Bible Verses for Reference:

“Not every one that said to Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that follows the will of My Father which is in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, and in Your name have cast out devils, and in Your name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess to them, I never knew you: depart from Me, you that work iniquity” (Matthew 7:21–23).

“The kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force” (Matthew 11:12).

“Truly I say to you, Except you be converted, and become as little children, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:3).

Relevant Words of God:

Though many people believe in God, few understand what faith in God means, and what they must do to be in line with God’s intentions. This is because, though people are familiar with the word “God” and phrases such as “the work of God,” they do not know God, and still less do they know His work. No wonder, then, that all those who do not know God are muddled in their belief of Him. People do not take belief in God seriously, and this is entirely because believing in God is too unfamiliar, too strange for them. In this way, they fall short of God’s demands. In other words, if people do not know God, and do not know His work, then they are not fit for God’s use, and still less are they able to satisfy His intentions. “Belief in God” means believing that there is a God; this is the simplest concept as regards believing in God. What’s more, believing that there is a God is not the same as truly believing in God; rather, it is a kind of simple faith with strong religious overtones. True faith in God means the following: On the basis of the belief that God holds sovereignty over all things, one experiences His words and His work, purges one’s corrupt disposition, satisfies the intentions of God, and comes to know God. Only a journey of this kind may be called “faith in God.” Yet people often see belief in God as a simple and frivolous matter. People who believe in God in this way have lost what it means to believe in God, and though they may continue to believe until the very end, they shall never gain God’s approval, because they tread upon the wrong path. There are still those today who believe in God according to words and in hollow doctrine. They do not know that they lack the essence of belief in God, and they cannot receive God’s approval. Still they pray to God for blessings of safety and sufficient grace. Let us stop, quiet our hearts, and ask ourselves: Can it be that believing in God really is the easiest thing on earth? Can it be that believing in God means nothing more than receiving much grace from God? Are people who believe in God without knowing Him or who believe in God and yet oppose Him really able to satisfy the intentions of God?

—The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Preface

Some people view the matter of believing in God in very simple terms. They think, “Believing in God means attending gatherings, praying, listening to sermons, fellowshipping, singing and praising God, and performing some duties. Isn’t that what believing in God is all about?” Right now, no matter how many years you have believed in God, you still have not fully understood the significance of faith in God. In fact, the meaning of faith in God is so profound that if a person’s experiences are too shallow, they will not be able to comprehend it. When they experience to the very end, the disposition of Satan and the satanic poisons within them must be cleansed and transformed. People must equip themselves with many truths, meet the standards God requires of man, and be able to truly submit to God and worship Him. Only then do they truly attain salvation. If you are still as you were before when you were part of a religion, just reciting some words and doctrines and chanting some slogans, performing a few good behaviors and actions, and refraining from certain sinful things—at least the obvious ones—this does not represent that you have entered the right track in your belief in God. Does following regulations mean that you are on the right path? Does it mean that you made the right choice? If the things within your nature do not change, then you can still resist God and offend Him in the end. This is the biggest problem. If you do not resolve this problem in your belief in God, can you be said to have truly attained salvation? What do I mean by this, exactly? I want you to understand in your hearts that faith in God cannot be separated from His word, nor can it be separated from God Himself, or the truth. You have to choose the right path and put effort into the truth and God’s word. You cannot just attain a partial or rough understanding, and that’s it. Fooling yourself will only harm you. It is no good basing your faith on your imaginings. If you believe until the end, and God is not in your heart, if you just flip quickly through His words, and cannot remember them afterward, and if God does not have a place in your heart, then you are finished.

—The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. Choosing the Right Path Is the Most Crucial Part of Belief in God

What is the ultimate significance of people’s faith? Simply put, it is in order to be saved. And what is the significance of salvation? I want you all to think it over and tell Me what it really means to be saved. (It means that we can break free from Satan’s dark influence, turn completely to God, and ultimately, survive.) (People who live under the power of Satan deserve death, but people who are saved by experiencing God’s work will not die.) You all understand this and can explain it at the level of doctrine, but you simply don’t know what it really is to be saved. Is being saved casting off your corrupt disposition? Does being saved mean not lying, being an honest person and ceasing to rebel against God? What are people like after they’re saved? In plain terms, being saved means that you will be able to live on, that you have been brought back to life. You were once living in sin, and bound for death—as God sees it, you were a dead person. What is the basis for saying this? Under whose power do people live before they have attained salvation? (Under the power of Satan.) And what do people rely on to live under Satan’s power? They rely on their satanic nature and corrupt dispositions to live. Then is their whole being—their flesh, and all other aspects such as their spirits and their thoughts—alive or dead? From God’s point of view, they are dead, they are walking corpses. On the surface, you appear to be breathing and thinking, but everything you are constantly thinking about is evil, in defiance of God and in rebellion against God, all of your thoughts are of things that God detests, hates, and condemns. In God’s eyes, all these things not only belong to the flesh, but they entirely belong to Satan and to devils. So, in God’s eyes, is corrupt mankind even human? No, they are beasts, devils and Satans; they are Satans alive! All people live by Satan’s nature and its disposition, and as God sees it, they are Satans alive and garbed in human flesh, devils in human skin. God characterizes such people as walking corpses, as the dead. God is now doing the work of salvation, which means He will take the walking corpses that live by Satan’s corrupt disposition and its corrupt essence—the dead—and turn them into living people. That is the significance of being saved. One believes in God in order to be saved—what is it to be saved? When one attains God’s salvation, they are the dead become living. Where once they belonged to Satan, slated to die, they have now come to life as people belonging to God. If people can submit to God, know Him, and bow down to Him in worship when they believe in and follow God, if they have no more resistance and rebelliousness against God in their hearts, and will no longer resist or attack Him, and can truly submit to Him, then in God’s eyes, they are true living people. Is one who merely acknowledges God in word a living person? (No.) What sort of person is a living person, then? What are the realities of living people? What must living people be possessed of? Tell Me your opinions. (People who can accept the truth are living persons. When people’s ideological views and views concerning things change and align with the word of God, they are living people.) (Living people are those who understand the truth and can practice the truth.) (A person who fears God and shuns evil like Job is a living person.) (People who know God, can live according to God’s words, and can live out the truth reality—those are living people.) You have all spoken of one sort of manifestation. For someone ultimately to be saved and become a living person, they must at least be able to heed God’s words, and able to speak words of conscience and reason, and they must be thinking and discerning, able to understand the truth and to practice it, able to submit to God and worship Him. That is what a true living person is. What do living people often think about and do? They can do a bit of what normal people ought to do. Mainly, they perform their duties well, and they fear God and shun evil in what they think of and reveal, what they say and do on a regular basis. That is the nature of what they often think and do. To put it a bit more precisely, what they say and do by and large accords with the truth, at the least. It is not condemned by God or spurned by Him, but acknowledged and approved of by Him. This is what living people do, and it is what they ought to do.

—The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. Only With True Submission Can One Have Real Trust

A normal spiritual life is not limited to such practices as praying, singing hymns, participating in church life, and eating and drinking of God’s words. Rather, it involves living a new and vibrant spiritual life. What matters is not how you practice, but what fruit your practice bears. Most people believe that a normal spiritual life necessarily involves praying, singing hymns, eating and drinking the words of God or pondering His words, regardless of whether such practices actually have any effect or lead to true understanding. These people focus on following superficial procedures without any thought to their results; they are people who live in religious rituals, not people who live within the church, and much less are they people of the kingdom. Their prayers, hymn singing, and eating and drinking of God’s words are all just rule-following, done out of compulsion and to keep up with trends, not out of willingness nor from the heart. However much these people pray or sing, their efforts will bear no fruit, for what they practice is just the rules and rituals of religion; they are not actually practicing God’s words. They focus only on making a fuss over how they practice, and they treat God’s words as rules to follow. Such people are not putting God’s words into practice; they are just gratifying the flesh, and performing for other people to see. These religious rules and rituals are all human in origin; they do not come from God. God does not follow rules, nor is He subject to any law. Rather, He does new things every day, accomplishing practical work. Like people in the Three-Self Church, who limit themselves to practices such as attending morning services every day, offering evening prayers and prayers of gratitude before meals, and giving thanks in all things—however much they do and for however long they do it, they will not have the work of the Holy Spirit. When people live amidst rules and have their hearts fixed on methods of practice, the Holy Spirit cannot work, because their hearts are occupied by rules and human notions. Thus, God is unable to intervene and work on them, and they can only continue living under the control of laws. Such people are forever incapable of receiving God’s praise.

—The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Regarding a Normal Spiritual Life

Since you do believe in God, then you must eat and drink His words, experience His words, and live out His words. Only this can be called belief in God! If you say you believe in God with your mouth and yet are unable to put any of His words into practice or to produce any reality, this is not called believing in God. Rather, it is “seeking to eat your fill of loaves.” Speaking only of trivial testimonies, useless things, and superficial matters, without possessing even the slightest bit of reality: these do not constitute belief in God, and you have simply not grasped the right way of believing in God. Why must you eat and drink as many as possible of God’s words? If you do not eat and drink His words but seek only to ascend to heaven, is that believing in God? What is the first step one who believes in God should take? By what path does God perfect man? Can you be perfected without eating and drinking the words of God? Can you be considered a person of the kingdom without the words of God to serve as your reality? What exactly does belief in God mean? Believers in God should, at the very least, be well-behaved on the outside; most important of all is to be possessed of the words of God. No matter what, you can never turn away from His words. Knowing God and satisfying His intentions are all achieved through His words. In future, every nation, denomination, religion, and sector will be conquered through God’s words. God will speak directly, and all people will hold the words of God in their hands, and by means of this, humanity will be perfected. Within and without, the words of God pervade throughout: Humanity will speak God’s words with their mouths, practice in accordance with God’s words, and keep the words of God within, remaining steeped in God’s words both inside and out. Thus will humanity be perfected. Those who satisfy the intentions of God and are able to bear witness to Him, these are the people who possess the words of God as their reality.

—The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. The Age of Kingdom Is the Age of Word

What is real belief in God today? It is the acceptance of God’s word as your life reality and the knowing of God from His word in order to achieve a true love of Him. To be clear: Belief in God is so that you may submit to God, love God, and fulfill the duty that should be fulfilled by a created being. This is the aim of believing in God. You must achieve a knowledge of the loveliness of God, of how worthy God is of reverence, of how, in His created beings, God does the work of salvation and making them perfect—these are the bare essentials of your belief in God. Belief in God is principally the switch from a life of the flesh to a life of loving God; from living within corruption to living within the life of God’s words; it is coming out from under the power of Satan and living under the care and protection of God; it is being able to achieve submission to God and not submission to the flesh; it is allowing God to gain your entire heart, allowing God to make you perfect, and freeing yourself from the corrupt satanic disposition. Belief in God is principally so that the power and glory of God may be manifested in you, so that you may follow God’s will, and accomplish God’s plan, and be able to bear testimony to God before Satan. Belief in God should not revolve around the desire to behold signs and wonders, nor should it be for the sake of your personal flesh. It should be about the pursuit of knowing God, and being able to submit to God, and, like Peter, submitting to Him until one’s death. These are the main aims of believing in God. One eats and drinks the word of God in order to know God and satisfy Him. Eating and drinking the word of God gives you a greater knowledge of God, only after which can you submit to Him. Only with knowledge of God can you love Him, and this is the goal man should have in his belief in God. If, in your belief in God, you are always trying to behold signs and wonders, then the viewpoint of this belief in God is wrong. Belief in God is principally the acceptance of the word of God as the life reality. The aim of God is only attained by putting into practice the words of God from His mouth and carrying them out within yourself. In believing in God, man should strive to be made perfect by God, to be able to submit to God, and for complete submission to God. If you can submit to God without complaint, be considerate of God’s intentions, achieve the stature of Peter, and possess the style of Peter spoken of by God, then that will be when you have achieved success in belief in God, and it will signify that you have been gained by God.

—The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. All Is Achieved by the Word of God

You must know what kind of people I desire; those who are impure are not permitted to enter into the kingdom, those who are impure are not permitted to besmirch the holy ground. Though you may have done much work, and worked for many years, in the end if you are still deplorably filthy, then it will be intolerable to the law of Heaven that you wish to enter My kingdom! From the foundation of the world until today, never have I offered easy access to My kingdom to those who curry favor with Me. This is a heavenly rule, and no one can break it! You must seek life. Today, those who will be made perfect are the same kind as Peter: They are those who seek changes in their own disposition, and who are willing to bear testimony to God and fulfill their duty as a created being. Only people such as this will be made perfect. If you only look to rewards, and do not seek to change your own life disposition, then all your efforts will be in vain—this is an unalterable truth!

—The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Success or Failure Depends on the Path That Man Walks