1 Man “loves” God, not because their love for Him is inborn, but because they fear chastisement. Who was born loving God? Who treats God as if He were their own heart? And so God sums this up with a maxim for the human world: Among men, there are none who love God. God can love man for eternity, and He can also hate man for eternity, and this will never change, for God has perseverance. Yet man is not possessed of this perseverance, he always blows hot and cold toward God. Thus, God condenses this into another maxim: People lack perseverance, and thus they are incapable of fulfilling God’s heart.

2 Today, God still does not know why man does not abide by his duty, why he does not know how great his stature is. People do not even know whether it is several grams or several liang. And thus, they still deceive God. It is as if all of God’s work has been in vain, as if His words are but an echo in the great mountains, and no one has ever perceived the roots of God’s words and utterances. God uses this as the foundation to sum up the third maxim: People do not know God, for they do not see Him.

3 People cry out because of God’s words, and their pleas always contain grievances about His heartlessness. It is as if they are all searching for God’s true “love” of man—but how could they find God’s love in His stern words? As a result, they always lose hope because of His words. Why, in what they say, do people always complain about God? Thus, God summarizes the fourth maxim for human life: People are only the slightest bit obedient toward God, and thus they always hate Him.

4 When God makes demands of people, they’re astonished: They had never thought that God, who has been good-natured and kind for so many years, could say such words, words that are heartless and unjustified, and so they are speechless. At such times, God sees that the hate for Him in people’s hearts has grown once more, because they have again begun the work of complaining. They always accuse earth and imprecate Heaven. Yet in their words, God finds nothing that curses themselves because their love of themselves is so great. Thus God sums up the meaning of human life: Because people love themselves too much, their whole lives are anguished and empty, and they suffer self-inflicted destruction throughout because of their hate for God.

Adapted from God’s Words to the Entire Universe in The Word Appears in the Flesh