformity with you soon.

Liu Yang

Shuozhou City, Shanxi Province