The Responsibilities of Leaders and Workers (11) Part Three
Having understood the responsibilities of leaders and workers, have you also understood the principles that each and every brother and sister should grasp in their treatment of the various material items of God’s house? You may not be leaders and workers, but you should still fulfill the responsibility of supervision. This is the right of God’s chosen people. Also, with the various material items of God’s house—books and instruments of all sorts; daily food, drink, and items; and so forth—everyone must treat them with love and care. Everyone should also conduct regular checks, repairs, and maintenance on the various things they’re using, and they should use them sensibly—don’t let them come to be damaged and wasted in your possession, or dispose of them indiscriminately. Some say, “This thing isn’t mine, anyway. I didn’t buy it with my money. God’s house issued it to me—it’s public property. I don’t need to care about when it’s maintained and repaired, or where it’s stored. I can’t take it around with me, as though I’d hijacked it.” Is this a sensible thought? Is it not quite selfish and lacking in humanity? (It is.) So, what principles should be followed in using the material items of God’s house? If something has been allocated for your use, then it’s yours to repair and take care of while you’re using it. You’re entirely responsible; without anyone else’s urging or supervision, you should treat, cherish, and protect the item as if it were your personal property. That’s what it is to have humanity. Whatever condition the thing was in when it was issued to you, when you’re no longer allowed to use it or are finished with it, you should return it to the person who safeguards it perfectly undamaged and in its original condition. This is called having reason; this is something that should be there in humanity. You say that you believe in God, that you have a conscience and reason, that you love the truth, and pursue it, and submit to it, but if you don’t even have the most minimal humanity that you should in your treatment of a material item, how can you even talk about loving the truth or practicing it? Isn’t that a bit too hollow? If you can’t even fulfill the responsibility you should in your treatment of a material item, it means your humanity is no good—“lacking humanity” is a common way to put it. In addition, however you use your own things, whether you’re rough or meticulous in your treatment of them, that’s your right. No one will interfere. But God’s house has principles for the use of its things. These principles are all grounded in conscience and reason, and though they may not rise to the height of the truth, they at the very least conform to the standards for humanity. If you can’t even meet this standard for humanity, if you can’t even correctly treat and use the instruments and supplies God’s house issues to you, then whether you can understand the truth and enter the truth reality is a problem—it calls for a question mark on it. So, when it comes to your treatment of these things, you have the right to use them, and you naturally also have the responsibility to repair, maintain, and care for them. You must take these things seriously. If you, like the nonbelievers, say, “It’s not mine, anyway. I didn’t buy it with my money. If a public thing breaks, it breaks—just buy a new one, or fix it, in the worst case. Still, it’s not as if I’ve lost out.” If that’s how you think, that’s trouble—you’re in danger. You do not possess upright character, and your heart isn’t in the right place. To use one’s own things sparingly, but to treat the things of God’s house as unimportant, not to take care to cherish them—is that not someone whose heart isn’t in the right place? Does God like people whose hearts aren’t in the right place? (No.) Tell Me, does God scrutinize people whose hearts aren’t in the right place? (He does.) God scrutinizes those whose hearts are and those whose aren’t alike. When you accept God’s scrutiny, what’s to be done if you discover you’re thinking that way? Pay it no heed? Leave it unchecked? Not care about it? “What I think is my business. Who are you to meddle in it? If you let me use something, then I have a right to use it—and at any rate, it’ll be fine if I just don’t break the machine. Why are you making such high and so many demands?” Is this a good way of thinking? (No.) It’s “lacking humanity.” If you have such thoughts, you must accept God’s scrutiny and say, “God, I have a corrupt disposition, and my humanity is poor. I used to think I was quite noble and honorable, that I had dignity; I wouldn’t have thought this little item would reveal me: I have selfish desires; my heart’s not in the right place; I have my own little aims. I’m willing to accept Your scrutiny and Your discipline, and I’m willing to turn myself around.” You must pray and repent before God, and let Him scrutinize you. When you have accepted His scrutiny, how should you turn yourself around? You will say, “It was immoral to think as I once did—that’s the thinking of nonbelievers, of disbelievers. I can’t think like that anymore. I must not take that road. I’m a believer in God; I need to be a person with humanity and dignity, I need to do things that God loves. I need to change my way of using instruments and machines in the future. I must let them rest when they should, and repair them as needed, and maintain them as needed. I must clean them often, and regularly check their various components to ensure their normal usage. And I’ll clean up right away when I’m through with them, and get them back into safekeeping, so as not to let uninvolved people tamper with them.” And then, when you use machines again in the future, you’ll be particularly careful and attentive. Your views will constantly be changing, and your ways will improve, turning from your previous selfish, despicable thoughts and actions toward a sense of responsibility, a mind to care for things, and a mind to take responsibility. A change in your thinking is the beginning of truly turning yourself around. It becomes a change in your ways when you actualize your thinking and thoughts in your practice. It’s when it reaches this level that God sees that you are truly turning around and repenting; these reversals and changes you make will be truly acceptable to God. This is practicing the truth. What’s the most fundamental thing one must possess in practicing the truth? The conscience and reason that people ought to have. And does a selfish, despicable person have a conscience and reason? (No.) You may know as a matter of doctrine that you can’t leave the items of God’s house lying around, or damage and waste them, or be irresponsible with them—but what’s your attitude in your heart and thoughts? “What’s the point of caring about those things? The thing’s not even mine.” Such thinking will steer your behavior, and will the doctrine you know be of any use then? No—it will just be doctrine that comes to no avail at all. Only when your thinking and views reverse, and you’ve truly turned around and repented before God, will your behavior and your practical actions begin to change. That’s when what you live out will begin to have humanity; that’s when you’ll begin to enter the truth reality. Such a small matter reveals a person’s humanity, as well as whether that person truly does love the truth.
Managing the various material items of God’s house is a responsibility that leaders and workers should fulfill, and every one of God’s chosen people should collectively offer supervision, help, and the utmost cooperation. This is everyone’s responsibility. God’s chosen people should serve as examples. They should begin with themselves—only when they do a good job themselves are they qualified to supervise others, and to evaluate whether what others do is appropriate and in line with the principles. This is a matter that involves everyone, that little thing reveals people’s humanity, as well as their attitude toward the truth. Leaders and workers should do this work well and with extreme vigor, according to the principles of God’s house, and every ordinary brother and sister should also regard this matter with strictness and caution. You must reflect on yourself often, on whether there are problems in your humanity and thinking, on what sort of attitude you have. When you find that there’s a problem with your attitude and thinking, you should promptly pray and turn yourself around—and when managing or using the things of God’s house, you should strive in part neither to be rebuked by your conscience nor come up short to God, and in part to be admired by others and have them approve of what you do, and say you have humanity, which is there for all to see. The main thing is for people to uphold the principles when doing this. This is the obligation people should fulfill, something any member of God’s house should achieve. It’s not just the responsibility of leaders and workers.
Are you now more or less clear on item ten of the responsibilities of leaders and workers? Having understood the principles, people should be more attentive and meticulous in doing this work, and they should take more pains with it, and not be lazy—they’ll then basically be able to reduce damage and waste of the material items of God’s house, and keep them from being plundered by evil people. This should be achievable. Why do I say it’s easy to achieve? These are matters that everyone’s daily life at home may touch on. It’s easy to be attentive in managing the things of your own home, so if you safeguard the things of God’s house as though they were your own, according to the requirements of His house, allocate them sensibly, and come to reduce damage and waste, and don’t let evil people plunder them, you will then be fulfilling the responsibility of leaders and workers. This work seems by its nature to be a general affairs task. Why are we calling it a general affairs task? It involves the management of material items. Manage them and allocate them well, and you’ll be fulfilling your responsibility. Also, the principle of this work is quite simple—it only involves a single principle, and it doesn’t involve complicated truths. So long as one has a burden and the right intentions, they can do this work well without needing to understand too much truth, and without needing too much truth to be fellowshipped to them. Therefore, this work is a single task, and it’s a general affairs task. It’s work that’s easy for leaders and workers to do. So long as you’re a bit more industrious, ask more questions, make more inquiries, concern yourself more, and have the right intentions, you can do it. It’s not complicated at all. We’ve finished our fellowship on item ten of the responsibilities of leaders and workers. It’s that simple.
Now that you’ve understood this responsibility of leaders and workers, with regard to it, we’ll go on to dissect the manifestations that false leaders display when they perform this work, and what things they do that can define them as false leaders. First, when false leaders do this work, they aren’t capable of safeguarding various items properly. Safeguarding is the first item of important work when it comes to all sorts of material items. False leaders are a mess in everything they do; in addition to being mired in a morass when it comes to the truth and the various principles that involve it, they’re likewise a mess when it comes to safeguarding the various material items of God’s house. They don’t know what kinds of people to look for to manage them or the way they should be safeguarded. They have no precise goals and no specific plans, much less detailed steps for doing this work. If there’s someone willing to take the trouble, these items can be safeguarded; if there’s not, a false leader lets these items be casually set aside. They don’t find an appropriate person to safeguard them or an appropriate place to store them, and less still do they fellowship the specific principles of safeguarding them. At the same time, they make no arrangements for the future placement, repair, and maintenance of these material items. Some false leaders are even completely ignorant regarding what items God’s house has—they don’t care and they don’t ask about this. Say that God’s house has printed new books of God’s words, for instance. How many books are left after they’ve been distributed, who’s been arranged to store them, how they are being stored, and whether they are being stored in the right place—a false leader will know none of these things, nor will they ask or make inquiries about them. Why won’t they make inquiries? They think that safeguarding the material items of God’s house is a minor matter, that they’re a leader, someone who does important things, who exclusively preaches. They pay no mind at all to these “minor matters,” but hand them off to be done by people who don’t understand anything, and they don’t care if they’re done well or badly. Therefore, they don’t take the work of safeguarding the material items of God’s house seriously at all. This is one reason. The other is that some false leaders are muddleheaded—their minds are a jumble. They don’t have normal thinking or an awareness for safeguarding things, and they have no procedure or path as to how to safeguard the items of God’s house. So, they don’t know how many of these things are damaged, and they don’t know if there are instances of waste, either. When some things are taken by evil people, a false leader says, “Let them be—in any case, everything is in God’s hands.” Some important items are used by individuals without anyone’s approval; those people take these things, and others can’t use them in their work, and no one dares ask for them. A false leader says, “No big deal. Just buy a new one. They took that thing, so let them use it first. It’s just a thing—it’s all the same no matter who uses it. If they’re not using it sensibly, that’s between them and God. There’s no need for us to interfere.” Look at how they preach a grand doctrine to “handle” the issue, turning big issues into small ones and small ones into nothing. False leaders fulfill none of their responsibilities when it comes to safeguarding the various items of God’s house. They don’t care or ask about it, and they don’t resolve or handle any problems. Even if the Above looks into their work, they just speak evasively to fob them off, and that’s it.
Some brothers and sisters buy equipment, clothes, and medicine for God’s house to use, and when a false leader sees those items, they’ll pick through them and take the good clothes, shoes, and bags for themselves, and only allow others to take the leftover stuff that they themselves don’t need. When the blockheads they lead see this, they say, “Our leader’s picked what he wants—now, it’s our turn. When we’re done, we’ll toss the worthless stuff that’s left to the brothers and sisters beneath us.” Whosever hands these things fall into, that’s who they belong to, and the remaining things that no one likes are tossed aside, and no one safeguards them. And so, the various material items of God’s house nominally have places to be safeguarded, but in fact, they’re not being safeguarded at all—those places are dumps, without anyone at all managing them. They just toss things in some spot and allow them to pile up. There are clothes, shoes and socks, medicine, and electronics, as well as daily goods and kitchenware—it’s a jumble, with all sorts of junk in it, and even food for people and food for dogs get mixed together. If you ask who’s managing these things and whether they sort them; or whether there are instructions for these things, and how they need to be safeguarded; or, if these things are not needed for the work of God’s house, whether the brothers and sisters have need of them—nobody knows the answers. It’s quite normal for the brothers and sisters not to know, but the leaders and workers also don’t have the answers for any of these questions—they completely shirk responsibility for these things, saying either “I don’t know,” or “Someone’s taking care of that,” thereby dismissing you, and cheating God’s house. This causes these problems to go unresolved. It’s not difficult for leaders and workers to find suitable people to manage the various material items of God’s house, is it? False leaders don’t even do the simple work of finding someone loyal to safeguard these things properly, to keep good records and keep them well sorted. What do they do, then? When brothers and sisters have offered clothes or daily necessities to God’s house, and false leaders see these items, they swarm around them, like a pack of hungry wolves devouring meat together. They try on whichever garments suit them, over and over, endlessly picking things out for themselves. When God’s house purchases different sorts of important and expensive machinery and equipment, they rush to pick out the good ones for themselves first. Why do they pick out the good ones? They think that as a leader or a worker, they have privileged usage rights over the items of God’s house. Whatever God’s house issues, they always pick the best stuff first. This is how they treat the items of God’s house. Is this doing work? Is this not a manifestation of false leaders? When it comes to things that have expiration dates—food and medicine, for instance—false leaders just don’t care about them. They don’t find suitable personnel to manage them, nor do they tell the personnel, “Some of these things have expiration dates, so make a record of them right away. Hurry to allocate them to brothers and sisters before their expiration dates, so that they are used sensibly—don’t wait for them to expire; don’t let them go to waste.” False leaders never do these things. When something expires, they just throw it away. When leaders and workers perform work in God’s house, strictly speaking, they should be the stewards of God’s house. The first thing they should do is sensibly safeguard the items of God’s house well, keeping firm watch over them and conducting proper checks. This is also a fundamental item of the work of God’s house, yet false leaders can’t even do such fundamental work as this. Are they muddled, of poor caliber, and dim-witted—or are their hearts not in the right place? If they are dim-witted and muddled, how do they know to pick the good items for themselves? Why don’t they part with their own things or casually give them to other people? Why don’t they spoil or damage their own things? And why is this their attitude toward the things of God’s house? Clearly, they lack morals, and their hearts aren’t in the right place. Once leaders and workers have gotten status, and come into contact with a greater scope of the work of God’s house, they get to have privileged access to the various material items and public property of God’s house, and they’re the most informed about these things. And yet some leaders ignore them, don’t safeguard them properly, and let anyone use them and take them, they just let whoever is willing to care about them do that, and if someone isn’t willing to care about them and is irresponsible, they don’t mind, and even if they learn that someone has a problem, they don’t resolve it. These are false leaders. At this point, we’ve concluded that false leaders, beyond being poor of caliber and not bearing a burden, also have their hearts in the wrong place, and have poor character. Since these leaders are of poor caliber and lack comprehension ability, their doing a bad job at work that involves the truth and life entry is understandable. And since they’re of poor caliber and don’t have work capability, their doing a bad job at work that involves administration is also something that can be tolerated. But their not even being able to perform work that involves managing the various items of God’s house—which is the most minimal, simple work—demonstrates something even more clearly: For some false leaders, their problem isn’t as simple as having poor caliber and not bearing a burden, even more so they are of particularly low character and poor humanity. Through our fellowship on the tenth responsibility of leaders and workers, another manifestation of false leaders has been revealed: They aren’t just of poor caliber, not bearing a burden, and greedy for fleshly comfort—they’re also of poor character, and their hearts aren’t in the right place. Things that aren’t theirs are of no concern to them—they don’t even safeguard them. They have been made stewards of God’s house, and yet they bite the hand that feeds them and they do not protect the interests of God’s house while living off it; they casually toss the things of God’s house to one side, as if they belonged to outsiders, and they don’t safeguard them, and they think they’re no big deal. This isn’t just a failure to fulfill their responsibilities—it’s a problem with their humanity, it’s a great lack of morals! Safeguarding the things they’re supposed to poorly, or not safeguarding them, indicates that false leaders have no humanity, and that their hearts aren’t in the right place. They can’t even safeguard the items of God’s house well, so if they were to allocate them, could they do so sensibly? They fall even shorter of acting according to the principles. They see the things of God’s house being carelessly thrown away, damaged, and wasted, without anyone good there to manage them, and they know all too well in their hearts that doing that isn’t right—yet still, they don’t handle this. That’s having one’s heart in the wrong place. Can those scum, whose hearts are in the wrong place, sensibly allocate the various material items of God’s house? They’re even less able to do that—if you have them allocate those things, they’ll do things that are even more lacking in morals.
In one farm church that keeps dogs, the person responsible for keeping them cares very much for the newborn puppies. They were afraid that the puppies wouldn’t get the nutrition they needed, so they applied for organic eggs for the dogs to eat. The false leader there signed off on the request at once; they didn’t think about how scarce organic eggs are. There aren’t even enough for people to eat, so why would they give them to the dogs? Is this not an absurd way to handle this matter? What is the nature of this behavior of that false leader? How’s it to be characterized? Isn’t this practice of that false leader absurd? What that false leader says all the time, whenever they open their mouth, are doctrines that suit people’s tastes, but in fact, they don’t understand the least bit of the truth principles, so when something happens, they approach it and handle it according to human imaginings, preferences, and subjective wishes—and they ultimately wound up doing such a disgusting thing as feeding organic eggs to dogs. Can this sort of allocation of the items of God’s house by that false leader be considered sensible? (No.) Why can’t they achieve sensible allocation? On the surface, it seems that false leader was intervening in, caring about, and following up on even this very small matter, and that they had ample reason and grounds to support this application—but were they acting in alignment with the principles? Were they acting according to the principles required by God’s house? No. So, looking at the nature of this action of theirs, is it a good deed or an evil deed? Is it a fulfillment of their responsibility or a dereliction? It’s a dereliction—it’s unprincipled, it’s recklessly doing bad things! Through this matter, what do you see the essence of this false leader’s humanity to be? Is it not distorted comprehension and the blind application of regulations? What they say with every breath is correct doctrines, and it sounds as if there’s not a wrong phrase in it, yet in fact, it’s distorted. Such people are falsely spiritual and have distorted comprehension—they are pieces of trash that lack spiritual understanding. We mentioned just now that the humanity of false leaders is that they’re low of character and have their hearts in the wrong place. They lack principles when it comes time to allocate the items of God’s house, and they allocate them blindly, which reveals that false leaders are distorted in their comprehension and blindly apply regulations, and that they’re unprincipled in their actions—they just act blindly and randomly. False leaders seem on the outside to be so benevolent and kind, when in fact, this is false benevolence and false kindness. When a female dog birthed puppies, for instance, the dog-keeper said they should give the dogs a new blanket meant for people. Someone then said, “It’d be a pity to give a new blanket to the dogs—it’d be better to give it to the brothers and sisters instead, and give the old blanket we’re replacing to the animals.” What do you think of this suggestion? Allocating new things to people and old things to animals is quite sensible. This is the principle; this is sensible allocation. How do false leaders handle such things when they encounter them? After hearing this, the false leader there pondered: “The animals never get to use new things. They’re always using old, dirty things. We people always get to use new things. God’s words have said that sometimes we’re not even as good as pigs or dogs. So, don’t fight with pigs and dogs over things. That’s a lack of humanity.” And so, they wound up giving the new blanket to those animals. The people there may not have lost out by using an old one, but the way this thing was handled is very illustrative of the issue. What role did the false leader play in this matter? Would you say that normal people would be able to do such a thing? (No.) What sorts of people, then, would allow things to get to this point while handling this matter? (Absurd types who lack the reason or thinking of normal people.) These answers are all correct—those people are less than nothing. When normal people encounter something like this, they know how to handle it sensibly, but falsely spiritual false leaders with distorted comprehension don’t know how to handle it. Their way of handling it also seems to have a basis, and it also seems to accord with the principles of God’s house, and to be backed up by abundant, sensible justifications—yet people come away from hearing it not knowing whether to laugh or cry, it’s so ludicrous. How is it that they can’t even make sense of such simple, obvious logic? How do they wind up handling it in such a distorted way? It’s sickening. If you have them act as stewards, they’ll have dogs catching mice, cats guarding the house, and pigs in the beds—everything will be in a muddle. Are false leaders capable of sensibly allocating the various material items of God’s house? (No.) They’re a kind apart, muddled people, and absurd types. Aside from those false leaders with particularly distorted comprehension and their hearts in the wrong place, the majority of false leaders also make a mess and a jumble of this kind of work, though they have a bit of caliber and aren’t distorted in their comprehension. They can’t even fulfill the most minimal responsibilities they ought to. So, when you ask them about this work, their answer is always the same: “So-and-so is on it. So-and-so knows. If you’ve got any questions, I’ll have to go ask So-and-so.” And that’s the last you’ll hear of it. This is the manifestation that false leaders display when they’re doing this work.
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