Words on How to Approach the Truth and God (Excerpt 3)

A great number of believers fail to place importance on transformation in life disposition, instead focusing on and concerning themselves with God’s attitude toward them and whether or not they occupy a place in God’s heart. They are always trying to guess how they appear in God’s eyes and whether or not they hold a position in His heart. Many people harbor these kinds of thoughts, and if they do come face-to-face with God, they always observe whether He is happy or angry when He speaks to them. Then there are those who are always inquiring to others, “Has God mentioned my difficulties? What does He think of me, anyway? Does He show any concern for me?” Some have even more serious issues—if God so much as glances at them, it is as though they have detected a new problem: “Oh no, God just glanced at me, and the look in His eyes didn’t seem very happy, this is not a good sign.” People place great importance on such things. Some people say: “The God we believe in is God incarnate, so if He doesn’t pay attention to us, doesn’t that spell the end for us?” What they mean by this is, “If we have no place in God’s heart, why should we bother believing? We should just stop believing!” Is this not lacking in reason? Do you know why people should believe in God? People never ponder on whether God has a place in their hearts, and yet they want a place in God’s heart. How arrogant and conceited they are! This is the part of them that is most lacking in reason. There are even those who are so lacking in reason that when God asks after someone else, and doesn’t bring up their name, or shows concern for and cares for others rather than for them, they feel dissatisfied and begin to grumble and complain about God, saying that He is unrighteous and not even fair and reasonable. This is a problem with their reason, and they’re also somewhat abnormal psychologically. Under usual circumstances, people always claim that they will submit to God’s arrangements and orchestrations, that they will never complain regardless of how God treats them, and that they are fine with God pruning, judging, or chastising them, but when they encounter such things in reality, they do not accept them. Do people have reason? People think so highly of themselves and believe themselves to be so important that if they so much as perceive God to have looked at them the wrong way, they feel that they have no hope of attaining salvation, to say nothing of if God were to actually prune them. Or, if God speaks to them in a harsher tone and it pierces their hearts, they become negative and begin to think that believing in God is meaningless. They think, “How can I continue believing in God if He ignores me?” Some lack discernment of this kind of person and think: “Look how true their belief in God is. God is so very important to them. They can even interpret God’s meaning from a single glance. They are deeply loyal to God—they really see the God on earth as the God in heaven.” Is this how it is? These people are so muddleheaded, so lacking in insight in all matters; their stature is too small and they are truly revealing all kinds of ugliness. People have such poor reason—they have too many demands of God and they ask too much of Him, they lack even the slightest bit of reason. People are always demanding that God do this or that and are unable to completely submit to Him or worship Him. Instead, they make unreasonable demands of God based upon their own preferences, demanding that He be very magnanimous, that He never be angered by anything, and that whenever He sees people, He should always be smiling and should always talk to them, and supply them with the truth and fellowship on the truth with them. They also demand that He always be patient and that He keeps a pleasant expression around them. People have too many requirements; they are too finicky! You should examine these matters. Human reason is so poor, is it not? Not only are people not able to completely submit to God’s orchestrations and arrangements or accept all that comes from God, on the contrary, they impose additional requirements upon God. How can people with such requirements be loyal to God? How can they submit to the arrangements of God? How can they love God? People all have requirements for how God should love them, tolerate them, watch over them, protect them, and care for them, yet none of them have any requirements for how they themselves should love God, think of God, be considerate toward God, satisfy God, have God in their hearts, and worship God. Do these things exist in people’s hearts? These are things that people should accomplish, so why do they not press forward diligently in these things? Some people can be enthusiastic for a time and can somewhat forsake things and expend themselves, but it is not lasting; running into a little setback can cause them to become discouraged, lose hope, and complain. People have so many difficulties, and there are too few people who pursue the truth and seek to love and satisfy God. Humans are utterly lacking in reason, they stand in the wrong position, and see themselves as especially valuable. There are also those who say: “God sees us as the apples of His eye. He did not hesitate to allow His only Son to be nailed to the cross in order to redeem mankind. God paid a heavy price to buy us back—we are incredibly valuable and all hold a place in God’s heart. We are a special group of people and have a much higher status than nonbelievers—we are people of the kingdom of heaven.” They think themselves to be quite lofty and grand. In the past, many leaders had this mentality, believing that they had a certain status and position in God’s house after being promoted. They thought, “God holds me in high regard and thinks well of me, and He has allowed me to serve as a leader. I must do my best running around and working for Him.” They were terribly pleased with themselves. However, after a period of time, they did something bad and their true colors were shown, and then they were replaced, and they became dejected and hung their heads. When their unseemly behavior was exposed and pruned, they became even more negative, and were unable to continue believing. They thought to themselves, “God is being so inconsiderate of my feelings, He doesn’t care about saving my pride at all. They say God is sympathetic to man’s weaknesses, so why was I dismissed after some small transgressions?” They then became discouraged and wanted to abandon their faith. Do such people have true faith in God? If they cannot even accept being pruned, then their stature is too small, and it is uncertain whether they will be able to accept the truth in the future. Such people are in danger.

People do not make high demands of themselves, but they make high demands of God. They ask Him to show them special kindness, and to be patient and accommodating toward them, cherish them, provide for them, and smile at them, be tolerant toward them, make allowances for them, and take care of them in many ways. They expect Him not to be strict with them at all or do anything that would upset them even slightly, and they are only satisfied if He sweet-talks them every single day. Humans have such poor reason! They are not clear on what they should do, what they should accomplish, what viewpoints they should have, what position they should stand in to serve God, and what position is suitable to place themselves in. People with a little bit of status have a very high opinion of themselves, and those without status also think quite highly of themselves. Humans never know themselves. You must come to a point in your belief in God where, regardless of how He speaks to you, how strict He is with you, and how much He might ignore you, you can keep on believing without complaint and continue to do your duty as usual. You will then be a mature and experienced person, and you will truly have some stature and a bit of the reason of a normal person. You will not make demands of God, you will no longer have extravagant desires, and you will no longer make requests of others or of God based on your own preferences. This will show that, to a certain extent, you possess the likeness of a human. Currently, you have too many requirements, these requirements are far too excessive, and you have too many human intentions. This proves that you are not standing in the correct position; the position you are standing in is too high, and you have viewed yourself as too honorable—as though you are not much lower in position than God. You are therefore difficult to deal with, and this is precisely the nature of Satan. If such states exist within you, you will certainly be negative more often and be normal less frequently, so your life progress will be slow. By contrast, those who are pure of heart and less finicky will accept the truth easily and make faster progress. Those with pure hearts do not experience as much suffering, but you have very strong feelings, you are too finicky, and you always make demands of God, so you face large impediments to accepting the truth and your life progress proceeds slowly. Some people pursue just the same regardless of how others attack and exclude them, and are not affected in the slightest by it. People like this are magnanimous, so they suffer a bit less and face slightly fewer obstacles to their life entry. You are finicky and always being impacted by one thing or the other—who looked at you the wrong way, who looked down on you, who ignored you, or what God said that triggered you, or what harsh words He said that pierced your heart and hurt your self-esteem, or what good thing He gave to someone else and not to you—and then you become negative and even misunderstand God. People like this are finicky and a bit impervious to reason. No matter how one fellowships the truth with them, they just will not accept it and their problems will go unresolved. These people are the hardest to deal with.

I often hear you fellowship in this way: “I stumbled while doing something and later on, after going through some suffering, I gained a bit of understanding.” Most people have had this kind of experience—this experience is so superficial. This bit of understanding may have been arrived at after years of experiences, and people may have experienced a lot of suffering and been dragged through the wringer only to gain this little bit of understanding and transformation. How pitiful that is! There are so many impurities in people’s faith, it is so strenuous for them to believe in God! To this day, there are still many impurities within every person, and they still make many demands of God—these are all man’s impurities. Possessing such impurities is proof that there is a problem with their humanity, and it is a revelation of their corrupt dispositions. There is a difference between proper and improper demands made of God by man—this must be discerned clearly. One must be clear as to what position man ought to stand in and what reason man should possess. I have noticed that some people are always focusing on what kind of expression I have around people and always studying who God treats well and who He treats poorly. If they see God looking at them with a negative expression, or hear Him exposing or condemning them, they cannot let it go—no matter how you fellowship with them it does not work, and no matter how much time passes, they cannot turn around. They pass a verdict on themselves, holding on to that one passing phrase and using it to determine God’s attitude toward them. They wallow in negativity, and no matter how anyone fellowships the truth with them, they are not willing to accept it. This is just unreasonable. It is clear that man lacks even the slightest knowledge of God’s righteous disposition and doesn’t understand it at all. As long as people are able to repent and transform, God’s attitude toward them will also change. If your attitude toward God does not change, can God’s attitude toward you change? If you change, the way God treats you will change, but if you do not change, neither will God’s treatment of you. Some people still have no knowledge of what God hates, what He likes, His joy, anger, sorrow, and happiness, His almightiness, and His wisdom, and they cannot even speak about some perceptual knowledge—this is what makes man so difficult to handle. Man forgets all the well-meaning words God speaks to him, but if He makes just one stern remark or speaks one sentence of pruning or judgment, it pierces man’s heart. Why do people not take words of positive guidance seriously, while becoming upset, negative, and unable to recover upon hearing words of judgment and pruning? Ultimately, it may take a long period of contemplation before they turn around, and they will only wake up after combining this with some of God’s comforting words. Without these comforting words, they would be unable to climb out of their negativity. When people are just starting to experience God’s work, they have a lot of erroneous knowledge and misunderstandings of God. They always believe they are right, always cling to their own ideas, and they don’t take in the things that other people say. Only after they have had three to five years of experience do they gradually begin to understand, gain insight, recognize that they were wrong, and sense how difficult they have been to deal with. It’s as though they have only then grown up. As they gain more experience, they come to understand God, and their misunderstandings of God diminish, they no longer complain, and they begin to have normal faith in God. Compared with the past, their stature more resembles that of an adult. They used to be like children—liable to sulk, become negative, and distance themselves from God at certain times. They might have complained when faced with certain matters, certain words of God could have become the subject of their newest notion, and they might have begun to doubt God at certain times—this is how it is when someone’s stature is too small. Now that they have experienced so much and read God’s words for several years, they have made progress, and become much more stable than they were in the past. All this is the result of understanding the truth—it is the truth taking effect within them. So, as long as people understand the truth and are able to accept it, there is no difficulty that they cannot resolve, and they will always gain something, no matter how long they experience for. Of course, it will not do if they do not experience for long enough, but as long as they reap gains from each of their experiences, they will grow quickly in life.

The fact that you are now being cultivated to become a leader, worker, or supervisor, or to perform important duties does not prove that you have a larger stature. All it means is that you are of slightly better caliber than the average person, that you are a bit more earnest in your pursuit, and that there’s a bit more value in cultivating you. It certainly does not mean that you are able to submit to God or put yourself at the mercy of God’s orchestrations, and it does not mean that you have put aside your prospects and hopes. People do not yet have this kind of reason. You still carry some negativity, as well as intentions and aspirations to gain blessings, and even man’s notions and imaginings, with you while you are working. At the same time, you carry some baggage while doing your work, as if you are atoning for past sins through good deeds rather than working out of a happy willingness to do so. You also have not reached the point where no matter how God treats you, you only concern yourselves with acting in accordance with His intentions and demands. Can you achieve this? People do not have this reason. They all want to get a read on God, thinking: “What kind of attitude does God have toward me, exactly? Is He using me to render service or saving and perfecting me?” They all want to get a read in this way, they just do not dare to say it. The fact that they do not dare to say it proves that there is still an idea dominating them: “There’s no point in talking about it—it’s just my nature and it isn’t possible to change it. As long as I keep myself from doing anything bad, that’s enough—I don’t demand too much of myself.” They confine themselves to the lowest possible position and ultimately make no progress in the end, while also carrying a perfunctory way of thinking with them as they perform their duties. It is only after being fellowshipped with a few times that you all begin to understand a bit of the truth and come to know a bit of the reality of the truth. Whether or not you are being used, or what attitude God has toward you—these things are not important. The key lies in your proactive efforts, the path you choose to take, and whether or not you are ultimately able to transform—these are the most critical points. No matter how good of an attitude God may have toward you, it won’t do if you do not transform. If you stumble whenever something befalls you, and you lack even the slightest loyalty, then no matter how good of an attitude God has toward you, it will be of no use. The crucial thing is the path you choose to walk. God might have cursed you and spoken words of hate and loathing to you in the past, but if you have changed now, then God’s attitude toward you will change as well. People are always fearful, uneasy, and lack true faith, which indicates that they do not understand God’s intentions. Now that you have some understanding, will you still become negative and weak when things befall you in the future? Will you be able to practice the truth and stand firm in your testimony? Will you be able to truly submit to God? If you can achieve these things, you will have the reason of normal humanity. Do you now not have some knowledge of man’s corrupt dispositions and God’s salvation and intentions? You at least have a rough idea. When, one day, you are able to enter into some realities of all aspects of the truth, you will be completely living out normal humanity.

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