1 There are four basic prerequisites for accepting God’s judgment and chastisement and attaining perfection: performing one’s duty to an acceptable standard, having an attitude of submission, being a generally honest person, and having a repentant mindset. Once these four conditions are met, God begins the work of judgment and chastisement in people. Before carrying it out, He measures people—and how does He do this? He has several standards. First, God looks at what their attitude is toward the commission He has given them, whether they are capable of loyalty, and whether they can work wholeheartedly and put their all into it. In other words, God looks at whether people are capable of performing their duties to an acceptable standard.

2 Secondly, one must possess an attitude of submission to God. Before you can completely submit, you must have a submissive attitude. In your approach to the commissions God entrusts to you, you must, in addition to treating them with conscience and rationality, also be able to seek the truth, understand God’s will, and be able to have a submissive mindset, irrespective of what kind of environment you are in and regardless of what might happen to you. That is, you must accept that God’s words are right, take them as the truth, and adopt them as the principle behind your practice; and, even if you have a poor grasp of this principle, you must still be able to abide by it as if clinging to a rule. This is a kind of attitude.

3 Once you possess a submissive attitude, further changes in your words, conduct, and behavior will soon follow. What will these changes be? God will consider you to be generally honest. Less of your speech and conduct will involve deliberate lies; 80% of what you say will be true. Sometimes, due to the scumminess within you, the environment you are in, or certain other reasons, you will accidentally tell a lie. You will feel bad inside, and will later repent and confess your mistake before God. Afterward, you will change, and start telling fewer and fewer lies; your state will gradually improve, and in God’s view, you will have become generally honest.

4 God requires people to be repentant. At every stage—whether when God is disciplining or chastising you, or when He is reminding and exhorting you—if, upon the occurrence of a conflict between you and God, you continue to cling to your own ideas and viewpoints, and there is no rectification of the misunderstandings, blame, and disobedience you have toward God—if you do not turn yourself around, then God will eliminate you. If you can turn yourself around, putting aside your own ideas and motives, and you have this sort of intent, then this, too, is an attitude of submission; it is an acknowledgment and affirmation of the fact that the Lord of creation is the truth, the way, and the life. This is evidence of your recognition of the Creator’s identity and essence. God considers this especially important.

5 When you do not live by your own feelings or philosophies on how to live in the world, but instead live by the words spoken by God, by the principles He has given to you, by the duty He has entrusted to you, and by the path of practice and the path you should walk told to you by God, and you do so irrespective of how God treats you, just doing what you ought to do, then God shall recognize you. Once you have fulfilled these things—a recognition of the Creator’s identity, a responsible attitude toward your own duty, and the mindset of being able to turn yourself around in your approach to the truth—God shall carry out the work of judgment and chastisement in you, and thus commences your salvation.

Adapted from The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. Only by Resolving One’s Notions Can One Embark on the Right Track of Belief in God (3)