The most important part of pursuing the truth is to focus on reading God’s words. The amount that a person can gain from reading God’s words depends on their comprehension ability. Although everyone reads God’s words, some are able to grasp the true meaning and find light in them, and as long as they read God’s words, they will gain something. However, others are not like that. They focus only on understanding doctrines when reading God’s words. The result of this is that after several years of reading God’s words, they understand many doctrines, and yet whenever they experience problems, they can’t solve them; nothing they learned is of use. What is going on here? Even though people are all reading God’s words, the results are different. Those who love the truth are able to accept it, while those who do not love the truth are unwilling to accept it even if they read God’s words. They will not seek the truth in God’s words no matter what problems they encounter. People with a bit of experience can discuss some practical things when they read God’s words and talk about their practical knowledge of the truth—this is understanding the truth. Those without experience only grasp the literal meaning of God’s words, and they lack the slightest bit of knowledge and experience—this cannot be considered understanding the truth. Some leaders often tell others that they go to church specifically to provide the truth. Is this statement correct? The words “provide the truth” should not be said lightly. Who possesses the truth? Who dares to claim that they supply the truth? Isn’t this claim too grand? When you believe in God and follow Him, you are simply a person who accepts and pursues the truth. If you can do this, that is already quite good. Even if a person can understand some truths and speak about some experience and knowledge of the truth, it cannot be said that they supply the truth because no person possesses the truth. How can talking about some experience and knowledge be called supplying the truth? Therefore, leaders and workers can only be described as performing the work of watering, and as being specifically responsible for the life entry of brothers and sisters in the church. They cannot be said to be supplying the truth. Even if a person has some stature, they still cannot be said to be supplying others with the truth. This absolutely cannot be said. How many people understand the truth? Does a person’s stature qualify them to supply the truth? Even if someone has some experience and knowledge of the truth, it cannot be said that they can supply the truth. That absolutely cannot be said, it’s too lacking in reason. Some people take pride in watering the church and supplying the truth, as if they understand a great deal of the truth. However, they are unable to discern false leaders and antichrists. Isn’t this a contradiction? If someone asks you what the truth is, and you answer, “God’s word is the truth; the truth is God’s word,” do you understand the truth? You can only speak the words and doctrines, and you lack experience and knowledge of what the truth is, so you are not qualified to supply it to others. Right now, those who serve as leaders all lack experience; they just have a little caliber and a willingness to pursue the truth. They’re suitable for nurturing and training, and they can take the lead in doing duties. Even if they can fellowship about some knowledge, how can it be said that they supply the truth? Most leaders and workers can talk about some knowledge, but that doesn’t mean that they have the truth reality. After all, they have listened to many years of sermons and they have a bit of superficial knowledge; they are willing to fellowship on the truth and can be somewhat helpful to others, but they cannot be said to be supplying the truth. Are leaders and workers capable of supplying the truth? Absolutely not. Leaders and workers preach and water the church; most importantly, they must be able to solve practical problems, that is the only way that they can truly water the church. Right now, most leaders and workers are still unable to solve many practical problems. Even if they can fellowship on some knowledge of the truth, most of what they say is still just the words and doctrines. They cannot fellowship clearly on the reality of the truth, so can they really solve problems? Most leaders and workers just have a bit of comprehension ability and they still do not have much practical experience. Can it be said that they understand the truth more and have more of the truth reality than others? This cannot be said, they fall short of this. Some leaders and workers are promoted purely for the purpose of nurturing; they are allowed to practice because they have a little caliber, and they possess a bit of comprehension ability, and their family environment is suitable. It’s not as if promoting someone means that they possess the truth reality and that they can supply the truth. It’s just that those who pursue the truth obtain enlightenment and light before others, but this little light falls short of the truth, it is not a part of the truth, it is only in accordance with the truth. Only what God expresses directly is the truth. The enlightenment of the Holy Spirit is only in adherence with the truth, because the Holy Spirit enlightens people according to their stature. He does not speak the truth directly to people. Instead, He gives them a light they are able to attain. You must understand this. If a person has some insight into God’s words and has some knowledge gained from experience, does this count as truth? No. At most, they have some understanding of the truth. The words of the Holy Spirit’s enlightenment do not represent God’s words, do not represent the truth, and are not the truth. At most, the person has some understanding of the truth, and has been enlightened a little bit by the Holy Spirit. If a person gains some understanding of the truth and then supplies it to others, all they are doing is supplying their understanding and experience to others. You cannot say they are supplying the truth to others. It is alright if you say they are fellowshipping on the truth; this is an appropriate description. Why do I say this? Because what you are fellowshipping on is your understanding of the truth; it does not amount to the truth itself. Therefore, you can only say that you are fellowshipping on some understanding and experience; how can you say you are supplying the truth? Supplying the truth is not a simple matter. Who is worthy of speaking this sentence? Only God is capable of supplying the truth to people. Are people capable? Therefore, you must see this matter clearly. This is not just an issue of using the wrong words, the crux is that you are violating and twisting the facts. What you claim is an overstatement. People may have some understanding of, and experience with, God’s words, but you cannot say they have the truth, or that they are of the truth. You absolutely cannot say this. No matter how much understanding people gain from the truth, you cannot say that they possess the life of truth, let alone that they are of the truth. You absolutely cannot say this. People only understand a bit of the truth and have a bit of light and some ways of practice. They only have some reality of submission, and some true change. But you cannot say that they have gained the truth. God provides life to people by expressing the truth. God also demands that people understand the truth and gain the truth in order to serve and satisfy Him. Even if there comes a day when people experience God’s work to the point that they have truly gained the truth, you still cannot say that people are of the truth, let alone say that people possess the truth. This is because even if people have many years of experience, there is a limit to the amount of truth they will gain, and it is a very shallow amount. The truth is the most deep and mysterious thing; it is what God has and is. Even if people experience the truth for a lifetime, what they gain of it will be very limited. People will never be able to gain the truth completely, understand it completely, or live it out completely. That is what God means when He says that people will always be babies in His presence.

Some people believe that once they possess experience and knowledge of the truths expressed by God, and a thorough understanding of every aspect of the truth, and can act according to the truth, then they will be able to express the truth. They think that by doing so, they will be living as Christ, just like Paul said, “To me to live is Christ” (Philippians 1:21). Is this viewpoint correct? Isn’t it another espousing of the “God-men” argument? This is absolutely wrong! People must understand one thing: No matter how much experience and knowledge you have of the truth, or even if you have entered into the truth reality, and are able to submit to God’s orchestrations and arrangements, and can submit to God and testify for God, and no matter how elevated or profound your life entry becomes, your life is still a human life, and a human can never become God. This is an absolute fact that people must understand. Even if, in the end, you have experience and an understanding of every aspect of the truth, and you let God orchestrate you and become a perfected person, it still cannot be said that you are of the truth. Even if you can speak of true experiential testimony, this does not mean that you can express the truth. In the past, it was common within religious groups to say that one had “the life of Christ within.” This is an erroneous and vague statement. Although people don’t say this anymore, their understanding of this matter remains unclear. Some people think, “Since we have obtained the truth and the truth is within us, we possess the truth, and have the truth in our hearts, and we are also able to express it.” Isn’t this also wrong? People often talk about whether or not they have the truth, which mainly refers to whether or not they have experience and knowledge of the truth, and whether or not they can practice according to the truth. Everyone experiences the truth, but the state each person experiences is different. What each person gains from the truth is also different. If you were to combine everyone’s experience and understanding, it still would not completely reflect the essence of the truth. That is how deep and mysterious the truth is! Why do I say that everything you have gained and all of your understanding cannot take the place of the truth? After people have heard you fellowship on some of your experience and understanding, they will understand it, and they will not need to experience for a long time in order to completely understand and gain it. Even if it is something a bit more deep, they will not need several years of experience. But as for the truth, people will not experience all of it in their entire lifetime. Even if you add everyone together, they will not have experienced it all. As you can see, the truth is too deep and mysterious. Words are incapable of explaining the truth thoroughly. Truth expressed in human language is verity to humans. Humans will never be able to experience it all, and never be able to completely live out the truth. This is because even if people spend several thousand years, they will not have completely experienced one item of truth. No matter how many years people experience, the truth they understand and gain will still be limited. It can be said that the truth is humanity’s eternal spring of life. God is the source of the truth, and entering the truth realities is a task which has no end.

The truth is the life of God Himself; it represents His disposition, His essence, and what He has and is. If you say that by having some experience and knowledge, you thereby have the truth, then have you achieved holiness? Why do you still reveal corruption? Why can’t you discern between different types of people? Why can’t you testify to God? Even if you understand some truths, can you represent God? Can you live out God’s disposition? You may have some experience and knowledge regarding a certain aspect of a truth, and you may be able to shed a bit of light in your speech, but what you can provide to people is extremely limited and cannot last long. This is because your understanding and the light you have obtained does not represent the essence of the truth, and it does not represent the entirety of truth. It only represents one side or a small aspect of the truth, it is only a level that can be achieved by human beings, and it is still far from the essence of the truth. This little bit of light, enlightenment, experience, and knowledge can never take the place of the truth. Even if all people have achieved some results through experiencing a truth, and all their experiences and knowledge were put together, it would not reach the entirety and essence of even a single line of this truth. It has been said in the past, “I sum this up with an aphorism for the human world: Among men, there is no one who loves Me.” This sentence is the truth, the true essence of life, a most profound thing, and an expression of God Himself. After three years of experience, you may have a little superficial understanding, and after seven or eight years, you may have a little more understanding, but this understanding can never take the place of this line of truth. After two years, someone else may have a little understanding, or some more understanding after ten years, or a relatively high understanding after a lifetime, but the collective understanding of both of you cannot take the place of this line of truth. No matter how much insight, light, experience, or knowledge the two of you may collectively have, it can never take the place of this line of truth. That is to say, human life is always human life, and no matter how your knowledge conforms to the truth, God’s will, or God’s requirements, it can never take the place of the truth. To say that people have the truth means that people genuinely understand the truth, live out some of the realities of God’s word, have some real knowledge of God, and can exalt and testify to God. However, it cannot be said that people already possess the truth, because the truth is too profound. Just one line of God’s word can take people a lifetime to experience, and even after several lifetimes of experience, or thousands of years, a single line of God’s word cannot be fully experienced. It is clear that the process of understanding the truth and knowing God is indeed endless, and that there is a limit to how much of the truth people can understand in a lifetime of experience. Some people say they have the truth as soon as they understand the textual meaning of God’s word. Isn’t this nonsense? In terms of both light and knowledge, there is a matter of depth. The truth realities that a person can enter into over a lifetime of belief are limited. Therefore, just because you possess some knowledge and light does not mean that you possess the truth realities. The main thing you must look at is whether this light and knowledge touches upon the essence of the truth. This is the most important thing. Some people feel that they possess the truth when they can shed light or offer a little superficial understanding. This makes them happy, so they become smug and conceited. In fact, they are still far from entering the truth reality. What truth do people possess? Can people who possess the truth fall down anytime and anywhere? When people possess the truth, how can they still defy God and betray God? If you claim that you possess the truth, it proves that within you is the life of Christ—that’s outrageous! You have become the Lord, you have become Christ? This is an absurd statement, and is entirely inferred by people; it pertains to human notions and imaginings, and is not a tenable position with God.

When speaking of people understanding the truth, and living with it as their life, what does this “life” refer to? It means the truth reigns supreme in their hearts, it means they are able to live by God’s words, and it means they have real knowledge of God’s words and a genuine understanding of the truth. When people possess this new life within them, it is entirely achieved by practicing and experiencing God’s words. It is built on the foundation of the truth of God’s words, and it is attained by their living within the realm of the truth; all that people’s life contains is their knowledge and experience of the truth. That is its foundation, and it does not surpass that scope; this is the life that is being referred to when speaking of gaining the truth and life. Being able to live by the truth of God’s words does not mean that the life of truth is inside people, nor that if they possess the truth as their life, they become the truth, and their internal life becomes the life of truth; let alone that they are the truth and life. Ultimately, their life is still the life of a human. If you can live by God’s words and possess knowledge of the truth, if this knowledge takes root within you and becomes your life, and the truth you have gained through experience becomes the basis of your existence, if you live by these words of God, no one can change it, and Satan cannot mislead or corrupt you, then you will have gained the truth and life. That is, your life merely contains the truth, meaning your understanding, experience, and insight of the truth; and no matter what you do, you will live by these things, and you will not go beyond the scope of them. This is what it means to possess the truth reality, and such people are what God ultimately wants to gain with His work. But no matter how well people understand the truth, their essence is still one of humanity, and is not at all comparable to the essence of God. This is because they can never experience all of the truth, and it is impossible for them to completely live out the truth; they can only live out the extremely limited bit of the truth attainable by humans. How, then, could they turn into God? If God personally perfected a group of people into greater Gods and lesser Gods, wouldn’t that be chaos? Besides, such a thing is impossible and absurd—it is man’s ridiculous idea. God created the heavens and earth and all things, and then He created man, so that man would submit to and worship Him. God’s creation of man was the most meaningful act. God only created man; He did not create Gods. God works in the form of the incarnation, but this is not the same as Him creating a God. God did not create Himself; He has His own essence, and it is immutable. People do not know God, so they should read more of God’s words; people can only understand the truth if they seek it often. People should not speak nonsense based on their imagination. If you have a bit of experience with God’s words, and are living by genuine experience and knowledge of truth, then God’s words will gradually become your life. However, you still cannot say that the truth is your life or that what you are expressing is the truth; if such is your opinion, then you are wrong. If you only have some experience with one particular aspect of the truth, can this in itself represent you possessing the truth? Can this be considered to be obtaining the truth? Can you thoroughly explain the truth? Can you discover God’s disposition, and what God has and is, from the truth? If these effects are not achieved, this proves that having only experienced a certain aspect of the truth cannot be considered to truly understand the truth, or to know God, much less can it be said to have gained the truth. Everyone has experience with only one aspect and scope of the truth; they experience it within their limited scope, and cannot touch upon all of the truth’s innumerable aspects. Can people live out the original meaning of the truth? How much does your little bit of experience amount to? Only a single grain of sand on a beach; a lone drop of water in the ocean. Therefore, no matter how precious that knowledge and those feelings you have gained from your experiences might be, they still cannot be counted as the truth. They can only be said to be in accordance with the truth. The truth comes from God, and the inner meaning and the realities of the truth cover a very wide range, and no one can fathom or refute it. As long as you have a real understanding of the truth and of God, you will understand some truths; no one will be able to refute these real understandings, and the testimonies that contain the truth realities are forever tenable. God approves of those who possess the truth realities. As long as you pursue the truth, and you can rely on God to experience God’s words and can accept the truth as your life no matter what environment you are in, then you will have a path, be able to survive, and gain God’s approval. Even though the little bit people gain is in accordance with the truth, it cannot be said that this is the truth, much less can it be said that they have gained the truth. The little bit of light people have obtained is only suitable for themselves or some others within a certain scope, but would not be suitable within a different scope. No matter how profound a person’s experience, it is still so limited, and their experience will never reach the depth of the truth. A person’s light and a person’s understanding can never be compared to the truth.

When people have some experience of God’s words, understand some truths and a bit of God’s will, when they have some knowledge of God, and their disposition has undergone a bit of change and been cleansed, it can still only be said that they are a person, and a created human being, but this is precisely the kind of normal person that God wishes to gain. So, what kind of person are you? Some people say, “I am a person who possesses the truth.” It would not be fitting to say that. You can only say, “I am a person who has been corrupted by Satan, and who has experienced the judgment and chastisement of God’s words. I finally understood the truth, and had my corrupt disposition cleansed. I am merely a person who has been saved by God.” If you were to say, “I am a person who possesses the truth. I have experienced all of God’s words and understood them all. I know the meaning of everything that God says, and the context and circumstances in which those words were spoken. I know it all. Doesn’t this mean that I possess the truth?” then you would be wrong again. Having some experience of God’s words and gaining some light from them does not make you a person who possesses the truth. Those who can just understand and discuss some doctrines are even less qualified to make such a claim. People must clearly comprehend what position a person should take before God and before the truth, what people are, what the life inside man is, and what the life of God is. People must understand what the essence of man is. After experiencing God’s work for a few days, and understanding some words and doctrines, some people feel that they possess the truth. These are the most arrogant people, and they are devoid of reason. It is necessary to dissect this matter so that people can truly understand themselves and come to know mankind, and so that they can understand what corrupt mankind is, what level people can achieve after they are finally perfected, and what the appropriate way to address and name them is. People should know these things and not indulge in flights of fancy. It is better for people to be more realistic in how they comport themselves, that way they will be a bit more down-to-earth. Some people who believe in God always pursue their own dreams and always wish to live out God’s life and image. Is this realistic? People always want to possess God’s life—is this not a dangerous thing? It is the arrogant ambition of humans, and it is just like the arrogant ambition of Satan. Some people, after working in the church for a period of time, start pondering, “After the great red dragon falls from power, should we become kings and wield power? How many cities should each of us control?” If a person can reveal such things, that is terrible. People who have no experience like to talk about doctrines and to indulge in fantasies. And as they do, they even feel clever, as if they have gained success in their faith in God, as if they are living as Christ and God. They are all disciples of Paul, and they are walking the path of Paul. If they are steadfastly unrepentant, these people will all become antichrists and suffer severe punishment.