Do you have any more questions? (God, would You fellowship a bit more with us on what it means to test God? In what ways does testing God manifest in people?) Testing God is when people don’t know how God acts, and don’t know Him or understand Him, and so they frequently come up with some unreasonable demands of Him. For instance, when someone is sick, they may pray that God cure them. “I won’t seek treatment—let’s see if God will cure me or not.” And so, after praying for quite some time with no action from God, they say, “Since God hasn’t done anything, I’ll take medicine and see if He hinders me. If the medicine gets stuck in my throat, or if I spill some water, that may be God’s way of hindering me and keeping me from taking it.” That’s what a test is. Or you are made to spread the gospel, for instance. In normal circumstances, everyone decides through fellowship and deliberation what your duties call for and what you should do, and then you act when the time is right. If something happens while you are acting, that’s God’s sovereignty—if God would hinder you, then He’ll do it proactively. However, let’s say you say in prayer, “Oh, God, I’m going out today to spread the gospel. Is it in accordance with Your intention that I go out? I don’t know whether today’s potential gospel recipient can accept it or not, nor how exactly You’re going to rule over this. I ask for Your arrangements, for Your guidance, for You to show me these things.” After praying, you sit there, unmoving, then say, “Why doesn’t God have anything to say about that? Maybe it’s that I don’t read His words enough, so He can’t show me those things. If that’s so, I’ll get out there, right away. If I fall on my face out there, that may be God keeping me from going, and if everything goes smoothly and God doesn’t hinder me, that may be God allowing me to go.” That’s a test. Why are we calling that a test? God’s work is practical; it’s fine for people to just perform the duties they’re supposed to, arrange their daily lives, and live their lives of normal humanity in a way that accords with the principles. There’s no need to test how God’s going to act or what guidance He’ll give. Concern yourself only with doing what you’re supposed to; don’t always have additional thoughts such as, “Is God allowing me to do this, or isn’t He? If I do this, how will God handle me? Is it right of me to do it this way?” If something is obviously right, then concern yourself only with doing it; don’t go thinking about this and that. It’s fine to pray, of course, to pray for God’s guidance, that He’ll guide your life on this day, that He’ll guide the duty you perform today. It’s enough for a person to have a heart and an attitude of submission. For example, you know that if you touch electricity with your hand, you’ll get shocked, and may lose your life. Yet you think it over: “No worries, God is protecting me. I’ve just got to try it, to see if God will protect me, and to see what God’s protection feels like.” Then you touch it with your hand, and as a result, you get shocked—that’s a test. Some things are clearly wrong and shouldn’t be done. If you’d still do them, to see what God’s reaction will be, that’s a test. Some people say, “God doesn’t like it when people do themselves up flamboyantly and wear heavy makeup. I’ll do that, then, and see what it feels like for God to reproach me inside.” So, after they’re all made up, they glance in the mirror: “Goodness, I look like a living ghost, but I only feel that it’s a bit disgusting and can’t bring myself to look in the mirror. There’s no additional feeling beyond that—I don’t feel God’s loathing, and I don’t feel His words coming down at once, to strike me down and judge me.” What sort of behavior is this? (Testing.) If you’re sometimes perfunctory in your duty, and you clearly know it to be so, it’s enough for you to just repent and turn yourself around. But you’re always praying, “Oh, God, I’ve been perfunctory—I ask that You discipline me!” What purpose does your conscience serve? If you have a conscience, you should take responsibility for your own behavior. You should rein it in. Don’t pray to God—that prayer will become a test. To take a very serious thing and make a joke of it, a test, is something God loathes. When people pray to God and seek Him when faced with an issue, and also in some of their attitudes, demands, and ways of doing things in their treatment of God, some tests will often crop up. What do these tests mainly entail? It’s that you’d like to see how God will act, or that you’d like to see whether God can or can’t do something. You’d like to test God; you’d like to use this matter to verify what God is like, to verify which words that God has spoken are right and accurate, which can come true, and which He can accomplish. These are all tests. Do these ways of doing things regularly appear in you? Say there’s something that you don’t know whether you’ve done right, or whether it’s in line with the truth principles. Here, there are two methods that can confirm whether what you’ve done in this matter is a test, or whether it is positive. One method is to have a humble and truth-seeking heart, saying, “Here’s how I’ve handled and viewed this thing that happened to me, and how it is now, as a result of my handling it that way. I can’t get a handle on whether this is what I actually should have done.” What do you think of this attitude? This is an attitude of seeking the truth—there’s no testing in it. Suppose that you say, “Everyone decides on this thing together, after fellowship.” Someone asks, “Who is in charge of this? Who’s the main decision-maker?” And you say: “Everyone.” Your intention is this: “If they say that this thing was handled in accordance with the principles, I’ll say that I did it. If they say it wasn’t handled in accordance with the principles, I’ll begin by withholding who did it and who made the decision. This way, even if they press on and try to pin the blame, they won’t pin it on me, and if anyone’s disgraced, it won’t be me alone.” If you speak with that sort of intention, that’s a test. Someone may say, “God loathes it when man follows worldly things. He loathes things such as mankind’s memorial days and festivals.” Now that you know this, you can just do your best to avoid such things, insofar as circumstances permit. However, let’s say you intentionally follow worldly matters while doing things during a festival, and as you do them, the intention you harbor is this: “I’m just seeing whether God will discipline me for doing this, whether He’ll pay me any mind. I’m just seeing what attitude He really has toward me, how deep His loathing goes. They say God loathes this, they say He’s holy and abhors evil, so I’ll see how He abhors evil and how He’ll discipline me. If, when I do these things, God has me spewing from my orifices, overcome with dizziness, unable to get out of bed, then it’ll seem that God really does loathe these things. He won’t just be talking—the facts will bear it out.” If you’re always hoping to see such a scene, what sort of behavior and intents do you have? You’re testing. Man must never test God. When you test God, He hides from you and covers His face to you, and your prayers are useless. Some may ask, “It won’t work even if I’m sincere at heart?” Yes, even if you’re sincere at heart. God doesn’t let people test Him; He abhors evil. When you entertain these wicked ideas and thoughts, God will hide from you. He won’t enlighten you anymore, but set you off to one side, and you’ll go on doing foolish, disruptive, and disturbing things until you are shown for who you really are. This is the consequence that comes from people testing God.

(God, I have a question. I manage equipment in the church. My attitude toward this duty is always flippant and unserious. The brothers and sisters pointed out my mistakes and pruned me, and they fellowshipped with me on the example God once gave of a man who secretly drank cough syrup: God didn’t discipline or rebuke him, but eliminated him once he’d drunk it. God’s disposition doesn’t brook man’s offenses—I know those words, but I have a view that God is merciful and loving, that He probably won’t treat me the same as He did that man. So, I haven’t been afraid. Based on God’s fellowship today, I feel that I have an attitude of doubt toward His righteous disposition, and a behavior of antichrists: that of testing God, never afraid of Him.) The attitude God has toward a person isn’t based in whether that person is afraid of Him, nor is it based in what transitory attitude that person may have about a given matter. God does not consider as serious problems the bad habits and irresponsible ways that a person may demonstrate and reveal in trivial matters of life. It’s enough just to be able to apply yourself to your essential duty and to take responsibility for it. If you feel yourself forever unable to take on responsibility for the management of equipment, and you can’t apply all your strength to doing it well, what does that show? In part, it shows that you’re not good at management; beyond that, it shows that you’re not a great fit for the job. If you feel that your remaining on that job may one day lead to disaster, you’d be better off recommending someone else for it; let someone in the church who’s fit for the task step in for you, then go do work that you’re good at and that holds your interest, and be loyal in doing that duty. Moreover, if someone truly loves the truth and truly wishes to fear God and shun evil, and to live with dignity, and not to be loathed by others, but respected by them, then they should be determined to do everything well. And as they do, they should have the will before God to say: God, please discipline me if I perform badly—please do Your work. People are poor managers of others; at best, they may teach someone to become a talent in a single area. But when it comes to the path someone walks, their views on life, the goals they choose in life, and what sort of person they’ll choose to be, no one can help them. God’s words and God alone can change people. How is this realized? In that people themselves are helpless—they must let God handle things. So, what criteria must a person meet in order to let God work, before He’ll be willing to work? They must first have such a will and aspiration, saying, “I know I’ve never managed to do this task well. The brothers and sisters haven’t been satisfied—I haven’t been satisfied myself—but I do want to do it well. What do I do? I’ll come before God in prayer and let Him work in me.” If you’d have God work in you, what’s first for you is to be able to suffer—when God disciplines you, when He rebukes you, you must be able to accept it. To be obedient and accepting at heart is the beginning of doing anything well. It’s fair to say that everyone will have doubts about God’s righteousness and almightiness before they’re entirely saved. What differs is that ordinary, corrupt people can, despite their mere doubts, do their duty normally, and pursue the truth, and come to know God, bit by bit; their subjective aspiration is active and positive. Antichrists are quite the opposite: Their subjective aspirations aren’t accepting and obedient, and they don’t aspire to acknowledge; instead, they’re resistant. They’re not accepting. What’s good about ordinary, corrupt people, then? At the bottom of their heart, they accept and love positive things—it’s just that because of their corrupt disposition, there are times when they can’t help themselves, when they do poorly, and things are beyond them, outside their reach, and so they’re often negative and weak at heart, feeling God doesn’t want them, that He loathes them. Is that a good feeling? It’s a good feeling to have—it means you have a chance to be saved, and it’s a sign that you can be saved. If you don’t even feel that, then your hopes of gaining the truth and being saved are quite remote. It’s precisely having this feeling that shows you still have a conscience, and dignity, and integrity—that there’s still rationality in you. If you don’t even have these things, then you really are an antichrist, a disbeliever. Currently, you only have some behaviors of a disbeliever, a bit of what they reveal, a bit of their disposition, yet you aren’t a disbeliever. As God sees it, you believe in Him, and you’re His follower, though there remain many problems and deficiencies for you on the path of belief in Him, and in your pursuit, and in your views, and in every facet of your personal life. How, then, are these problems to be resolved? That’s easy. So long as you meet the basic requirements of having a conscience and reason, pursuing the truth, and loving positive things, all these problems can be resolved—it’s just a matter of time. So long as you can accept the truth and the chastening and discipline that come from God, you’re already past the first hurdle. The second hurdle is that you need, for your part, to learn to resolve your corrupt disposition, and the various states that arise in you as each thing befalls you, and to learn to resolve problems with God’s words, while you read God’s words, and listen to fellowship, and to the brothers’ and sisters’ experiential testimonies. It’s that you need to be able to come before Him often, telling Him your circumstances and states, as well as the problems you’re faced with, saying them openly to Him, and sincerely accepting His pruning, His discipline and chastening, and even His revelation of you and attitude toward you—your heart needs to remain open to Him, not closed off. So long as your heart stays open, your conscience and reason may serve a purpose, and the truth will be able to enter you and give rise to change in you. All these problems can then be resolved. They’re not beyond resolution; none of them is a major problem. It’s a common thing for people to be perfunctory in doing their duty. This is the most common condition for all corrupt mankind to be found in. One condition is being full of lies, another is goofing off, being perfunctory, and being irresponsible in all things, being in a state of muddling along, in a condition of muddling through—this is the norm for all corrupt mankind. These are much less egregious things than man’s resistance against God and refusal of the truth. They’re not even what God looks at in man. If God were to measure people to the ounce, then if they said one wrong thing, He wouldn’t want them; if they’d once made a small mistake, He wouldn’t want them; if people were impetuous with youth and did things impatiently, God would not like them, and they’d then be those whom He’d abandon and eliminate. If that’s how things were, not a single person would be saved. Some will say, “Didn’t You say that God condemns people and decides their outcomes through their behavior?” That’s another matter. On people’s path of pursuing of the truth in order to achieve dispositional change and salvation, such states of being in man are, as God sees them, the most common things of all, as ordinary and commonplace as they could be. God doesn’t even look at them. What does He look at? He looks at whether you have a positive pursuit, and what your attitude is toward the truth and positive things, and toward the pursuit of dispositional change. He looks at whether you have such a desire, at whether you’re striving. When God sees you have these things, that your conscience rebukes you when you do wrong, that you know to hate it, that you know to come before God in prayer, and to confess to Him and repent, He then says that you have hope, that you won’t be eliminated. Do you think that God’s righteous disposition, His mercy and love, are all hollow phrases? It’s precisely because He has such an essence that God has an attitude toward each sort of person, and these attitudes are exceedingly practical—they’re not hollow at all.

This talk about the essence of antichrists we’ve been engaged in for a while now is meant for all to hear, in part so that they can understand and discern antichrists, and determine who they are, and reject them; it’s also to let all know that everyone has an antichrist’s disposition, just as antichrists do, but that only true antichrists are to be eliminated and abandoned, whereas ordinary people with an antichrist’s disposition are those whom God will save, not those whom He’ll eliminate. Fellowshipping with people about the essence of antichrists and each aspect of their disposition isn’t about condemning people—it’s about saving people, giving them a path, letting them see clearly what corrupt dispositions they actually have, what God is really talking about when He says that mankind is His enemy, and why He’d say so—what precise sorts of corrupt disposition in man, and what revelations of resistance and rebelliousness against God in man, cause Him to say so, to make these condemnations. It’s precisely because God wants to save man, because He doesn’t abandon mankind, or His followers, or those whom He’s chosen, that He tirelessly speaks and works in such a way. God’s speaking and working like this isn’t merely about having people understand how lovely He is, how earnest and patient He is with people, how much effort He’s put forth. What’s the use of understanding these things? When people understand these things, they have no more than a bit of gratitude for God—yet their corrupt disposition isn’t resolved at all. God speaks with such earnest patience in order to let people see that God has made efforts toward and set His resolve on saving people—He’s not joking; God wants to save mankind, and He’s determined to do so. How is this to be seen? There’s no aspect of the truth on which God speaks from one side or one angle, nor does He speak in a single way—instead, He tells it to people from different angles, in different styles, with different language and to different degrees, in order that people will know their corrupt disposition and themselves, and from this, understand the direction their pursuit should take, and what sort of path they should take. He does this in order that people will abandon and alter their satanic, corrupt disposition, and let go of philosophies for worldly dealings, ways of survival, and ways and modes of living with which Satan corrupts people, having them live instead according to the ways, modes, directions, and goals that God has shown people and told them. God doesn’t do all this to get people to buy into it, to let them see His painstakingly kind intentions, or how hard it is to do all He does. You don’t need to know that. Focus only on finding what you should practice in the words God says, and understanding the truth and God’s intentions in them; enter the truth reality; live according to the truth principles, and comport yourself and act according to the truth principles, and complete the commission given by God, such that you achieve salvation. God will thus be satisfied, and the matter of man’s salvation will be accomplished in its entirety, thus benefiting man, too. And as for those times when there’s still a lot of doctrine in what people say, when they’re too superficial in their actions, when they’re always perfunctory, when their scumminess is overpowering—in young people, especially, who aren’t apt to follow rules, who sometimes enjoy sleeping in, who have some habits that aren’t quite reasonable or edifying to others—don’t force these things. Go slow with them. So long as you’re willing to pursue the truth, and can make an effort with God’s words, and can come often before God, opening your heart to Him, He’ll work. No one can change anyone else by human strength or human means, including your parents, who can’t change you.

That you’ve come today to God’s house is the work of God, and that you can listen to sermons here, securely and steadily, even in this age, amid the evil trends, and do your duty without earning a cent—this is the work of God. Why does God do this? What does God favor in you? That you have something of a sense of justice, and that you have a conscience; that you’re averse to evil trends, and that you like positive things; and that you look forward to the coming of God’s kingdom, to the reign of Christ and the truth. You have these aspirations, and God favors them in you, which is why He brought you to His house. Do you think God doesn’t see those bad faults and habits of yours? God perceives your faults—He knows them all. If He knows, why doesn’t He take care of them? Such things make people conflicted at heart in many instances. They say: “Would God save somebody like me? Can someone like me achieve salvation? I’m so wicked and corrupt, so reluctant to submit to discipline, so rebellious—and I resist and doubt God. How could God still choose me?” What’s eating you? God alone can save you; you must believe that He can. It’s enough for you just to focus on listening to God’s words, accepting and practicing them. Don’t get stuck in those other matters—don’t always be negative because of them. No one’s got you by the hair; no one’s got ammunition against you. God doesn’t look at those things. If you’re disturbed from your pursuit of the proper path and the truth by the bad habits, defects, or scumminess that such entanglements in the weeds of life give rise to, isn’t that a loss? Isn’t that not worth it? (Yes.) There should be quite a few people stuck in such a state currently. Some people say it’s their personality to be too hasty, that they’re so coarse in whatever they’re doing, and that they don’t like to study. They say they have bad habits, too: They don’t like rising in the morning or going to bed in the evening, and they love gaming; they like to engage in idle chatter at times, and at times, they like to tell jokes. They ask: Would God save me? Isn’t it a problem that you have so many notions and imaginings about yourself? Why don’t you seek a bit? What is God’s view, really, and what do His words really say? Are these things mentioned as problems in His words? Some people say they like to get dressed up and must always restrain themselves. Others say they love eating meat, with an excessive appetite. These are small problems. These defects, these personalities, or these life habits are at most defects in a person’s humanity; they don’t count as a corrupt disposition. What people truly need to resolve is their corrupt disposition. Don’t lose sight of the bigger picture. When you learn that you have a corrupt disposition, and you begin to focus on reflecting on it and discerning it, and make an effort on it, and begin to hate it, those little defects of yours will slowly change—they’ll no longer be problems. Some young people are fond of having fun. Once they have taken care of their proper work, it’s fine to have fun for a while. Some young women love to be pretty, getting dressed up and putting on makeup. That’s fine, too, so long as it doesn’t go too far, and they’re not wearing strange get-ups or thick makeup. It’s all fine; no one’s restricting them. None of these things is a problem. These habits in life, demands for the quality of your life, and small problems of personality—none of these could make you resist God, nor could they make you go against the truth. What truly makes you resist God, what keeps you from coming before Him and makes you rebel against Him, is your corrupt disposition. When you can discover, know, and hate your corrupt disposition, and you gain the subjective desire to practice according to the truth principles, all these small defects can be resolved. And with your corrupt disposition resolved—the greatest problem, your resistance against God, resolved—will those little defects of yours still count as problems? When that time comes, such little things as how you comport yourself, and how you live, what you eat, what you drink, how you relax, how you do your duty, and how you get along with others will grow principled, bit by bit. Not until then will you learn that resolving one’s corrupt disposition was and remains the great matter of a person’s life, that once one’s corrupt disposition is resolved, all other problems are, as well. When you’ve resolved the problem of rebellion against God, that’s when you’ll live with the likeness of a human, with dignity. It may be that there are now some minor defects you no longer exhibit. People may praise you, saying that you’re a good young person, that you’re sincere in your belief in God, that you seem like a believer in God. But if God says you may still rebel against Him, then your outward good behaviors are useless, however great they may be. The fundamental problem hasn’t been resolved—your corrupt disposition isn’t yet resolved, and you may still rebel against God. You’re still so far from salvation! What use is it for you just to have good behaviors? Are you not just tricking yourself with them?

What problem is now of vital importance for you to resolve? (The problem of a corrupt disposition.) Some may say: “I like wearing colorful clothes, but God’s house doesn’t like them, so I’ll rebel against them.” You don’t need to—wear them if you like. Some say: “I like to put on powder and makeup, and cut a pretty figure when I see people every day—it’s so nice!” So long as you’ve got the time, that’s fine. Some say: “I like eating gourmet food—I like spicy stuff, and sour stuff, too.” So long as you have the means, the chance, and the free time, you can eat that stuff to your satisfaction. Even if you were to leave these things unsatisfied, and restrain them, and rebel against them, your corrupt disposition wouldn’t be resolved. What could come of your restraining them? You’d endure a great deal of fleshly suffering, but you’d feel quite wronged at heart—and what sort of negative consequence would that visit on you, then, as collateral? You’d feel that you’d suffered greatly for God, that you’d gained the truth, when in fact, you wouldn’t have anything or be anything. You may dress elegantly and with dignity and soberly—you may seem like a brother or sister, and be well regulated—but if you can’t even find the truth principles when made to do a duty, and if you might go on to disrupt and disturb the work of the church, has your fundamental problem been resolved? (No.) Therefore, however you look at it, what’s most fundamental is understanding God’s words, the truth, and entering the truth reality, and resolving your corrupt disposition. Don’t spend your efforts on a few trivial problems and external behaviors, dwelling on them and not letting go, always feeling guilty and indebted at heart, always resolving those things as if they were great matters. What comes of that is your corrupt disposition going forever unresolved. If even you don’t know what sort of person you are, or what sort of corrupt disposition you have—if you don’t have the least understanding of that, won’t that mess things up? When you come to know your corrupt essence, those small problems of yours won’t be problems anymore. Naturally, as you understand the truth and enter the truth reality, and grow able to act according to the truth principles, you’ll gradually be rid of those small problems. It’s as it is with fidgety personalities or with slowpokes, or with being talkative or taciturn—these aren’t problems. They’re issues of personality. Some people have clear diction, while others don’t; some people are on the bolder side and dare to speak in front of many people, while others are less bold and dare not speak when there are lots of people around; some people are extroverts, while others are introverts. None of these is a problem. What is a problem? The disposition of antichrists that resists God—that’s a problem. It’s the biggest problem, the source of all man’s corruption. If you resolve the problem of a corrupt disposition, no other problem is a problem any longer.

Any more questions? (God, I have a question: In my pursuit of the truth, I have a normal spiritual life, yet my heart of loving and pursuit of the truth isn’t so great. When I feel my state is wrong, I diligently pursue for a couple days, but when those days have gone by, I slacken again. This state comes up over and over, and I know that it’s a disposition that’s averse to the truth, but I still can’t resolve it at its root.) There’s no way around that—that’s how man’s life entry is. In wishing always to resolve this problem, you’re making a mistake. By way of example: Some women, in trying to find a husband, have the criterion that it’s no big deal if he’s just average-looking, but he must be romantic. He has to remember when and where they first met, and her birthday, and their anniversary, and so on. He must remember every day of note, and he must also remember to say, “I love you, my darling!” from time to time, and to buy her presents from time to time. She’ll test him: “What day was our first date? When’s Valentine’s Day?” They’re often searching for romance and stimulation like that, and if their life gets any blander, they bridle at it, complaining to their husband: “Look at you, you oaf. You don’t know about romance. Spending my days with you is so boring! My life is ruined in your hands!” Aren’t there lots of women who exhibit this defect? And when you say someone else’s husband is romantic, that he knows how to coax a woman, that he treats his wife like a princess, these women get unbearably jealous, wishing they could snatch that husband for themselves. They’re simply unwilling to live a mundane, ordinary life. Have you exhibited this defect? (Yes.) As God does work and saves people, there aren’t that many thrilling, exciting bits, and He won’t create surprises for you. It’s mundane and ordinary—that’s what it means to be practical. Pursuing the truth doesn’t require feeling. So long as the pursuit is there in your heart; and so long as you examine once in a while whether the path you’re on deviates, and whether there are any oversights or losses caused by human error in the duty you perform, and you fellowship about whether during this time the brothers and sisters have any new insights or knowledge about performing a duty that you lack, about whether there have been distortions in your comprehension of God’s words when reading them, about whether there’ve been things in them that are beyond your reach, or that you haven’t experienced, or have ignored, and so on—so long as all such paths, goals and directions are normal and correct, that’ll suffice. As long as your general direction is right, that’s enough. Don’t seek excitement, and don’t look for surprises. No one’s going to surprise you. Believing in God and pursuing the truth is the same as how normal people live their lives. It’s quite uneventful much of the time, because you live in this world, where nothing is supernatural, and nothing is divorced from real life. That’s how uneventful it is. But there’s a difference between this sort of uneventful life and the life of those who don’t believe: While you believe in God and do your duty, you’re constantly learning of your corrupt disposition, constantly correcting and changing your relationship with God, and constantly learning of the truths you don’t understand, knowing and accepting the truths you don’t know or understand. That’s the difference. That’s quite a big difference already—so, what else could you ask for? Don’t enough things happen in God’s house, in the church, and around you? The things that have happened from the beginning of God’s work until now are enough for people’s reckoning. The days go by so fast: Ten, twenty years go by in a flash, then, with another flash, thirty, fifty years have gone. That’s about right for a person’s life. What other excitement is there to look for? These things are exciting enough. All the things that happen around you should allow you to discover unique things, uncover the truth, and be surprising to you. That’s not uneventful, is it? (No.) To pursue the truth isn’t to seek excitement. That’s how it is for people, who live in their normal humanity, in this material world. Don’t go looking for excitement—looking for excitement and feeling is what people with full bellies idly do. In doing their duties and pursuing the truth, people have new lessons to learn every day. Some will say, “Why am I not learning, then?” Well, it may be that your progress is on the slower side; if there are things you learn every month, that’s enough. So long as you make progress and are pursuing the truth, you’ll have something to show for it. Has this fellowship resolved the issue? (It has.) How? Which words resolved it? (It’s resolved in that I know that my views on pursuit in my belief in God aren’t practical—mine isn’t a pragmatic way to pursue. I’m always looking to pursue stimulation, always pursuing feeling things, and regarding God with no more than notions and imaginings, maintaining a relationship with Him of respectful distance, yet ignoring that people will have weakness in the course of their life entry, and will grow as they do, and that they’ll be faced with all sorts of circumstances. That’s normal.) You’ve understood it correctly. When no circumstances have come about, people should do their duties however they ought to, and go on with their pursuit as they should. Don’t look for excitement, or feel things; don’t be hypersensitive and say, “Why am I in a bad mood today? Oh, my relationship with God is distant—I’ll hurry up and pray!” There’s no need for such hypersensitivity. God doesn’t mind; He doesn’t bother with those trifling matters of yours! You may say, “I haven’t prayed for days, but I often seek God in my heart when I act, and I maintain a God-fearing heart.” No problem there. Some will say, “Oh, I’ve been so busy with my duty that I haven’t read God’s words for days now.” You didn’t go through that procedure—you ignored it—but in the course of doing your duty, you have discovered many problems, and you have revealed something of a corrupt disposition, and you have listened to others’ fellowship over that period, which has edified you greatly. Is that not a real gain? Don’t you read God’s words in order to understand the truth and gain it? What’s the use of insisting you do so in a certain way or manner? Alright. We’ll conclude today’s fellowship here. Farewell! (Thank You, God, and farewell!)

May 30, 2020