Right now, in the performance of their duties, the majority of people are able to hold to their duties, without doing evil, but are they loyal? Are they able to do their duties to an acceptable standard? They still fall short by a wide margin. Whether or not people can do their duties well touches on the issue of humanity. So how can they do their duties well? What must they possess in order to do their duties well? Regardless of what duty they perform or what they do, people must be meticulous and earnest, and fulfill their responsibilities; only then will their hearts feel steady and at peace. What does it mean to fulfill one’s responsibilities? It means to be diligent, to give your whole heart to your responsibilities, and to do all the things you ought to do. For example, say that a church leader assigned you to do a duty, and fellowshipped the simple principles of it to you, but did not go into much detail—how should you act in order to do this duty well? (Rely on your conscience.) At the very least, you must rely on your conscience to do it. “Rely on your conscience”—how can you implement these words? How do you apply these words? (By thinking about the interests of God’s house, and not doing anything that would bring shame upon God.) This is one aspect. Additionally, when you do something, you must deliberate on it repeatedly, measuring it according to the truth principles. If your heart does not feel at peace after finishing it, and you feel as though there is still a problem with it, and after it is examined, a problem is indeed discovered, what should you do at this point? You must quickly fix it and resolve the problem. What sort of attitude is this? (It is meticulousness and an attention to detail.) This is meticulousness and an attention to detail, which is an earnest, rigorous attitude. Doing your duty must be based in an earnest, responsible attitude, saying: “This work has been given to me, so I must do whatever I can to do it well within the scope of what I am able to know and achieve. I cannot make any mistakes.” You cannot have a mindset of “close enough is good enough.” If you always have a perfunctory way of thinking, can you do your duty well? (No.) What gives rise to being perfunctory? Is it not your satanic, corrupt disposition? Being perfunctory is a manifestation of a corrupt disposition; it arises when people are compelled by their corrupt dispositions. It directly affects the results they get in their duties, even causing them to make a mess of their work, and affecting the work of the church. This consequence is very severe. If you are consistently perfunctory in your duty, what kind of problem is this? This is a problem that involves your humanity. Only people without a conscience or humanity are consistently perfunctory. Do you think that people who are always perfunctory are reliable? (No.) They are so unreliable! Someone who does their duty perfunctorily is an irresponsible person, and someone who is irresponsible in their actions is not an honest person—they are an untrustworthy person. No matter what duty they do, an untrustworthy person is perfunctory, because their character is not up to an acceptable standard, they do not love the truth, and they are certainly not an honest person. Can God entrust anything to untrustworthy people? Absolutely not. Because God scrutinizes the depths of people’s hearts, He absolutely does not make use of deceitful people to do duties; God only blesses the honest, and He only does work on those who are honest and love the truth. Whenever a deceitful person performs a duty, it is an arrangement made by man, and it is man’s mistake. People who like to be perfunctory do not have a conscience or reason, their humanity is poor, they are untrustworthy, and they are so unreliable. Will the Holy Spirit do work on such people? Absolutely not. So, those who like to be perfunctory in their duties will never be perfected by God, and they will never be used by Him. Those who like to be perfunctory are all deceitful, full of evil motives, and totally lacking in conscience and reason. They act without principles or lower limits; they act based only on their own preferences, and are capable of doing all kinds of bad things. All their actions are based on their moods: If they are in a good mood, and they are pleased, then they will do slightly better. If they are in a bad mood, and they are displeased, then they will be perfunctory. If they are angry, then they might be arbitrary and reckless, and delay important matters. They do not have God in their hearts at all. They just let the days pass by, sitting around and waiting for death. So, no matter how people who do their duties perfunctorily are exhorted, it is of no use, and it is useless to fellowship with them about the truth. They refuse to mend their ways despite repeated admonishments, they are heartless; they can only be cleared out, that is the most appropriate course of action. Heartless people have no lower limits in their actions; nothing can restrain them. Can such people handle matters based on conscience? (No.) Why not? (They do not possess the standards of conscience, nor do they have humanity, or lower limits.) That’s right. They do not have the standards of conscience in their actions; they act based on their preferences, doing whatever they want to, based on their moods. Whether the results they get in their duties are good or bad depends on their mood. If their mood is good, the results are good, but if their mood is bad, the results are bad. Can doing one’s duty in this way possibly reach an acceptable standard? They do their duties based on their moods, not the truth principles; thus, it is very difficult for them to put the truth into practice, and very difficult for them to obtain God’s approval. Those who act based on physical preferences do not put the truth into practice at all.

Anything that people do touches on seeking the truth and putting the truth into practice; anything that touches on the truth relates to the quality of people’s humanity, and the attitude with which they do things. Much of the time, when people do things in an unprincipled way it is because they don’t understand the principles behind them. But a lot of the time, people do not only not understand the principles, they also do not wish to understand them. Even though they may know a little about them, they still don’t wish to do better. This standard is not in their hearts, and neither is this requirement. So, it is very hard for them to do things well, it is very hard for them to do things in a way that is in line with the truth and that satisfies God. The key to whether people are able to perform their duties acceptably depends on what they strive for, whether or not they pursue the truth, and whether or not they love positive things. If people do not love positive things, it is not easy for them to accept the truth, which is very troublesome—even though they perform a duty, they are only laboring. Regardless of whether or not you understand the truth, and whether or not you are able to grasp the principles, if you perform your duty based on your conscience, you will, at the very least, achieve average results. Only this is acceptable. If you are then able to seek the truth and do things according to the truth principles, then you will be able to completely fulfill God’s requirements and be in accordance with God’s will. What are God’s requirements? (That people give all their hearts and strength to performing their duties well.) How should “giving all their hearts and strength” be understood? If people devote their whole minds to performing their duties, then they are giving all their hearts. If they use every ounce of strength they have to perform their duties, then they are giving all their strength. Is it easy to give all your heart and strength? This is not easy to achieve without conscience and reason. If a person does not have a heart, if they are lacking in intellect and incapable of contemplation, and if, when faced with an issue, they do not know how to seek the truth, and have no ways or means to do it, are they capable of giving all their heart? Definitely not. Then, if someone has a heart, are they capable of giving all their heart? (Yes.) If a person has a heart, but they do not use it to do their duty, instead thinking only about vile and crooked paths, and using it to do improper things, then will they be able to give all their heart to their duty? (No.) Say that they experience being pruned, and come to know their corrupt disposition, and they swear to God that they are willing to repent, and have the resolve to do their duty well, but when they run into difficulties or temptations, their heart is shaken, they do their duty halfheartedly, or negativity arises in them and they run away—at this time, are they capable of giving all their heart? (No.) You just said that if someone has a heart, then they are capable of giving all their heart. Does that statement hold water? (No.) Whatever you do, you should not rely on your impulses or imaginings, much less your passion; you should not proceed based on your feelings, nor by following human ideas—rather, you need to continually seek and practice the truth. Relying on enthusiasm and feelings, or passion and temporary impulses, cannot ensure that you will do your duty well. It is like how, when everyone is very young, they want to show filial piety to their parents after they grow up. When you do grow up, and the time comes for you to fulfill that aspiration, what difficulties might obstruct you from doing so? This touches on real problems; for every person, the reality is that their difficulties are greater than their ideals. For example, when you graduate from college and start to make money, you think, “Now that I’m making money, I must first buy some nice clothes for my mom and dad to wear, and get them some health care products, and from now on I’ll have to show them filial piety. I’ll give them my money to spend, so that they can pass each day happily.” But after you receive your wages and do your accounting, after taking out your rent, living expenses, and various other expenses, there is hardly anything left over, and you still need to buy yourself some nice clothes to wear. When your money is all spent, you feel ill at ease, because you violated the promise you made that you would earn money to show filial piety to your parents when you grew up. You think, “I’m being unfilial toward my parents, I have to save some money next month.” Then the next month comes, and the money you earn is still not enough, so you think, “There’s plenty of time for me to show filial piety to my parents.” Gradually, over the course of time, you find a partner, start a family, and have children, and money grows ever tighter. Based on your situation and life circumstances, your desire to show filial piety to your parents becomes very difficult to realize, because you also have to support your family and get by, and provide for your children’s education; in order to survive, you also have to socialize with local tyrants and corrupt officials, which makes you miserable. Even though you want to show filial piety to your parents, it’s useless; the various difficulties of real life overwhelm you, and your desire to show filial piety to your parents is slowly ground down by reality. So, is your intention to show filial piety tenable? (No.) So was your desire to be filial toward your parents when you were young real or fake? (Real.) At the time, your desire was real, but it was also naive, silly, and foolish; it was undependable. Which one is your real self? The things that pour forth from you and the things you manifest in your real life are your true humanity and the real attitude with which you treat your loved ones. You continuously put off showing your parents filial piety, until unwittingly, you lose the perception of your conscience, your self-reproach, and your sense of responsibilities and obligations. Then you think: “Everyone is like this. I’m not doing any worse than anyone else, and besides, I also have real difficulties!” Each of your pretexts, arguments, and excuses—what are these? They are part of your corrupt disposition. No matter how difficult reality is for you, how much it gives you reasons and pretexts to evade the responsibilities you ought to take on, and no matter how solid your arguments and pretexts are, in the end, the things that you manifest are your complete and true self. So how can you fulfill a positive ideal? In real life, before understanding or obtaining the truth, what are the things people manifest? Are they just and positive? (No.) If you do not understand the truth, then no matter how good your actions are or how correct your ideas seem to be, they are still corrupt dispositions, and they are not in line with the truth. So, if you do not pursue or understand the truth, it will be very difficult for you to practice the truth, and then what you live out will be the revelations of corrupt dispositions. However good you think you are, however great, however upright, the things you do upon this foundation cannot possibly be in line with the truth. Do you understand? (I understand a little.) What do you understand? (People all want to do their duties properly, but because they are controlled by their corrupt dispositions, even though they wish to do their duties according to their consciences, they cannot accomplish this. Therefore, they must resolve their corrupt dispositions in order to do their duties well.) Someone else, what more do you understand? (The things that a person does when they do not understand the truth, no matter how people see them, are not the practice of the truth. Even if people think these actions are very good, those actions cannot possibly be in line with God’s will, so I’ve seen that understanding the truth is very important.) Very well said! It looks like you have all made some progress during this time. Obtaining the truth is no easy matter; people must pay many prices for it. In addition to rebelling against the flesh and seeking and practicing the truth, people must also suffer much pain and refinement, and they must experience persecution and brutal abuse at the hands of Satan—even if they do not die, they must still have some teeth pulled—only then can they cast off their corrupt dispositions and obtain the truth. One could say that obtaining the truth is a process of experiencing judgment and chastisement, and thereby being cleansed. You may acknowledge that you have a corrupt disposition, and also acknowledge the truth, but when you practice the truth, will your corrupt disposition not come out to obstruct and disturb you? (Yes.) What things arise in people’s hearts at that time? (They argue and look for excuses. They reveal selfishness and consider their own pride and vanity.) This is a problem with people’s dispositions. Some people do not say or reveal anything at all, but when you look at their disposition, you can clearly see that there is rebelliousness in their hearts. Rebelliousness is a kind of corrupt disposition. Whether they are arguing or looking for excuses, it is all done in order to maintain their own interests, pride, status, and vanity, to achieve some kind of intent or objective. If a person has this kind of rebellious disposition within them, then it will give rise to all kinds of corrupt dispositions that are hostile and antagonistic toward God. What is rebelliousness? Put simply, it is when there is resistance within someone’s heart, when they set themselves against God, saying: “Why are the words that You speak different from what I think? Why do I not like them? I do not like them, so I cannot accept them, and I am unwilling to listen to You speak.” They set their heart against God, and they are disobedient, to the extent that they oppose reality, they oppose all that God has done and His requirements for them. This is where people are rebellious, and it is the greatest difficulty people have in accepting and practicing the truth. Whether you are looking for excuses or looking for various objective arguments or conditions, in any case, this is the rebellious disposition that exists within you causing you trouble. Suppose you are able to resolve this rebellious disposition, to reverse this kind of state, and whatever happens to you, you say, “This has happened to me, and I do not understand the truth, nor do I know how to practice it. All I can do is pray to God and rely on reading the word of God to find a path of practice, or seek from a person who understands the truth. If I learn how to practice in a way that is in line with the truth, that God likes, and that satisfies Him, then I will practice like that.” Having such a mindset is right; this is someone who loves the truth. If you pursue the truth in this way, trying to do better in spite of all setbacks, without becoming negative or discouraged, then you will be able to cast off your corrupt disposition and attain God’s salvation.

When God first tested Job, was Job able to correctly know God’s will based on his understanding at the time? (No.) So what did Job manifest? Did he submit, or did he rebel, resist, and complain? (He submitted.) From his interior to his exterior, what kind of a state was he in? Did he ever show forth the slightest amount of unwillingness or resistance? He did not. Even though one can only see a simple description in the biblical record, one cannot see Job ever reveal a rebellious state at all. From these words, can you see that Job understood a lot of the truth? (No.) In reality, what truth did Job understand at the time? Did God talk about the truth of submission? Did He talk about how people should not rebel against Him? He did not talk about any of these things. What was Job’s state? Although at the time he did not have today’s word of God as a foundation, his conduct and all he did allowed people to see the thoughts of his heart and the state within his heart. Is this not something people can see and feel? (It is.) Some people say: “We do not know what he was thinking in his heart.” You do not need to know that; you should be able to see his external actions. When he encountered trials, he displayed the actions of a person who was completely without rebellion and who submitted to God completely: rending his clothes and prostrating himself. His prostration came from within his heart, and totally conformed to all his thoughts and all he wanted to express at the time. This represented his pursuit and his attitude toward God. So what was his attitude toward God? What was his reaction to the things that God had done to him? His first reaction was to accept and submit, without objection and without dissent. Some people who do not have spiritual understanding say doubtfully: “How can there be such a person in the world? Are they not a saint? This must be fake.” The reality is that there truly are people like Job, but there was only one Job, and I’m afraid there will never be another. Job’s state was what unbelievers call “unselfish and without desire.” When God’s trials came upon him, he said nothing; rather, he expressed his attitude toward God with his actions. His prostration proved that when trials came upon him, he was truly accepting and truly submissive, and he was not resistant at all. He was neither putting on a show nor playacting; he did not do this for other people to see, he did it for God to see. So how did Job attain this kind of submission? He was not able to attain this kind of submission just by experiencing one trial and understanding submission. Every one of the members of corrupt mankind who live on the earth has been corrupted by Satan; they all have rebellious dispositions. People are selfish, and they all rebel against God. This is a nature corrupted by Satan; all corrupt mankind is of this nature. But was Job able to submit to God to this degree overnight? Certainly not. He had to pursue, and moreover, he had to have a clear goal to pursue, and a correct path. At the same time, he also had to have God’s guidance, and have God take care of and protect him. It was only because Job pursued walking the right path, pursued fearing God and shunning evil that he was able to obtain grace, mercy, and blessings from God; then, he continually saw God’s hand and guidance, and he continually received God’s care. Only then was he able to grow. Why do you think God did not give Job such a trial when he was twenty years old? (He did not have the stature at the time.) The time had not yet come. Why did he not have such a great trial when he was forty? The time still had not yet come. Why did God only test him when he was seventy? (God’s time had come.) That’s right, the time had come. Do you all now need to wait until you are seventy? (No.) Why not? (Right now, we are able to listen to the words of God with our own ears. God expounds His will and His requirements to us very clearly.) The work of that era and the work of this era are different. In that era, God did not speak to man, and man did not understand the truth; God only did some simple, representative work. Those who believed in God just kept the words of God conveyed by the prophets, and those who feared God obtained His blessings. Those who did not truly believe in God were muddleheaded; at most, they kept the sacrifices and prayed, and that wasn’t too bad. At that time, were Job’s friends not also believers in God? Was their belief not far poorer than Job’s? They and Job were of the same era, but was Job not far stronger than them? (He was.) Why was there such a big difference? (It has to do with people’s nature and their pursuit.) That’s right, it has to do with people’s pursuit. You reap what you sow. If you do not plant anything, then when the time comes, you will have no harvest at all. Those few muddleheaded people did not pursue; they were the same as the nonbelievers in the church today. They only kept the regulations, and liked to follow the regulations in all things. They did not understand the truth, and they thought they were always right, that they understood everything. When trials came upon Job, they told him: “You should quickly confess. See, God’s punishments have come.” In the end, what was God’s attitude toward them? God said: “You have lived to this great age, and you cannot clearly see My actions or My attitude toward people, nor the pattern by which I act. You really are muddleheaded; Job saw clearly.” So, God appeared to Job, but not to them; they were not worthy. They did not pursue a knowledge of God, and they neither feared God nor shunned evil, so God did not appear to them.

Now, everyone wants to become a person that fears God and shuns evil. So what does the way of fearing God and shunning evil mean? It can be said that it involves seeking to submit to God, and submitting to Him completely and absolutely. It involves being genuinely afraid and fearful of God, without any elements of deception, resistance, or rebellion. It is being completely pure of heart and absolutely loyal and submissive toward God. This loyalty and submission must be absolute, not relative; it is not dependent upon time or place, or how old one is. This is the way of fearing God and shunning evil. In the process of such a pursuit, you will gradually come to know God and experience His deeds; you will feel His care and protection, sense the truth of His existence, and feel His sovereignty. Finally, you will really feel that God is in all things, and that He is right beside you. You will have this kind of realization. If you do not follow the way of fearing God and shunning evil, then you will never gain knowledge of these things. People say, “God is sovereign over all things; He is omnipresent and omnipotent.” You totally acknowledge this in your heart, but you cannot see or experience these things, so how can you come to know God? What have you been doing all these years of believing in God? You often attend gatherings and listen to sermons, and you always do your duty; you have run more than a few roads, and have won over some people in spreading the gospel. So why do you not understand that God is sovereign over all? You do not understand the truth at all! Are you completely unseeing? You clearly know that this is the true way, but you do not pursue the truth. Although you attend gatherings, listen to sermons, and live a church life, you do not understand the truth, and you have not changed at all. You are so pitiable! This is the state of the nonbelievers, as though they were not of the house of God; in God’s eyes, you are a hireling, a laborer. You might say: “I’m doing my duty. God, You have to acknowledge me!” And would God say: “I am not in your heart at all, and you do not accept any of the truth. You are an evildoer. Depart from Me!” These are God’s innermost thoughts. You do not love the truth, you do not understand that God is the truth, the way, and the life, and you have no experiential knowledge. You cannot pull out any real experiences to testify that the God you believe in is the truth, the way, and the life. So can you obtain God’s approval? You cannot testify of God. You still live according to a corrupt disposition, doing whatever you want to; there is no clear difference between you and an unbeliever. You can hardly rebel against the little selfish and despicable pettiness you have, and you find it difficult to resolve your notions and rebelliousness. Every time God arranges circumstances for you, you do not learn your lesson, and you have no clear harvest after decades of experience, so it is impossible for your corrupt disposition to be cleansed. Whether you believe in God for twenty years, thirty years, or even longer, if your rebelliousness, resistance, and your corrupt disposition are not resolved or cleansed at all, then you are an untouched old devil, who has not changed at all. This is sufficient to prove that you are a nonbeliever, and will easily be eliminated.