The Path to a Change in Life Disposition
To achieve a change in life disposition, one must experience
God’s judgment and chastisement, pruning and dealing, and trials of many kinds. This is the path to a change in life disposition. God’s judgment and chastisement is mostly about experiencing and receiving God’s judgment and chastisement from God’s words, this is the most crucial experience in submitting to the work of God. The experience of God’s judgment and chastisement is a result which must be achieved through
the work of the Holy Spirit. We have seen most people read the word of God, eat and drink the word of God, but they have not experienced God’s judgment and chastisement. They have only seen in the word of God the revelation and the judgment of people’s rebelliousness and corruption. They have not personally felt the individual judgment and chastisement of themselves by God, this illustrates that these people have not experienced the judgment and chastisement of God. When some people see that the words of God’s judgment and chastisement are quite strict, they avoid and get out of them. When some people see the words of God’s judgment and chastisement, they think that they are talking about other people, that these words are not directed toward themselves, so they think nothing of it. Anyone who is in this state has not experienced God’s judgment and chastisement. So, God’s work does not have much of an effect on those people who have not experienced God’s judgment and chastisement in eating and drinking the word of God. We have seen that people in the Age of Grace all read the Bible and understood much of the writing contained within it. However, they did not feel the judgment and chastisement of God in their hearts and, at that time, God did not express words of the judgment and chastisement, so no matter how long people believed, they were not seen to have a change in life disposition. If people do not feel that God’s judgment and chastisement is directed toward themselves when they eat and drink the word of God in the Age of Kingdom or if they feel even less that God’s judgment and chastisement has a real effect on their hearts, then their experience of God’s work will not have much meaning. So, the entry into experiencing God’s judgment and chastisement is a crucial issue. So, how does one enter? You must do so through prayer. You pray before God: “God, I am willing to accept Your judgment and chastisement. May Your judgment and chastisement have an effect on my heart.” Afterward you will probably have the work of the Holy Spirit. When you read the words of the judgment and chastisement, you will feel that they are judgment and chastisement of you, that they are directed toward you. It will feel as if your heart has been stabbed and you will feel that “these words are so true, they are judging me, these words chastise me.” You will only truly experience God’s judgment and chastisement when you have this feeling. Most people, when seeing that the words of God are too strict, just like a two-edged sword, do not dare to face them but choose to avoid them. The result is that God’s judgment and chastisement seems to have nothing to do with them and, because of this, their corruption and nature will not change. Therefore, the experience of God’s judgment and chastisement lies in a person’s pursuit and acceptance. If you do not choose acceptance there is no way for this judgment and chastisement to happen to you. That is to say, a person must personally experience God’s judgment and chastisement—in your heart you truly feel that you have received God’s judgment and chastisement and you experience much suffering and refinement from the words of judgment and chastisement, and in the end, this makes you recognize your satanic nature, recognize the hatefulness of your satanic nature and recognize that Satan is the essence of your corruption. If you have no experience of God’s judgment and chastisement, then you must have not suffered too much from God’s words. If you have not suffered very much, then you definitely will not recognize your nature and the essence of your corruption and if you do not recognize this, how can you bring about change? So it can be said that experiencing God’s judgment and chastisement is dependent on a person’s pursuit. If people do not have this experience and do not suffer much from God’s words, changes in life disposition are not possible, this is a key experience. The most important thing in the submission to God’s work is to experience God’s judgment and chastisement and this depends on a person’s pursuit. If people do not pursue, they will not be able to receive the judgment and chastisement. After people are corrupted by Satan, they all think that they are good people, that they are much better than others, that they are after God’s heart, that they can be saved by God and they even consider themselves loved by God and to be God’s favorite.
