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 belief in God means, and how they should act to be in accordance with God’s intentions. This is because, though people know 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 in 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 far short of God’s requirements. In other words, if people do not know God, and do not know His work, then they cannot be 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 of belief in God. To take this a step further, 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 belief in God means the following: On the basis of the belief that God is the Sovereign of all things, one experiences His words and His work, and thereby casts off one’s corrupt dispositions, satisfies the intentions of God, and comes to know God. Only a journey of this kind can be called “belief in God.” Yet people often see belief in God as a very simple and frivolous matter. When people believe in God in this way, it loses its meaning, 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. Those who, to this day, believe in God amid words and hollow doctrines, still do not know that they lack the essence of belief in God, and that they cannot receive God’s approval. Still they pray for God to bless them with peace and sufficient grace. Let us quiet our hearts and think hard: Can it be that believing in God 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 significance of people’s faith? Simply put, it is in order to be saved. What exactly is salvation? And what is the significance of salvation? I want you all to think it over. (It means that we can break free from Satan’s dark influence, turn completely to God, and ultimately, survive.) (People live under the power of Satan and as such deserve death, but through the experience of God’s work, they can be saved, and thus avoid death.) 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 dispositions? 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 live by under Satan’s power? They live by Satan’s nature and its corrupt dispositions. 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 alive 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 are not only of the flesh, but they are entirely of Satan and devils. So, in God’s eyes, is corrupt mankind even human? No, they are beasts and devils; they are living Satans! All people live by Satan’s nature and its disposition, and as God sees it, they are living Satans and garbed in human flesh, devils in human skin. God characterizes such people as walking corpses, as the dead. The salvation work God is doing now is to take the walking corpses that live by Satan’s corrupt dispositions 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? Attaining God’s salvation means that a dead person has become a living person. Where once they were of Satan, slated to die, they have now come to life as a person 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 defy 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 real manifestations of living people? What must living people be possessed of? Tell Me your opinions. (Those who can accept the truth are living people. When people’s thoughts and views and their viewpoints on 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.) Each of you has 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 some of what normal people ought to do. Mainly, they do their duties well, and they fear God and shun evil in what they think of and reveal in their minds, and in what they normally say and do. 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 recognized 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 God’s words. Rather, it involves living a fresh 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 a form of adhering to regulations, 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 regulations and rituals of religion; they are not actually practicing God’s words. They focus only on making a fuss over approaches, and they treat God’s words as regulations 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 regulations and rituals are all human in origin; they do not come from God. God does not follow regulations, nor does He follow any law. Rather, He does new things every day, performing practical work. Like people in the Three-Self Church, who limit themselves to practices such as keeping the morning watch 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 practice it, they will not have the work of the Holy Spirit. When people live amid regulations and have their hearts fixed on methods of practice, the Holy Spirit cannot work, because their hearts are occupied by regulations and human notions. Thus, God is unable to intervene and work on them, and they can only continue living under the constraints of the law. Such people are forever incapable of receiving God’s approval.

—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 bring forth 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 path of believing in God. Why must you eat and drink God’s words more? If you do not eat and drink His words but seek only to go 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? Just what is belief in God all about? 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 they will be perfected. Within and without, the words of God pervade throughout: Everyone 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. In this way, they will be perfected. Those who satisfy the intentions of God and are able to bear witness for Him are the ones 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 practical belief in God today? It is accepting God’s word as your life reality, knowing God from His word, and thus attaining a true love for 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 come to know the loveliness of God, how worthy God is of reverence, and how the work God does on His created beings is their salvation and their perfection—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, and from living in corruption to living in 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 so that you may be able to submit to God instead of the flesh, so that God may gain your whole heart and make you perfect, and so that you may be freed from satanic corrupt dispositions. Belief in God is principally so that the great power and glory of God may be made manifest in you, so that you may follow God’s will, so that God’s plan may be accomplished, and so that you may be able to bear witness for 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 own flesh. It should be about the pursuit of knowing God, being able to submit to God, and, like Peter, submitting to Him unto death. The main purpose is to achieve this. One eats and drinks the word of God also 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 only this is the goal man should have in his belief in God. If, in your belief in God, you always wish to see signs and wonders, then this viewpoint on belief in God is wrong. Belief in God is principally to accept the words of God as one’s life reality. When the words that come from God’s mouth are put into practice by people and realized in them, God’s aim is achieved. In believing in God, man should pursue being perfected by God, being able to submit to God, and achieving complete submission to God. If you can submit to God without complaint, be considerate of God’s intentions, and attain the stature of Peter, possessing 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 Accomplished by the Word of God

You must know what kind of people I desire; those who are filthy are not permitted to enter into the kingdom, those who are filthy are not permitted to defile the holy ground. Though you may have done much work, and worked for many years, in the end you are still deplorably filthy, and it is intolerable to the law of Heaven that you wish to enter My kingdom! From the creation of the world until today, never have I offered such 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 pursue life. Today, those who will be made perfect are the same kind as Peter: They are those who pursue changes in their own disposition, and who are willing to bear witness 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 pursue changing 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 One Walks