2. How to Correctly Approach One’s Own Innate Conditions

After people have understood the targets and true significance of God’s work, how should they act in order to approach their own inherent conditions correctly? How many principles are there? (The ones I can think of are that people should view their own personality, caliber, and other conditions correctly, stop pursuing supernatural things and stop seeking to be superhuman, do whatever they are capable of doing to the best of their ability, and not force themselves to achieve what is beyond their reach. That way, their life will be more liberated, and their humanity will become more and more normal.) First of all, if you want to avoid doing foolish or stupid things, you must first understand your own conditions: What your caliber is like, what your strengths are, what you are good at, and what you are not good at, as well as what things you can and cannot do based on your age, gender, the knowledge you possess, and your insights and life experience. That is, you should be clear about what your strong points and weaknesses are in the duty you perform and the work you do, and what the deficiencies and merits of your own personality are. Once you are clear on your own conditions, merits, and shortcomings, you should then look at which merits and strong points should be maintained, which shortcomings and flaws can be overcome, and which ones cannot be overcome at all—you must be clear about these things. In order to achieve this clarity, in one regard, you should seek the truth, ponder on and gain knowledge of these things through comparing God’s words to your actual situation, and, at the same time, pray for God to reveal these things. In another regard, you can also ask the brothers and sisters around you and have them give you prompts and pointers. That way, you will have a deeper understanding of yourself, and you will have more ideas and clues when it comes to the matter of knowing yourself. There are some problems that cannot be resolved by people. For example, you may be prone to becoming nervous when speaking to others; when you are faced with situations, you may have your own ideas and viewpoints but cannot articulate them clearly. You feel particularly nervous when many people are present; you speak incoherently and your mouth trembles. Some people even stutter; for others, if there are members of the opposite sex present, they are even less intelligible, simply not knowing what to say or what to do. Is this easy to overcome? (No.) At least in the short term, it’s not easy for you to overcome this flaw because it’s part of your innate conditions. If after several months of practicing you are still nervous, the nervousness will turn into pressure, which will negatively affect you by making you afraid to speak, meet people, attend gatherings, or give sermons, and these fears will crush you. So what should you do? You can ponder this issue and talk about it with others; see what mindset others have when they encounter this problem, and how they solve it, and then you should also practice this way yourself. Let’s say that during today’s gathering you are in pretty good form; you are in a cheerful mood, and what’s more, you are also moved by reading God’s words, and feel a particular desire to express yourself. It just so happens that it is a small group gathering with only a few people, so you try fellowshipping a few words and feel pretty good about it, and not nervous. In this situation, when you aren’t under any pressure and haven’t prepared at all, you freely express yourself very well, and everyone is really moved and edified by it. Isn’t this progress? Just start practicing talking and fellowshipping in small group gatherings, where there are few people, and gradually you will be able to speak normally, and your nerves will fade away little by little. Practicing this way will achieve the best results. First, choose a small group gathering where there are few people or an informal setting to practice this, talking and fellowshipping in an off-the-cuff manner, as if you were chatting, in order to overcome this flaw of yours. Sometimes, after speaking for a minute you may feel a little nervous, you may feel less confident the more you talk, and you may have less to say the more you go on; in such cases, don’t talk anymore—quickly finish up and stop. Sometimes, after you have been speaking for a while, everyone may be willing to listen and feel very liberated; in such an atmosphere, your nerves and stress will be dispelled without you realizing it. Only under such circumstances can this flaw of yours be gradually improved—but it will not be overcome. If you feel that after training for a month, your state has not improved much, and even a kind of pressure arises in your heart, making you more and more nervous, which affects your normal work, life, and performance of duty, then you don’t need to continue training. It is enough if you can do your duty normally. Just focus on doing your duty well—this is correct. Keep that defect, that flaw, in your heart, silently pray to God, and then find suitable occasions to work at speaking and associating with people, expressing what you want to say by articulating every word, speaking with structure and clarity. This way, your defect, this flaw, will gradually improve. It is possible that after a year or two, you may become more mature with age and more familiar with the people around you, and their gaze, opinions, and the atmosphere created when everyone is together might no longer create pressure, bondage, or constraint for you—then your flaw might be overcome and resolved among these people. This is the type of person who has the most severe form of this flaw; they can only overcome it through long-term tempering and training in such environments. Of course, there are also people who gradually resolve this flaw in a short period of three to five months. They are not nervous when interacting and talking with others in ordinary situations, except when facing large occasions. Therefore, if you can overcome this defect, this flaw, in the short term, then do so. If it is difficult to overcome, then don’t bother with it, don’t struggle against it, and don’t challenge yourself. Of course, if you cannot overcome it, you should not feel negative. Even if you can never overcome it in your lifetime, God will not condemn you, for this is not your corrupt disposition. Your stage fright, your nervousness and fear—these manifestations do not reflect your corrupt disposition; whether they are innate or caused by the environment later in life, at most, they are a defect, a flaw of your humanity. If you cannot change it in the long term, or even in your lifetime, do not dwell on it, do not let it constrain you, nor should you become negative because of it, for this is not your corrupt disposition; there is no use in trying to change it or struggle against it. If you cannot change it, then accept it, let it exist, and treat it correctly, because you can coexist with this defect, this flaw—your having it does not affect your following God and doing your duties. As long as you can accept the truth and do your duties to the best of your abilities, you can still be saved; it does not affect your acceptance of the truth and does not affect your attaining salvation. Therefore, you should not often be constrained by a certain defect or flaw in your humanity, nor should you often become negative and discouraged, or even give up your duty and give up pursuing the truth, missing the chance to be saved, for the same reason. It’s totally not worth it; that is what a foolish, ignorant person would do.

Some people can only reach middle notes when they sing and cannot get to the high notes no matter how much they train at it. So, what can be done about this? Just sing notes within the middle and low ranges; it’s fine to just sing those notes well. If you constantly want to challenge yourself, saying, “I’m good at singing middle notes. I want to challenge myself to reach high notes,” then even if you succeed in this challenge, it will be meaningless, and it will not mean that you have gained the truth. At best, it will just mean that you have acquired an extra skill, you can do an extra duty, you can sing some more songs, and you can be in the limelight a bit more. But so what? Does being in the limelight more mean that you are practicing the truth more? Is there a connection between these two things? (No.) If you can sing middle notes, then sing them well. If you can’t sing high notes well, but insist on straining to sing them, and you end up not being able to sing them correctly, and also make yourself ill from exhaustion, God will not remember this. It doesn’t matter whether you can sing high notes or middle notes, as long as you can sing well, and be devoted and give your all in your duty, without being perfunctory, or being slippery and slacking off, or recklessly committing misdeeds, or spouting high-sounding ideas, and you strive—whether in terms of technique, emotion, tonal quality, and notes—to sing in a standard, beautiful way that touches the heart, and to sing in a way that can move people, quieten people’s hearts before God, and edify people when they listen to you, then this is doing your duty in a way that is up to standard. If you always want to challenge your limits, and always want to make personal breakthroughs and surpass yourself, this is revealing your satanic corrupt disposition, and it is not doing your duty. After you have done your own work properly, and done what you are able to achieve properly, it is fine for you to learn something useful for your duty in your spare time, but this is not what God requires. Suppose that you sing middle notes well, and in your spare time you practice singing high notes. After a period of time, you make a breakthrough, and after two to three years of hard work you are also able to sing high notes well. You are able to sing both middle and high notes, and fulfill both of these duties; you are able to do both of these duties according to the truth principles, and to sing with all your heart, without being perfunctory, being slippery or slacking off, or spouting high-sounding ideas. This is even better, it is a good deed, and God will remember it. But say that you cannot achieve this, and still always think, “God has high expectations of me, aren’t I being slippery and slacking off if I only sing middle notes? God is not satisfied!” That is your own imagining. You are speculating about God, and engaging in the practice of “assessing the noble by the standards of the ignoble.” God has placed no such requirements on you. What God requires of you is for you to do well that which you ought to do within the scope of your inherent caliber and abilities, and if you do it well according to the principles required by God, then God will have already given you full marks. But if you do not try to do well that which you are able to achieve, and you do not do it according to the principles, and you are always slippery and slacking off and always want to spout high-sounding ideas, and you do not practice the various singing techniques, but still want to challenge your limits, then you acting like this is devoid of reason, it is a manifestation of arrogance and ignorance, and God will not be pleased. He will absolutely not say, “This person can sing middle notes and they are trying to sing high notes too. Although they can’t sing the high notes well, this is quite conscientious of them, and that is enough.” God will not view you in that way, so don’t feel good about yourself. God only observes whether you conduct yourself in a manner befitting your station, and whether you are someone who does the duties of a created being well. He observes whether, in your performance of your duty, you put all your heart and strength into it under the inherent conditions God has given you, and whether you act according to principles and achieve the results God desires. If you can accomplish all of these things, God gives you full marks. Suppose that you don’t do things in accordance with God’s requirements, and even if you try hard and put in effort, all that you do is just flaunting and showing yourself off, and you do not act according to the truth principles or give all your heart and strength to satisfy God in the performance of your duty. In that case, your manifestations and behavior are detestable to God. Why does God detest them? God says you are not focusing on proper tasks, you haven’t put all your heart, strength, or mind into the performance of your duty, and you’re not walking the right path. The caliber, gifts, and talents God has given you are already sufficient—it’s just that you are not satisfied, not devoted to your duty, never knowing your place, always wanting to spout high-sounding ideas and show off, ultimately making a mess of your duties. You haven’t brought into play the caliber, gifts, and talents given to you by God, you have not made a full effort, and you have not achieved any results. Although you may be quite busy, God says you are like a buffoon, not a person who knows their place and is focused on their proper tasks. God does not like such people. Therefore, no matter what your plans and goals are, if you ultimately don’t come to do your duty according to the principles required by God with all your heart, all your mind, and all your strength, on the basis of the inherent caliber, gifts, talents, abilities, and other conditions that God has given you, then God will not remember what you have done, and you will not be doing your duty, but rather, you will be doing evil.

Have you understood the principle of practice for how to correctly approach your innate conditions—that is, your own conditions, merits, and shortcomings? (Yes.) What is the first step? First, make the absolute most of the inherent and existing gifts, abilities, and strengths that God has given you, as well as the technical or professional skills that you are able to attain and achieve, and don’t hold back. If you have come to satisfy God in terms of all these things and you feel that you can still reach greater heights, then take a look at which technical or professional skills you can improve or make a breakthrough in, within the scope of what your caliber can achieve. You can continue to learn and improve based on what you can attain with your own caliber. So, how should one practice letting go of their notions and imaginings about God’s work? First of all, you have to understand what your innate conditions are, what God has given you, how you should use these things, and how to unleash their full potential and make the absolute most of them, and turn them into basic conditions—rather than obstacles—for you coming to do your duty devotedly. Understand your own strong points and let them come into play. Understand your own flaws and defects and if you can change them within a short period of time, do so; if they are not easy to change, don’t let them become stumbling blocks or obstacles in the process of doing your duty, don’t be constrained or influenced by them, and don’t be fettered or bound hand and foot by them. Say, for example, that you are born with poor health and a weak constitution, and you constantly want to overcome this, and want to be able to eat, drink, and stay up late like a normal person, but God has not given you that capital. Then you should deal with each day based on your own conditions, and do things according to the principles required by God. Don’t challenge yourself, and don’t let your own flaws and defects become stumbling blocks and obstacles on your path of following God, doing your duty, and pursuing the truth; don’t let them become a trigger for you to be negative, and even more so, don’t give up pursuing the truth or doing your duty, or feel envy and hatred toward others just because you have certain defects, flaws, and inadequacies—there should be none of this. You must approach your own defects and flaws correctly; if you cannot change them, you should allow them to exist, and then seek the truth to understand God’s intentions, and be able to approach them correctly, and not be constrained by them. Why do you have to do that? This is the reason that normal humanity should have. If your humanity’s reason is normal, you should face your defects and flaws in the correct manner; you should acknowledge and accept them. This is beneficial for you. Accepting them does not mean being constrained by them, nor does it mean often being negative because of them, but rather it means not being constrained by them, recognizing that you are just an ordinary member of corrupt humankind, with your own flaws and defects, with nothing to boast of, that it is God who exalts people to do their duty, and that God intends to work His word and life into them, enabling them to achieve salvation and escape Satan’s influence—that this is entirely God exalting people. Everyone has flaws and defects. You should allow your flaws and defects to coexist with yourself; do not avoid them or cover them up, and do not often feel repressed inside or even always feel inferior because of them. You are not inferior; if you can do your duty with all your heart, all your strength, and all your mind, to the best of your ability, and you have a sincere heart, then you are as precious as gold before God. If you cannot pay a price and lack loyalty in doing your duty, then even if your innate conditions are better than those of the average person, you are not precious before God, you are not even worth a grain of sand. Have you understood? (Yes.) Whether it be your natural looks, your natural caliber and talents, or the defects and inadequacies of some aspect of your humanity, do not let it constrain you and affect your loyalty and submission to God, do not let it affect your pursuit of the truth, and of course, even more so do not let it affect the great matter of your salvation. You should approach your defects and inadequacies correctly and let them coexist with you, meaning that you should no longer try to change them, because they will not impact in the slightest your performance of your duty with all your heart, mind, and strength, and of course, they also will not affect your performance of your duty according to the principles, and even less will they affect your lifelong pursuit of the truth in your belief in God, or affect how you view people or things and how you conduct yourself and act in the process of pursuing the truth. Of course, you shouldn’t always make demands of yourself, thinking, “Don’t show this flaw, don’t let others see my defects, and don’t let others look down their nose at me!” If you do, then you will live a very tiring life. If you allow your defects and flaws to coexist with you, then allow them to exist, and even if others see your defects, this may even be beneficial to you, and also a protection, which will prevent you from becoming arrogant and conceited. Of course, for many people it takes courage for them to reveal their own defects and flaws. Some people say, “Everyone reveals their own strong points and merits. Who would deliberately reveal their own weak points and defects?” It’s not that you deliberately reveal them, but that you allow them to be revealed. For example, if you are timid and often feel nervous speaking when there are a lot of people around, you can take the initiative to tell others, “I get nervous easily when speaking; I just ask that everyone be understanding and not find fault with me.” You take the initiative to reveal your defects and flaws to everyone, so that they can be understanding and tolerate you, and so that everyone gets to know you. The more everyone gets to know you, the more at ease your heart will be, and the less you will be constrained by your defects and flaws. This will actually be beneficial and helpful to you. Always covering up your defects and flaws proves that you don’t want to coexist with them. If you allow them to coexist with you, you have to reveal them; don’t feel ashamed or discouraged, and don’t feel inferior to others, or think that you are no good and have no hope of being saved. As long as you can pursue the truth, and you can do your duty with all your heart, all your strength, and all your mind according to the principles, and your heart is sincere, and you are not being perfunctory toward God, then you have hope of being saved. If someone says, “Look at how useless and timid you are. You get so nervous over just speaking a few words, and your whole face turns red,” then you should say, “I have poor caliber and I’m not good at speaking. If you encourage me, then I will have the courage to practice speaking.” Don’t think that you are no good, or that you’re an embarrassment. Since you know that these are your defects and problems with your humanity, you should face up to them and accept them. Don’t be affected in any way due to them. As for when these defects and flaws will change, don’t concern yourself with that. Just focus on living and doing your duty normally in this way. You just have to remember: These defects and flaws of humanity are not negative things or corrupt dispositions, and as long as they are not corrupt dispositions, they will not impact your performance of your duty or your pursuit of the truth, and even less will they impact your attainment of salvation; of course, what’s even more important is that they won’t impact how God views you. Doesn’t that put your mind at ease? (Yes.) If you still worry about being looked down on by other people, that’s a problem of your arrogant disposition, and you must resolve this arrogant disposition. This is the path of practice for approaching your own defects and flaws correctly. Doesn’t practicing in this way make it easy for you to let go of these things and no longer be constrained by them? (It does.)

Will the normal performance of a person’s duty and the defects and flaws of their humanity have an effect on each other? (Through God’s fellowship, I now understand that defects and flaws of humanity are not corrupt dispositions, and that they will not affect people’s normal performance of their duties. As long as people do their duties according to the truth principles, they will get good results. As for defects and inadequacies of humanity, if we are able to overcome them, then we can do so. If we cannot overcome them in a short period of time, then we should allow them to exist, and be able to approach them correctly.) If you have a low level of education, but you need to employ academic knowledge in your duty, isn’t this a kind of deficiency? (It is.) So how can this difficulty be resolved? (I can do a duty that suits me instead based on my education level. Or, if this duty suits me, but it requires a certain amount of academic knowledge, I can seek out some educated brothers and sisters to cooperate with me—we can use one another’s strengths to make up for our weaknesses, and fulfill this duty together.) Can the truth make up for a low level of education? (It can, because when a person has the truth, they can see through things.) Education is something at the level of knowledge. No matter how knowledgeable you are, if you don’t understand the truth, then when you speak or write articles, you will only be able to use correct grammar, you won’t be able to explain clearly or resolve issues that relate to the truth. Therefore, education is not important; the truth is more important than education. Of course, if you do not have a foundation of education, and if the duty you do involves academic knowledge, you won’t be competent in it. However, if you understand the truth, you can guide other people—you can carry out vetting in terms of the truth principles. If you have a low level of education and lack the ability to express yourself, and you want to preach sermons or fellowship on the truth, you can seek out an educated person to help you tidy up your drafts. Then it will be easy for you to achieve results when you fellowship or preach. However, at the very least, you must understand the truth. If you do not understand the truth, and you are also uneducated, you won’t be able to do duties that involve academic knowledge, and so you should do a duty that suits your education level. Doesn’t this resolve the problem? (It does.) So, pursuing the truth is the most important thing, no matter from which perspective you view it. You can avoid the defects and deficiencies of humanity, but you can never evade the path of pursuing the truth. Regardless of how perfect or noble your humanity may be, or whether you may have fewer flaws and defects, and possess more strengths, than other people, this does not signify that you understand the truth, nor can it replace your pursuit of the truth. On the contrary, if you pursue the truth, understand a lot of the truth, and have an adequately deep and practical understanding of it, this will make up for many defects and problems in your humanity. For example, say that you are timid and introverted, you have a stutter, and you’re not very well-educated—that is, you have a lot of defects and inadequacies—but you have practical experience, and though you stutter when you talk, you can fellowship the truth clearly, and this fellowship edifies everybody when they hear it, resolves problems, enables people to emerge from negativity, and dispels their complaints and misunderstandings about God. See, though you stammer out your words, they can resolve problems—how important these words are! When laymen hear them, they say that you are an uneducated person, and you don’t follow grammar rules when you speak, and sometimes the words you use aren’t really fitting either. It may be that you use regional lingo, or everyday language, and that your words lack the class and style of those of highly educated people who speak very eloquently. However, your fellowship contains the truth reality, it can resolve people’s difficulties, and after people hear it, all the dark clouds around them disappear, and all their problems are solved. You see, isn’t understanding the truth important? (It is.) Say that you do not understand the truth, and even though you have some academic knowledge and you speak eloquently, when everyone hears you talk, they think, “Your words are just doctrines, there isn’t the slightest bit of the truth reality in them, and they can’t resolve real problems at all, so aren’t these words of yours all empty? You don’t understand the truth. Aren’t you simply a Pharisee?” Though you spoke many doctrines, the problems remain unresolved, and you think to yourself, “I was speaking quite sincerely and earnestly. Why haven’t you understood what I said?” You spoke a whole load of doctrines, but those who were negative remain negative, and those who had misunderstandings about God still have those misunderstandings, and none of the difficulties that exist in their performance of their duties have been resolved—this means that the words you spoke were just drivel. No matter how many defects and flaws there are in your humanity, if the words you speak contain the truth reality, then your fellowship can resolve problems; if the words you speak are doctrines, and they are devoid of the slightest bit of practical knowledge, then no matter how much you talk, you will not be able to resolve people’s real problems. No matter how people view you, as long as the things you say do not accord with the truth, and they cannot address people’s states, or resolve people’s difficulties, then people will not want to listen to them. So, which is more important: the truth or people’s own conditions? (The truth is more important.) Pursuing the truth and understanding the truth are the most important things. So, no matter what defects you have in terms of your humanity or your innate conditions, you must not be constrained by them. Instead, you should pursue the truth, and make up for your various defects by understanding the truth, and if you discover some shortcomings in yourself, you should hurry to correct them. Some people don’t focus on pursuing the truth, and instead always focus on resolving the difficulties, flaws, and defects in their humanity, and rectifying the problems with their humanity, and it turns out that they put in several years of effort without getting clear results, and consequently they feel disappointed with themselves, and think that their humanity is too poor and that they’re irredeemable. Isn’t this very foolish?