To practice being an honest person, you first need to learn to open your heart to God and say heartfelt words to Him in prayer every day. For example, if you told a lie today that went unnoticed by other people, but you lacked the courage to open up to everyone, at the very least, you should bring the mistakes that you have examined and discovered and the lies you have told before God for reflection, and say: “Oh God, I have lied again to protect my own interests, and I was wrong. Please discipline me if I lie again.” God is pleased with such an attitude and He will remember it. It may require strenuous effort for you to resolve this corrupt disposition of telling lies, but don’t worry, God is by your side. He will guide you and help you to overcome this recurring difficulty, giving you the courage to go from never acknowledging your lies to acknowledging your lies and being able to openly reveal yourself. Not only will you acknowledge your lies, but you will also be able to openly reveal why you lie, and the intent and motives behind your lies. When you have the courage to break through this barrier, break through Satan’s cage and control, and progressively reach a point where you no longer lie, you will gradually come to live in the light, under God’s guidance and blessing. When you break through the barrier of fleshly constraints, and are able to submit to the truth, openly reveal yourself, publicly declare your stance, and have no reservations, you will be liberated and free. When you live this way, not only will people like you, but God will also be pleased. Although you may sometimes still make mistakes and tell lies, and you may sometimes still have personal intentions, ulterior motives, or selfish and despicable behaviors and thoughts, you will be able to accept God’s scrutiny, revealing your intentions, actual state, and corrupt dispositions before Him and seeking the truth from Him. When you have understood the truth, you will then have a path of practice. When your path of practice is correct, and you move in the right direction, your future will be beautiful and bright. In this way, you will live with your heart at peace, your spirit will be nourished, and you will feel fulfilled and gratified. If you cannot break free from the constraints of the flesh, if you are constantly constrained by feelings, personal interests, and satanic philosophies, speak and act in a secretive manner, and always hide in the shadows, then you are living under Satan’s power. However, if you understand the truth, break free from the constraints of the flesh, and practice the truth, you will gradually come to possess human likeness. You will be frank and straightforward in your words and deeds, and you will be able to reveal your opinions, ideas, and the mistakes you have made, allowing everyone to see them clearly. In the end, people will recognize you as a transparent person. What is a transparent person? It is someone who speaks with exceptional honesty, whose words everyone believes to be true. Even if they unintentionally lie or say something wrong, people are able to forgive them, knowing that it was unintentional. If they realize they have lied or said something wrong, they apologize and correct themselves. This is a transparent person. Such a person is liked and trusted by everyone. You need to reach this level to gain God’s trust and the trust of others. This is not a simple task—it is the highest level of dignity that a person can possess. A person like this has self-respect. If you are unable to gain the trust of other people, how can you expect to earn the trust of God? There are individuals who lead dishonorable lives, constantly fabricating lies and approaching tasks in a perfunctory way. They don’t have the slightest sense of responsibility, they reject being pruned, they always resort to specious arguments and are disliked by everyone who encounters them. They live without any sense of shame. Can they truly be regarded as human beings? People who are perceived as vexing and unreliable by others have completely lost their humanity. If others cannot place their trust in them, can God trust them? If others harbor dislike toward them, can God like them? God dislikes such people, He abhors them, and they will inevitably be eliminated. As a human being, one must be honest and honor one’s commitments. Whether performing deeds for others or for God, one must keep their word. When one has earned people’s trust and can satisfy and assure God, they are then a relatively honest person. If you are trustworthy in your actions, not only will others like you, but God will also surely like you. By being an honest individual, you can please God and live with dignity. Therefore, honesty should be the starting point of one’s conduct.

What is the most important practice for an honest individual? It is the act of opening up one’s heart to God. But what does it mean to open up? It means sharing your thoughts, intent, and the things you are governed by with Him, and then seeking the truth from Him. God sees everything with exceptional clarity, regardless of what you disclose. If you can express your feelings to God, open up to Him about the things you hide from others, clearly stating them without hiding anything, and expressing your thoughts as they are, without any intent, then this is openness. Sometimes, speaking honestly may hurt or offend others. In such instances, would anyone say, “You speak with too much honesty, it’s too hurtful, and I can’t accept it”? No, they would not. Even if you occasionally say something that does hurt others, if you open up and apologize, acknowledging that your words lacked wisdom and that you were unsympathetic to their weakness, they will recognize your lack of ill-intent. They will understand that you are an honest person who simply communicates in a straightforward and tactless manner. They will not argue with you, and in their hearts, they will like you. In this way, can there be barriers between you? If there are no barriers, conflicts can be avoided, and problems can be swiftly resolved, allowing you to live in a state of liberation and relaxation. This is the meaning of “only honest people can live happily.” The most important part of being an honest person is opening up to God first and then learning to open up to others. Speak honestly, sincerely, and from the heart. Strive to be a person of dignity, character, and integrity, avoid speaking in empty pleasantries or in a deceitful manner, and refrain from speaking in a deceptive or misleading way. Another aspect of being an honest person is performing your duty with an honest attitude and an honest heart. At the very least, rely on your conscience to guide your actions, strive to adhere to the truth principles, and strive to meet God’s requirements. It is not enough to merely acknowledge these things verbally, and simply adopting a certain attitude does not mean you are practicing the truth. Where is the reality of being an honest person in that? Merely chanting slogans without having the reality is not enough. When God scrutinizes individuals, He observes not only their hearts, but also their actions, behaviors, and practices. If you claim that you wish to be an honest person but when anything befalls you, you are still able to lie and deceive, is this the behavior of an honest person? No, it is not; it is saying one thing but meaning another. You say one thing and do another, glibly deceiving others and acting sanctimoniously. You are just like the Pharisees who could recite all the scriptures forward and backward while explaining them to people, but failed to practice according to the scriptures when anything befell them. They were constantly driven by a desire for the benefits of status, unwilling to relinquish their fame, gain, and status. The Pharisees were hypocritical in this way. They did not walk the correct path, their path was not the right path, and God detests their kind. Can such individuals be trusted by other people? (No.) Do you know how high God’s level of trust in you is right now? Have you attained God’s trust? (No.) Have you gained other people’s trust? (No.) Are you living with dignity if you have not gained God’s and other people’s trust? (No.) What a pitiful way to live! A human being’s deepest sorrow is living without dignity and being unable to earn the trust of others and God. If someone were to ask you, “What do others think of you? Can they trust you? If they entrust you with a task, do they believe you will do it well?” you might feel that nobody places that level of trust in you. If you believe that you possess a sincere heart, yet people still do not trust you, it indicates that your sincerity is still lacking and impure. Can trust be built if others cannot see your sincerity? Merely believing in your own sincerity is not sufficient; you must practice and demonstrate your sincerity for others to witness. If nobody trusts you, then you are certainly not an honest person. Considering that others can see through your lack of honesty, and God scrutinizes the innermost depths of people’s hearts with a hundred times or a thousand times more clarity than any human being—do you really believe that God will trust you? If you find yourself feeling wronged by God because of His lack of trust in you, you should reflect on yourself and assess the degree and depth of your sincerity. You ponder this: “God scrutinizes the depths of people’s hearts and should know what I think. If I were to rate myself based on my behaviors, I would not give myself a high rating. It is normal for God not to trust me.” If you have not earned the trust of God or others, what should be your course of action? You must enter into the truth of being an honest person, regardless of the challenges it may present. If you are unable to do so, you will be unable to attain salvation.

God’s demand for honesty is extremely important. What should you do if you experience many failures in the course of practicing honesty and find it exceedingly difficult? Should you become negative and shrink back, and abandon your practice of the truth? This is the clearest indication of whether a person loves the truth or not. After practicing honesty for a certain period, some individuals think, “Being honest is too difficult—I can’t stand the damage it’s doing to my vanity, pride, and reputation!” As a result, they no longer want to be honest. In reality, this is where the challenge of being an honest person lies, and most individuals find themselves stuck at this point and unable to experience it. So, what does it take to practice being an honest person? What kind of person is able to practice the truth? First and foremost, one must love the truth. One has to be a person who loves the truth—that is certain. Some people truly achieve results after several years experiencing the practice of honesty. They gradually reduce their lies and deception, and indeed become fundamentally honest people. Could it be that during their experience of practicing honesty, they didn’t face difficulties or suffer along the way? They most certainly endured a great deal of suffering. It was because they loved the truth that they were able to suffer to practice it, to persist in speaking truthfully and doing practical things, to be honest people, and to finally gain God’s blessing. To be an honest person, one must love the truth and possess a heart of submission to God. These two factors are of the utmost importance. All those who love the truth have God-loving hearts. And those who love God find it especially easy to practice the truth, and they can endure any form of suffering in order to satisfy God. If someone has a God-loving heart, when their practice of the truth meets with humiliation or setbacks and failures, they will be able to endure humiliation and suffering to satisfy God, as long as God is pleased. Therefore, they are able to put the truth into practice. Of course, practicing any aspect of the truth comes with a certain degree of difficulty, and being an honest person is even more difficult. The greatest difficulty is the obstacle of one’s corrupt dispositions. All humans have corrupt dispositions and live according to satanic philosophies. Take for instance, the sayings “Every man for himself and the devil take the hindmost” or “No great feats can be accomplished without telling lies.” These are examples of a satanic philosophy and a corrupt disposition. People resort to telling lies to get things done, gain personal advantages, and accomplish their goals. It is not easy to be an honest person when one possesses this kind of corrupt disposition. One must pray to God and rely on Him, and frequently self-reflect and come to know oneself, in order to gradually rebel against the flesh, forsake one’s personal interests, and relinquish one’s vanity and pride. Furthermore, one must endure various kinds of defamation and judgment before being able to become an honest person who can speak the truth and refrain from telling lies. During the period where one practices being an honest person, encountering many failures and moments where one’s corruption is revealed is inevitable. There may be times when one’s words and thoughts don’t align, or moments of pretense and deceit. However, regardless of what befalls you, if you want to tell the truth and be an honest person, you must be able to let go of your pride and vanity. When you don’t understand something, say that you don’t understand; when you are unclear about something, say you are unclear. Do not be afraid of others looking down on you or thinking less of you. By consistently speaking from the heart and telling the truth in this way, you will find joy, peace, and a sense of freedom and liberation in your heart, and vanity and pride will no longer constrain you. No matter who you interact with, if you can express what you truly think, open your heart to others, and not pretend to know things you don’t, then that is an honest attitude. Sometimes, people may look down on you and call you foolish because you always tell the truth. What should you do in such a situation? You should say, “Even if everyone calls me foolish, I resolve to be an honest person, and not a deceitful one. I will speak truthfully and according to the facts. Although I am filthy, corrupt, and worthless before God, I will still tell the truth without pretense or disguise.” If you speak in this way, your heart will be steady and at peace. To be an honest person, you must let go of your vanity and pride, and in order to speak the truth and express your true feelings, you should not fear the ridicule and contempt of others. Even if others treat you like a fool, you should not argue or defend yourself. If you can practice the truth in this way, you can become an honest person. If you cannot let go of fleshly preferences and vanity and pride, if you constantly seek approval from others, pretending to know what you don’t, and living for the sake of vanity and pride, then you cannot become an honest person—this is a practical difficulty. If your heart is always constrained by vanity and pride, you will be likely to tell lies and put on facades. Furthermore, when others belittle you or expose your true self, you will have difficulty accepting it, and you will feel that you have suffered a great disgrace—your face will flush, your heart will race, and you will feel agitated and ill at ease. To resolve this problem, it will be necessary for you to endure a little more pain and undergo a few more refinements. You will need to understand where the root of the problem lies, and once you see through these matters, you will be able to alleviate some of your pain. When you have thoroughly understood these corrupt dispositions and are able to relinquish your vanity and pride, it will be easier for you to become an honest person. You won’t mind if other people mock you when you tell the truth and speak your mind, and no matter how others judge or treat you, you will be able to bear it and respond correctly. You will then be free of suffering, and your heart will always be peaceful and joyful, and you will achieve freedom and liberation. In this way, you will cast off corruption and live out a human likeness.

In their everyday lives, people often talk nonsense, tell lies, and say things that are ignorant, foolish, and defensive. Most of these things are said for the sake of vanity and pride, to satisfy their own egos. Speaking such falsehoods reveals their corrupt dispositions. If you were to resolve these corrupt elements, your heart would be purified, and you would gradually become purer and more honest. In reality, people all know why they lie. For the sake of personal gain and pride, or for vanity and status, they try to compete with others and pass themselves off as something that they’re not. However, their lies are eventually revealed and exposed by others, and they end up losing face, as well as their dignity and character. This is all caused by an excessive amount of lies. Your lies have become too numerous. Every word you say is adulterated and insincere, and not a single one can be considered true or honest. Even though you don’t feel that you’ve lost face when you tell lies, deep down, you feel disgraced. Your conscience blames you, and you hold a low opinion of yourself, thinking, “Why am I living such a pitiful life? Is it so difficult to speak the truth? Must I resort to lies for the sake of my pride? Why is my life so exhausting?” You don’t have to live an exhausting life. If you can practice being an honest person, you will be able to live a relaxed, free, and liberated life. However, you have chosen to uphold your pride and vanity by telling lies. Consequently, you live a tiresome and miserable existence, which is self-inflicted. One may gain a sense of pride by telling lies, but what is that sense of pride? It is just an empty thing, and it is completely worthless. Telling lies means selling out one’s character and dignity. It strips away one’s dignity and one’s character; it displeases God, and He detests it. Is this worthwhile? It is not. Is this the correct path? No, it is not. People who frequently lie live according to their satanic dispositions; they live under Satan’s power. They do not live in the light, nor do they live in the presence of God. You constantly think about how to lie and then after you lie, you have to think about how to cover up that lie. And when you do not cover up the lie well enough and it is exposed, you have to rack your brain to try and straighten out the contradictions and make it plausible. Is it not tiring to live in this way? Exhausting. Is it worth it? No, it is not worth it. Racking one’s brain to tell lies and then to cover them up, all for the sake of pride, vanity, and status, what meaning is there in that? Finally, you reflect and think to yourself, “What’s the point? It’s too exhausting to tell lies and to have to cover them up. Conducting myself in this manner won’t work; it’d be easier if I just became an honest person.” You desire to become an honest person, but you cannot let go of your pride, vanity, and personal interests. Therefore, you can only resort to telling lies to uphold these things. If you are someone who loves the truth, you will endure various hardships in order to practice the truth. Even if it means sacrificing your reputation, status, and enduring ridicule and humiliation from others, you won’t mind—as long as you are able to practice the truth and satisfy God, it is enough. Those who love the truth choose to practice it and be honest. This is the correct path and it is blessed by God. If a person does not love the truth, what do they choose? They choose to use lies to uphold their reputation, status, dignity, and character. They would rather be deceitful, and be detested and rejected by God. Such people reject the truth and reject God. They choose their own reputation and status; they want to be deceitful. They do not care about whether God is pleased or if He will save them. Can such people still be saved by God? Certainly not, because they have chosen the wrong path. They can only live by lying and cheating; they can only live painful lives of telling lies and covering them up and racking their brains to defend themselves every day. If you think that lies can uphold the reputation, status, vanity, and pride you desire, you are completely mistaken. In reality, by telling lies, not only do you fail to maintain your vanity and pride, and your dignity and character, more grievously, you miss the opportunity to practice the truth and be an honest person. Even if you manage to protect your reputation, status, vanity, and pride at that moment, you have sacrificed the truth and betrayed God. This means you have completely lost your chance for Him to save and perfect you, which is the greatest loss and a lifelong regret. Those who are deceitful will never understand this.

Right now, do you have a path to being honest? You must examine your every utterance and action in life so that you can detect more lies and deceit, and recognize your own deceitful disposition. Then you must look at how honest people practice and experience, and learn some lessons. You must also practice accepting God’s scrutiny in all things, and come before God often to pray and fellowship with God. Say you’ve just told a lie: You immediately realize that, “A couple of the things I just said weren’t accurate—I must quickly admit to this and put it right, letting everyone know that I just told a lie.” You correct yourself there and then. If you always correct yourself like this, and if practicing in this way becomes a habit, then when you ever tell a lie and don’t correct it, you will feel uneasy, and God will help keep watch over you. Practicing and experiencing thus for a while, you will begin to lie less, there will be fewer and fewer impurities in your words, and your actions will become less and less tainted, and increasingly pure—and in this you will have been cleansed. Such is the path to being honest. You must change gradually, little by little. The more you change, the better you will become; the more you change, the more honest your words will become, and you will cease to lie—which is the right state. Corrupt people all share the same problem: They are all born capable of lying, and find it exceedingly difficult to share their innermost thoughts or to speak truthfully. Even if they want to tell the truth, they just cannot bring themselves to do so. People all believe that being honest is stupid and foolish—they think that only idiots speak frankly, and that a person is most likely to suffer losses if they are completely transparent with other people and always speak their mind, and that others will not want to interact with them, and will disdain them instead. Would you disdain this kind of person? Do you harbor this view? (Before I came to believe in God, I would disdain them, but now I admire such people and think it is better to live a simple and honest life. Living in this way, one puts less of a burden on one’s heart. Otherwise, after I lie to someone, I have to cover it up, and I end up digging myself a bigger and bigger hole, and eventually the lie will be exposed.) Lying and engaging in deceit are both foolish behaviors and it is much wiser to just tell the truth and to speak from the heart. People all have an understanding of this issue now—if anyone still thinks that lying and engaging in deceit is a sign of having caliber and being shrewd, then they are incredibly foolish, stubbornly ignorant, and they lack even the slightest bit of the truth. Any person that is already getting on in years who still believes that deceitful people are the smartest, and that honest people are all fools, is an absurd type who cannot see through to anything. Everyone lives their own lives—some people who practice being honest every day are happy and unstressed, and feel free and liberated in their hearts. They lack for nothing and live more comfortable lives. Everybody enjoys interacting with people like this, and they should really be the subject of everybody’s envy—such people have come to understand life’s meaning. There are some foolish people who think: “That person always tells the truth and he got pruned, didn’t he? Well, that’s what he deserved! Look at me—I keep my intentions close to my chest, and I don’t talk about them or reveal them, so I haven’t been pruned, or suffered any losses, or embarrassed myself in front of everyone. It’s wonderful! People who conceal their intentions, do not speak honestly with anyone, and prevent others from knowing what they’re thinking are the superior and highly intelligent ones.” Yet everyone can see that these people are the most deceitful and shrewd; other people are always on their guard around them and keep their distance from them. No one wants to be friends with deceitful people. Are these not the facts? If a person is guileless, and often tells the truth, if they are able to lay their heart bare to others, and they harbor no harmful intentions toward other people, though they may occasionally seem ignorant and act foolishly, they will generally be acknowledged as being a good person and everyone will be quite willing to interact with them. It is a commonly acknowledged fact that people enjoy benefits and a sense of security when interacting with honest, good people. Believers in God who are honest and pursue the truth are not only loved by others in the church, but also by God Himself. As soon as they gain the truth, they possess real testimony and are able to receive God’s approval—does this not make them the most blessed of all people? Those that understand a bit of the truth will see this matter clearly. In your comportment, you should try to be a good and honest person who possesses the truth; in this way, not only will you be loved by others, you will also attain God’s blessings. No matter how good the behavior of someone who follows worldly trends may be, they are still not a good person. Those that do not understand this are fools who still do not comprehend the truth. Those that truly comprehend the truth choose to walk the right path in life, to be honest people, and to follow God. Only by doing these things can one attain salvation. These are the smartest of all people.