By Lizhu
Later, through attending gatherings and reading God’s words with my brothers and sisters, I understood some truths and realized that God likes the honest, and that only an honest person is the true human likeness, and can live in the light. At that time, I particularly liked listening to the hymn of God’s word “God Blesses Those Who Are Honest”: “When you give your heart to God alone and you don’t play false to Him, when you never do what would deceive those above you or below, when you’re open with God in all things, when you don’t do things simply to win the favor and smile of God, this is being honest. Honesty means when you run from impurity in each word and each deed, when you cheat not God nor people. Honesty means when you ran from impurity in each word and each deed, when you cheat not God nor people. This is honesty, oh, this is honesty. If your words are filled with excuses, filled with vain explanations, then you are not practicing the truth, you’re not willing to do so. …” Whenever I heard this hymn, I was very moved. I thought: Relying on trickery to deceive people caused me to live in condemnation and torment every day. My life was too tiring and full of suffering, and what I did made God detest me. Now I believe in God. I should seek to be an honest person according to God’s requirements, and shouldn’t make bad money or deceive others anymore. As a human, I should live with dignity and integrity. However, I was so deeply deceived by Satan. Although I knew being an honest person is God’s request, when I was faced with circumstances, it was very difficult for me to put God’s words into practice because I had no truth.
Once, a person came to purchase our CPUs, memories, hard disks and some other little accessories, and overpaid us by 500 yuan. When I found out I quickly told my son, “He overpaid us. Let’s call him and return the extra money.” After hearing what I said, my son replied with a stern face, “It is this difficult to make money, so we can’t return it. Mom, let’s divide it.” At that time, although God used my husband to tell me that we couldn’t take the money, when seeing my son’s firm attitude and thinking that it was indeed not easy to make money, I, holding the one hundred yuan my son parceled out to me, tacitly agreed. When I went back to my room, the scene that had taken place just now recurred to me. I thought that God had already reminded me through my husband, but I still wanted to take unfair advantage of the man. I already was a believer in God, often sang songs about being an honest person, and knew clearly that God likes honest people and despises and hates those who are deceitful and greedy. However, I still chose to be a deceitful person that displeased God. I was corrupted too deeply by Satan, and was unworthy of being called human. Thinking of this, I felt rather upset. Then I came before God to pray, and repented and confessed to Him. After praying, I took out the book of God’s word, and saw these words from God: “My kingdom requires those who are honest, not hypocritical, and not deceitful. Aren’t the sincere and honest people unpopular in the world? I am just the opposite. It is acceptable for the honest people to come to Me; I delight in this kind of person, I also need this kind of person. This is precisely My righteousness” (“The Thirty-third Utterance”). “Since He began to manage, God has been waiting for man to give his heart to Him, to let God purify and equip it, to make him satisfactory to God and loved by God, to make him revere God and shun evil. God has ever looked forward to and awaited this outcome” (“God’s Work, God’s Disposition, and God Himself II”). Pondering God’s words, I realized that God hopes for us to be honest people, give our hearts to Him, and revere God and shun evil because only honest people can be saved and enter His kingdom. However, I knew very well that God likes the honest, detests and hates deceitful people, but I still wanted to take unfair advantages of other people. Only at this time did I see clearly that the satanic poison “Whoever has money is a don and whoever has no money is nobody” had an extremely deleterious and serious effect on me. These lies of Satan and satanic rules of survival deceived my spirit and made me devoid of conscience, which would allow me to embark on the evil path of resisting God and to be thoroughly devoured by Satan at last. Having understood these things, I made up my mind: In the future, when doing business, I won’t commit fraud or deception. I must conduct myself in good conscience, and practice being honest—one is one, two is two. I will earn the money that I should earn. Whether my business is good or not is in God’s hands. I only have to rely on my faith to experience the words of God, and be an honest person that pleases Him.
Afterward, I purchased home appliances according to the regular prices, and no longer cheated others by trick. I also no longer took out the copper in televisions and sold them separately. When practicing like this, I felt peace and joy in my heart. What surprised me most was that when my husband and I did business according to our conscience and practiced being an honest person, our business became better and better and many sellers were willing to cooperate with us. I remember that once one of our colleagues wanted to sell us fifty-seven freezers. We refused him, for we resented that purchasing these freezers was too much hassle and unprofitable and we didn’t have enough cash. However, he insisted on our carting them away, and said, “Money isn’t a problem. You can pay me when you have money.” Then, seeing that these freezers were good, we bought them for one hundred and seventy yuan each. (The original price was one hundred yuan each.) After we got back home, my husband and I took these freezers apart, discovering that the freezers had half as much copper again as the common freezers. Even my niece, who did this business for over ten years, never met such case. Therefore, we earned extra money about half of our total profits. From this I saw God’s blessings. Thinking about the past when I did business relying on underhanded means and deceitfulness, I was very exhausted and had a guilty conscience. Besides, I made no money. When I put being an honest person into practice in accordance with the requirements of God in business, not only did I feel peace and joy, but my business also became ever better. Only then did I realize that only being an honest person will be blessed by God. Just as God’s words said: “You ought to know that God likes an honest man. God has the substance of faithfulness, and so His word can always be trusted. Furthermore, His actions are faultless and unquestionable. This is why God likes those who are absolutely honest with Him” (“Three Admonitions”).
Another time, we received a batch of goods which was half as many again as that I ordered. At that time, I unknowingly had a greedy thought, wanting to have them for ourselves. Just then, some of God’s words guided me from within: “Honesty means to give your heart to God; never to play Him false in anything; to be open with Him in all things, never hiding the truth; never to do that which deceives those above and deludes those below; and never to do that which merely ingratiates yourself with God. In short, to be honest is to refrain from impurity in your actions and words….” I thought: Yes! God requires us to be honest people. I can’t deceive God or people. So I discussed buying the extra goods with my husband and then sent the money to the seller. After knowing what we did, the seller’s boss appreciatively said to us: “I’d never seen such good people as you.” Later, my two sons wanted to learn computer. After he knew that, the boss told me: “You can rest easy and let your sons come to me to learn computer. I charge the others several thousand yuan at least. But I can teach your sons free of charge, and I promise to teach them well.” After my sons got there, the boss not only taught them to fix computers but also looked after their basic necessities. From this, I genuinely experienced God’s faithfulness. We just practiced a little truth, yet we obtained such great blessings from God and such a good assessment from the boss. I was really thankful to God. All this was God’s salvation for us. Were it not for the judgment and guidance of God’s words, I would have done business only based on Satan’s rules, and become increasingly corrupt, treacherous, greedy and selfish. It was God’s words that helped me jump out of the trap of sin, live out some likeness of the human and walk on the bright and right path of life.
All the glory be to God!
The End.
Part One: I No Longer Follow the Unwritten Rules of Business, but Practice the Truth and Act Honestly (I)