Max, United States
In 1994, I was born in the United States. My parents are both Chinese. My mother was the classic example of a successful career woman. She is able to think for herself and is very competent. I love my mother very much. When I was in Grade 2, my parents brought me back to China to study so that I would be able to learn Chinese. It was also at that time that I started to get acquainted with the Lord Jesus. I remember one day in 2004, after I got home from school, there was a guest at our house. My mother introduced her and told me that she was a pastor from the United States. I was very happy because that was when I found out that my mother had believed in the Lord Jesus for some time. Before, she did not believe. Every Chinese New Year, she would burn incense and worship Buddha. However, after my mother started to believe in the Lord Jesus, I no longer had to smell the whiff of burnt Joss paper and incense. That day, the American pastor told me a story about the Lord Jesus. Soon after, I was brought to the bathroom and before I could react, “plop,” the pastor had dunked my head into the bathtub and after a moment, pulled my head out. All I heard was my mother and the pastor telling me, “Welcome to the embrace of the Lord Jesus. We are all lost sheep.” In this way, I started a new life journey before I knew it. However, because the Lord was with me, my heart was very happy. Afterward, each Sunday, I would go to church to worship and listen to the pastor talk about Bible stories and read from the scriptures. I was very happy all along. My heart was steadfast and I felt that believing in the Lord Jesus was truly a good thing.
In 2008, my father accompanied me to the United States so that I could study here. During this time, I went to church and participated in fellowships. In 2012, after I graduated from high school, my father bought me a plane ticket so that I could go back to China to visit my mother. Right before leaving, my father sat down with me and spoke many heartfelt words to me. He told me that in China, my mother had started to believe in Eastern Lightning. He hoped that on my return, I would be able to talk to my mother and get her to abandon her faith in Eastern Lightning. As a student who was about to enter into university, of course, I would not only listen to my father’s side of the story. Soon afterward, I went on the internet and searched for information related to Eastern Lightning. I wanted to have more of a realistic understanding of them. The result was that I found some opinions originating from the CCP government and pastors and elders from the religious world that condemned and slandered Eastern Lightning. I started feeling worried for my mother. I decided to go home and see how my mother was doing. After I got back home, I found that everything was normal with my mother. Her concern and love for me had not changed. Her faith and love for God had grown greater and she was more devout than before. I was a little less worried about my mother then.
During the time I was back in China, my mother, as expected spoke to me about Eastern Lightning. She said, “The Lord Jesus has already returned and He has started doing a stage of judgment work beginning with the house of God….” From my mother’s words, I understood that when the Lord Jesus incarnated this time, He had come as a female to do His work. I just remember that at that time, I stared blankly because this was completely different from what I had been told about the Lord Jesus when I was in the States. My pastor always emphasized in the sermons that Jehovah God is the Holy Father and the Lord Jesus is the Holy Son. Since They were Father and Son, both of them were male. Moreover, all the portraits of the Lord Jesus that were hung in the church and all the crosses that had the Lord Jesus on them indicated that the Lord Jesus was a male. However, my mother said that this time, the Lord Jesus has returned as a female. This completely exceeded my knowledge of the Lord Jesus. My heart could not take it and I told my mother, “The Lord Jesus is a male. When the Lord returns, how could it be that He would return as a female?” My mother replied, “God is Spirit in essence. God does not have a gender. It is only because He has incarnated to do the work of salvation that He chose a different gender….” However, since the viewpoint that my pastor had inculcated me with was the first and strongest impression, regardless of what my mother said, I would not believe it.
A few days later, my mother wanted to take me to attend a gathering with her. Even though I did not want to, because I respected my mother, I went with her. At the time, I remember that there was an aunty from Northeast China that said, “The last days have already arrived. The Lord Jesus has already come back in the flesh and lives amongst us. He is doing the work of the Age of Kingdom. Presently, the churches of the Age of Grace no longer have the Holy Spirit’s work and they are all completely desolated….” However, since my heart was already closed, I still maintained that the Lord Jesus is a male and that when He returns, He would surely return as a male. That is why I basically did not believe in what this aunty was talking about. All the way until I left China, I was still very bewildered: Why would the Lord Jesus return as a female? I was worried that my mother was walking on the wrong path. All I could do was pray for my mother, “Lord Jesus! Please keep my mother and make sure she does not walk on the wrong path. Guide her back into Your embrace….”
After I returned to the United States, I continued attending worship at my church. However, gradually, I discovered that the majority of what my pastor was saying was outdated and repetitious. Otherwise, it was specifically about donating to the church. As a believer, we were not able to obtain genuine shepherding. Many people would doze off during the gatherings and the number of people that attended gradually diminished. In 2014, the church I went to encountered a significant misfortune. The pastor had used public money to buy a house for himself in another state and as a result, our church went bankrupt. When I saw all these things, I felt very disappointed. At this time, my classmates brought me to their church to participate in worship. This church was a lot bigger than the previous church I went to. Each Sunday, when the pastor was giving his sermon, I would sit in the upper row of seats to listen. However, as before, I saw many people dozing off. Sometimes, even I started to doze off. Frequently, the pastor would deliberately raise his voice in an attempt to wake up the brothers and sisters. However, his attempts to get us to listen to his sermons failed. I thought back to the previous church I attended where the pastor misappropriated the church’s money to buy himself a house. His sermons were unable to provide for the spiritual life needs of the brothers and sisters. Instead, they basically came to church to sleep! The church that I was going to at that time was also like this. I asked myself, “Could it be that all churches are desolate?” Suddenly, I thought back to 2012 when I went back to China and the things that my mother and that aunty from Northeast China said. They told me: God has started the work of the Age of Kingdom. The Age of Grace has concluded. God no longer works in the churches belonging to the Age of Grace. Only by following God’s work in the Age of Kingdom can one be able to obtain the Holy Spirit’s work. This was the first time that I asked myself, “Could it be that the Lord Jesus has really returned?”
In a blink of the eye, it was the end of 2015. I received news that my mother went to San Francisco to visit my elder brother. I bought a plane ticket so I could go and see her. Once again, my mother mentioned Eastern Lightning—the second coming of the Lord Jesus. She also got me to watch many gospel videos from The Church of Almighty God as well as read many of Almighty God’s words. This time, I did not resist in the way I did before because in the past two years, I saw many scenes of desolation in the churches that I went to. This confirmed for me what they were telling me about the desolation in the churches. It is indeed the truth! I started to quiet my heart and listen to what my mother was saying, so that I could unlock the shackles that were within my heart. At that time, my mother targeted my notions. She read to me God’s words concerning the aspect of God’s gender. This left a very deep impression on me. It also explained the confusion I had all along regard the gender of the Lord who has returned. Almighty God says, “Each stage of work done by God has a real significance. When Jesus arrived, He was male, and this time He is female. From this, you can see that God created both male and female for His work and with Him there is no distinction of gender. When His Spirit arrives, He can take on any flesh at will and the flesh represents Him. Be it male or female, both represent God as long as it is His incarnate flesh. If Jesus arrived and appeared as a female, in other words, if an infant girl, not a boy, was to be conceived by the Holy Spirit, that stage of work would have been completed all the same. If so, this stage of work would have to be completed instead by a male and the work would then be completed all the same. The work done in both stages is significant; no work is repeated or conflicts with each other. … If in this stage He did not become flesh to personally do work for man to witness, man would forever hold on to the notion that God is only male, not female” (“The Two Incarnations Complete the Significance of the Incarnation” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). “God’s wisdom, God’s wondrousness, God’s righteousness, and God’s majesty shall never change. His essence and what He has and is shall never change. His work, however, is always progressing forward and always going deeper, for He is always new and never old. … If He were only incarnated as a male, people would define Him as male, as the God of men, and would never believe Him to be the God of women. Then, men would believe that God is of the same gender as men, that God is the head of men—and what of women? This is unfair; is it not preferential treatment? If this were the case, then all those whom God saved would be men like Him, and there would be no salvation for women. When God created mankind, He created Adam and He created Eve. He did not only create Adam, but made both male and female in His image. God is not only the God of men—He is also the God of women” (“The Vision of God’s Work (3)” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). After I finished reading God’s words, this matter which was gnawing at my mind disappeared almost instantly. In my heart, I felt that these words are correct. In the beginning, God created Adam and Eve. Originally, male and female were equal. If that’s the case, why can’t God return as a female?! God’s essence is Spirit. Of course He can assume either gender identity when He comes amongst us to do His work. Regardless of whether God incarnates as a male or a female, it is God’s choice. God has the right to choose what gender to incarnate into because God is the Ruler of all things and He is the Creator. Is God’s work restricted by people? What is man when compared to God? Isn’t man just dust? How can man fathom God’s wisdom? Before, I believed that God could only be a male. I truly defined God and it reveals that I did not have any knowledge of God. I was too arrogant and foolish.
