Just now, the brother fellowshipped on the topic of pursuing the truth. Having fellowshipped this much, do you feel how pursuing the truth is the most important thing, and that if you believe in God but do not pursue the truth, you will not gain a thing? Perhaps now some of you are ready, and have made up your minds to pursue the truth diligently, to work hard on God’s word, and to strive to understand the truth more and to practice it more. Is this the right mentality? Of course it is. If, having fellowshipped so much, you still have absolutely no reaction, then that is not normal, and these words will be in vain. The truth is the most important thing to everyone who sincerely believes in God and longs for Him to appear and to everyone who loves the truth and hopes to gain God’s salvation in the last days. Pursuing the truth is more important than any other thing: It is much more important than our jobs, our lives, or our fleshly prospects. Do you now recognize the importance of pursuing the truth? You are undoubtedly experiencing certain feelings in your hearts, recognizing that pursuing the truth is the most important thing in your lives—a lifelong event for each and every one of you, so to speak. After listening to so much fellowship, each of you may now have such a foundation in your hearts, such knowledge, feeling, and realization. Knowledge and feelings such as these are right and accurate, and they prove that what you have understood is completely in accordance with God’s word, with what He will do on each of you, and with His will.

Most people believe in God for the sake of obtaining blessings. Even if they understand a little of the truth, they cannot relinquish their intent to be blessed. What is man’s attitude toward the truth? In their hearts, most people are averse to the truth and they don’t even care about it. For man is a stranger to the truth. He does not understand what the truth is, much less where it comes from, why he should pursue it, why he should accept it, why he should practice it, or why God expresses so much of it. All these questions are foreign to every person, and they have never considered them, nor have they ever been exposed to them. Now that God is doing the work of judgment in the last days and has expressed many words, we come into contact with many matters involving every aspect of the truth on the path of belief in God. There is no way out without seeking the truth, so we need an understanding of the truth and must read God’s words in light of reality. Every sentence of God’s word is the truth, and one needs to experience it personally for them to understand it. Because from birth to adulthood, to getting a job, getting married and settling into a career, everything in the environment in which a person lives—including the people, events, and things they come into contact with and all the things that happen around them—is in fact related to the truth, but not a single person sees these things in terms of the truth. That is why it is said that everyone is a stranger to the truth. No one in all mankind understands the truth, so this requires that you start facing, accepting, and pursuing the truth from now on. This is necessary. If you have not yet understood that believing in God requires pursuing the truth, and that only the truth can change you, perfect you, bring you salvation, and make you truly come to God—if you cannot understand these things, then you will not be interested in the truth, you will not be able to pursue it, and you will lose your enthusiasm as you go along. Some people say, “For belief in God it is good enough to live a church life and do one’s duty, so why do we still need to pursue the truth? We do no evil, nor do we follow others, much less follow false leaders or antichrists in resistance to God. We all understand some of the doctrines about believing in God and can uphold our faith in God to the end, so there’s no need for us to understand much deeper truths.” Is this point of view correct? (It is not.) Why not? (Because it is only when people have obtained the truth that they can be saved by God.) That’s right. In their hearts, some people are now vaguely aware of the importance of the truth to mankind’s salvation. They may still be far from seeing clearly the value and significance of the truth becoming man’s life, but this feeling and awareness in their hearts is very valuable. What is key is whether this feeling and awareness can take root in people’s hearts, and that depends on people’s future pursuits. That you now have this awareness is a good thing. It gives hope that you may walk the road to salvation. Pursuing the truth is indeed important. For example, when you are negative and weak, can you become strong without the support and provision of the truth? Can you overcome your weaknesses? Can you recognize and dissect what it is that makes you weak and negative? You certainly cannot! When you are perfunctory in the performance of your duties, can you fix this corrupt disposition if you do not pursue the truth? Can you achieve loyalty to God in doing your duties? Without seeking the truth, can man know himself and fix his own corruption, his own arrogance? Man always has notions about God and is always measuring God with his own notions and imaginings. Can this be fixed in the absence of the truth? It cannot. We face choices in the many things that befall us in life. If we do not understand the truth, if we do not know what God’s will is and what He requires of us, then we have no way of practice. We will then reveal our corrupt dispositions, and we will easily make mistakes and take the wrong path. Can the existence of man’s corrupt disposition be fixed by the words and doctrines that he understands? If you do not seek the truth, one might say that there are no principles to anything you do in life, no paths to follow, and no goals or directions. If this is the case, then everything you do is contrary to the truth principles, a sign of resistance to God and a betrayal of Him, and your actions will be abhorred and cursed by God. If you live by your corrupt dispositions, not one of you will be saved unless you accept God’s judgment and chastisement. Therefore, before genuinely understanding the truth, everyone will have to face some judgment and chastisement, some chastening and discipline. These are all for the purpose of enabling people to obtain the truth and cast off their corrupt dispositions.

Although you understand some of the doctrines of believing in God, you often feel confused when experiencing everything. You feel at a loss and unable to get a grasp of God’s will, you do not know what to practice, and no amount of worrying offers up a solution. You want to seek fellowship but you do not know what the problem is, you want to look for answers in God’s word, but His word is boundless and you have no goals. Is it not often like this? This is a sign that new believers do not know how to seek the truth in all things. Therefore, most of the questions you ask in gatherings are unrelated to the truth, as are most of the words of your fellowship. This shows that most people do not know how to practice the truth in real life, nor do they know how to seek the truth when events befall them, much less do they have the truth as a principle and a goal for their practice. Is this a difficulty for everyone? If you had grasped the principle of the truth and understood its essence in events that befall you, would you still be confused as often? You certainly would not. Even if you feel some confusion, it is either because your understanding of the truth is too shallow, or because your experience of the truth is limited. You cannot comprehend God’s will, your corruption has not been fixed, and you feel pain in your heart. What is your greatest difficulty in pursuing the truth now? Is it that you are afraid when a topic of truth is raised for you to fellowship on? Afraid of expressing words and doctrines and being unable to communicate reality? And more afraid that you will be at a loss when things happen to you? (Yes.) This is because you do not have the truth in your hearts. If you did, you would not find these things so difficult to handle. Some people do not know what to do when events befall them. They know to seek the truth in God’s word, but the right answer is not immediately forthcoming, so they take a compromise approach. That is, they content themselves with a literal understanding of the meaning of God’s word, and abide by the regulations. If they say their prayers and their hearts are peaceful and reassured, and if they ask their brothers and sisters and they haven’t any insights greater than their own, then they feel that to practice in this way is enough. In fact, such practice is too far from the standard of truth, too far from the reality of truth, and too far from God’s will. This is not the principle of practicing the truth. If you wish to practice and understand the truth, then first you must seek the truth when things happen to you in your everyday life. That is, you must view things based on God’s words and the truth; when the essence of the problem is clear to you, then you will know how to practice in accordance with the truth principles. And if you always view things according to God’s words, you will be able to see the hand of God—the deeds of God—in everything that happens around you. No matter what happens around them, some people think that it has nothing to do with their faith in God or the truth; they merely follow their own inclinations, reacting according to the philosophies of Satan. Can they learn any lessons like this? Certainly not. It is for this reason that many people have believed in God for ten or twenty years and still have no understanding of the truth or life entry. They are incapable of incorporating God into their everyday lives, or of approaching everything that happens around them based on God’s words, and so whenever anything happens to them, they cannot tell it for what it really is, nor are they able to handle it based on the truth principles. Such people do not have life entry. Some people only engage their minds when they are reading God’s words in assembly; at such times, they are able to speak of a little knowledge, but they cannot implement God’s words with anything that happens to them in real life, nor do they know how to practice the truth, and so they think that everything that happens in their everyday lives has no connection to the truth, no relationship with the words of God. In their faith in God, it’s as if they treat the words of God and the truth as an area of knowledge, as completely divorced from their everyday lives and utterly separate from their views of things, their life goals, and their life pursuits. What about such a form of belief in God? Will they be able to understand the truth and enter reality? When they believe in God in this way, are they a follower of God? They are not someone who truly believes in God, much less are they a follower of God. All of the problems in their daily lives—including everything involving family, marriage, work, or their prospects—they see as having no connection to the truth, and so try to solve using human methods. Experiencing thus, they will never gain the truth, will never be able to understand just what it is that God wants to accomplish in people, and the effect He wishes to achieve in them. God expresses the truth in order to save people, to cleanse and change their corrupt dispositions, but they are not aware that only if they accept and pursue the truth will they be able to solve their own corrupt dispositions; they are not aware that only when they experience and practice the words of God in their everyday lives can they gain the truth. Are such people not dim and ignorant? Are they not the most foolish, ridiculous people? Some people have never pursued the truth in their faith in God. They think that faith in God means going to assembly, praying, singing hymns, reading God’s words; they emphasize religious ceremony, and they never practice or experience God’s words. This is how the people of religion believe in God. And when people treat something so important as faith in God as religious conviction, do they not belong to the nonbelievers? Are they not unbelievers? Pursuing the truth requires experiencing many processes. There is a simple side to it, and there is also a complex side. Simply put, we should seek the truth and practice and experience God’s words in everything that happens around us. Once you begin to do this, you will see more and more how much truth you need to gain and pursue in your belief in God, and that the truth is so practical and the truth is life. God saves humankind so that they can gain the truth as life. All of created humankind should accept the truth as life, not just those who perform duties, who are leaders and workers, or who serve God. God’s words are directed to all humankind, and God speaks to all humankind. Therefore, all created beings and all humankind should accept God’s words and the truth, seek the truth in all things, and then practice according to the truth principles so that they can become able to practice and submit to the truth. If only leaders and workers were required to practice the truth, this would be completely contrary to God’s will, because the truth expressed by God is for the whole of humankind, and it is expressed for the purpose of saving humankind, not just to save a few people. If this were the case, the words expressed by God would have little meaning. Do you now have a path to pursue the truth? What is the first thing that must be practiced when pursuing the truth? Before all else, you must spend more time eating and drinking the words of God and listening to sermons and fellowships. When you encounter an issue, pray and seek more. When you have equipped yourselves with more truths, when you grow quickly and possess stature, you will be able to perform a duty, undertake a little work, and will be able to make it through some trials and temptations. At that time, you will feel that you really have understood and gained some truths, and you will sense that the words spoken by God are all the truth, that they are the truths most necessary for the salvation of corrupt mankind, and that they are the truth of life given by the unique Creator. Right now, you have no experience; you only have a little longing in your heart. You feel that God’s words are profound, and that they contain too many things you cannot attain, and too many truths that you cannot comprehend. The essence of some things is still unclear, and you feel that your understanding of the truth is too superficial. It is just that you have such longing in your heart and such energy, but whether or not you can obtain the truth depends on how you practice and pursue it in the future.

In the work of judgment of the last days, imagine if God only expresses some simple truths: nothing too deep, much less relating too much to judging and exposing people, but only a little word according to what people can accept and what their minds can understand—just some words of promise and blessing or some words of exhortation. Even if people accept these words, can they achieve salvation? Take an example. Suppose God simply says, “The corruption in all of you runs too deep. All of you are without the truth, and you are all disloyal to Me. Your nature essence has become Satan’s nature; you have become living Satans. You are hostile to Me, and you have no love for the truth.” He then tells people, “Go and figure it out!” immediately followed by, “Blessed is he who loves the truth. He who is loyal to Me will be able to satisfy My will, walk the road till the end, and gain My promise.” Would people’s hearts be stirred if God simply told them this? Would they strive toward the truth? How would people feel? “We’ve read all of God’s words, and though we all have corrupt dispositions, we’re not evil people and won’t resist God. It’s just that we have rebellious dispositions, are morally somewhat corrupt and of inferior character, and prefer to follow worldly trends. Now that we understand some truths and can reflect on and know ourselves, we can surely cast off these corrupt things.” Are there many people in this state? They think that to understand the doctrine of belief in God is to understand the truth, and this is very dangerous. Those who proudly preach words and doctrines immediately fall down and are revealed once a trial befalls them. Can a corrupt disposition be cast off without pursuit of the truth and acceptance of judgment and chastisement? It is impossible. You should be clear that time is now running out, and if you cannot suffer and pay the price for gaining the truth, it will be easy to waste your time by believing in God based on notions and imaginings. Then, when the great tribulation comes, you will have no time to pursue the truth even if you want to, and you will have lost completely your chance at salvation. Although you believe in God now, you do not understand God’s will. Do you really know why God expresses the truth, and does the work of judgment? Every word, every topic, every truth that God expresses is of significance and extremely beneficial to you. Regardless of whether you can see it, experience it, or feel it today, and no matter how much you have really gained right now, after three to five years of your experience, you will feel that God’s words today are true, and how great it is for God to express these words! If God still coddled man as He did in the Age of Grace, calling him “the lamb in His bosom” and the one lost sheep which He would abandon the other ninety-nine to go and find, man would think, “God’s mercy and lovingkindness are so great; God’s love for man is so deep!” If man always thinks of and looks at God in this way, he will not truly seek God, he will not come to God, he will not submit to God, and he will not have a God-fearing heart. Without a true understanding of God, man’s corrupt disposition will not be cast off; he will treat God and the truth with an attitude of contempt, and he will resist God as do the devils and Satan. If that is the case, man will never understand what the truth is, he will never truly understand what it is to believe in and to follow God, and what it is to seek and obtain the truth. This is true. If God did not express these words; if He did not chastise and judge every last person and treat everyone with such harsh words, then people would think that believing in God means they have obtained the truth, that believing in God is to be raptured later on, to enter the kingdom and wield power as a king. Some people say, “A man like me could almost be a centurion!” Others say, “I don’t ask for much. In the kingdom, I can even watch the gates or sweep the streets!” This is the original intention, the ideal, and the desire of every person who believes in God. God has said so many things that thoroughly expose man’s notions and imaginings, his extravagant desires, and his corrupt disposition. Nothing that man thinks is in accordance with the truth or compatible with God, and nothing that man hopes for or ideally wants to achieve is in accordance with God’s will. It is all completely contrary to God. When people believe in God, they are confronted with God’s words of judgment and chastisement, with God’s words exposing man’s nature essence, with words that do not align with man’s notions, and with God’s way of working that does not align with man’s imaginings. Although many people acknowledge that God’s words are the truth, and they are willing to cooperate with God’s work and accept God’s judgment and chastisement, it is very difficult for them to meet God’s requirements. When it comes to pursuing the truth, many people become listless, and when it comes to fellowshipping about the truth, they doze off and do not care to listen. But when it comes to mysteries, blessings, and promises, they become animated. What is going on? Deep in their hearts, people do not love the truth. They find pursuing it too troublesome, laborious, too painful, and too high a price to pay. If pursuing the truth were as simple as reading a primary school textbook or a nursery rhyme, some people might be a little interested in it, because it would be simple, easy, and it would not call for a price to be paid or for much energy to be expended. Now, it is quite the opposite. Pursuing the truth is neither that easy, nor that simple. It is not that, if people are of a sufficient caliber to read God’s word and understand it, they then naturally enter into the truth reality; understanding words and doctrines does not mean entering into the truth reality. Some people are so energetic in their belief in God that they take notes at gatherings and when listening to sermons and fellowships. But after a while, they think it through and get nothing out of it: They forget it all and can’t remember anything, even if they want to, so they feel that obtaining the truth is not easy, and only then do they understand that believing in God is no simple matter. Other people feel that they have gained and understood a lot after gatherings, but after a night’s sleep they have forgotten all about it, which is not much different than had there been no gathering. And still others feel enlightened and illuminated after reading God’s word. They feel very pleased with themselves, but after talking with unbelievers for a while, their minds wander, and when they go home and pray to God, they can no longer sense Him. They forget all about pursuing the truth, changing their dispositions, and being saved by God. This is because they are too small in stature and only understand some words and doctrines. God’s word has not yet taken root in them, proving that they do not yet have a place for God in their hearts, and so, when dealing with outside matters, God is not in charge of their hearts. Experiencing God’s work is not a simple matter. Without experiencing some trials, failures, and setbacks, people will not truly make gains, and rote memorization alone will not work. Nowadays, most people only begin to understand some truths after having believed for a few years. Especially after experiencing some setbacks and failures, they feel the importance of pursuing the truth, and only then do they begin to focus on reading God’s word, on fellowshipping on the truth, and on practicing the truth. Only then do they begin to enter into reality.

Some people say, “Why is it that when there is some difficulty or obstacle, I feel constrained and don’t know what to do, and I feel that believing in God is too difficult? Why is it that when there are difficulties, I become negative and lack the energy to believe in God? Why is it that sometimes I am not interested in meetings or in reading God’s word, but if I talk about things of unbelievers, I get excited?” What is going on here? In fact, given man’s nature essence, it is because man does not love the truth. If people do not love the truth, can their faith in God be true? Can there be a place for God in their hearts? Is God in their hearts? No, that is certain. If you do not have God in your heart and have no place for God, it proves that you do not have the truth in your heart, you do not understand any truth, and you will not practice any truth. Therefore, when it comes to pondering God’s word and practicing the truth, people are listless and have no path. If you are asked to earn money and are told that you can make more money by doing a certain thing, then you will do everything possible to overcome all difficulties and succeed, and you will not be afraid of failure but will keep at it. There are interests attracting you, your heart is possessed by interests, those interests come first in your heart, and you feel that money and interests are too important and are not easily relinquished, so you will try to do everything you can to achieve your own desires and objectives, whatever the cost. Therefore, if you make the pursuit of the truth the number one priority in your life, I believe that you will not be without a path, nor will you be without time, much less experience any difficulties that hinder you in seeking and practicing the truth. Do you possess such resolve? It is like a parent who will pay any price to satisfy their children. When the children say how much it costs to go to college, if the family does not have that much money, then the parents will go around borrowing money, collecting money, or finding ways to do business or take on casual work if they cannot borrow it. No matter how much they suffer, they will manage to scrape together enough money to pay for their children to go to college, to cultivate their children’s success, and to give their children good prospects. If you really have such resolve in your pursuit of truth, I think there should be no difficulty that cannot be overcome by any one of you, unless you are mentally deficient or have a congenital brain disorder. Unless you were born with an intellectual disability, you should be able to achieve what a normal person’s mind can achieve, and any difficulty is not a difficulty. Because the pursuit of truth is not something that can be obtained by man’s imaginings; it requires the work of the Holy Spirit, and man merely cooperates. As long as we have the will to pursue it, the Holy Spirit will guide us, provide for us and enlighten us at any time, allowing us to pass through every difficulty and understand the truth that we do not understand. For what is impossible for man is possible for God, and man is nothing; if God does not work, then all of man’s great efforts and exertions are for naught.

In the Age of Grace, people also said they believed in God and followed God, but their goal was to enter heaven. They did not speak of the matter of practicing and experiencing God’s word, nor did they know what it meant to be saved. They just abided by the regulations, observed the religious services and then read the Bible, and after that they harbored a faint hope, feeling that that was more or less it, and that they would be able to enter heaven once they died. This stage of work in the last days is not that simple, and every item of work of God is a reality that requires us to pay the price in actuality, to seek and experience practically, so that we can obtain the truth from words expressed by God. If people’s beliefs still resemble those of the Age of Grace, merely gathering together every week, reading the Bible, and then praying, singing, and praising God, before waiting to be raptured up to heaven or waiting to ascend to the third heaven, then how wildly arrogant a person can become! Corrupt mankind is like this. No matter how God works, as long as He gives man a promise, man will hold on to it, always keeping it as a regulation and never seeking God’s work or His will in the slightest, but just waiting to be raptured up to heaven. People do not know what they are, they dream of nice things and aspire to great heights. None of them thinks they are of Satan’s kind, much less that they are the object of perdition. They all think that if they believe in God sincerely, have suffered a great deal in the performance of their duties, and have never betrayed God, then they are already saved by God and are surely able to enter into the kingdom of heaven. This point of view is wrong, and they really do not understand the truth at all. Especially when people first believe in God, they are disobedient, resentful, and particularly arrogant, seeing everyone else as an eyesore and considering no one—not even God—to be as good as themselves. Even if a person has accepted Christ, it does not mean that they can accept what Christ says or everything Christ has done. They accept this stage of God’s work in name only, and accept the incarnate God in name only, but it does not mean that they have no notions, no imaginings, and no resistance to what God has done. Some people are excited and thrilled when they see Christ, feeling honored in their hearts and that they have not lived in vain. However, because they lack truth and do not know God, they have notions when they see Christ speak, notions when they see Christ deal with things, and notions of what attitude Christ has toward someone; they even have notions, opinions, and ideas on what Christ eats and wears and on any one of His facial expressions or gestures. What is this? It is that the God of man’s imagination is fundamentally different from the real God, and for people who inherently have corrupt dispositions and arrogant natures, it is impossible not to have notions, not to resist, and not to judge the incarnate Son of man. If one does not recognize God’s divine essence, it is difficult to submit to God and even more so to love Him and fear Him. But how will people who have experienced God’s work for many years know and treat the incarnate God, especially those who have listened to a lot of God’s sermons and fellowship? They have personally experienced the process from having notions about God to having knowledge of God, from rebellion and resistance to true submission, and they have personally experienced that everything God does, every word He utters, and everything He handles contains within it truth principles. People should not have notions, much less resistance or aversion in their hearts. After a few years’ experience, when people understand a little of the truth, they will treat it correctly, and when they have within them a little of the truth as their life and have acquired the principles of practice, they will naturally not do anything foolish. Those who are new believers and those who have no experience in these matters are prone to rebelling against God and resisting Him, and they are prone to doing foolish and reckless things. Some of a serious nature can judge and blaspheme God and then fall down completely; others are constantly disrupting and disturbing the work of the church, and they are eliminated. Are you all now full of notions and imaginings about God? Do you feel that believing in the incarnate God is too difficult? Some people say, “When we used to believe in the Lord, it was quite simple. We just gathered together, listened to sermons, and prayed to the Lord for things; no one asked us to practice the truth and submit to God, let alone led us to practice and experience the Lord’s words and pursue the truth. The pastors and preachers just explained the Bible, and we could understand it any way we wanted to. But now that we believe in Almighty God, there are so many truths expressed by Him that we feel that it is too difficult to practice the truth, and it is really hard to enter into reality!” Have you ever thought that if you still believed in God in the way you used to believe in the Lord, would you be able to obtain the truth and life? Can you be saved by God? (We cannot.) The fact that you are able to realize this shows that you have made progress.

Belief in God cannot be based on imaginings or on notions, and even less so on interest. If you believe in God on the basis of a momentary interest or on impulse, then you had better calm down and think carefully about whether you want to continue to believe, whether you really want to pursue the truth, whether you really are a true believer in God, whether you have already made up your mind to walk the path of believing in God, and whether you have already made up your mind to pursue the truth. Why emphasize these points? Because what we now believe in is the incarnate God, and God’s incarnation means that He came from heaven to earth and truly became a human, one whose appearance is exactly the same as that of man, but who is Christ, who is God Himself, and who is no simple man. God’s incarnation has actually carried out the work of judging and purifying people, actually expressed many words, done a lot of work, and selected many people, and He has been actually expanding His work and His gospel. Each bit of this practical work confirms that God’s desire to save and perfect people naturally requires that people actually experience His words and work, so that they can obtain the truth, and truly submit to and worship God. This is what God wants to make complete. From the time you started accepting God’s work until now, you may have experienced some things, no matter whether you thought they were transcendent, or whether they were visible to the naked eye or attainable by the human mind; in short, God does everything in a practical way, working on us, among us, and around us, so that we can see it and touch it. Therefore, the pursuit of truth is a practical lesson, and we must seek and practice the truth in everything that befalls us, relying on our efforts to cooperate in order to obtain the truth. Pursuing the truth is not what people imagine it to be. People think that reading God’s words and understanding their literal meaning is understanding the truth, and that as long as one can speak skillfully, they are practicing the truth. It is not that simple. The pursuit of truth requires us to actually seek and accept the truth, to suffer and pay the price, to experience, to seek, to ponder, to fellowship, to practice, and to work hard in real life. Only in this way can we gradually enter into and gain from God’s word and the truth. One day, when you understand what the truth is, and what the essence of the truth is, you will know that the words spoken by the incarnate God are the needs of our reality, that they are the principles of practice that we need to deal with all our problems, and that these words of God are the goal and direction of our lives. At that time, you will see how meaningful all that God does is, and how important and valuable God’s incarnation is to us! Every sentence that God utters, every step of His work, His every word and action, His thoughts, His ideas, and His viewpoints are all for the purpose of purifying and saving people, and none of them is empty; they are all realistic and practical. Therefore, whether one has come from a religion or has been converted from the unbelievers, one should no longer believe in God on the basis of notions and imaginings, and one should no longer engage in religious dreams, dreaming that one will suddenly be taken into the sky to meet with the Lord when the great disasters strike; this is daydreaming. God has come to expose and judge man, and purify man’s corruption by expressing the truth in a practical way, and to save man from Satan’s influence in a practical way. During this period, man will have to go through many persecutions and tribulations, and he will experience many prunings and many judgments and chastisements before he may be purified and changed; only through this experience of God’s work can he obtain the truth. Once you have obtained the truth, God will have a place in your heart, and you will have true fear and submission to God, which is what God wants done. Once you have understood the truth and know its value, and the truth has taken root in your heart, and you have practical experience and knowledge of the truth, then the word of God will have become the life in your heart. Is this process practical? (It is.) What, then, does this process require that people do? First of all, people must have a heart of submission to God, to accept the judgment and chastisement of God’s word, and to submit to God’s pruning, trials and refinement, so that they may be purified from their corruption, so that they can practice the truth and achieve submission to God, and so that they can enter into the reality of God’s word. As long as one knows how to experience God’s work, they will know what God wants to complete in them and what results He wants to achieve. God’s word achieves two main effects on man: First, it allows man to know himself; and second, it allows man to know God. When these two effects have been achieved, then one will truly know God’s words, and truly understand the truth.