331. 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

332. 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

333. 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

334. Today, as a believer in the practical God, you must set foot on the right track. In your belief in God, you should not just seek blessings; rather, you should pursue loving God and knowing God. Through His enlightenment, through your own personal pursuit, you should be able to eat and drink His word, develop a real understanding of God, and have a real love of God that comes from your inmost heart. In other words, when your love for God is the most genuine, and no one can destroy or stand in the way of your love for Him, that is when you are on the right track in your belief in God. This proves that you belong to God, for your heart is already in God’s possession and nothing else can then take possession of you. Through your experience, through the price you have paid, and through the work of God, you are able to develop an unbidden love for God—and when you do, you will become free from the influence of Satan and will come to live in the light of God’s word. Only when you have broken free from the influence of darkness can you be said to have gained God. In your belief in God, you must try to pursue this goal. This is the responsibility of each of you. None of you should be satisfied with the current state of affairs. You cannot be of two minds toward the work of God, nor can you regard it lightly. You should think of God in all respects and at all times, and do all things for His sake. And in your speech and actions, you should place the interests of the house of God first. Only thus can you be in line with God’s intentions.

—The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. You Ought to Live for the Truth Since You Believe in God

335. You may think that believing in God is just about suffering, or doing many things for Him, or your flesh being at peace, or everything going smoothly for you, and you being comfortable and at ease in all things. None of these are purposes that people should have in their belief in God. If you believe for these purposes, then your viewpoint is incorrect, and it is simply impossible for you to be perfected. God’s deeds, God’s righteous disposition, His wisdom, His words, and His wondrousness and unfathomableness are all things people ought to understand. Through this understanding, you should come to rid your heart of your personal demands, hopes, and notions. Only by eliminating these things can you meet the conditions required by God. It is only through this that you can have life and satisfy God. The purpose of believing in God is to satisfy Him and to live out the disposition He requires, so that His deeds and glory may be manifested through this group of unworthy people. This is the correct viewpoint on believing in God, and this is also the goal that you should pursue. Your viewpoint on believing in God must be set right, and you should seek to gain God’s words. You need to eat and drink God’s words and you must be able to live out the truth, and in particular you must be able to see His practical deeds, His wonderful deeds in the entire universe, as well as the practical work He does in the flesh. People should, through their actual experiences, appreciate just how God does His work on them and what His intentions are toward them. The purpose of all of this is so they can cast off their satanic corrupt dispositions. By casting off all the uncleanness and unrighteousness inside you, and casting off your wrong intentions, you will develop true belief in God. Only with true belief can you truly love God. You can only genuinely love God on the foundation of believing Him. Can you achieve love for God without believing Him? Since you believe in God, you cannot be muddleheaded about it. Some people become motivated as soon as they see that faith in God will bring them blessings, but then lose all motivation as soon as they see that they have to suffer refinements. Is that believing in God? Ultimately, you must achieve complete and utter submission before God in your faith. You believe in God, but if you still make demands of Him, have many religious notions you cannot put down, personal interests you cannot let go of, and still you pursue blessings of the flesh and want God to save your flesh, to save your soul, then you are exhibiting the behavior of someone with the wrong perspective. Even though people with religious beliefs have faith in God, they do not seek to change their dispositions and do not pursue knowledge of God, but rather pursue only the interests of their flesh. Many among you have faiths that belong in the category of religious convictions; this is not true faith in God. To believe in God, people must possess a heart that is prepared to suffer for Him and the resolve to give themselves up. Unless people meet these two conditions, their faith in God is not valid, and they will not be able to achieve change in their dispositions. Only people who genuinely pursue the truth, knowledge of God, and life are those who truly believe in God.

—The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Those Who Are to Be Made Perfect Must Undergo Refinement

336. After so many years, I have seen many people who believe in God. What has their belief transformed God into in their minds? Some people believe in God as if He were just a bunch of empty air. These people have no answer to questions of God’s existence, because they can neither feel nor sense either His presence or His absence, let alone see it clearly or understand it. Subconsciously, these people think that God does not exist. Others believe in God as if He were a man. These people think that He is unable to do all of the things that they, too, are unable to do, and that He should think however they think. Their definition of God is “an invisible and untouchable person.” There is also a group of people who believe in God as if He were a puppet; these people believe that God has no emotions. They think God is a clay statue, and that when faced with an issue, God has no attitude, viewpoint, or ideas; they believe He is at humankind’s mercy. People simply believe however they want to believe. If they make Him great, then He is great; if they make Him small, then He is small. When people sin and need God’s mercy, tolerance, and love, they assume God should extend His mercy. These people invent a “God” in their own minds, and then make this “God” fulfill their demands and satisfy all of their desires. No matter when or where, and no matter what such people do, they will adopt this fancy in their treatment of God and in their faith. There are even those who, having aggravated God’s disposition, still believe He can save them, because they assume that God’s love is boundless and His disposition is righteous, and that no matter how much a person offends God, He will not remember any of it. They think that since human faults, human transgressions, and human rebellion are momentary expressions of a person’s disposition, God will give people chances, and be tolerant and patient with them; they believe that God will still love them as before. Thus, they maintain high hopes for attaining salvation. In fact, no matter how people believe in God, as long as they are not pursuing the truth, He will hold a negative attitude toward them. This is because over the course of your faith in God, though you have taken the book of God’s words and seen it as a treasure, and study and read it every day, you set the real God aside. You regard Him as mere empty air, or as just a person—and some of you regard Him as no more than a puppet. Why do I put it this way? I do so because the way I see it, whether you are faced with a problem or encounter some circumstance, those things that exist in your subconscious, those things that you give rise to internally, have never had any connection with God’s words or with pursuing the truth. You only know what you yourself are thinking, what your own viewpoint is, and then you force your own ideas and opinions onto God. In your mind they become God’s viewpoints, and you make of these viewpoints standards that you unwaveringly uphold. Over time, proceeding like this takes you farther and farther away from God.

—The Word, Vol. 2. On Knowing God. How to Know God’s Disposition and the Results His Work Shall Achieve

337. Why exactly do you believe in God? Most people are still muddled when it comes to this question, and they always have two entirely different viewpoints about the practical God and the God in heaven. It shows that man believes in God not in order to submit to Him, but to receive certain benefits, or to escape the suffering that disaster brings; only then is he somewhat submissive. This kind of submission is conditional—his personal prospect is the precondition of his submission; he submits because he has no alternative. So, just why do you believe in God? If it is solely for the sake of your prospects and your fate, then it would be better if you did not believe in Him. Belief such as this is making a fool of yourself, reassuring yourself, and admiring yourself. If your faith is not built upon the foundation of submission to God, then you will ultimately be punished for opposing Him. All those who do not seek submission to God in their faith are people who oppose God. God asks man to seek the truth, thirst for His words, eat and drink His words, and put them into practice, all so that he may achieve submission to God. If that is your true intention, then God will surely exalt you, and will surely be gracious toward you. This is undoubtable and unchangeable. If your intention is not to submit to God, and you have other aims, then all that you say and do—even your prayers before God, and going even further, your every move—will be in opposition to Him. Even if your words are gentle and you are mild-mannered, even if your every move and expression seem proper to others, as if you were a submissive person, when it comes to your intentions and your views about faith in God, every one of your actions is in opposition to God, it is doing evil. People who appear as obedient as sheep, but whose hearts harbor evil intentions, are wolves in sheep’s clothing, and those who directly commit an offense against God. God will not spare a single one of them, and the Holy Spirit will reveal each and every one of them. Everybody will see that all those who are hypocrites will, with certainty, be spurned by the Holy Spirit. Don’t be impatient: God will reckon with and dispose of every last one of them in turn.

—The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. In Your Faith in God You Should Submit to God

338. In their faith in God, people’s greatest fault is that they believe in word only, and God is utterly absent from their everyday lives. All people, indeed, believe in the existence of God, yet God is not a part of their everyday lives. People’s mouths speak many prayers to God, but God has little place in their hearts, and so God tries them again and again. It is because people are impure that God has no alternative but to try them, so that they may feel ashamed and come to know themselves in the midst of these trials. If not, humanity would turn into the descendants of the archangel, and become increasingly corrupt. In the process of their faith in God, each person casts off many of their personal intentions and objectives under God’s ceaseless cleansing. If not, God would have no way of using anyone, and no way of doing in people the work that He ought. God first cleanses people, and through this process, they may come to know themselves and God may change them. Only then can God work His life into them, and only thus can their hearts be fully turned to God. And so, believing in God is not as simple as people say. As God sees it, if you only have knowledge but do not have His word as life, and if you are limited only to your own knowledge but cannot practice the truth or live out the word of God, then this is proof still that you do not have a God-loving heart, and it shows that your heart does not belong to God. One can come to know God by believing in Him: This is the final aim, and it is the goal of man’s pursuit. You must put effort into living out the words of God so that they may be realized in your practice. If you have only doctrinal knowledge, then your faith in God will come to naught. Only if you then also practice and live out His word can your faith be considered complete and in accord with God’s intentions.

—The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. You Ought to Live for the Truth Since You Believe in God

339. In believing in God and following God, you must have a God-loving heart, you must cast off your corrupt disposition, you must pursue the satisfaction of God’s intentions, and you must fulfill the duty of a created being. Since you believe in and follow God, you should offer everything to Him, and should not make personal choices or demands, and you should achieve the satisfaction of God’s intentions. Since you are a created human being, you should submit to the Lord who created you, for you are inherently unable to control yourself, and have no inherent ability to control your own destiny. Since you are a person who believes in God, you should pursue sanctification and change. Since you are a created being, you should adhere to your duty, and keep your place, and you must not overstep your duty. This is not to constrain you, or to suppress you through doctrine, but is instead the path through which you can perform your duty, and it can be achieved—and should be achieved—by all those who do righteousness.

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

340. The most fundamental requirement of man’s belief in God is that he have an honest heart, and that he can fully devote himself, and can truly submit. What is hardest for man is to provide his whole life in exchange for true belief, through which he can gain the entire truth, and fulfill his duty as a created being. This is what is unattainable by those who fail, and it is even more unattainable by those who cannot find Christ. It is precisely because man is not good at wholly devoting himself to God, because man is not willing to perform his duty for the Creator, because man has seen the truth but avoids it and walks his own path, because man always pursues by following the path of those who have failed, because man always rebels against Heaven, that man always fails, is always ensnared by Satan’s scheme and by his own net. Because man does not know Christ, because man is not adept at understanding and experiencing the truth, because man is too worshipful of Paul and has too strong a desire to go to heaven, because man is always demanding that Christ obey him and ordering God about, all those lofty great figures and those who have experienced the vicissitudes of the world are still unable to escape death, and die amid God’s chastisement. All I can say of such people is that they die unnatural deaths. The consequence they meet with—their deaths—is not without justification, and apart from that, isn’t their failure even more intolerable to the law of Heaven? The truth comes from the world of man, yet the truth among man is passed on by Christ. It originates from Christ, that is, from God Himself, and this is not something man is capable of. Yet Christ is just providing the truth; He has not come here to decide whether man will be successful in his pursuit of the truth. Therefore, whether or not man is successful in terms of the truth depends entirely on his own pursuit. This is a matter that has never had anything to do with Christ, but is instead determined by man’s pursuit. Man’s destination and his success or failure cannot be all heaped upon the head of God, so that God Himself is made to bear it, because this is not a matter for God Himself, but is directly related to the duty that created beings should perform. Most people do have a little knowledge of the pursuit and destination of Paul and Peter, yet people know nothing more than the outcomes of Peter and Paul, and are ignorant of the secret behind Peter’s success, or the deficiencies that led to Paul’s failure. And so, if you are completely incapable of seeing through to the essence of their pursuit, then the pursuit of most of you will still fail, and even if a small number of you will be successful, still they will not be the equal of Peter. If the path of your pursuit is the right one, then you have a hope of success; if the path you tread in pursuit of the truth is the wrong one, then you will forever be incapable of success, and will meet with the same outcome as Paul.

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

341. In your belief in God, you must submit to God, put the truth into practice, and fulfill all of your duties. Additionally, you must understand the things you should experience. If you only experience being pruned, being disciplined, and being judged, if you only enjoy God but are unable to feel when God is disciplining you or pruning you—this is unacceptable. Perhaps in this instance of refinement, you stand your ground, but this is still not enough; you must still keep marching forward. The lesson of loving God is endless; at no point will it ever come to a close. People see believing in God as something that is extremely simple, but once they actually experience it, they then realize that belief in God is not as simple as people imagine. When God works to refine man, man suffers. The greater a person’s refinement, the greater their God-loving heart will be, and the more of God’s great power will be revealed in them. Conversely, the less refinement a person undergoes, the smaller their God-loving heart will be, and the less God’s great power will be revealed in them. The greater a person’s refinement and pain and the more torment they experience, the deeper their love of God will grow, the more genuine their faith in God will become, and the more profound their knowledge of God will be. In your experiences, you will see that those people who undergo great refinement and suffering, who are pruned and disciplined a lot, have a deep love for God and a more profound and thorough knowledge of God. Those who have not experienced being pruned have but a superficial knowledge. They can only say, “God is so good, He gives people grace so that they can enjoy Him.” If they have experienced being pruned and disciplined, then they are able to speak about the true knowledge of God. So the more wondrous God’s work on man is, the more valuable and significant it is. The more impenetrable it is to you and the more inconsistent it is with your notions, the more God’s work is able to conquer you, gain you, and make you perfect. How great is the significance of God’s work! If God did not refine man in this way, if He did not work according to this method, then His work would be ineffectual and without significance. Therein lies the extraordinary significance of what was mentioned in the past—God selecting and gaining this group, and making them complete in the last days. The greater the work He carries out on you, the deeper and purer your love for God. The greater the work of God, the more man is able to grasp something of His wisdom and the deeper is man’s knowledge of Him.

—The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Those Who Are to Be Made Perfect Must Undergo Refinement

342. Belief in God requires submission to Him and experience of His work. God has done so much work—it could be said that for people it is all perfection, refinement, and even more, chastisement. There has not been a single step of God’s work that has been in line with human notions; what people have enjoyed is God’s stern words. When God comes, people must enjoy His majesty and His wrath. However, no matter how stern His words may be, He comes to save and perfect man. As created beings, people should fulfill the duties that they ought to, and stand firm in their testimony to God in the midst of refinement. In every trial they should uphold the witness that they should bear, and bear resounding witness for God. A person who does this is an overcomer. No matter how God refines you, you should remain full of faith and never lose faith in Him, and you should also do what man should do. This is all that God requires of man—He requires that man’s heart be able to fully return to Him and turn toward Him at every moment. Such a person is an overcomer. Those whom God refers to as “overcomers” are people who can still stand firm in their testimony, maintain their faith and their loyalty to God, and no matter what, keep a pure heart before God and maintain their genuine love for God, while under the influence of Satan and while being laid siege to by Satan—that is, while they are amid the forces of darkness. In this way, they have stood firm in their testimony before God. Such people are those whom God refers to as “overcomers.” If your pursuit is excellent when God blesses you, but you retreat without His blessings, is this purity? Since you are certain that this way is true, you must follow it until the end; you must maintain your loyalty to God. Since you have seen that God has come to the earth to personally perfect you, you should give your heart entirely to Him. If, no matter what God does—perhaps giving you an unfavorable outcome at the very end—you can still follow Him, this means you’ve maintained your purity before God. The offering of a holy spiritual body and a pure virgin to God, which has been spoken of, means keeping a sincere heart before God. Man’s sincerity is purity, and those who can be sincere toward God have maintained purity. This is what you should put into practice. When you ought to pray, you pray; when you ought to gather together in fellowship, you do so; when you ought to sing hymns, you sing hymns; and when you ought to rebel against the flesh, you rebel against the flesh. When you do your duty, you are not perfunctory; when you are faced with trials you stand firm. This is loyalty to God.

—The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. You Should Maintain Your Loyalty to God

343. When Moses struck the rock, and the water bestowed by Jehovah sprang forth, it was because of his faith. When David played the harp and lyre in praise of Me, Jehovah—with his heart filled with joy—it was because of his faith. When Job lost his livestock that filled the mountains and untold masses of wealth, and his body became covered in sore boils, it was because of his faith. When he could hear the voice of Me, Jehovah, and see the glory of Me, Jehovah, it was because of his faith. That Peter could follow Jesus Christ was down to his faith. That he could be nailed to the cross for My sake and give glorious testimony was also down to his faith. When John saw the glorious image of the Son of man, it was down to his faith. When he saw the vision of the last days, it was all the more because of his faith. The reason why the so-called multitudes of the Gentile nations have received My revelation, and have come to know that I have returned in the flesh to do My work among man, is also because of their faith. All those who are smitten by My harsh words and yet gain solace from this and are saved—have they not done so because of their faith? Because of their faith, people have received so many things, and not necessarily blessings. They may not receive the kind of happiness and joy that David felt, or have water bestowed by Jehovah as Moses did. For example, Job was blessed by Jehovah because of his faith, but he also received adversity. Whether you receive blessings or adversity, both are blessed events. Were it not for your faith, you would not be able to receive this work of conquest, and much less would you be able to see Jehovah’s deeds displayed before your eyes today—you would not be able to see this, and even less so would you be able to gain it. These adversities, these calamities, and all the judgments—if they did not come upon you, would you be able to see Jehovah’s deeds today? Today, it is faith that allows you to be conquered, and it is being conquered that allows you to believe in Jehovah’s every deed. It is only because of faith that you receive such chastisement and judgment. Through this chastisement and judgment, you are conquered and perfected. If not for the chastisement and judgment of today, your faith would be in vain, because you would not know God; no matter how much you believed in Him, your faith would be but empty words and not have any reality. It is only after you receive this work of conquest, which makes you completely submissive, that your faith becomes true, and reliable, and your heart turns toward God. Even if you are subject to much judgment or many curses because of this word, “faith,” you nonetheless have true faith and you have gained the truest, most real, and most precious thing. This is because it is only in the course of judgment that you see the destination of the created beings; it is in this judgment that you see the loveliness of the Creator; it is in such work of conquest that you behold the arm of God; it is in this conquest that you come to fully understand human life; it is in this conquest that you gain the right path in life and come to understand the true meaning of “man”; it is only in this conquest that you see the righteous disposition of the Almighty and His beautiful, glorious countenance; it is in this work of conquest that you learn of man’s origin and understand all mankind’s “immortal history”; it is in this conquest that you come to learn about mankind’s ancestors and the origin of mankind’s corruption; it is in this conquest that you receive joy and comfort as well as endless chastening, discipline, and the Creator’s words of reproach to the mankind He created; it is in this work of conquest that you receive blessings, as well as the adversities that are man’s due…. Is this not all because of your little bit of faith? And does your faith not grow from gaining these things? Have you not gained a tremendous amount?

—The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. The Real Story of the Work of Conquest (1)