By Marlene, Hong Kong

I was responsible for watering new believers in the church. A while back, there were several newcomers who I couldn’t be sure were suitable for cultivation as team leaders. My concern was the waste of time and energy if they turned out to be unsuitable after I cultivated them. If I didn’t cultivate them, however, my supervisor might say that I was making heavy demands on them and not paying enough attention to their cultivation, or that I simply lacked ability to cultivate them. I was in something of a pickle and didn’t know what to do. I felt I should ask my supervisor about this and let her decide. Then I wouldn’t be solely responsible if something went wrong, and I wouldn’t have to be pruned even if the newcomers really were unsuitable. When I got in touch with my supervisor, I didn’t say directly that I wasn’t a good judge of people and didn’t know what to do. Instead, I waffled on about those newcomers’ various circumstances and difficulties: So-and-so has a poor internet connection and is hard to contact, so-and-so is busy with work, and so-and-so doesn’t talk much in gatherings…. Then, afraid the supervisor would say I was pigeonholing people, I added, “But they’re active in gatherings and eager in their seeking, so I’ll try my hardest to cultivate them.” At first, I thought she’d say that these newcomers weren’t suitable for cultivation. That way it would be her decision. I wouldn’t be responsible and wouldn’t risk paying a price for cultivating them. So I was surprised when she didn’t offer an answer, and asked sternly, “What are you trying to say? You have a roundabout way of talking which is hard to follow. I’ve noticed it before. First you talk about the newcomers’ problems, making it sound like they aren’t worth cultivating, then you say you’ll do your best with them, so that it’s impossible to know what you actually think.” Hearing that made me pretty upset: “Does she mean I’m zigzagging, like a snake, rather than addressing the issue head-on? Am I really that bad? Or is she just venting because she’s in a bad mood?” I realized that this was the wrong way to think about it; that the sister wouldn’t have said it for no reason at all and it must reflect how she really felt. I had revealed a corrupt disposition without being aware of it, and the sister was helping me by pointing it out. So I said to her, “I don’t quite grasp the issues you’re referring to, but I’m willing to accept this and to fully reflect on myself.”

Afterward, I kept mulling over what my supervisor had said, and I prayed to God, asking Him to guide me to better know myself. I remembered that the words of Satan were particularly crooked, and lacking in transparency. Jehovah God asked Satan: “From where come you?” Then Satan answered Jehovah, and said, “From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it” (Job 1:7). God exposes and dissects the way Satan speaks here, saying: “So, how then do you feel when you see Satan answering in this way? (We feel that Satan is being absurd, but also deceitful.) Can you tell what I am feeling? Every time I see these words of Satan, I feel disgusted, because Satan talks, and yet its words contain no substance. Did Satan answer God’s question? No, the words Satan spoke were not an answer, they did not yield anything. They were not an answer to God’s question. ‘From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.’ What is your understanding of these words? Just where does Satan come from? Have you received an answer to this question? (No.) This is the ‘genius’ of Satan’s cunning schemes—not letting anyone discover what it is actually saying. Having heard these words you still cannot discern what it has said, even though it has finished answering. Yet Satan believes it has answered perfectly. How then do you feel? Disgusted? (Yes.) Now you begin to feel disgust in response to these words. Satan’s words have a certain characteristic: What Satan says leaves you scratching your head, unable to perceive the source of its words. Sometimes Satan has motives and speaks deliberately, and sometimes governed by its nature, such words emerge spontaneously, and come straight out of Satan’s mouth. Satan does not spend a long time weighing such words; rather, they are expressed without thinking. When God asked where it came from, Satan answered with a few ambiguous words. You feel very puzzled, never knowing exactly where Satan is from. Are there any among you who speak like this? What kind of way is this to speak? (It is ambiguous and does not give a certain answer.) What kind of words should we use to describe this way of speaking? It is diversionary and misguiding. Suppose someone does not want to let others know what they did yesterday. You ask them: ‘I saw you yesterday. Where were you going?’ They do not tell you directly where they went. Rather, they say: ‘What a day it was yesterday. It was so tiring!’ Did they answer your question? They did, but they did not give the answer you wanted. This is the ‘genius’ within the artifice of man’s speech. You can never discover what they mean, nor perceive the source or intention of their words. You do not know what they are trying to avoid because in their heart they have their own story—this is insidious. Are there any among you who also often speak in this way? (Yes.) What then is your purpose? Is it sometimes to protect your own interests, sometimes to maintain your own pride, position, and image, to protect the secrets of your private life? Whatever the purpose, it is inseparable from your interests, linked to your interests. Is this not the nature of man?” (The Word, Vol. 2. On Knowing God. God Himself, the Unique IV). From what God’s words revealed, I saw that Satan always harbors hidden motives and sly tricks in its words and deeds. In order to conceal its shameful intentions, it speaks circuitously and it equivocates. This baffles listeners, who are unable to fathom its meaning. I reflected on how I tended to speak with my brothers and sisters the way Satan does, baffling them with my circuitous use of language. When they asked me how many newcomers could be cultivated at the church I oversaw, and how those newcomers were progressing, all it required from me was a few words on the number of newcomers and what their status was, but I never gave a direct answer. I’d pick out examples of poor performance by the newcomers and mention various relevant factors, so that the brothers and sisters would think the newcomers were not suitable for cultivation rather than there being an issue with me not cultivating them. And then I’d change my tune, saying, “But newcomers must be cultivated. Let’s have a go first, and see.” I had just been talking about them being problematic, and now I was saying I’d work on cultivating them. That wasn’t a straightforward answer. It was such a roundabout response that no one had a clue what I meant. God says that the reason Satan uses circuitous language, harboring hidden motives and sly tricks, is to protect its own interests. Then I asked myself what I was trying to achieve by speaking that way to the brothers and sisters. Thinking it over, I saw that I always started out by presenting problems, so others would know it wasn’t a matter of me not being focused on cultivating people, but rather that they, for various reasons, weren’t good candidates. Then I’d conclude by saying I’d have a go at cultivating them and see how it went, to show the brothers and sisters that I took due responsibility for cultivating newcomers and had a positive attitude. This way, they wouldn’t say I was pigeonholing people and didn’t want to risk paying a price for cultivating them. Behind this roundabout way of speaking lay despicable motives. I skirted around issues when I spoke with my supervisor, wanting her to guess what I meant without knowing for sure, and ultimately getting her to decide whether or not to cultivate these newcomers. In this way the outcome would be to my benefit, no matter what. If anyone followed up on why I hadn’t cultivated them, I could smoothly shift blame onto my supervisor. And if the newcomers did progress, then everyone would see I was capable of cultivating such people, which would prove that I had some work capability and would make me look good. The way I spoke was exactly Satan’s way of speaking, as exposed by God—burying my motives and zigzagging, like a snake, so that I could achieve my aims without others knowing what I was up to. I was sly and deceitful, just like Satan. Ostensibly I was exploring with the supervisor whether the newcomers could be cultivated, but in reality I was trying to steer her to decide for me, so I could offload responsibility. It was extremely treacherous of me! A normal person in this situation reaches for the relevant principles, in order to act according to principle and better cultivate newcomers for the good of church work. But the goal I was aiming for was to offload responsibility, so as to protect my interests, status and reputation. How could I be so sly and treacherous? The reason the supervisor pruned and exposed me was that I habitually spoke and acted on the basis of my deceitful disposition, never self-reflecting. I was repugnant to God and repellent to others. I prayed and swore to God that from that moment on I would pay more attention to the motives and goals underlying what I said and did, and that I would put being honest into practice. Later, when my brothers or sisters asked me about new believers, I sometimes wanted to start off with their problems again, so that it wouldn’t be my responsibility if they couldn’t be cultivated. When I realized I was being deceitful again and adopting the wrong motive, I consciously prayed, and rebelled against myself, and talked about the newcomers fairly and objectively. When I consciously put being honest into practice, I discovered there were many matters in which I could be devious and deceitful, and that my motives were sometimes buried deeply out of sight.

One day, the supervisor said a new believer I’d watered was attending gatherings organized by Sister Alaina, and he liked her fellowship. I started thinking then that this newcomer was quite arrogant, had various notions, and liked secular trends. He wasn’t regularly participating in my gatherings, and watering him was a real effort, so I figured I’d have less on my plate if Alaina could water him instead. If I directly brought up the idea of transferring him to Alaina, the supervisor might say I was being crafty and wanted to hand off new believers who were hard to water. But if the supervisor herself suggested transferring him, then I could offload the burden as a matter of course. So, I probed with a leading question: “Did the newcomer say he prefers Alaina’s fellowship?” The supervisor said he did. I quickly followed up, “Since that’s the case, maybe we should go with what he likes? Anyway, he doesn’t often attend my gatherings. What do you think?” I was waiting for her to say he should be transferred. But she didn’t decide right away. Later on, I felt a vague sense of unease: Wasn’t I speaking with ulterior motives again? Why did I always have such shameful intentions? Why couldn’t I just be open and direct about what I thought?

One day, I looked for words of God to eat and drink that were relevant to my state, and I read these words of His: “Some people always speak in a way that makes it difficult for people to wrap their minds around it. Sometimes their sentences have a beginning but no end, sometimes an end but no beginning. You can’t tell at all what they mean to say, nothing they say makes any sense to you, and if you ask them to explain clearly, they won’t. They often use pronouns in their speech. For example, they report something, and say, ‘That guy—um, he was thinking that, and then the brothers and sisters weren’t very …’ They could go on for hours and still not express themselves clearly, stuttering and stammering, not finishing their sentences, just uttering some single words that have no connection to one another, leaving you none the wiser after hearing it—and anxious, even. In fact, they have undertaken a lot of studies and are well-educated—so why are they incapable of uttering a complete sentence? This is a problem of disposition. They are so slippery that it takes great effort to speak even a bit of the truth. There is no focus to anything antichrists say, there is always a start but no end; they blurt out half a sentence then swallow the other half, and they are always testing the waters, because they don’t want you to understand what they mean, they want you to guess. If they tell you directly, you’ll realize what they’re saying and see right through them, won’t you? They don’t want that. What do they want? They want you to guess on your own, and they are happy to let you believe what you guess is true—in that case, they didn’t say it, so they don’t bear any responsibility. Beyond that, what do they gain when you tell them your guess at what their meaning is? Your guess is exactly what they want to hear, and it tells them your ideas and views on the matter. From there, they will speak selectively, choosing what to say and what not to say, and how to say it, and then they will take the next step in their plan. Every sentence ends with a trap, and as you listen to them, if you keep finishing their sentences, you will have completely fallen into the trap. Is it tiring for them to always speak like this? Their disposition is wicked—they don’t feel tired. It’s completely natural for them. Why do they want to create these traps for you? Because they can’t see your views clearly, and they fear that you will see through them. At the same time they are trying to stop you from understanding them, they are trying to understand you. They want to elicit your views, ideas, and methods out of you. If they succeed, then their traps have worked. Some people stall by often saying ‘hmm’ and ‘hah’; they don’t express a specific point of view. Others stall by saying ‘like’ and ‘well …,’ covering up what they’re really thinking, using this in place of what they actually want to say. There are many useless function words, adverbs, and auxiliary verbs in every sentence of theirs. If you were to record their words and write them out, you would discover that none of them reveal their views or attitudes on the matter. All of their words contain hidden traps, temptations, and enticements. What is this disposition? (Wicked.) Very wicked! Is there trickery involved? These traps, temptations, and enticements they create are called trickery. This is a common characteristic of people with the wicked essence of antichrists. How does this common characteristic manifest? They report the good news but not the bad, they exclusively speak in pleasing terms, they speak haltingly, they partially hide their true meaning, they speak confusingly, they speak vaguely, and their words carry temptations. All of these things are traps, and all of them are means of trickery” (The Word, Vol. 4. Exposing Antichrists. Item Seven: They Are Wicked, Insidious, and Deceitful (Part Two)). God tells us that antichrists always beat about the bush when they speak. They talk in ambiguities, leaving listeners none the wiser. They are always tempting and luring, trying to draw others into a trap to achieve their goals and ultimately avoid responsibility. It’s just like Satan telling Eve she wouldn’t necessarily die if she ate the fruit. Satan’s words were full of temptations and enticement, not directly revealing its goals, but tempting others into sin without taking responsibility. As God has revealed: “Within every person, there is a satanic disposition; each of their hearts contain the myriad poisons with which Satan tempts God and entices man. Sometimes, their speech is laced with the voice and tone of Satan, and an intent to tempt and entice. The ideas and thoughts of man are filled with Satan’s poisons and they emit its stench. Sometimes, the looks or actions of men carry this same stench of temptation and enticement” (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). I was the same, always speaking in a roundabout way with the brothers and sisters, tempting and luring for my own despicable motives. I didn’t wish to spend time and energy on a newcomer. I wanted to use this chance to dump him. But I didn’t want the supervisor to know I’d pigeonholed and rejected a newcomer. To maintain my image of being conscientious and loving to newcomers, I tentatively suggested to her that we should consider the newcomer’s feelings and do as he wished. I was trying to steer her into suggesting he be transferred to Alaina’s gatherings, so I could achieve my goal. The way I was speaking was exactly as revealed by God: “If you were to record their words and write them out, you would discover that none of them reveal their views or attitudes on the matter. All of their words contain hidden traps, temptations, and enticements. What is this disposition? (Wicked.) Very wicked!” (The Word, Vol. 4. Exposing Antichrists. Item Seven: They Are Wicked, Insidious, and Deceitful (Part Two)). Whenever something came up, what poured from my mouth was all tests and temptation, and not a single honest word. Wasn’t that an evil disposition at play? I preferred to beat around the bush rather than letting anyone see what I was really driving at. I thought it would be foolish to expose my failings by blurting out what I wanted. That was for idiots! I thought my deceitful way of speaking was clever—that I was ingenious, intelligent and thinking two steps ahead of everyone—and that this was the way to protect my interests. Being slippery and deceitful was the principle I lived by, and I dismissed what God tells us about being honest and transparent in word and deed. I felt I’d lose out if I lived that way. My perspective had long been distorted. I had adopted the ways of Satan as a behavioral norm, being tricky and deceptive at every turn. It was a little frightening to reflect on this and see how dark and evil I was. I saw how deeply Satan had corrupted me and that I was barely human at all. I spoke and acted like this in my daily life, too. Once, I remembered really liking a designer handbag my aunt bought. I couldn’t ask for it directly but I didn’t want to spend a heap of money buying one for myself, so I put on a concerned voice and said, “It’s not even going to get used—what a waste! You’ve already got a bag of that brand. What did you buy this one for?” For my aunt, it was as if I was being considerate and didn’t want her to waste money on things she didn’t need. What I really meant, though, was that the bag was wasted just sitting there, so why not give it to me? And sure enough, she gave me the bag. With a few short words I got her to “offer” the bag to me. I was always like that, not stating directly what I wanted but getting people to give it to me of their own accord. Looking back on all those things, I wondered how I could have been so deceitful. I wished I could turn back time and take back the sickening things I’d said. At that point I realized that the way antichrists speak and act, and their evil disposition, as exposed by God, were rife in me. I’d been that way for years, and I would slip into that deceitful way of speaking without even realizing it. My corrupt disposition was a major problem. It would be massively dangerous if I did not deal with it and make a change.

I read God’s words: “That God asks for people to be honest proves that He truly loathes and dislikes deceitful people. God’s dislike of deceitful people is a dislike of their way of doing things, their dispositions, their intents and their methods of trickery; God dislikes all of these things. If deceitful people are able to accept the truth, admit to their deceitful dispositions, and are willing to accept God’s salvation, then they too have a hope of being saved—for God treats all people equally, as does the truth. And so, if we wish to become people who please God, the first thing we must do is change our principles of comportment. No longer can we live according to satanic philosophies, no longer can we get by on lies and trickery. We must cast off all our lies and become honest people. Then God’s view of us will change. Previously, people always relied on lies, pretense, and trickery while living among others, and used satanic philosophies as the basis of their existence, their lives, and the foundation for their comportment. This was something that God loathed. Among nonbelievers, if you speak frankly, tell the truth, and are an honest person, then you will be slandered, judged, and forsaken. So you follow worldly trends and live by satanic philosophies; you become more and more skilled at lying, and more and more deceitful. You also learn to use insidious means to achieve your goals and protect yourself. You become more and more prosperous in Satan’s world, and as a result, you fall deeper and deeper into sin until you cannot extricate yourself. In God’s house, things are precisely the opposite. The more you lie and play deceitful games, the more God’s chosen people will become sick of you and forsake you. If you refuse to repent and still cling to satanic philosophies and logic, if you use ploys and elaborate schemes to disguise and package yourself, then you are very likely to be revealed and eliminated. This is because God loathes deceitful people. Only honest people can prosper in God’s house, and deceitful people will eventually be forsaken and eliminated. All of this is preordained by God. Only honest people can have a share in the kingdom of heaven. If you do not try to be an honest person, and if you don’t experience and practice in the direction of pursuing the truth, if you don’t expose your own ugliness, and if you don’t lay yourself bare, then you will never be able to receive the Holy Spirit’s work and gain God’s approval” (The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. The Most Fundamental Practice of Being an Honest Person). God’s words taught me that He likes honest people and is disgusted by those who are deceitful. Only honest people can gain His salvation, while the deceitful will be exposed and eliminated. Of people I’ve seen cleansed away and eliminated from the church during my years of faith, there were those who were consistently perfunctory and engaged in deception in their duty, and those who, for the sake of prestige and status, hid behind a false front or even misled people with various schemes and ploys. But God sees all things, and He arranges circumstances to expose and eliminate every one of them. Deceitful people truly find no footing in God’s house. Thinking back on when I was watering and cultivating new believers, there were plenty of deviations and problems in the way that I behaved, yet I didn’t focus on seeking the truth to deal with them. I was always being devious and deceitful, finding reasons and excuses to cover up for my corruption and inadequacies, and as a result, newcomers weren’t getting cultivated. If things carried on like that, I too would be spurned and eliminated by God. Looking at the simple and honest brothers and sisters around me, I could see there was much they didn’t understand in their duties, and there were errors and oversights, but they didn’t shirk their responsibilities. In order to understand the truth, grasp principles, and perform their duties to the satisfaction of God, they were able to put aside personal pride, be simple and open, confess their failings and inadequacies, and seek from others. It was clear to see that God was enlightening and guiding them. Even if they were of average caliber or even, at times, a little foolish, God would still guide them, helping them gradually learn the principles of truth and improve in their duties. From this I realized that God blesses those who are simple and honest. This is His righteousness. Understanding this, I realized that speaking truth and being honest might mean that people see who I really am, but that’s no bad thing. It might be a little embarrassing, in the moment, but behaving this way is open and aboveboard, and it pleases God. Plus, while I might expose my own problems by being simple and open, my brothers and sisters would never look down on me for it. They’d help me make corrections, and guide me along with them into the principles. And practice of that kind wouldn’t be of detriment to my duty. God’s kingdom gospel is expanding so quickly now, and it requires the help of plenty of new believers. But I had cultivated barely any new believers. Wasn’t this obstructing and disrupting the work of the church? I had been resisting God! God says: “The more you lie and play deceitful games, the more God’s chosen people will become sick of you and forsake you. If you refuse to repent and still cling to satanic philosophies and logic, if you use ploys and elaborate schemes to disguise and package yourself, then you are very likely to be revealed and eliminated. This is because God loathes deceitful people. Only honest people can prosper in God’s house, and deceitful people will eventually be forsaken and eliminated. All of this is preordained by God.” God’s words are so clear. Whatever path someone chooses and whatever kind of person they seek to be, has a direct bearing on their outcome and fate. I thought of how, on many occasions, I simply blundered through situations without seeking the truth or self-reflecting to better know myself. I was living by my satanic nature. I didn’t even enter into the most basic truth of being honest, or making changes in my life disposition. I remained a deceitful person who belonged to Satan. How could I hope to be saved? Only by practicing being an honest person would I be on the right path.

Later, I continued to seek, and by reading God’s words my path to practicing honesty became a little clearer. God’s words say: “When people engage in deceit, what intentions does this come from? What aim are they trying to achieve? Without exception, it is to achieve fame, gain, and status; in a nutshell, it is for the sake of their own interests. And what lies at the root of the pursuit of self-interest? It is that people see their own interests as being more important than everything else. They engage in deceit in order to benefit themselves, and their deceitful disposition is thereby revealed. How should this problem be resolved? First you must discern and know what interests are, what they bring to people exactly, and what the consequences of pursuing them are. If you can’t figure this out, then forsaking them will be easier said than done. If people don’t understand the truth, then nothing is harder for them to give up than their own interests. That’s because their life philosophies are ‘Every man for himself and the devil take the hindmost’ and ‘Man dies for wealth as birds do for food.’ Clearly, they live for their own interests. People think that without their own interests—that if they were to lose their interests—they wouldn’t be able to survive. It’s as if their survival is inseparable from their own interests, so most people are blind to all but their own interests. They see their own interests as higher than anything else, they live for their own interests, and getting them to give up their own interests is like asking them to give up their own lives. So, what should be done in such circumstances? People must accept the truth. Only when they understand the truth can they see through to the essence of their own interests; only then can they begin to relinquish and rebel against them, and be able to endure the pain of letting go of that which they love so much. And when you can do this and forsake your own interests, you will feel more at ease and more at peace in your heart, and in so doing you will have overcome the flesh. If you cling to your interests and refuse to give them up, and if you are not in the least bit accepting of the truth, in your heart, you may say, ‘What’s wrong with trying to benefit myself and refusing to suffer any losses? God hasn’t punished me, and what can people do to me?’ No one can do anything to you, but with this faith in God, you will ultimately fail to gain the truth and life. This will be a huge loss for you—you will not be able to attain salvation. Is there any greater regret? This is what ultimately comes from pursuing your own interests. If people only pursue fame, gain, and status—if they only pursue their own interests—then they will never gain the truth and life, and ultimately, they will be the ones who suffer a loss. God saves those who pursue the truth. If you do not accept the truth, and if you are incapable of reflecting upon and knowing your own corrupt disposition, then you will not truly repent, and you will have no life entry. Accepting the truth and knowing yourself is the path to growth in life and to attaining salvation, it is the chance for you to come before God to accept His scrutiny, judgment, and chastisement, and to gain the truth and life. If you give up on pursuing the truth for the sake of pursuing fame, gain, and status and your own interests, this is tantamount to giving up on the opportunity to accept God’s judgment and chastisement, and to attain salvation. You are choosing fame, gain, and status and your own interests, but what you are giving up is the truth, and what you are losing is the life, and the chance to be saved. Which means more? If you choose your own interests and give up on the truth, is this not foolish? To put it in vernacular terms, this is suffering a great loss for the sake of a small advantage. Fame, gain, status, money, and interests are all temporary, they are all ephemeral, whereas the truth and life are eternal and immutable. If people resolve the corrupt dispositions that cause them to pursue fame, gain, and status, then they have hope of attaining salvation. Moreover, the truths that people gain are eternal; Satan cannot take these truths away from people, nor can anyone else. You relinquish your interests but what you gain are the truth and salvation; these results are yours, and you gain them for yourself. If people choose to practice the truth, then even though they have lost their interests, they are gaining God’s salvation and eternal life. Those people are the smartest ones. If people give up the truth for the sake of their interests, then they lose the life and God’s salvation; those people are the most foolish ones. What a person chooses—their interests or the truth—is incredibly revealing. Those who love the truth will choose the truth; they will choose to submit to God and to follow Him. They would rather abandon their own interests to pursue the truth. No matter how much they have to suffer, they are determined to stand firm in their testimony to satisfy God. This is the fundamental path for practicing the truth and entering the truth reality” (The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. Knowing One’s Disposition Is the Foundation of Changing It). “There are often intents behind people’s lies, but some lies don’t have any intent behind them, nor are they deliberately planned. Instead, they just come out naturally. Such lies are easy to resolve; it is lies with intents behind them that are difficult to resolve. This is because these intents come from one’s nature and represent Satan’s trickery, and they are intents that people intentionally choose. If someone does not love the truth, they will be unable to rebel against the flesh—so they should pray to God and rely on Him, and seek the truth to resolve the issue. But lying cannot completely be resolved all at once. There will be the occasional relapse, even multiple relapses. This is a normal situation, and as long as you resolve each and every lie you tell, and keep up with this, then the day will come when you will have resolved them all. The resolution of lying is a protracted war: When one lie pours out, reflect on yourself, and then pray to God. When another one comes out, reflect on yourself and pray to God again. The more you pray to God, the more you will hate your corrupt disposition, and the more you will long to practice the truth and live it out. Thus, you will have the strength to abandon lies. After a time of such experience and practice, you will be able to see that your lies have grown much fewer, that you are living with much greater ease, and that you need not lie or cover up your lies anymore. Though you may not speak much day to day, every sentence will come from the heart and be true, with very few lies. How will it feel to live like that? Will it not be freeing and liberating? Your corrupt disposition will not constrain you and you will not be bound by it, and you will at least begin to see the results of being an honest person. Of course, when you come across special circumstances, you may sometimes let a small lie slip. There may be times when you encounter danger or trouble of some sort, or want to maintain your safety, at which times lying cannot be helped. Still, you must reflect on it, understand it and resolve the problem. You should pray to God and say: ‘There are still lies and trickery in me. May God save me from my corrupt disposition once and for all.’ When one is intentionally exercising wisdom, it does not count as a revelation of corruption. This is what one must experience to be an honest person. In this way, your lies will become ever fewer. Today you tell ten lies, tomorrow you might tell nine, the day after that you’ll say eight. Later, you’ll only say two or three. You’ll tell the truth more and more, and your practice of being an honest person will come ever closer to God’s intentions, His requirements, and His standards—and how good that will be! To practice being honest, you must have a path, and you must have an aim. First, resolve the problem of telling lies. You must know the essence behind your telling of these lies. You must also dissect what intents and motives drive you to speak these lies, why you are possessed of such intents, and what their essence is. When you have clarified all these issues, you will have thoroughly seen through the problem of lying, and when something befalls you, you will have principles of practice. If you carry on with such practice and experience, then you will surely see results. One day you’ll say: ‘It’s easy being honest. Being deceitful is so tiring! I don’t want to be a deceitful person anymore, always having to think about what lies to tell and how to cover up my lies. It’s like being a person with a mental illness, speaking in contradictions—someone who doesn’t deserve to be called “human”! That sort of life is so tiring, and I don’t want to live like that anymore!’ At this time, you’ll have a hope of being truly honest, and it will prove that you have begun to make progress toward being an honest person. This is a breakthrough. Of course, there may be some of you who, when you begin to practice, will be mortified after speaking honest words and laying yourselves bare. Your face will go red, you will feel ashamed, and you will fear the laughter of others. What should you do, then? Still, you must pray to God and ask that He give you strength. You say: ‘Oh God, I want to be an honest person, but I’m afraid that people will laugh at me when I speak the truth. I ask that You save me from the bondage of my satanic disposition; let me live by Your words, and be freed and liberated.’ When you pray like this, there will be ever more brightness within your heart, and you will say to yourself: ‘It’s good to put this into practice. Today, I have practiced the truth. Finally, I’ve been an honest person for once.’ As you pray like this, God will enlighten you. He will work in your heart, and He will move you, allowing you to appreciate how it feels to be an honest person. This is how the truth must be put into practice. At the very start you will have no path, but through seeking the truth you will find a path. When people begin seeking the truth, they don’t necessarily have faith. Not having a path is hard for people, but once they understand the truth and have a path of practice, their hearts find enjoyment in it. If they are able to practice the truth and act according to principles, their hearts will find comfort, and they will gain freedom and liberation” (The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. The Most Fundamental Practice of Being an Honest Person). In God’s words I found the principles of practice for dealing with lies and deceit. First and foremost, we must let go of personal interests. This aspect of practice is particularly important. The goal of lying is to protect your interests and achieve your aims, and when this is the objective, you resort to lies and trickery. So, it’s vital to first let go of personal interests. This helps tackle the problem of deceit in the heart. It is also important to frequently self-reflect, allowing God to scrutinize our every word and deed. When we find ourselves wanting to speak or act deceitfully, we must question what it is we’re trying to achieve. If we become aware of ourselves harboring deceitful intentions or revealing an evil disposition, then we must quickly come before God to pray, and turn ourselves around. We must consciously practice being honest and learn to open up to our brothers and sisters, exposing our thoughts, perspectives, corruption and flaws, and seeking the truth to resolve them. That’s the only way to gradually cleanse a deceitful, evil, satanic disposition. Having realized this, I sought out my supervisor and opened up about my despicable motives when talking with her, and I apologized. Not only did she not reject me—she too opened up and we took stock of the deficiencies in our duties together. Practicing like this made me feel at ease. I felt that I was no longer living in the shadows, and this gave me peace of mind.

I’m not entirely free of my deceitful, evil, corrupt disposition, but I have the faith and will to be an honest person who is pleasing to God, and to focus on being honest and open to God’s scrutiny in every single thing I say and do in life.