Relevant Words of God:

In believing in God, you must at least resolve the issue of having a normal relationship with God. If you do not have a normal relationship with God, then the meaning of your belief in God is lost. The establishment of a normal relationship with God is entirely achievable with a heart that is quiet in God’s presence. Having a normal relationship with God means being able not to doubt and not to deny any of His work and being able to submit to His work. It means having correct intentions in God’s presence, not making plans for yourself, and considering the interests of God’s family first in all things; it means accepting God’s scrutiny and obeying God’s arrangements. You must be able to quiet your heart in God’s presence in all that you do. Even if you do not understand God’s will, you must still fulfill your duties and responsibilities to the best of your ability. Once God’s will has been revealed to you, act on it, and it will not be too late. When your relationship with God has become normal, then you will also have normal relationships with people. To build a normal relationship with God, all must be built on the foundation of God’s words, you must be able to perform your duty according to God’s words and what God asks, you must set your views straight, and must seek the truth in all things. You must practice the truth when you understand it, and regardless of what happens to you, you must pray to God and seek with a heart of obedience to God. Practicing thus, you will be able to maintain a normal relationship with God. At the same time as performing your duty properly, you must also ensure that you do nothing that does not benefit the life entry of God’s chosen ones, and say nothing that is unhelpful to the brothers and sisters. At the very least, you must do nothing that goes against your conscience and must absolutely not do anything shameful. That which rebels against or resists God, in particular, you absolutely must not do, and you must not do anything that disturbs the work or life of the church. Be just and honorable in everything you do and ensure that your every action is presentable before God. Although the flesh may sometimes be weak, you must be able to put the interests of God’s family first, without greed for personal profit, without doing anything selfish or despicable, often reflecting on yourself. In this way, you will be able to often live before God, and your relationship with God will become completely normal.

—The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. How Is Your Relationship With God?

In everything you do, you must examine whether your intentions are correct. If you are able to act according to the requirements of God, then your relationship with God is normal. This is the minimum standard. Look into your intentions, and if you find that incorrect intentions have arisen, be able to turn your back on them and act according to the words of God; thus will you become someone who is right before God, which in turn demonstrates that your relationship with God is normal, and that all that you do is for God’s sake, not your own. In all you do and all you say, be able to set your heart right and be righteous in your actions, and do not be led by your emotions, nor act according to your own will. These are principles by which believers in God must conduct themselves. Small things can reveal a person’s intentions and stature, and so, for someone to enter onto the path of being made perfect by God, they must first rectify their intentions and their relationship with God. Only when your relationship with God is normal can you be made perfect by Him; only then can God’s dealing, pruning, discipline, and refinement achieve their intended effect in you. That is to say, if human beings are able to keep God in their hearts and do not pursue personal gain or give thought to their own prospects (in a fleshly sense), but instead bear the burden of entering life, do their best to pursue the truth, and submit to God’s work—if you can do this, then the goals you pursue will be correct, and your relationship with God will become normal. Making right one’s relationship with God can be called the first step of entry into one’s spiritual journey. Although man’s fate is in God’s hands and is predestined by God, and cannot be changed by man, whether you can be made perfect by God or be gained by Him depends on whether your relationship with God is normal. There may be parts of you that are weak or disobedient—but as long as your views and your intentions are correct, and as long as your relationship with God is right and normal, then you are qualified to be made perfect by God. If you do not have the right relationship with God, and act for the sake of the flesh or your family, then regardless of how hard you work, it will be for nothing. If your relationship with God is normal, then everything else will fall into place. God looks at nothing else, but only at whether your views in your belief in God are correct: whom you believe in, for whose sake you believe, and why you believe. If you are able to see these things clearly and practice with your views well disposed, then you will make progress in your life, and you will also be guaranteed entry onto the right track. If your relationship with God is not normal, and the views of your belief in God are deviant, then all else is in vain, and no matter how hard you believe, you will receive nothing. Only after your relationship with God becomes normal will you win praise from Him when you forsake the flesh, pray, suffer, endure, submit, help your brothers and sisters, expend more of yourself for God, and so on.

—The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. How Is Your Relationship With God?

The way that people believe in God, love God, and satisfy God is by touching the Spirit of God with their heart and thereby obtaining His satisfaction, and by using their heart to engage with God’s words and thus being moved by the Spirit of God. If you wish to achieve a normal spiritual life and establish a normal relationship with God, then you must first give your heart to Him. Only after you have quieted your heart before Him and poured your whole heart into Him will you gradually be able to develop a normal spiritual life. If in people’s belief in God, they do not give their heart to Him and if their heart is not in Him and they do not treat His burden as their own, then everything they do is an act of cheating God, an act typical of religious people, and cannot receive God’s praise. God cannot gain anything from this kind of person; this kind of person can only serve as a foil to God’s work, like a decoration in the house of God, something superfluous and useless. God does not make use of this kind of person. In such a person, not only is there no opportunity for the work of the Holy Spirit, there is not even any value in their being perfected. This type of person is, in truth, a walking corpse. Such people have nothing that can be used by the Holy Spirit, but on the contrary, all of them have been appropriated and deeply corrupted by Satan. God will weed these people out. Currently, in making use of people the Holy Spirit not only employs those parts of them that are desirable in order to get things done, He also perfects and changes their undesirable parts. If your heart can be poured into God and remain quiet before Him, then you will have the opportunity and the qualifications to be used by the Holy Spirit, to receive the enlightenment and illumination of the Holy Spirit, and even more, you will have the opportunity for the Holy Spirit to make good your shortcomings. When you give your heart to God, on the positive side, you can attain deeper entry and attain a higher plane of insight; on the negative side, you will have more understanding of your own faults and shortcomings, you will be more eager to seek to satisfy God’s will, and you will not be passive, but will actively enter in. Thus, you will become a correct person.

—The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. It Is Very Important to Establish a Normal Relationship With God

If you want to have a normal relationship with God, then your heart must turn to God. With this as a foundation, you will also have a normal relationship with other people. If you do not have a normal relationship with God, then no matter what you do to maintain your relationships with other people, no matter how hard you work or how much energy you exert, it will all just pertain to a human philosophy for living. You are maintaining your position among people through a human perspective and a human philosophy so that people will praise you, but you are not following the word of God to establish normal relationships with people. If you do not focus on your relationships with people but maintain a normal relationship with God, if you are willing to give your heart to God and learn to obey Him, then naturally your relationships with all people will become normal. This way, these relationships are not established in the flesh, but on the foundation of God’s love. There are almost no fleshly interactions, but in the spirit there is fellowship, mutual love, mutual comfort, and provision for one another. This is all done on the foundation of a heart that satisfies God. These relationships are not maintained by relying on a human philosophy for living, but are formed very naturally through carrying a burden for God. It does not require man-made effort. You need only practice according to the principles of the word of God. Are you willing to be considerate of the will of God? Are you willing to be a person who is “without reason” before God? Are you willing to completely give your heart to God and to disregard your position among people? Of all the people you have contact with, with whom do you have the best relationships? With whom do you have the worst relationships? Are your relationships with people normal? Do you treat all people equally? Are your relationships with others maintained according to your philosophy for living, or are they built on the foundation of God’s love? When a person does not give their heart to God, then their spirit becomes obtuse, numb and unconscious. This kind of person will never understand God’s words and will never have a normal relationship with God; this kind of person’s disposition will never be changed. Changing one’s disposition is the process of giving one’s heart completely to God, and of receiving enlightenment and illumination from the words of God. God’s work can allow a person to actively enter in, as well as enable them to purge their negative aspects after gaining knowledge about them. When you reach the point of giving your heart to God, then you will be able to perceive every subtle movement within your spirit, and you will know every enlightenment and illumination received from God. Hold onto this, and you will gradually enter into the path of being perfected by the Holy Spirit. The quieter your heart can be before God, the more sensitive and delicate your spirit will be and the more your spirit will be able to perceive how the Holy Spirit moves it, and then your relationship with God will become ever more normal. A normal relationship between people is established on the foundation of giving their hearts to God, and not through human effort. Without God in their hearts, interpersonal relationships between people are merely relationships of the flesh. They are not normal, but rather, are an abandonment to lust. They are relationships that God detests, that He loathes. If you say that your spirit has been moved, but you always want to have fellowship with people who you like, with whomever you think highly of, and if another person is seeking but you do not like them, even hold a bias against them and will not engage with them, this is more proof that you are subject to your emotions and you do not have a normal relationship with God at all. You are attempting to deceive God and cover up your own ugliness. Even if you can share some understanding yet you carry wrong intentions, then everything you do is good only by human standards. God will not praise you—you are acting according to the flesh, not according to God’s burden. If you are able to quiet your heart in front of God and have normal interactions with all those who love God, only then are you fit for God’s use. This way, no matter how you associate with others, it will not be according to a philosophy for living, but it will be before God, living in a way that is considerate of His burden.

—The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. It Is Very Important to Establish a Normal Relationship With God

Read God’s every utterance and put them into practice as soon as you understand them. Perhaps there were occasions when your flesh was weak, or you were rebellious, or you resisted; regardless of how you behaved in the past, it is of little consequence, and it cannot hinder your life from maturing today. So long as you can have a normal relationship with God today, there is hope. If there is change in you every time you read God’s words, and others can tell your life has changed for the better, it shows that your relationship with God is now normal, that it has been put right. God does not treat people according to their transgressions. Once you have understood and become aware, as long as you can cease to rebel or resist, then God will still have mercy on you. When you have the understanding and the resolve to pursue being perfected by God, then your state in God’s presence will become normal. No matter what you are doing, consider the following when you are doing it: What will God think if I do this? Will it benefit my brothers and sisters? Will it be beneficial to the work in God’s house? Whether in prayer, fellowship, speech, work, or in contact with others, examine your intentions, and check if your relationship with God is normal. If you cannot discern your own intentions and thoughts, this means you lack discrimination, which proves that you understand too little of the truth. If you are able to understand clearly everything God does, and can perceive things through the lens of His words, standing on His side, then your views will have become correct. Therefore, establishing a good relationship with God is of the utmost importance to anyone who believes in God; everyone should regard it as a task of paramount importance and the biggest event in their life. Everything you do is measured by whether you have a normal relationship with God. If your relationship with God is normal and your intentions are correct, then act. To maintain a normal relationship with God, you must not be afraid of suffering losses to your personal interests; you cannot allow Satan to prevail, you cannot allow Satan to gain a purchase on you, and you cannot allow Satan to make you a laughing stock. Having such intentions is a sign that your relationship with God is normal—not for the sake of the flesh, but rather for peace of spirit, for gaining the work of the Holy Spirit, and for satisfying the will of God. To enter the right state, you must establish a good relationship with God and put right the views of your belief in God. This is so that God may gain you, and so that He may manifest the fruits of His words in you and enlighten and illuminate you even further. In this way, you will have entered into the right manner. Continue eating and drinking God’s words of today, enter into the Holy Spirit’s current manner of working, act according to God’s demands of today, do not observe old-fashioned methods of practice, do not cling to old ways of doing things, and enter into today’s manner of working as soon as possible. Thus, your relationship with God will become completely normal and you will have embarked on the right track of belief in God.

—The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. How Is Your Relationship With God?