In church life, who else is prone to venting negativity? Some people do their duty without results, always slipping up; they do not self-reflect but always feel that God is not righteous or fair, that God always treats others graciously and not them, that God looks down on them, and never enlightens them, and that’s why no results ever come of their performance of their duty, and they’re never able to reach their goal of standing out and being esteemed. They grow blameful of God in their hearts, and as they do, jealousy, disgust, and hatred arise in them toward those who do their duties loyally. What sort of humanity do such people have? Are they not petty-minded? And besides that, don’t they fail to understand how to pursue the truth in their faith in God? They do not understand what believing in God is. They think that believing in God and doing a duty is like testing into university as a student, always needing to compare scores and rankings. So, they put great importance on these things. Isn’t that their state? First of all, from the perspective of comprehending the truth, do such people have spiritual understanding? They do not, and they don’t understand what it is to believe in God and pursue the truth. For one thing, they place great importance on their ranking among others; for another, they always use a scoring method to evaluate how well others do their duties and how well they do themselves, just as if they were assessing students in school, measuring people’s belief in God and performance of their duties with this method. Isn’t there something wrong with this? Additionally, isn’t the effortful way in which they do their duties wrong? Don’t they do their duties with the effort of study and test-taking? (Yes.) Why do we say so? Do such people understand how to seek the principles when believing in God and doing their duties? Are they able to seek the principles? In one aspect, they do not know how to seek the principles. How people should read God’s words, how to fellowship the truth, and how to properly do their duties—they do not understand these matters, nor do they care about them. They only know they have to find principles and act according to them, but with what the principles stipulate, what God requires, or how others act according to the principles, they lack understanding. They just don’t get it. And in another aspect, are they able to evaluate the performance of a duty based on God’s standards for measuring whether people’s performance of their duty is up to standard, and the principles that He requires of people in doing their duty? Can they understand these matters from God’s words and the fellowship of the brothers and sisters? First of all, they do not understand God’s words, nor do they understand matters of doing a duty. After they start believing in God and doing duties, they ponder: “When I was in school, I discovered a rule: As long as you’re willing to work hard and study more, you can achieve high scores. So, I’ll do the same in my faith in God. I’ll read God’s words more and pray more. While others are chatting or eating, I’ll learn hymns and memorize God’s words. With such effort, God will surely bless me, in light of my hard work, diligence, and industriousness, and my performance of duty will definitely be fruitful. I’m sure to score high among others, and I’ll be valued and promoted.” Yet, despite doing so, they still cannot achieve their wishes: “Why am I still less effective than others in doing my duty? How am I ever going to be promoted or used for important tasks? Doesn’t this mean there’s no hope? I was born competitive, unwilling to lag behind others. That’s how I was in school, and that’s how I still am, in my belief in God. Anyone who surpasses me, I’m determined to outdo them. I won’t rest until I do!” They believe that with the right method and approach—just bringing the effort of hard study to bear on reading more of God’s words and learning more hymns; not engaging in idle chatter; not focusing on dressing up; sleeping less and enjoying themselves less; subduing their body; and not indulging in fleshly comforts—they will then be able to receive God’s blessings, and they’re sure to achieve results in doing their duty. However, things always turn out differently than they expected: “Why do I still always make mistakes in doing my duty, and why can I still not do it as well as others? Others do things quickly and well, and the leader always praises and esteems them. I’ve endured so much suffering and hardship. Why am I still not achieving results?” As they ponder this, they finally make a significant discovery: “It turns out God is unrighteous. I’ve believed in God for so long, and only now do I see it! God is gracious to whomever He wants to be. So, why doesn’t He want to be gracious to me? Is it because I’m stupid, because flattery and eloquence are beyond me, because I’m not quick-witted? Or is it because I look too ordinary, and I’m not very educated? This is God revealing me, isn’t it? I have read so many of God’s words—why isn’t God gracious to me, but revealing me instead?” As they think about it, they become negative: “I don’t want to do my duty anymore. I haven’t been blessed by God while doing my duty, and I’ve read more of God’s words, but He hasn’t enlightened me. It’s said in God’s words: God is gracious to whomever He wants to be and shows mercy to whomever He will. I’m not someone to whom God shows mercy or is gracious. Why should I suffer this torment?” The more they think, the more negative they become, and the less they feel they have a way forward. They feel suffocated by their grievances, and they no longer want to do their duty; and when doing their duty, they just go through the motions. However others fellowship the principles, it doesn’t get through to them. There’s no reaction inside them. When they are in this kind of condition, do they have any life entry? Do they have any loyalty in doing their duty? Not anymore, and the little effort and diligence they once had are gone, too. So, what’s left in their hearts? “I’ll just make plans as I go, and take things as they come. God might reveal and eliminate me any day now, giving up on me. When the day comes when I’m not allowed to do my duty, I won’t do it. I know I’m not good enough. God may not have eliminated me yet, but I know He doesn’t like me. It’s only a matter of time until I’m eliminated.” These thoughts and views arise in their hearts, and when they interact with others, such remarks occasionally slip out: “Go on believing earnestly, you all. Your faith and performance of your duties are bound to be blessed by God. I’m hopeless. I’m at the end of my road. No matter how diligent or hardworking I am, it’s no use. If God doesn’t like someone, no amount of effort they put in is of any use. I do my duty by putting in effort as I’m able; if there’s nowhere for my efforts to go, there’s nothing to be done about it. Can God compel people to do what’s beyond them? God can’t force a cat to talk!” What’s being said here? The implication is: “This is just how I am. No matter how God treats me, this will be my attitude.” Tell Me, why would someone with such an attitude and intent still want to receive God’s blessings? Can this state and this attitude they’ve developed influence others? They can easily have a negative and detrimental influence, leading others into negativity and weakness. Isn’t this misleading and harming others? People with such a degree of negativity belong to the category of devils, don’t they? Devils never love the truth.

Some people don’t vent their negativity in lengthy discourses; they simply utter a few phrases: “You are all better than me. You are all greatly blessed. I’m hopeless. No matter how hard I try, it’s useless. I have no hope of receiving God’s blessings.” Although the words are simple and seem unproblematic, sounding as though they are examining themselves, dissecting themselves, and accepting facts like their own poor caliber and shortcomings, in actuality, they are venting a kind of invisible negativity. These words carry sarcasm and mockery, as well as resistance, and of course, even more so, they carry dissatisfaction with God, along with a negative and downcast mood. These negative words might be few, but this mood, like a contagious disease, can affect others. Although they do not explicitly say, “I no longer wish to do my duties, I have no hope of salvation, and you are all in danger too,” they send a signal that makes people feel that if this individual, despite their efforts, has no hope of salvation, then those who do not try are even less likely to have hope. By transmitting this signal, they are telling everyone, “Hope is important. If God does not give you hope, if God does not bless you, then no matter how much effort you apply, it’s all in vain.” After most people accept this signal, their faith in God deep inside cannot help but wane, and the loyalty and sincerity they should demonstrate when doing their duties are greatly diminished. Although they vent this negativity without a clear intention to mislead or draw people over to their side, this negative mood quickly affects others, making them feel a crisis, feeling that their efforts are easily wasted; it makes people live within their feelings, using feelings to speculate about God, and analyzing and scrutinizing God’s attitude and sincerity toward humans based on superficial appearances. When this negative mood is transmitted to others, they can’t help but distance themselves from God and misunderstand and doubt what God has said, no longer believing in His words. At the same time, they no longer have sincerity toward their duties; they are unwilling to pay a price, and unwilling to have any loyalty. This is the impact of these negative remarks on people. What is the consequence of this impact? After hearing these words, people do not gain edification, much less do they achieve self-knowledge, discover their shortcomings, or become able to practice the truth and do their duties according to principles—they gain none of these positive results. Instead, this impact makes people become more negative, think about giving up the pursuit of the truth, and no longer have the resolve to do their duties. Why have they lost faith? (They feel that they have no hope of salvation.) Right, they have accepted this message and feel they have no hope of salvation, so they are unwilling to make an effort to do their duties. This behavior shows that they are not sincerely pursuing the truth but always judging whether God is pleased with them, whether they have hope of salvation, and whether God approves of their performance of their duties based on feelings, moods, and conjecture. When people judge these things based on conjecture, they don’t have much motivation to practice the truth. Why is this? Can people accurately judge God when they judge Him based on conjecture? Can people accurately make conjectures about every thought and idea God has? (No.) People’s minds are full of deceitfulness, transactions, philosophies for worldly dealings, Satan’s logic, and so on. What are the consequences of people making conjectures about God based on these things? It leads to doubting God, distancing oneself from God, and even a complete loss of faith in God. When a person completely loses faith in God, a big question mark will inevitably be placed in their heart about whether God exists. At that time, their time as a believer in God will end—they are thoroughly ruined. Additionally, is it correct for people to make conjectures about God? Is this the attitude a created being should have toward the Creator? Clearly, it is not. People should not make conjectures about God, nor should they speculate about God’s thinking or His thoughts about humans. This in itself is wrong; people have assumed an incorrect perspective and position.

People should not treat God with conjecture, speculation, doubt, or suspicion, nor should they judge Him based on human thoughts and viewpoints, philosophies for worldly dealings, or academic knowledge. So, how should people treat God? First, people should believe that God is the truth. God’s requirements for people, His intentions toward them, His love and hatred for people, and His arrangements, thoughts, and ideas for various kinds of people, and so on, do not require your speculation; these matters have clear explanations and clear meanings in God’s words. You need only to believe, seek, and then practice according to God’s words—that’s how simple it is. God does not ask you to judge what He intends to do with you or how He views you based on feelings. So, you think that you have no hope of salvation—is this a feeling or a fact? Did God’s words say so? (No.) Then, what do God’s words say? God tells people how to seek the truth for solutions and find the path to practice the truth whenever they face any problem or reveal corrupt dispositions. This confirms one thing: It is true that God wants to save people and transform their corrupt dispositions; God is not deceiving you, and this is not empty talk. You think you have no hope of salvation, but that is just a momentary mood, a feeling produced under a certain environment. Your feelings do not represent God’s desires or intentions, much less His thoughts, and they do not represent the truth either. Therefore, if you live by this feeling, if you make conjectures about God based on this feeling, using your feeling to replace God’s desires, then you are greatly mistaken and have fallen into Satan’s trap. What should one do in this situation? Do not rely on feelings. Some people say, “If we shouldn’t rely on feelings, what should we rely on?” Relying on anything of yours is useless; human feelings do not represent the truth. Who knows how your feeling was generated, where it really came from—if it was produced by being misled by Satan, then it’s troublesome. In any case, no matter how the feeling came about, it does not represent the truth. The more intense someone’s feelings and intuitions are, the more they need to seek the truth, to come before God and self-reflect. Human feelings, and facts and the truth, are two different things. Can feelings provide you with the truth? Can they bring you a path of practice? They cannot. Only God’s words, only the truth, can bring you a path of practice, can bring you a turnaround, and open a way out. Therefore, what you should practice is not to seek out your own feelings—your feelings are not important. What you should do is come before God to seek the truth, to understand God’s intentions through His words. The more you rely on feelings, then the more you find yourself without a way forward, the deeper you fall into negativity, and the more you believe that God is unfair, that God has not blessed you. On the contrary, if you set aside these feelings to seek the truth principles, to see which actions in the process of doing your duty have violated the truth principles, which actions were done according to your own will and are completely unrelated to the truth principles, then, in the process of seeking, you will discover that you have too much of your own will, too many imaginings. Just by applying this bit of earnestness, you will uncover many problems: “I am too rebellious, too willful, too arrogant! It’s not that I have no hope of salvation; my feelings are inaccurate. It’s that I did not take God’s words seriously, and that I did not practice according to the truth principles. I always complain that God does not bless me, does not guide me, and is partial, but actually I did not recognize that I am perfunctory, willful, and reckless in my performance of duty—this is my fault. Now I have realized, God does not show partiality. When people do not seek the truth or come before God, God is already being good to them by not revoking their qualification to perform a duty; God is already being very lenient in this regard. Yet, I still felt full of grievances, even contending and arguing with God. Before, I thought I was quite good, but now I see that that’s not true at all. Whatever I did was not based on principles; that God did not discipline me was His grace—He recognized my small stature!” Through such seeking, you will understand some truths and be able to take the initiative to actively practice according to the truth principles. Bit by bit, you will feel that you have some principles in being a person and in doing your duty. At this time, won’t you feel much more at peace in your conscience? “Before, I felt I had no hope of salvation, but now why has this feeling, this awareness, become increasingly faint? How is it that this state changed? Before, I thought I had no hope; wasn’t that just negativity and resistance, and fighting against God? I was much too rebellious!” After submitting, unknowingly, in the process of doing your duty, you will start to understand some principles, and you will no longer compare yourself with others; you will just focus on how to avoid perfunctoriness and how to do your duties according to principles. Unconsciously, you will no longer feel that you cannot be saved, and you will no longer be trapped in that negative state; you will do your duties according to principles, and feel that your relationship with God has become normal. When you have this feeling, you will think, “God has not abandoned me; I can feel God’s presence, and I can feel God’s guidance and blessings when I seek God while doing my duties. I finally feel that God blesses others and also blesses me, and that God does not show partiality; it seems I still have hope of salvation. It turns out that the path I walked before was wrong; I was always going through the motions and committing reckless misdeeds in doing my duty, and I even thought I was fine, living in my own little world and admiring myself. Now I see that doing so was a great mistake! Living entirely in a state of clamoring against and resisting God—no wonder I did not receive God’s enlightenment. How could I receive God’s enlightenment if I do not act according to principles?” You see, two entirely different ways of practicing, two entirely different ways of dealing with one’s own ideas, ultimately lead to different results.

People cannot live by their feelings in their belief in God. People’s feelings are just passing moods—do they have anything to do with their outcomes? With facts? (No.) When people stray far from God, when they live in a state of mind in which they misunderstand God, or resist, fight against, and clamor against God, then they have totally left the care and protection of God, and no longer have a place for God in their hearts. When people live in a state such as this, they can’t help but live by their own feelings. Some minor thought can so upset them that they can’t eat or sleep, a careless remark from someone can plunge them into guesswork and bewilderment, and even a single nightmare can make them negative and cause them to misunderstand God. Once this kind of vicious cycle has taken shape, people determine that it’s over for them, that they have lost all hope of being saved, that they have been forsaken by God, and that God will not save them. The more they think in this way, and the more they have such feelings, the more they are plunged into negativity. The actual reason why people have these feelings is because they do not seek the truth or practice according to the truth principles. When something happens to them, people do not seek the truth, do not practice the truth, and always go their own way, living amid their own petty cleverness. They spend each day comparing themselves to others and competing with them, envying and hating anyone whom they think is better than them, and jeering and mocking anyone whom they think is below them, living in the disposition of Satan, not doing things according to the truth principles, and refusing to accept anybody’s advice. This ultimately leads them to develop all kinds of delusions, speculations, and judgments, and they make themselves perpetually anxious. And do they not deserve this? Such bitter fruit can only be borne by themselves—and they truly deserve it. What causes all this? It is because people do not seek the truth, are too arrogant and self-righteous, they are always acting according to their own ideas, they are always showing off and comparing themselves to others, they are always trying to distinguish themselves, they are always making unreasonable demands of God, and so on—all of these things cause people to gradually stray from God, to resist God and violate the truth over and over again. Ultimately, they plunge themselves into darkness and negativity. And at such times, people do not have a true understanding of their own rebellion and opposition, much less is it possible for them to approach these things with the right attitude. Instead, they complain about God, misunderstand God, and speculate about Him. When this happens, people finally realize their corruption is very deep and that they are too troublesome, so they determine that they are of the kind that opposes God, and they can’t help but be plunged into negativity, unable to pull themselves out. What they believe is, “God spurns me, God doesn’t want me. I’m too rebellious, I deserve it, God definitely will not save me anymore.” They believe that these are all facts. They determine the guesses in their hearts to be facts. No matter who fellowships the truth with them, it is of no use, they don’t accept it. They think, “God will not bless me, He will not save me, so what’s the point in believing in God?” When the path of their belief in God has gotten to this point, are people still capable of believing? No. Why can they no longer go on? There is a fact here. When people’s negativity reaches a certain point that their hearts are filled with resistance and complaints, and they wish to sever their relationship with God once and for all, then it is no longer something so simple as them not fearing God, not submitting to God, not loving the truth, and not accepting the truth. What is it instead? In their hearts, they actively choose to give up their faith in God. They think it shameful to passively await being eliminated, and that there is more dignity in choosing to give up, so they take the initiative to forfeit their chance, bringing things to an end by themselves. They condemn faith in God as being bad, they condemn the truth as being unable to change people, and they condemn God as unrighteous, blaming Him for not saving them: “I’m so diligent, I suffer so much more hardship than others, and pay so much more of a price than everyone else, I do my duty sincerely, and still God has not blessed me. Now I see clearly that God does not like me, that God treats people unequally.” They have the gall to turn their doubts about God into condemnation of God and blasphemy against Him. When this fact takes shape, can they continue on the path of faith in God? Because they rebel against God and oppose God, and do not accept the truth or reflect on themselves at all, they are ruined. Is it not unreasonable for someone to abandon God on their own initiative and then complain that God does not bless them or show them grace? Everyone chooses their own path and walks it themselves; no one can do it for them. It is you who have chosen a dead end, you who have abandoned God and rejected Him. From beginning to end, God has never said He does not want you, or that He has given up on you, or that He refuses to save you; it is you who have delimited God based on your guesses. If you truly believed in God, and you would still believe in God even if He did not want you, and you would still believe in God, and continue to read His words, and still accept the truth and do your duties normally, even if He detested you, who then could restrict or stop you? Isn’t it all about your own choices and pursuits? You yourself lack faith yet turn around to blame God; this is being unreasonable. You do not maintain your relationship with God and insist on destroying it; once there is a rift, can it be restored? A broken mirror is hard to put back together, and even if it is put back together, the crack will still be there. Now that the relationship has broken down, it can never be restored to its original state. Thus, no matter what kind of environment they encounter in the course of believing in God, people should learn to submit and they should seek the truth—only then can they stand firm. If you want to follow God until the end of the road, it’s crucial to pursue the truth; whether in doing your duties or doing anything else, understanding the truth principles and practicing and implementing them is essential, because it is through the process of understanding the truth and practicing in accordance with the truth principles that you come to know God, understand God, and comprehend Him, that you grasp God’s intentions and achieve compatibility with Him, gaining a comprehension and acceptance of God’s essence. If you don’t put the truth principles into practice and merely act or do your duties according to your own will, you will never come into contact with the truth. What does it mean to never come into contact with the truth? It means that you will never come into contact with God’s attitude toward everything, His requirements, or His thoughts; and it is even less likely that you will come into contact with God’s disposition and essence as revealed in His work. If you fail to come into contact with these facts of God’s work, your comprehension of God will forever be limited to human imaginings and notions. It will remain within the realm of imaginings and notions and will never align with the essence and true disposition of God. In this way, you will not be able to achieve a genuine comprehension of God.