Some people never seek the truth while performing their duties. They merely do as they please, acting according to their own imaginings, and are ever arbitrary and rash. They simply do not walk the path of practicing the truth. What does it mean to be “arbitrary and rash”? It means to act however you see fit when you encounter an issue, without any process of thinking or searching. Nothing anyone else says can touch your heart or change your mind. You can’t even accept it when the truth is fellowshipped to you, you stick to your own opinions, not listening when other people say anything right, believing yourself right, and clinging to your own ideas. Even if your thinking is correct, you should take other people’s opinions into consideration as well. And if you don’t at all, is this not being extremely self-righteous? It is not easy for people who are extremely self-righteous and willful to accept the truth. If you do something wrong and others criticize you, saying, “You’re not doing it according to the truth!” you reply, “Even if I’m not, this is still how I’m going to do it,” and then you find some reason to make them think this is right. If they reproach you, saying, “You acting like this is disruptive, and it will damage the work of the church,” not only do you not listen, but you keep coming out with excuses: “I think this is the right way, so this is how I’m going to do it.” What disposition is this? (Arrogance.) It is arrogance. An arrogant nature makes you willful. If you have an arrogant nature, you will behave arbitrarily and rashly, heedless of what anyone says. How, then, do you resolve your arbitrariness and rashness? Say, for example, something happens to you and you have your own ideas and plans. Before determining what to do, you must seek the truth, and you should at least fellowship with everyone about what you think and believe about that matter, asking everyone to tell you if your thoughts are correct and in line with the truth, and to carry out checks for you. This is the best method for solving arbitrariness and rashness. First, you can shed light on your views and seek the truth—this is the first step of practice for solving arbitrariness and rashness. The second step happens when other people voice dissenting opinions—how can you practice in order to keep from being arbitrary and rash? You must first have an attitude of humility, set aside what you believe to be right, and let everyone fellowship. Even if you believe your way to be correct, you should not keep insisting on it. That is a kind of step forward; it shows an attitude of seeking the truth, of denying yourself, and of satisfying God’s intentions. Once you have this attitude, at the same time as not adhering to your own opinions, you should pray, seek the truth from God, and then look for a basis in God’s words—determine how to act based on God’s words. This is the most suitable and accurate practice. When you seek the truth and hold up a problem for everyone to fellowship and seek on together, that is when the Holy Spirit provides enlightenment. God enlightens people according to principles, He takes stock of their attitude. If you stubbornly stick to your guns regardless of whether your view is right or wrong, God will hide His face from you and ignore you; He will make you hit a wall, He will expose you and reveal your ugly state. If, on the other hand, your attitude is correct, neither insistent on your own way, nor self-righteous, nor arbitrary and rash, but an attitude of seeking and of accepting the truth, if you fellowship with everyone, then the Holy Spirit will begin to work among you, and perhaps He will lead you to understanding by means of someone’s words. Sometimes, when the Holy Spirit enlightens you, He leads you to understand the crux of a matter with just a few words or phrases, or by giving you an idea. You realize, in that instant, that whatever you have been clinging to is erroneous, and, in the same instant, you understand the most appropriate way to act. Having reached such a level, have you not successfully avoided doing evil, and at the same time avoided bearing the consequences of a mistake? Is this not God’s protection? (Yes.) How is such a thing achieved? This is only attained when you have a God-fearing heart, and when you seek the truth with a heart of submission. Once you have received the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit and determined the principles of practice, your practice will be in line with the truth, and you will be able to satisfy God’s intentions. What does you being able to practice the truth in such a manner crucially depend upon? Primarily, it depends on you having the right intentions and attitude. This is crucial. When the Holy Spirit works, He scrutinizes people’s intentions and attitudes, and He decides whether to enlighten or lead them based on these factors. If people can understand God’s work and see this matter clearly, they’ll know how to pray to God and seek the truth. Can you see this clearly? Often, people wish to avoid doing evil, and want to practice the truth and act with principles. But this depends on people’s attitude toward the truth and whether they have a heart that fears and submits to God. If you can let go of your personal intentions and have a mindset of submission to God, praying and seeking from God sincerely, it won’t take long for you to receive God’s enlightenment. God will use some methods to make you understand what the principles of the truth are and where the key points of the truth lie. When you pray and seek from God, as long as you have the right mindset and you are sincere, God will enlighten you. The only worrying thing is if people are not genuinely seeking the truth but merely going through the motions and formalities for others to see. In that case, they won’t be able to obtain God’s enlightenment. If your attitude is to stubbornly insist, to deny the truth, to reject anyone else’s suggestions, to not seek the truth, to only have faith in yourself, and to only do as you want—if this is your attitude regardless of what God does or asks, then what is God’s reaction? God pays you no heed, He sidelines you. Are you not willful? Are you not arrogant? Do you not always think you’re right? If you are devoid of submission, if you never seek, if your heart is utterly closed and resistant to God, then God pays you no heed. Why does God pay you no heed? Because if your heart is closed to God, can you accept God’s enlightenment? Can you feel it when God reproaches you? When people are intransigent, when their satanic nature and beastliness burst forth, they don’t feel anything God does, it is all to no avail—so God does not do useless work. If you have this kind of stubbornly antagonistic attitude, all that God does is to remain hidden from you, God will not do superfluous things. When you are this stubbornly antagonistic, and this closed, God would never forcibly do anything in you, or force anything upon you, He would never keep trying to move and enlighten you, over and over again—God does not act in this way. Why does God not act in this way? Mainly because God has seen a certain kind of disposition in you, a beastliness that is averse to the truth and impervious to reason. And do you think people can control a wild animal when its beastliness bursts forth? Does shouting and screaming at it do anything? Is reasoning with it or offering it comfort of any use? Do people dare to approach it? There is a good way of describing this: It is impervious to reason. When your beastliness flares up and you are impervious to reason, what does God do? God pays you no heed. What more does God have to say to you when you are impervious to reason? Saying any more is useless. And when God pays you no heed, are you blessed, or do you suffer? Do you gain some benefits, or suffer a loss? You will undoubtedly suffer a loss. And who caused this? (We caused it.) You caused it. No one forced you to act like this, and yet you still feel upset. Did you not bring this upon yourself? God pays you no heed, you cannot feel God, there is darkness in your heart, and your life is compromised—you brought this upon yourself, you deserve it.

When facing a matter, if people are too willful and insist on their own ideas without seeking the truth, this is very dangerous. God will spurn these people and set them aside. What will the consequence of this be? It can certainly be said that there is the danger of them being eliminated. However, those who seek the truth can obtain the Holy Spirit’s enlightenment and guidance, and as a result, gain God’s blessing. The two different attitudes of seeking and not seeking the truth can bring about two different states in you and two different results. Which kind of result do you prefer? (I’d prefer to obtain God’s enlightenment.) If people wish to be enlightened and guided by God, and to receive God’s graces, what kind of attitude must they have? They must often have an attitude of seeking and submission before God. Whether you are performing your duty, interacting with others, or dealing with some particular issue that you are faced with, you must have an attitude of seeking and submission. With this kind of attitude, it can be said that you have something of a God-fearing heart. Being able to seek and submit to the truth is the path to fearing God and shunning evil. If you lack an attitude of seeking and submission, and you instead cling to yourself, are stubbornly antagonistic, and you refuse to accept the truth, and are averse to the truth, then you will naturally commit a great deal of evil. You won’t be able to help it! If people never seek the truth to resolve this, the ultimate consequence will be that no matter how much they experience, no matter how many situations they find themselves in, no matter how many lessons God sets out for them, they still won’t understand the truth, and they will ultimately remain incapable of entering into the truth reality. If people do not possess the truth reality, they will be incapable of following the way of God, and if they are never able to follow the way of God, then they are not people who fear God and shun evil. People go on and on about wanting to perform their duties and follow God. Are things that simple? Absolutely not. These things are enormously important in people’s lives! It isn’t easy to perform one’s duty well to satisfy God, and achieve fear of God and shunning of evil. But I will tell you a principle of practice: If you have an attitude of seeking and submission when something happens to you, this will protect you. The ultimate goal isn’t for you to be protected. It is to make you understand the truth, and be able to enter into the truth reality, and attain God’s salvation—this is the ultimate goal. If you have this attitude in all that you experience, you will no longer feel that performing your duty and satisfying the intentions of God are empty words and slogans; it will no longer feel so taxing. Instead, before you realize it, you will come to understand quite a few truths. If you try to experience in this way, you will be sure to reap rewards. It doesn’t matter who you are, how old you are, how educated you are, how many years you have believed in God, or what duty you perform. As long as you have an attitude of seeking and submission, as long as you experience in this way, then ultimately, you will be sure to understand the truth and enter into the truth reality. However, if you do not have an attitude of seeking and submission in everything that happens to you, then you will not be able to understand the truth, nor will you be able to enter into the truth reality. Those who never understand the truth and can never enter into the truth reality think, “What is the truth and what are doctrines? What is the truth reality and what is not having the truth reality? Why don’t I understand it?” They often listen to sermons and fellowship about the truth, they get up early and go to bed late reading God’s words, listening more, learning more, and writing more. They take notes of the edifying things that they hear in their notebooks, filling up several whole books. They have put in a lot of effort, but, unfortunately, they never understand the truth. Consequently, they feel the truth is too profound. After listening for several years, they understand some doctrines, but why can’t they put them into practice? Why do they become confused when facing matters? They regard understanding the truth and entering into the truth reality as very abstract and feel that these things are very difficult to attain. In fact, they have misunderstood it. Believing in God and understanding the truth is not about playing word games, it is not being able to talk about some of the words and doctrines, and that’s it—that is not what it is about. What believing in God stresses most is practicing the truth and being able to grasp the principles in practicing the truth. Only by understanding what practicing the truth is, and what handling matters with principles is, can one be said to understand the truth and to have entered into reality. Being able to practice the truth and enter into reality is the most important thing.