By Wang Qin, China

One day in June 2021, I felt dizzy and uncomfortable, so I checked my blood pressure. The systolic reading was over 200 and the diastolic reading was 120. Later, I took medication and it came down, but my systolic pressure would still sometimes spike to 160, giving me headaches and making me dizzy. I started to worry. With my blood pressure so high and having to work at a computer every day, I thought, “If this continues, what if my condition gets worse and I can’t do my duty anymore? Could I still be saved then?” So, I didn’t want to push myself too hard. At the time, I was a church leader and had to follow up on work every day. Moreover, the two brothers and sisters I was cooperating with had just started to train, so I had to carry a heavier load. I began to feel a bit resentful, worrying that all this stress would make my blood pressure higher. I was constantly worried about my illness, so I didn’t put my heart into my duty. I’d just skim through the various principles, only understanding some literal meaning, but I couldn’t actually apply them to my duty. When I saw that our work wasn’t producing good results, I didn’t put any real effort into seeking how to resolve our issues, because I was constantly afraid that devoting a lot of energy to this would make my blood pressure spike.

In February 2023, due to my frequent headaches and dizzy spells, the brother from my host family urged me to get a hospital checkup. Afterward, the doctor told me I’d had a cerebral infarction and needed urgent treatment. He warned that if it got worse, it could lead to paralysis or even be life-threatening. I worried that if it really did get serious, I wouldn’t be able to do my duty, and then wouldn’t all my hope of being saved be gone? I wanted to get treatment right away, but then I received a letter saying a church leader had been arrested and turned Judas, and that I needed to move immediately. After that, I didn’t dare go back to the hospital. Later, I started doing text-based duty. One morning, I tried to get out of bed and was hit with such a wave of dizziness and nausea that I couldn’t even stand. I had to lie back down. I thought to myself, “I already have high blood pressure and a cerebral infarction. Could it be that the cerebral infarction has gotten worse and a blood vessel is blocked?” I wanted to go home for treatment, but the police were still after me. I couldn’t go back. So I prayed to God and read His words of fellowship on how to experience illness. The next day, the dizziness was a little better. Two months later, my health had recovered fairly well, but I was still living in worry and anxiety. I was afraid that extra mental exertion would wear me out and make my condition worse, so I became unwilling to pay much of a price in my duty. I’d just go through the motions to get the work at hand off my plate. I wasn’t attentive when screening articles, which led to the ones I selected being of poor quality. In April 2024, Brother Zheng joined my team to cooperate with me, and I felt my burden lighten a bit. Seeing him there, totally focused on his duty, filled me with envy. “If only I were healthy like him!” I thought. “My health has gotten so much worse these past few years. It’s not just the high blood pressure and the cerebral infarction; I also have tinnitus. I often feel dizzy and foggy-headed while doing my duty. My right arm is a bit numb, too—maybe it’s caused by poor circulation. I’m over sixty now, and my immune system is weak as well. With health like this, if one day I get paralyzed and can’t do my duty, wouldn’t I become useless, and lose my chance to be saved and enter the kingdom of heaven? Wouldn’t the price I’ve paid and the suffering I’ve endured all these years have been for nothing?” Thinking about it, I felt somewhat despondent. Brother Zheng fellowshipped with me that when we face illness, we should seek God’s intention. I felt a bit upset, thinking he couldn’t possibly understand what I was going through. But then I considered how I’d been constantly living in distress and worry for years because of my health, without ever putting my heart into seeking God’s intention. I knew my state wasn’t right, so I prayed to God, “Oh God, I know Your intention is in this illness coming upon me. Please lead me to understand the truth and learn my lesson.”

Afterward, I read some of God’s words and began to understand His intention a little better. Almighty God says: “When God arranges for someone to get an illness, whether major or minor, His purpose in doing so is not to make you appreciate the ins and outs of being sick, the harm the illness does to you, the inconveniences and difficulties the illness causes you, and all the myriad feelings the illness causes you to feel—His purpose is not for you to appreciate sickness through being sick. Rather, His purpose is for you to learn the lessons from sickness, to learn how to grasp God’s intentions, to know the corrupt dispositions you reveal and the wrong attitudes you adopt toward God when you’re sick, and to learn how to submit to God’s sovereignty and arrangements, so that you can achieve true submission to God and be able to stand firm in your testimony—this is absolutely key. God wishes to save you and cleanse you through sickness. What about you does He wish to cleanse? He wishes to cleanse all your extravagant desires and demands toward God, and even cleanse the various calculations, judgments, and plans you make at all costs to survive and live. God does not ask you to make plans, He does not ask you to judge, and He does not allow you to have any extravagant desires toward Him; He requires only that you submit to Him and, in your practice and experience of submitting, to know your own attitude toward sickness, and to know your attitude toward these bodily conditions He gives to you, as well as your own personal wishes. When you come to know these things, you can then appreciate how beneficial it is for you that God has set up the circumstances of the illness for you or that He has given you these bodily conditions; and you can appreciate just how helpful they are to changing your disposition, to you attaining salvation, and to your life entry. That is why, when illness comes calling, you must not always be wondering how you can escape it or flee from it or reject it” (The Word, Vol. 6. On the Pursuit of the Truth. How to Pursue the Truth (3)). From God’s words, I saw that illnesses come upon us with His good intentions, to transform and purify us. Those who pursue the truth can learn lessons through illness and achieve genuine submission to God. But when illness came upon me, I didn’t seek God’s intention or reflect on and come to know myself. I just always lived amid my illness, worrying that if I became paralyzed and couldn’t do my duty, or even died, my hope of being saved and entering the kingdom of heaven would be completely shattered. Because I was worried that my condition would get worse, I bore no burden in my duty, afraid of wearing my body out. When my brothers and sisters fellowshipped with me about learning lessons from illness, I still wouldn’t accept it. I thought, “It’s easy for you to talk; you’re not the one in illness and pain.” I was always envious of others’ good health and complained that God hadn’t given me a healthy body. I wasn’t seeking the truth or trying to learn lessons in the slightest. How could I ever hope to gain the truth, be purified, or be transformed?

Later, I started seeking the truth about my problems. I read God’s words: “When it comes to this old flesh of man’s, it doesn’t matter what sickness people get, whether they can get better, or to what degree they suffer, none of it is up to them—it is all in God’s hands. If, when you get sick, you submit to God’s orchestrations, and you’re willing to endure and accept this fact, then you will still have this illness; if you don’t accept this fact, you still won’t be able to get rid of this sickness—this is a fact. You can face your sickness positively for a day, or face it negatively for a day. That is, regardless of your attitude, you cannot change the fact that you are sick” (The Word, Vol. 6. On the Pursuit of the Truth. How to Pursue the Truth (4)). “When normal people get sick, they will always suffer and feel down, and they have a limit to what they can endure. There’s one thing to note, however: If people always thought to depend on their own strength when sick to rid themselves of their sickness and escape it, what would the end result be? As well as their sickness, wouldn’t they suffer and feel down even more? That’s why the more people find themselves enveloped in sickness, the more they should seek the truth, and the more they should seek the way to practice to be in accordance with God’s intentions. The more people are enveloped in sickness, the more they should come before God and know their own corruption and the unreasonable demands they make of God. The more enveloped in sickness you are, the more your true submission is tested. Therefore, when you are sick, your ability to continue to submit to God’s orchestrations and rebel against your own complaints and unreasonable demands shows that you are someone who truly pursues the truth and truly submits to God, that you bear testimony, that your loyalty and submission to God are real and can pass the test, and that your loyalty and submission to God are not just slogans and doctrine. This is what people ought to practice when they get sick. When you get sick, it is to reveal all your unreasonable demands and your unrealistic imaginings and notions about God, and it is also to test your faith in God and submission to Him. If you pass the test with these things, then you have true testimony and real evidence of your faith in God, your loyalty to God, and your submission to Him. This is what God wants, and it is what a created being should possess and live out. Are these things not all positive?” (The Word, Vol. 6. On the Pursuit of the Truth. How to Pursue the Truth (4)). God’s words pointed out the correct perspective and path of practice when we face illness: to genuinely believe in and submit to God’s sovereignty and arrangements, and not to try to get rid of illness on our own—that will only bring more suffering. I had some practical experience of God’s words myself. When my blood pressure went over 200 mmHg, I was terrified. I thought that if I didn’t focus on taking care of myself or if I had an accidental fall, I’d end up paralyzed or even dead. I was afraid that if I put in too much mental effort in my duty, it would worsen my condition and lead to severe consequences, so I was constantly living amid negative emotions of distress and anxiety. This brought my body and mind a lot of pressure and pain, and affected my duty. Wasn’t this all because I had no knowledge of God’s sovereignty? The truth is, whether my condition is serious or mild, or when I might die—none of that can be changed by worrying or being distressed. It all comes under God’s sovereignty and arrangements. For example, after I developed high blood pressure, there was a week when I fell off my bike twice, and they were really bad falls. At the time, I thought, “This is it, I’m probably going to be paralyzed.” But it turned out I only had some minor scrapes; it was nowhere near as serious as I’d imagined. Wasn’t that God’s protection? I had to change my wrong perspective and face my illness correctly. I should get treatment when needed, but as for whether I’ll get better or whether I’ll live or die, I cannot make demands of God, and I certainly must not misunderstand Him or complain about Him. I have to submit to God’s sovereignty and arrangements and, amid illness, seek the truth more and reflect on and come to know myself. That’s the only way to make real gains.

Afterward, I continued to reflect on the root cause of why I lived in negative emotions. I read God’s words: “People believe in God in order to be blessed, to be rewarded, to be crowned. Doesn’t this exist in everyone’s heart? It is a fact that it does. Although people don’t often talk about it, and even cover up their motive and desire to obtain blessings, this desire and motive deep in people’s hearts has always been unshakable. No matter how much spiritual theory people understand, what experiential knowledge they have, what duty they can perform, how much suffering they endure, or how much of a price they pay, they never let go of the motivation for blessings hidden deep in their hearts, and always silently toil in its service. Isn’t this the thing buried deepest inside people’s hearts? Without this motivation to receive blessings, how would you feel? With what attitude would you perform your duty and follow God? What would become of people if this motivation to receive blessings that is hidden in their hearts was gotten rid of? It is possible that many people would become negative, while some would become demotivated in their duties. They would lose interest in their belief in God, as if their soul had vanished. They would appear as if their heart had been snatched away. This is why I say the motivation for blessings is something hidden deep in people’s hearts” (The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. Six Indicators of Life Growth). “Before deciding to do their duty, deep in their hearts, antichrists are brimming with expectations toward their prospects, gaining blessings, a good destination, and even a crown, and they have the utmost confidence in attaining these things. They come to the house of God to do their duty with such intentions and aspirations. So, does their performance of duty contain the sincerity, genuine faith and loyalty that God requires? At this point, one cannot yet see their genuine loyalty, faith, or sincerity, because everyone harbors an entirely transactional mindset before they do their duty; everyone makes the decision to do their duty driven by interests, and also based on the precondition of their overflowing ambitions and desires. What is the antichrists’ intention in doing their duty? It’s to make a deal, to make an exchange. It could be said that these are the conditions they set for doing duty: ‘If I do my duty, then I must obtain blessings and have a good destination. I must obtain all the blessings and benefits that god has said are prepared for humankind. If I can’t obtain them, then I won’t do this duty.’ They come to the house of God to do their duty with such intentions, ambitions, and desires. It seems like they do have some sincerity, and of course for those who are new believers and are just starting to do their duty, it can also be called enthusiasm. But there is no genuine faith or loyalty in this; there’s only that degree of enthusiasm. It can’t be called sincerity. Judging from this attitude antichrists have toward doing their duty, it is wholly transactional and filled with their desires for benefits like gaining blessings, entering the kingdom of heaven, obtaining a crown, and receiving rewards” (The Word, Vol. 4. Exposing Antichrists. Item Nine (Part Seven)). From God’s words, I saw that antichrists come to the church to do their duty only for the sake of gaining blessings. To gain blessings, an antichrist can forsake everything, expend themselves, and pay a price, but the moment they feel they can’t get blessings, they are capable of betraying God. Reflecting on myself, I realized that my own intentions and goals in believing in God were exactly the same: to gain blessings and enter the kingdom of heaven. Through all these years of belief, I have not been constrained by the CCP’s persecution or the world’s ridicule and slander, and I have persisted in following God and doing my duty. I did all this thinking that the price I paid and my expenditure would earn me God’s grace and blessings, and secure my entry into the kingdom of heaven. When I got high blood pressure and a cerebral infarction, I was worried that if my blood pressure rose, I would end up paralyzed even if I didn’t die, and if I couldn’t do my duty, I would lose the blessing of entering the kingdom of heaven. That’s why I was always in a despondent state. When I saw that my duty wasn’t producing good results, I wasn’t anxious about it; rather, I was worried that mental overexertion would worsen my condition and I’d lose my chance to gain blessings. I saw that everything I thought of and did was for my own fleshly benefit. I believed, forsook, and expended all for the sake of obtaining blessings. I was living by that satanic rule of survival, “Every man for himself and the devil take the hindmost.” To gain blessings, I could forsake and expend without heeding anything else, but if there were no blessings in it for me, I’d just get negative and slack off. Wasn’t I revealing the disposition of an antichrist? In the last days, God expresses the truth to do the work of saving humanity. God’s intention isn’t for me to follow Him and do my duty just to get blessings. He hopes that in the process of doing my duty, I will pursue the truth to resolve my corrupt dispositions, change my wrong views on faith, cast off things that are of Satan, and become someone who is in accordance with God’s intentions. Only then can I receive God’s approval. In contrast, I had always been living in a selfish, self-serving satanic disposition, only ever pursuing blessings. Wasn’t I just walking on Paul’s path? Paul believed in God but didn’t pursue the truth and life. He treated all his work and labor for God as a bargaining chip to gain a crown and blessings, trying to make a deal with God. After years of belief, his satanic corrupt dispositions hadn’t changed one bit. He brazenly clamored against God, demanding a crown, and in doing so, he offended God’s disposition and was punished. If I believe in God but don’t pursue the truth and life, and am always pursuing blessings and trying to bargain with God, I will also be punished if I don’t repent. Realizing the consequences of continuing down this path, I prayed to God, “Oh God, I know Your good intentions are behind this illness. It is to reveal and save me. It is Your love coming upon me, allowing me to see clearly that all this time, I’ve only been pursuing blessings and have been walking on the wrong path. Oh God, I am willing to repent. From now on, I will focus on pursuing the truth.” After praying, my heart felt much more at peace and at ease.

Later, I reflected on another wrong view I held: the idea that if my illness got serious and I couldn’t do my duty, I couldn’t be saved. I continued to seek the truth to resolve this. I read God’s words: “To be saved primarily means to be freed from sin, freed from Satan’s influence, and genuinely turn to God and submit to God. What must you possess to be free from sin and from Satan’s influence? The truth. If people hope to obtain the truth, they must be equipped with many of God’s words, they must be able to experience and practice them, so that they may understand the truth and enter into reality. Only then can they be saved. Whether or not one can be saved has nothing to do with how long they have believed in God, how much knowledge they have, whether they possess gifts or strengths, or how much they suffer. The only thing that has a direct relationship to salvation is whether or not a person can obtain the truth” (The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. Treasuring God’s Words Is the Foundation of Belief in God). God has made the standard for being saved crystal clear. He mainly looks at whether people can live out the reality of His words; whether, in all things, they stop living by satanic philosophies and instead view people and things, and conduct themselves and act, according to His words and the truth principles; whether they have fear of, submission to, loyalty to, and love for Him; and whether they live out a true human likeness. Only those who possess these truth realities will be saved by God. But as for me, after all my years of belief, I hadn’t cast off any of my corrupt dispositions like arrogance, conceit, selfishness, or despicableness. Though I was able to suffer a little and pay a little price in doing my duty, I was actually trying to bargain with God with my desire to gain blessings. My whole being was still living under Satan’s dark influence, not even close to being saved. If I don’t resolve these corrupt dispositions, if that desire for blessings is still in my heart, then even if I am doing a duty, I still won’t be saved in the end. I have to focus on pursuing the truth. That is the only way to have a chance at being saved.

Also, my constant worry that if I got seriously ill and died, I couldn’t be saved—that too came from not understanding the truth. So I looked for relevant words of God to read. Almighty God says: “If at the moment that your life is about to be taken from you, you are at ease, willing, and submit without complaint, you feel that you have fulfilled your responsibilities, obligations, and duties to the end, and your heart is joyful and at peace—if you go like this—then for God, you have not gone at all. Rather, you are living in another realm and in another form. All that’s happened is that your manner of living has changed—you are not truly dead. As man sees it, ‘This person died at such a young age, how pitiful!’ But in the eyes of God, you have not died or gone to suffer; rather, you have gone to enjoy blessings and come closer to God. This is because, as a created being, you are already up to standard in the performance of your duty in God’s eyes, you have now completed your duty, and God does not need you to perform this duty any longer among the ranks of created beings. To God, your ‘going’ is not called ‘going,’ you are ‘taken away,’ ‘brought away,’ or ‘led away,’ and it is a good thing” (The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. Preaching the Gospel Is the Duty All Believers Are Bound to Fulfill). From God’s words, I understood that some people, while they are alive, are able to hold fast to their duty no matter what they face—be it persecution, tribulation, the torment of illness, or financial hardship—without complaining about or betraying God. Such people have borne a genuine testimony. Even though their flesh dies, they are actually taken by God to live in another space. I had always worried that dying meant losing my chance to be saved, but the reality is, a person’s outcome after death is determined by their attitude toward God and the truth while they were alive. I thought of Job. He believed that God is the Sovereign of the heavens and earth and all things. His whole life, he followed God and walked the way of fearing God and shunning evil. When he faced death, he had no worry or fear, because he believed that God is sovereign over and arranges a person’s life and death. Therefore, he could face it calmly. Job was a man who feared God and shunned evil. He stood firm in his testimony during Satan’s temptations, and even though he died, he was saved by God. Because I didn’t understand the truth, and couldn’t see through matters of life, death, and salvation, I was always worried that dying meant I couldn’t be saved. How foolish I was! In reality, even if I’m alive, if I’m not pursuing the truth, not walking the way of fearing God and shunning evil, and in my faith in God I forsake and expend myself only to get a crown and blessings, then in God’s eyes, there’s no difference between my being alive or being dead. It has nothing to do with salvation. That’s because such expenditure is for the benefit of the flesh; it is selfish, and is not fulfilling a created being’s duty and responsibility. Now, God is still giving me the chance to live. I can no longer be consumed by concerns about life, death, or blessings. While I am alive, I must earnestly pursue the truth and do my duty as a created being well to satisfy God. That is what I should concern myself with and focus on most. Only by gaining the truth and living out the truth reality will my heart have joy and peace; only then will I no longer fear death.

Nowadays, I still get headaches and feel dizzy when I do my duty for a long time, but I don’t live amid illness as much anymore. If my head hurts, I take a short rest. In my daily life, I also try to exercise more, and am no longer worried or anxious about what will happen to my body and whether I will live or die. For every day that I live, I will do my duty to the best of my ability. Thank God!