415. A genuine created being ought to know who the Creator is, what man’s creation is for, how to carry out the responsibilities of a created being, and how to worship the Creator, ought to understand, comprehend, know, and show consideration for the Creator’s intentions, wishes, and requirements, and ought to follow the way of the Creator—fear God and shun evil.

What is to fear God? And how can one shun evil?

“Fearing God” does not mean inexplicable fright and dread, nor evasion, nor keeping a distance, nor idolization, nor superstition. Rather, it means admiration, reverence, trust, comprehension, consideration, submission, dedication, love, as well as unconditional and uncomplaining worship, requital, and surrender. Without genuine knowledge of God, people will not have genuine admiration, genuine trust, genuine comprehension, genuine consideration or submission, only terror and unease, only doubt, misunderstanding, evasion, and keeping a distance; without genuine knowledge of God, people will not have genuine dedication and requital; without genuine knowledge of God, people will not have genuine worship and surrender, only blind idolization and superstition; without genuine knowledge of God, people cannot possibly follow the way of God, or fear God, or shun evil. Conversely, every activity and behavior that people engage in will be filled with rebellion and resistance against God, with slanders and judgments about Him, and with evil deeds that run contrary to the truth and to the true meaning of God’s words.

Once people have real trust in God, they will really follow Him and depend on Him; only with real reliance on God can people genuinely understand Him and comprehend Him; along with genuine comprehension of God comes genuine consideration for Him; only with genuine consideration for God can people have genuine submission; only with genuine submission to God can people have genuine dedication; only with genuine dedication to God can people have unconditional and uncomplaining requital; only with genuine reliance, genuine comprehension and consideration, genuine submission, genuine dedication and requital, can people truly come to know God’s disposition and essence, and the identity of the Creator; only when they have truly come to know the Creator can genuine worship and surrender arise within them; only when they have real worship of and surrender to the Creator will they be able to truly break free from evil deeds—that is, to shun evil.

This constitutes the whole process of “fearing God and shunning evil,” and is also the content in its entirety of fearing God and shunning evil. This is the path that must be traversed in order to attain fearing God and shunning evil.

—The Word, Vol. 2. On Knowing God. Preface

416. First of all, we know that God’s disposition is majesty and wrath; He is not a sheep left to be slaughtered by anyone, much less a puppet left to be manipulated by people however they want. He is also not mere air to be summoned and dismissed at will. If you truly believe that God exists, then you should have a God-fearing heart, and you should know that His essence is not one to be angered. He may be brought to anger because of a word, or perhaps a thought, or perhaps some kind of vile behavior, or perhaps a form of mild behavior, behavior that is acceptable in the eyes and ethics of humans, or because of a doctrine or a theory. However, once you have angered God, your opportunity is lost, and your end days have arrived. This is a terrible thing! If you do not understand that God tolerates no offense, then perhaps you are not afraid of Him, and perhaps you commit offenses against Him often. If you do not know how to fear God, then you cannot possibly fear God, and you will not know how to embark upon the path of following God’s way—fearing God and shunning evil. Once you become aware, and are conscious that God tolerates no offense, you will know what to do to fear God and shun evil.

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

417. Though God’s essence contains an element of love, and He is merciful toward each and every person, people have overlooked and forgotten the fact that His essence is that He possesses dignity. That He has love does not mean that people can commit offenses against Him at will, without Him feeling anything or reacting in any way; that He has mercy does not mean that He has no principles in how He treats people. God is a living God; His existence is all too real. He is neither an imagined puppet nor any other object. Given that He does exist, we should at all times be attentive to the voice of His heart, pay close attention to His attitude, and try to understand His feelings. Do not use human imaginings to delimit God, and do not impose upon Him the thoughts of the human mind or the wishes of the human will, asking God to treat people using human methods and based on human imaginings. If you do this, then you are provoking God, testing His anger, and challenging His dignity! Thus, once you have come to understand the severity of this matter, I urge each and every one of you to be cautious and prudent in your actions and in your speech, and to exercise the utmost caution and prudence in how you treat matters concerning God! When you do not understand what God’s attitude is, do not speak recklessly, act recklessly, or apply labels recklessly; even more so, do not arbitrarily draw conclusions. Instead, you should wait and seek. These are manifestations of fearing God and shunning evil. If you can achieve this and possess this attitude before all else, then God will not blame you for your foolishness, ignorance, and lack of understanding of things; instead, because of your attitude—your fear of offending God, your respect for His intentions, and your willingness to submit to Him—God will remember you, guide and enlighten you, or show forbearance toward your immaturity and ignorance. Otherwise, as the result of the irreverent attitude you have toward Him—judging Him as you wish or arbitrarily speculating about and defining His wishes—God will condemn you, discipline you, and even punish you; or, He will have something to say about you, and perhaps what He says will be concerning your outcome. Therefore, I shall emphasize once more: Each of you should be cautious and prudent about everything that comes from God. Do not speak recklessly or act recklessly. Before you say anything, you should consider, “Would this action of mine anger God? In doing it, am I fearing God?” Even in simple matters, you should ponder these questions more, and consider them more. If you can truly practice according to these principles in all aspects, in all things, at all times, and adopt such an attitude especially when you do not understand something, then God will always guide you and provide you with a path to follow.

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

418. I exhort you to make a real effort to understand the content of the administrative decrees, and to endeavor to know the disposition of God. Otherwise, you will find it difficult to keep your lips sealed, your tongues will wag too freely, and you will spout high-sounding talk, unwittingly offending the disposition of God and falling into the darkness, losing the presence of the Holy Spirit and the light. Because you are unprincipled in your actions, doing and saying that which you should not, you shall receive the retribution you deserve. You should know that though you are unprincipled in word and deed, God is highly principled in both. The reason you receive retribution is because you have offended God, not a person. If, in your life, you offend the disposition of God many times, then you are bound to become a child of hell. To man it may appear that you have only committed a few deeds that are not in accordance with the truth, and nothing more. Are you aware, however, that in the eyes of God you are already someone for whom there is no more sin offering? Because you have violated the administrative decrees of God more than once and have, moreover, shown no sign of repentance or turning back, there is no other recourse but for you to be plunged into hell, where God punishes man. A small number of people, while following God, committed some deeds that violated principles, but after being pruned and given guidance, they gradually discovered their own corruption, thereafter entered on the right track of reality, and they remain well-grounded today. Such people are those who shall survive in the end. Nevertheless, it is the honest that I want; if you are an honest person and someone who acts according to principle, then you can be a confidant of God. If in your actions you do not offend the disposition of God, and seek the desires of God, and have a God-fearing heart, then your faith is up to the standard. Whoever does not fear God and does not have a heart that trembles frightfully is highly likely to violate the administrative decrees of God. Many serve God on the strength of their passion but have no understanding of the administrative decrees of God, still less any inkling of the implications of His words. And so, with their good intentions, they often wind up doing things that disturb God’s management. In serious cases, they are expelled from God’s house, deprived of any further chance of following Him, and are cast into hell, all association with God’s house at an end. These people do the work of God’s house on the strength of their ignorant good intentions, and end by angering God’s disposition. People bring their ways of serving officials and lords to the house of God and try to put them into play, vainly thinking that they can be applied with effortless ease here. Never do they imagine that God has not the disposition of a lamb, but that of a lion. Therefore, those associating with God for the first time are unable to communicate with Him, for the heart of God is unlike that of man. Only after you understand many truths can you continuously come to know God. This knowledge is not made up of words and doctrines but can be used as a treasure by means of which you enter into close confidence with God, and as proof that He delights in you. If you lack the reality of knowledge and are not equipped with the truth, then your passionate service can only bring upon you the disgust and abhorrence of God.

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

419. If you do not understand the disposition of God, then it will be impossible for you to do the work you should do for Him. If you do not know the essence of God, then it will be impossible for you to have fear and dread of Him; instead, there will be only heedless perfunctoriness and prevarication, and even more than that, incorrigible blasphemy. Although understanding God’s disposition is indeed important, and knowing God’s essence cannot be overlooked, no one has ever seriously examined or delved into these issues. It is plain to see that you have all dismissed the administrative decrees I have issued. If you do not understand the disposition of God, then you will be very likely to offend His disposition. Offending His disposition is tantamount to provoking the anger of God Himself, in which case the ultimate fruit of your actions will be the violation of the administrative decrees. Now you should realize that when you know God’s essence, so too can you understand His disposition—and when you understand His disposition, so too will you have understood the administrative decrees. Needless to say, much of what is contained within the administrative decrees touches upon the disposition of God, but not all of His disposition is expressed within the administrative decrees; hence, you must go a step further in developing your understanding of God’s disposition.

—The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. It Is Very Important to Understand God’s Disposition

420. God is a living God. People behave differently in different situations, and God’s attitude toward these behaviors differs because He is neither a puppet nor is He a bunch of empty air. Getting to know God’s attitude is a worthy pursuit for humankind. People should learn how, by knowing God’s attitude, they can little by little attain knowledge of God’s disposition and come to understand His heart. When you gradually come to understand God’s heart, you will not feel that fearing Him and shunning evil is such a difficult thing to accomplish. Moreover, when you do understand God, you will not be as likely to delimit Him. Once you have stopped delimiting God, you will be less likely to commit an offense against Him, and without your realizing it, God will lead you to gain knowledge of Him, and thus you will have the fear of Him in your heart. You will then stop defining God by the words and doctrines or the theories you have mastered, and instead you will constantly seek out God’s desires in all things. In this way, before you know it, you will become a person who is in accordance with God’s intentions.

God’s work is unseen and untouchable by humans, but as far as He is concerned, the actions of each and every person—along with their attitude toward Him—are not merely perceptible by God, but visible to Him as well. This is something that everyone should be aware of and clear about. You might always be thinking to yourself, “Does God know what I’m doing here? Does He know what I’m thinking about? Maybe He does, and maybe He doesn’t.” If you hold this view while believing in and following God, and you also doubt His work and His existence like this, then sooner or later there will come a day when you will arouse His anger, for you are already on the edge of a dangerous precipice. I have seen people who have believed in God for many years, yet who still have not gained the truth reality, much less understood God’s intentions. These people make no progress in their life and stature, adhering only to the shallowest of doctrines. This is because such people have never accepted God’s word as their life, and they have never faced up to and accepted His existence. Tell Me, when God sees such people, does it bring Him pleasure? Does His heart feel comforted? Thus, it is how people believe in God that decides their fate. Concerning how people pursue and how people approach God, people’s attitudes are of primary importance. Don’t push God to the back of your mind as if He were just air; rather, you must always think that the God you believe in is a living God, a real God. He is not sitting around up there in the third heaven with nothing to do. Rather, He is constantly scrutinizing everyone’s heart, scrutinizing everyone’s actions, scrutinizing your every word and every deed, scrutinizing how you behave and what your attitude toward Him is. Whether you are willing to give yourself to God or not, all of your behavior and your thoughts and ideas are laid before Him and being scrutinized by Him. Due to your behavior, due to your deeds, and due to your attitude toward Him, God’s opinion of you and His attitude toward you are constantly changing. Still, I must advise some of you: Do not take yourself to be an infant in the hands of God, as if He dotes on you so much, as if He couldn’t do without you, and as if His attitude toward you were fixed and could never change—quit dreaming! God is righteous in His treatment of each and every person, and carries out the work of conquering and saving people with great seriousness. This is His management. He treats every single person seriously; He does not treat them like a pet, and coax them and play with them. God’s love for humans is not the pampering or spoiling kind, nor are His mercy and tolerance toward humankind indulgent or laissez-faire. On the contrary, God’s love for humans involves cherishing them, pitying them, and respecting life; His mercy and tolerance carry within them His expectations of humans, and are the foundation necessary for humanity’s survival. God is alive, and God actually exists; His attitude toward humankind is principled, it is not at all a kind of regulation, and it can change. His intentions for humanity are gradually changing and transforming with time, depending on circumstances, and along with the attitude of each and every person. Therefore, you should know in your heart with absolute clarity that the essence of God is immutable, and that His disposition will be expressed at different times and in different contexts. You might not think that this is a serious matter, and you might use your own personal notions to imagine how God should do things. However, there are times when the polar opposite is true, and by using your own personal notions to attempt to gauge God, you have already angered Him. This is because God absolutely does not operate the way you think He does, and He will absolutely not treat this matter like you say He will. Thus, I remind you to be careful and prudent in your approach to everything around you, and learn how to practice according to the principle of “following God’s way—fearing God and shunning evil” in all things. You must accurately determine the matters of God’s intentions and God’s attitude, you must find enlightened people to fellowship with about these matters, and you must seek in earnest. Do not view the God of your belief as a puppet—judging Him at will, arriving at arbitrary conclusions about Him, and approaching Him with an irreverent attitude. While God is bringing you salvation and determining your outcome, He may show you mercy and tolerance, or administer judgment and chastisement upon you, but in any case, His attitude toward you is not fixed. It is dependent on your own attitude toward Him, as well as your understanding of Him.

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

421. People who genuinely believe in God always have Him in their hearts, and they always carry within them a God-fearing heart, a God-loving heart. Those who believe in God should do things cautiously and prudently, and all that they do should be in accordance with God’s requirements and able to satisfy His heart. They should not be headstrong, doing whatever they please; that does not befit saintly propriety. People must not run amok, swaggering and swindling all over the place, while waving the flag of God; this is the most rebellious sort of conduct. Families have their rules, and nations have their laws—and isn’t it even more so in the house of God? Does it not all the more have strict standards? Does it not all the more have administrative decrees? People are free to do what they want, but the administrative decrees of God cannot be altered at will. God is a God who does not tolerate offense from humans; He is a God who strikes down people. Do people really not know this already?

—The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. A Warning to Those Who Do Not Practice the Truth

422. In every age of God’s work, He bestows some words upon people and tells them of some truths. These truths serve as the way people should adhere to, the way they should follow, the way that enables them to fear God and shun evil, and they are that which people should put into practice and adhere to in their lives and over the course of their life journeys. This is God’s purpose in expressing these words to humanity. These words that come from God should be adhered to by people, and to adhere to them is to gain life. If a person does not adhere to them, does not put them into practice, and does not live out God’s words in their life, then this person is not putting the truth into practice. And if people are not putting the truth into practice, then they are not fearing God and shunning evil, nor can they satisfy God. If people cannot satisfy God, they cannot receive His approval, and in that case, they will have no outcome.

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

423. Following God’s way is not about observing superficial regulations; rather, it means that when you are faced with a problem, you view it first and foremost as a situation that has been orchestrated by God, a responsibility He has given to you, or a task that He has entrusted to you. When facing this problem, you should even see it as a trial God is putting you through. When you encounter this problem, you must have a standard in your heart, and you must think that this matter has come from God. You must think about how to deal with it in such a way that you can fulfill your responsibility while remaining loyal to God, as well as how to do it without angering Him or offending His disposition. … This is because in order to follow God’s way, we cannot let go of anything that happens either to us or around us, even the little things; as long as some matter comes upon us, whether we think we should pay attention to it or not, we must not let it go, but should view it as a test God has given us. What do you think about this attitude? If you have this kind of attitude, then it confirms one fact: Your heart is one that fears God, and your heart is one that wants to shun evil. If you have this desire to satisfy God, then what you put into practice will not be far off from meeting the standard of fearing God and shunning evil.

There are often those who believe that matters people do not pay much attention to and do not usually mention are but minor things and have nothing to do with practicing the truth. When faced with just such an issue, these people do not give it much thought, and then they let it slide. In actual fact, when you encounter this issue, it’s precisely the time when you should learn the lesson of how to fear God and how to shun evil, and you should be even more aware of what God is doing when you encounter it. God is right by your side, observing your every word and action, and watching everything you do and what changes take place in your thoughts—this is God’s work. Some people ask, “So why haven’t I felt it?” You have not felt it because you have not treated the way of fearing God and shunning evil as the most important way to adhere to. You therefore cannot sense the subtle work God does on people according to their various thoughts and manifestations. You are a scatterbrain! What is a major matter? What is a minor matter? The matters that involve following God’s way are not divided into major and minor ones, they are all a big deal—can you understand that? (We can understand it.) In terms of everyday matters, there are some which people view as very major, and others that are viewed as minor things. People often see these major matters as being very important, and they consider them to have come from God. However, in the midst of these major events, due to people’s immature stature and because of their poor caliber, people often fall short of God’s intentions, cannot obtain any revelations, and cannot acquire any actual knowledge that is of value. As far as minor matters are concerned, these are simply overlooked by people and left to slip away one bit at a time. As such, people have lost many opportunities to be examined and tested before God. What does it mean if you always overlook the people, events, and things, and situations that God has orchestrated for you? It means that every day, and even at every moment, you are constantly forsaking God’s perfection of you, as well as His guidance. Whenever God orchestrates a situation for you, He is observing in secret, scrutinizing your heart and your thoughts and ideas, watching how you think and how you will act. If you are a careless person—one who has never been serious about God’s way, His words, or the truth—then you will not be mindful of or pay attention to what God wishes to accomplish or what He requires of you in the environments He sets up for you. Neither will you know how the people, events, and things that you encounter relate to the truth or God’s intentions. After you face repeated circumstances and repeated trials like this, with God not seeing any results in you, how will He act? After having repeatedly faced trials, you have not honored God as great in your heart, nor have you taken the circumstances that God orchestrated for you seriously, and regarded them as trials or tests from God. Instead, one after the other, you have pushed away the opportunities that God bestowed upon you, letting them slip away time and time again. Is this not extreme rebellion that people exhibit? (It is.) Will God feel hurt because of this? (He will.) Wrong, God will not feel hurt! Hearing Me say such a thing has shocked you once more. You may be thinking, “Was it not said earlier that God always feels hurt? Will God not therefore feel hurt? When, then, does He feel hurt?” In short, God will not feel hurt in this situation. So, then, what is God’s attitude toward the type of behavior outlined above? When people push away the trials and tests that God sends them, and when they shirk from them, there is only one attitude that God has toward such people. What attitude is this? God spurns this kind of person, from the bottom of His heart. There are two layers of meaning for the word “spurn.” How do I explain it from My point of view? The word “spurn” carries connotations of deep loathing and hatred. What about the other layer of its meaning? That is the part that implies giving up on something. You all know what “give up” means, right? In a nutshell, “spurn” is a word that represents God’s ultimate reaction and attitude toward those people who are behaving in such a way; it is extreme loathing and antipathy toward them, and thus it results in the decision to give up on them. This is God’s final decision toward a person who has never followed God’s way and who has never feared God and shunned evil.

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

424. Job’s fear and submission toward God is an example to mankind, and his perfection and uprightness were the peak of the humanity that ought to be possessed by man. Though he did not see God, he came to appreciate that God truly existed, and because of this appreciation he feared God, and due to his fear of God, he was able to submit to God. He gave God free rein to take whatever he had, yet he was without complaint, and fell down before God and told Him that, at this very moment, even if God took his flesh, he would gladly allow Him to do so, without complaint. His entire conduct was due to his perfect and upright humanity. This is to say, as a result of his innocence, honesty, and kindness, Job firmly believed in the existence of God that he had appreciated and perceived. Upon this foundation he made demands of himself and standardized his thinking, behavior, conduct and principles of actions before God in accordance with God’s guidance of him and the deeds of God that he had seen among all things. Over time, his experiences caused in him a real and actual fear of God and made him shun evil. This was the source of the integrity to which Job held firm. Job was possessed of an honest, innocent, and kind humanity, and he had actual experience of fearing God, submitting to God, and shunning evil, as well as the knowledge that “Jehovah gave, and Jehovah has taken away.” Only because of these things was he able to stand firm in his testimony amid such malicious attacks by Satan, and only because of them was he able to not disappoint God and to provide a satisfactory answer to God when God’s trials came upon him.

—The Word, Vol. 2. On Knowing God. God’s Work, God’s Disposition, and God Himself II

425. Job had not seen the face of God or heard the words spoken by God, and much less had he personally experienced the work of God, yet his fear of God and his testimony during his trials are witnessed by all, and they are loved, delighted in, and approved of by God, and people envy, and admire them, and even more than that, sing their praises. There was nothing great or extraordinary about his life: Just like any ordinary person, he lived an unremarkable life, going out to work at sunrise and returning home to rest at sunset. The difference is that during the several unremarkable decades of his life, he gained an insight into the way of God, and personally experienced and understood the great power and sovereignty of God as no other person ever had. He was no cleverer than any ordinary person, his life was not especially tenacious, nor, moreover, did he have invisible special skills. What he did possess, though, was a character that was honest, kind-hearted, and upright, a character of loving fairness, righteousness, and positive things—none of these things are possessed by the majority of ordinary people. He differentiated between love and hate, had a sense of justice, was unyielding and persistent, and paid meticulous attention to detail in his thinking. Thus, during his unremarkable time on earth he saw all the extraordinary things that God had done, and he saw the greatness, holiness, and righteousness of God, he saw God’s concern, graciousness, and protection for man, and he saw the honorableness and authority of the supreme God. The first reason why Job was able to gain these things that were beyond any normal person was because he had a pure heart, and his heart belonged to God, and was led by the Creator. The second reason was his pursuit: his pursuit of being an impeccable and perfect person, and of being someone who complied with the will of Heaven, who was loved by God, and who shunned evil. Job possessed and pursued these things without having seen God or heard God speak; though he had never seen God, he had come to know the means by which God holds sovereignty over all things, and he gained an appreciation of the wisdom with which God does this. Though he had never heard the words spoken by God, Job knew that the deeds of rewarding man and taking from man all come from God. Although the years of his life were no different from those of any ordinary person, he did not allow the unremarkableness of his life to affect his knowledge of God’s sovereignty over all things, or to affect his walking of the way of fearing God and shunning evil. In his eyes, the laws governing the operation of all things were full of God’s deeds, and God’s sovereignty could be seen in any part of a person’s life. He had not seen God, but he was able to experience the ubiquity of God’s deeds, and during the days of his ordinary life, in every corner of his life he was able to see and appreciate the extraordinary and wondrous deeds of God, and he could see the wondrous arrangements of God. The hiddenness and silence of God did not hinder Job’s appreciation of God’s deeds, nor did they affect his knowledge of God’s sovereignty over all things. His life was the personal experience, during his ordinary life, of the sovereignty and arrangements of God, who is hidden among all things. Furthermore, during the course of his ordinary life, he listened carefully to and understood the voice of God’s heart and the words of God—which, though He remained silent among all things, were expressed through His sovereignty over the laws governing the operation of all things. You see, then, that if people have the same humanity and pursuit as Job, then they can gain the same appreciation and knowledge as Job, and can acquire the same understanding and knowledge of God’s sovereignty over all things as Job. God had not appeared to Job or spoken to him, but Job was able to be perfect and upright, and to fear God and shun evil. In other words, without God having appeared to or spoken to man, God’s deeds among all things and His sovereignty over all things are sufficient for man to experience God’s existence, great power, and authority, and God’s great power and authority are enough to make man walk the way of fearing God and shunning evil.

—The Word, Vol. 2. On Knowing God. God’s Work, God’s Disposition, and God Himself II

426. “Fearing God and shunning evil” and knowing God are indivisibly connected by a myriad threads, and the connection between them is self-evident. If you want to attain to shunning evil, you must first have real fear of God; if you want to attain to real fear of God, you must first have real knowledge of God; if you want to attain to knowledge of God, you must first experience God’s words, enter into the reality of God’s words, experience God’s chastening and discipline, His chastisement and judgment; if you want to experience God’s words, you must first come face to face with God’s words, come face to face with God, and ask God to set up people, events, and things, as well as all sorts of environments, so that you can have opportunities to experience His words; if you want to come face to face with God and with God’s words, you must first possess a simple and honest heart, an attitude of accepting the truth, the resolve to endure suffering, the determination and the courage to shun evil, and the desire to become a genuine created being…. In this way, going forward step by step, you will draw ever closer to God, your heart will grow ever more pure, and your life and the value of being alive will, as you come to know God, grow ever more meaningful and wax ever more radiant. Until, one day, you will feel that the Creator is no longer a riddle, that the Creator has never been hidden from you, that the Creator has never concealed His face from you, that the Creator is not far from you, that the Creator is no longer the One that you can only long for day and night but not perceive with your senses, that He is really and truly standing guard by your side, and that He is supplying your life, and controlling your destiny. You will feel that He is not on the remote horizon, nor has He secreted Himself high up in the clouds, that He is right by your side, holding sovereignty over your all, and that He is your everything and your one and only. Such a God allows you to love and adore Him from the heart, feel attached to Him, be close to Him, admire Him, fear to lose Him, and be unwilling to forsake Him any longer, rebel against Him any longer, or any longer to evade Him or put Him at a distance. All you want is to be considerate of Him, you only wish to submit to Him, requite all that He gives you, and surrender to His dominion. You no longer refuse to be guided, provided for, watched over, and protected by Him, no longer resist His sovereignty and arrangements regarding you. You only wish to follow Him, to accompany Him; you only wish to accept Him as your one and only life, to accept Him as your one and only Lord, your one and only God.

—The Word, Vol. 2. On Knowing God. Preface

427. When people experience God’s work, what they first come to know of Him is that He is unfathomable, wise, and wonderful, and they naturally start to fear Him; they feel that the work He does is mysterious, and beyond the ken of man’s mind. People want only to be able to meet His requirements, to satisfy His intentions; they do not wish to exceed Him, because the work He does goes beyond man’s thinking and imagination and could not be done by man in His stead. Even man himself does not know his own inadequacies, yet God has forged a new path and has come among people to bring them into a newer and more beautiful world, and so mankind has made new progress and has had a new start. What people feel for God is not admiration, or rather, is not only admiration. Their deepest experience is fear and love; their feeling is that God is indeed wonderful. He does work that man is unable to do and says things that man is unable to say. People who have experienced God’s work always have an indescribable feeling. People of deep enough experience can understand the love of God; they can feel His loveliness, that His work is so wise, so wonderful, and thereby is infinite power generated among them. It is not fright or occasional love and respect, but a deep sense of God’s mercy for man and tolerance of him. However, people who have experienced His chastisement and judgment sense His majesty and that He tolerates no offense. Even people who have experienced much of His work are unable to fathom Him; all who truly fear Him know that His work is not in line with people’s notions but always runs counter to their notions. He does not need people to admire Him wholly or present the appearance of submission to Him; rather, they should achieve true fear and true submission. In so much of His work, anyone with true experience develops a heart of fear for Him, which is higher than admiration. People have seen His disposition due to His work of chastisement and judgment, and they therefore have hearts of fear for Him. God is meant to be feared and submitted to, because His being and His disposition are not the same as those of a created being and are above those of a created being. God is self-existent and everlasting, He is a non-created being, and only God is worthy of fear and submission; man is not qualified for this. So, all who have experienced His work and truly known Him develop hearts of fear for Him. However, those who do not let go of their notions about Him—those who simply do not regard Him as God—are totally devoid of God-fearing hearts, and though they follow Him, they are not conquered; they are rebellious people by nature. What He means to achieve by working thus is for all created beings to have hearts of fear for the Creator, worship Him, and surrender to His dominion unconditionally. This is the final result that all His work is meant to achieve. If people who have experienced such work do not have God-fearing hearts in the slightest, and if their past rebelliousness does not change at all, then they are sure to be eliminated. If a person’s attitude toward God is only to admire Him or to show Him respect from a distance, and not to love Him in the slightest, then this is the result at which a person without a God-loving heart has arrived, and that person lacks the conditions to be perfected. If so much work is unable to obtain a person’s true love, then that person has not gained God and does not genuinely pursue the truth. A person who does not love God does not love the truth and thus cannot gain God, much less receive God’s approval. Such people, however they experience the work of the Holy Spirit, and however they experience judgment, are unable to have a God-fearing heart. These are people whose nature is unchangeable and who have extremely odious dispositions. All who do not have a God-fearing heart are to be eliminated, to be objects of punishment, and to be punished just like those who do evil, to suffer even more than those who have done unrighteous things.

—The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. God’s Work and Man’s Work