God’s requirement that people be honest is the most significant thing. Sadly, many do not understand this and ignore this matter of being an honest person. If people truly understood God’s work, they would know that after He completes His work of judgment in the last days, only those honest people who have been purified of their corrupt dispositions, and who have cast off their deceit and lies, will obtain His salvation and be qualified to enter His kingdom. If, after many years of believing in God, people are still full of lies and deception; if they cannot sincerely expend themselves for God, and always perform their duties in a perfunctory way, they will certainly be spurned by Him. What will be their outcome? They will certainly be cleared out from the church and eliminated. Today, seeing God’s work reach this step, one is reminded of how He has consistently called upon man to be honest. This holds great significance. It is not just said casually and that’s the end of it—it is directly related to whether or not one can attain salvation and survive, and to each person’s outcome and destination. Therefore, it can be said with certainty that it is only by casting off one’s deceitful disposition and becoming an honest person that one can live out normal humanity and attain salvation. Those who have believed in God for many years but who are still deceitful are destined to be eliminated.

All God’s chosen people are now practicing performing their duties, and God makes use of people’s performance of their duties to perfect one group of people and eliminate another. So, it is the performance of duty that reveals each sort of person, and each sort of deceitful person, nonbeliever, and evil person is revealed and eliminated in the performance of their duty. Those who perform their duties loyally are honest people; those who are consistently perfunctory are deceitful, shrewd people, and they are nonbelievers; and those who cause disruptions and disturbances in performing their duties are evil people and antichrists. Right now, a wide range of problems still exist in many of those who perform duties. Some people are always very passive in their duties, always sitting and waiting and relying on others. What sort of attitude is that? It is irresponsibility. God’s house has arranged for you to do a duty, yet you ponder on it for days without getting any concrete work done. You are nowhere to be seen at the workplace, and people cannot find you when they have problems that need resolving. You do not bear a burden for this work. If a leader inquires about the work, what will you tell them? You are not doing any kind of work right now. You are well aware that this work is your responsibility, but you do not do it. What on earth are you thinking? Do you not do any work because you are incapable of it? Or are you just greedy for comfort? What attitude do you have toward your duty? You only talk about words and doctrines, and you only say pleasant-sounding things, but you do not do any practical work. If you do not wish to perform your duty, you should resign. Do not hold your position and not do anything there. Is doing so not inflicting harm on God’s chosen people and compromising the work of the church? In the way you talk, you seem to understand all manner of doctrine, but when asked to perform a duty, you are perfunctory, and not conscientious in the least. Is that expending yourself sincerely for God? You are not sincere when it comes to God, yet you feign sincerity. Are you capable of deceiving Him? In the way you usually talk, there seems to be such great faith; you would like to be the pillar of the church and its rock. But when you perform a duty, you are less useful than a matchstick. Is this not deceiving God with your eyes wide open? Do you know what will come of you trying to deceive God? He will spurn and eliminate you! All people are revealed in performing their duties—just set a person to a duty, and it will not take long before it is revealed whether they are an honest person or a deceitful person, and whether or not they are a lover of the truth. Those who love the truth can perform their duties sincerely and uphold the work of God’s house; those who do not love the truth do not uphold the work of God’s house in the least, and they are irresponsible in performing their duties. This is immediately clear to those who are clear-sighted. No one who performs their duty poorly is a lover of the truth or an honest person; such people will all be revealed and eliminated. To perform their duties well, people must have a sense of responsibility and a sense of burden. This way, the work will definitely be done properly. It is only worrying when someone does not have a sense of burden or responsibility, when they have to be prompted to do everything, when they’re always perfunctory, and they try to shift the blame when problems arise, leading to delays in their resolution. Can the work still be done well then? Can their performance of their duty yield any results? They do not wish to do any of the tasks that are arranged for them, and when they see others who need help with their work, they ignore them. They only do a bit of work when ordered, only when push comes to shove and they have no choice. This is not performing a duty—this is hired labor! A hired laborer works for an employer, doing a day’s work for a day’s pay, an hour’s work for an hour’s pay; they’re waiting to get paid. They’re afraid of doing any work their boss doesn’t see, they’re afraid of not being rewarded for anything they do, they only ever work for appearances’ sake—which means they have no loyalty. Much of the time, you are unable to reply when asked about work issues. Some of you have gotten involved in the work, but you have never asked how the work is going or carefully thought about this. Given your caliber and knowledge, you ought to know something at least, because all of you have taken part in this work. So why do most people say nothing? It is possible that you really don’t know what to say—that you don’t know whether or not things are going well. There are two reasons for this: One is that you are totally indifferent, and have never cared about these things, and have only ever treated them as a task to be completed. The other is that you are irresponsible and are unwilling to care about these things. If you truly cared, and were really engaged, you would have a view and perspective on everything. Having no perspective or view often comes from being indifferent and apathetic, and not taking any responsibility. You are not diligent toward the duty you perform, you do not take any responsibility, you are not willing to pay a price or get involved. You do not take any pains, nor are you willing to expend any greater energy; you merely wish to be an underling, which is no different from how an unbeliever works for their boss. This kind of performance of a duty is disliked by God and it does not please Him. It cannot meet with His approval.

The Lord Jesus once said, “For whoever has, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whoever has not, from him shall be taken away even that he has” (Matthew 13:12). What is the meaning of these words? What they mean is that if you don’t even carry out or dedicate yourself to your own duty or job, God shall take away what was once yours. What does it mean to “take away”? How does that make people feel? It could be that you fail to attain that which your caliber and gifts could have allowed you to, and you feel nothing, and are just like an unbeliever. That is what it is to have everything taken away by God. If, in your duty, you are remiss, and do not pay a price, and you are not sincere, God shall take away what was once yours, He shall take back your right to perform your duty, He shall not give you this right. Because God gave you gifts and caliber, but you did not perform your duty properly, expend yourself for God, or pay a price, and you did not put your heart into it, not only will God not bless you, He will also take away what you once had. God bestows gifts on people, giving them special skills as well as intelligence and wisdom. How should people use these things? You must dedicate your special skills, your gifts, your intelligence and wisdom to your duty. You must use your heart and apply everything you know, everything you understand, and everything you can achieve to your duty. By doing so, you will be blessed. What does it mean to be blessed by God? What does this make people feel? That they have been enlightened and guided by God, and that they have a path when they perform their duty. To other people it may seem that your caliber and the things you have learned couldn’t enable you to get things done—but if God works and enlightens you, you will not only be able to understand and do those things, but also to do them well. In the end, you will even wonder to yourself, “I didn’t use to be that skilled, but now there are so many more good things inside me—all of them positive. I never studied those things, but now I understand them all of a sudden. How did I suddenly become so smart? How are there so many things that I can do now?” You will not be able to explain it. This is the enlightenment and blessing of God; this is how God blesses people. If you do not feel this when performing your duty or doing your job, then you have not been blessed by God. If doing your duty always feels meaningless to you, if it feels like there is nothing to be done, and you cannot bring yourself to contribute, if you never receive enlightenment, and feel that you don’t have any intelligence or wisdom to put to use, then this means trouble. It shows that you do not have the right motive or the right path for performing your duty, and God does not approve, and your state is abnormal. You must examine yourself: “Why do I lack a path in my duty? I’ve studied this field, and it’s within my scope of specialization—I’m good at it, even. Why is it that when I try to apply my knowledge, I can’t? Why can’t I utilize it? What is going on?” Is this an accident? There is a problem here. When God blesses someone, they become intelligent and wise, clear-sighted on all matters, as well as keen, alert and especially skillful; they will have the knack and be inspired with everything they do, and they will think everything they do is so easy and that no difficulty can obstruct them—they are blessed by God. If somebody finds everything very difficult, and they are clumsy, prone to distortions, and clueless no matter what it is they are doing, if they don’t understand anything that is said to them, then what does this mean? It means they do not have God’s guidance and they do not have God’s blessing. Some people say, “I’ve applied myself, so why is it that I don’t see God’s blessings?” If you just apply and exert yourself but do not seek to act according to the truth principles, then you are going through the motions in your duty. How could you possibly see God’s blessings? If you are always careless in performing your duty and never conscientious, you will not be enlightened or illuminated by the Holy Spirit, and you will not have God’s guidance or His work, and your actions will bear no fruit. It is very hard to perform a duty well or handle a matter well by relying on human strength and learning. Everyone thinks they know a thing or two, that they have some know-how, but they do things poorly, and things always go awry, eliciting comments and laughter. This is a problem. Someone may clearly not be much of anything yet think they have know-how, and not yield to anyone. This has to do with a problem in man’s nature. Those who do not know themselves are all this way. Can such people fulfill their duties well? Not only are they unable to fulfill their duties well, they are liable to fail miserably. Some people cannot do any duty well, yet they still always try to take on superior roles and boss other people around. Such people accomplish nothing—they are not even capable of spreading the gospel or testifying to others and they do not have even a single word of fellowship to share on the truth. Such people are stark naked, impoverished and pathetic! All who do not pursue the truth perform their duties with a mindset lacking in responsibility. “If someone leads, I follow; wherever they lead, I go. I’ll do whatever they’d have me do. As for taking on responsibility and concern, or taking more trouble to do something, doing something with all my heart and strength—I’m not up for that.” These people are unwilling to pay the price. They are only willing to exert themselves, not to take on responsibility. This is not the attitude with which one truly performs a duty. One must learn to put their heart into their performance of their duty, and a person with a conscience can accomplish this. If one never puts their heart into the performance of their duty, that means they have no conscience, and those without a conscience cannot gain the truth. Why do I say they cannot gain the truth? They do not know how to pray to God and seek the Holy Spirit’s enlightenment, nor how to show consideration for God’s will, nor how to put their heart into contemplating God’s words, nor do they know how to seek the truth, how to seek to understand God’s requirements and His will. This is what it is to not be able to seek the truth. Do you experience states where, no matter what happens, or what sort of duty you perform, you are able to frequently quiet yourself before God, and to put your heart into contemplating His words, and into seeking the truth, and into considering how you must perform that duty to accord with God’s will, and which truths you should possess in order to perform that duty satisfactorily? Are there many times in which you seek the truth in this way? (No.) Putting your heart into your duty and being able to take on responsibility require you to suffer and to pay a price—it is not enough simply to talk about these things. If you do not put your heart into your duty, always wanting to labor instead, then your duty will certainly not be done well. You will simply go through the motions and nothing more, and you will not know whether you have done your duty well or not. If you put your heart into it, you will gradually come to understand the truth; if you do not, then you will not. When you put your heart into performing your duty and pursuing the truth, you will gradually come to understand God’s will, to discover your own corruption and deficiencies, and to master all your various states. When your only focus is on exerting effort, and you do not put your heart into reflecting on yourself, you will be unable to discover the true states in your heart and the myriad reactions and the revelations of corruption that you have in different environments. If you do not know what the consequences will be when problems go unresolved, then you’re in a lot of trouble. This is why it’s no good to believe in God in a confused way. You must live before God at all times, in all places; whatever befalls you, you must always seek the truth, and while you do, you must also reflect on yourself and know what problems there are in your state, seeking the truth at once to resolve them. Only thus can you perform your duty well and avoid delaying the work. Not only will you be able to perform your duty well, what’s most important is that you will also have life entry and be able to resolve your corrupt dispositions. Only thus can you enter the truth reality. If what you often ponder in your heart is not matters related to your duty, or matters that have to do with the truth, and instead, you are entangled in external things, with your thoughts on affairs of the flesh, will you be able to understand the truth? Will you be able to perform your duty well and live before God? Certainly not. A person like that cannot be saved.

To believe in God is to walk the right path in life, and one must pursue the truth. This is a matter of the spirit and of life, and it is a different thing from unbelievers’ pursuit of wealth and glory, of making an eternal name for themselves. These are separate paths. In their jobs, unbelievers think about how they can do less work and make more money, of the dubious tricks they could play to earn more. They think all day long about how to get rich and build up their family fortune, and they even come up with unscrupulous means to achieve their goals. This is the path of evil, the path of Satan, and it is the path that unbelievers walk. The path walked by believers in God is that of pursuing the truth and gaining life; it is the path of following God and gaining the truth. How should you practice to gain the truth? You must diligently read, practice and experience God’s words—only after doing so will you understand the truth. And when you understand the truth, you must consider how to perform your duty well so that you may do things in accordance with the principles, and how you may come to submit to God. This requires practicing the truth. Practicing the truth is no easy matter: Not only must you seek the truth, you must also reflect and recognize whether you have erroneous ideas and notions, and if problems exist, you must fellowship about the truth to resolve them. When you understand the principles of practicing the truth, you can then practice the truth. And only by practicing the truth can you enter into the truth reality and become someone who submits to God. By practicing and experiencing in this way, you will change your dispositions and attain the truth without even realizing it. Unbelievers are always striving for fame, gain, and status. As a result, they walk the path of evil, becoming more and more depraved, more and more shrewd and deceitful, and more and more calculating and conspiratorial; their hearts become more and more evil, and they become more and more unfathomable and enigmatic—this is the path of unbelievers. The path of those who believe in God is just the opposite of this. Believers in God want to separate themselves from this evil world and from evil mankind; they want to pursue the truth and purify their corruption. Their hearts are only steady and at peace when they live out human likeness; they want to know God, fear God, shun evil, and gain His approval and blessing. This is what those who believe in God seek. If you have believed in God for many years, truly understand the truth, and have changed, the more that others interact with you, the more they will feel that you are honest—honest in your speech and honest in the performance of your duty—someone who is completely open, with nothing to hide, and who speaks and acts in a transparent way. Through the things you say, the views you express, the things you do, the duty you perform, and through your honest attitude when conversing with others, people can see through to your heart, and see how you conduct yourself, what your preferences are, and what goals you pursue. They can clearly see that you are a good and honest person, and that you are walking the right path. This shows you have changed. If you have believed in God and performed a duty for a long time, but the people you interact with always feel that you are not transparent in what you say, that your views are unclear, and they cannot clearly see your heart in your actions, if they constantly feel that you have things hidden deep within your heart, this shows that you are a secretive person who knows how to conceal, disguise, and package themselves. If, even after several years of interacting with you, others are unable to fully comprehend your heart, and all they see is your temperament and character rather than your disposition or your essence, it demonstrates that you are still living according to your satanic disposition. The shrewder you are, the more it demonstrates that you are not a good person, that you lack humanity, and that you belong to devils and Satan. If you do not gain any truth, and your corrupt dispositions are not purified no matter how many years you believe in God, then it will be very difficult for a person like you to attain salvation. And if, despite your ability to prevaricate, your way with words, your cleverness, quick reactions, and how skilled you are at handling things, those who interact with you always feel uneasy, and can sense that you are unreliable, untrustworthy, and unfathomable, then you are in trouble. This indicates that you have not changed at all while believing in God, and that you do not truly believe in Him. Have you experienced any real change in your belief in God until now? Do you interact with others with an attitude of honesty? Do others feel that you are sincere? (When it comes to things that are of immediate benefit to me, I can lie and deceive; but when they are not of immediate benefit to me, I can speak the truth and open my heart a little.) (I am selective in the things I say—some things I speak openly, but the things hidden deep inside my heart remain concealed. When interacting with others, I still tend to package and disguise myself.) This is a case of living in one’s corrupt dispositions. If one does not pursue the truth and resolve their corrupt dispositions, how can one change? You are all people who perform duties. At the very least, you must have an honest heart and allow God to see that you are sincere—only then can you attain God’s enlightenment, illumination, and guidance. The crucial thing is that you accept God’s scrutiny. No matter what barriers there are between you and other people, how much you value your own vanity and reputation, and what intentions you harbor that you cannot open up about in a simple manner, all of these things must gradually change. Step by step, each individual must free themselves from these corrupt dispositions and difficulties, and overcome the obstacles their corrupt dispositions pose. Before you pass through these obstacles, is your heart truly honest with God? Do you hide and conceal things from Him or put up a false front and deceive Him? You should be clear about this in your heart. If you have these things in your heart, you should accept God’s scrutiny. Do not leave things to chance and say, “I do not want to expend my whole life for God. I want to start a family and live my own life. Hopefully, God won’t scrutinize me and condemn me.” If you hide all these things from God—that is, the intentions, objectives, plans, and life goals that you harbor deep within your heart—and if you hide your views on many things and beliefs about faith in God, then you will be in trouble. If you hide these worthless things and do not seek the truth to resolve them, it shows that you do not love the truth, and that it is hard for you to accept and gain the truth. You can hide things from other people, but you cannot hide them from God. If you don’t trust God, then why do you believe in Him? If you have some secrets, and you worry that people will look down on you if you open up about them, and you lack the courage to speak out, then you can simply open up to God. You should pray to God, confessing the vile intentions that you harbor in your belief in Him, the things you have done for the sake of your future and destiny, and how you have strived for fame and gain. Lay all of these before God and reveal them to Him; do not hide them from Him. No matter how many people your heart is closed off to, do not close your heart to God—you must open your heart to Him. That is the least degree of sincerity that those who believe in Him should have. If you have a heart that is open to God and not closed off to Him, and can accept His scrutiny, how will He view you? Even though you may not open up to others, if you can open up to God, He will see you as an honest person with an honest heart. If your honest heart can accept His scrutiny, then it is precious in His eyes, and He surely has work to do in you. For example, if you have done something deceitful toward God, He will discipline you. Then you must accept His discipline, quickly repent and confess before Him, and acknowledge your mistakes; you must acknowledge your rebelliousness and corruption, accept God’s chastisement and judgment, know your corrupt dispositions, practice according to His words, and genuinely repent. This is evidence of your sincere belief in God, and your genuine faith in Him.