God’s assessment of Job is recorded in the Old Testament: “There is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that fears God, and eschews evil” (Job 1:8). In the last days, God not only bore witness to the fact that Peter truly loved Him, but also to the fact that Job was a person who had true faith in Him, and God requires that His chosen people must at least have the faith of Job if they are to follow Him to the end. In your imaginings, and within the scope of the limited texts that you understand, what kind of person was Job? Was he a good person? (Yes.) In what ways was this primarily manifested? Firstly, he was a man who feared God, and he never did evil. This is the primary manifestation and mark of a good person. Furthermore, he was principled in his conduct, and principled in how he treated his children and family. He did not try to cover up his children’s faults, and he prayed to God and entrusted his children to Him, which showed people that his attitude toward his children was completely correct and in accordance with God’s will. What do you think it would be like, as children, to have a father like that? Wouldn’t it make you feel happy? But what were Job’s friends like? When Job was faced with trials and tribulations, how did his friends treat him? None of them could understand him, and moreover they judged him: “You offended God, and He has cursed you. Look at where your belief in God has gotten you. How pitiful!” Even Job’s wife said, “Do you still retain your integrity? curse God, and die” (Job 2:9). During this time of extreme suffering, that was how Job’s friends and wife treated him, which caused him immense harm and pain. But there were very few people who understood Job—this is true. When we read Job’s story now, we feel that it is, in fact, people like Job who are the most reliable and trustworthy, and that this kind of person is a truly good person. They will never deceive or harm you, and they’ll always adhere to principles in the way that they treat you. If you are a correct person, they won’t condemn you or say nasty things about you just because you do one bad thing or because other people speak ill of you. They won’t go against the facts and speak in a crooked way to falsely accuse people. They won’t let feelings or preferences guide their speech. Over time, you’ll see: “Now this is a good person. Whenever we encounter a bit of difficulty, we just cast aside our duties, but they never forsake the name of God, no matter how great the trials and tribulations they face. No wonder God likes this kind of person. If I had a person like this by my side, no matter what sickness or tribulations befell me, they would be able to continue helping, assisting, caring for, and tolerating me just as before. This kind of person is wonderful. Even if they were to sometimes get on my nerves or if we didn’t always get along, I’d much rather have them by my side than one of those Satans and devils!” Typically, Satans and devils will outwardly say, “You’re so great. I love you and care about you so much,” but as soon as you encounter some trouble, they’ll ignore you, and that’s when you’ll realize what a good person is, and what a reliable person is. Only those who are trustworthy, and fear God and shun evil, are truly good people, and good people are so precious. It would be wonderful if you had a dozen people like Job by your side—but now you have none! At this time, you’ll feel just how rare a good person is. Everyone needs a good person like this. Everyone likes righteous and benevolent people, people with kind hearts who act in a principled manner, who have a sense of justice, who fear God and shun evil, and who are worthy of trust.

When you are beset by tribulations and illness, when your heart suffers the most, what kind of person do you need by your side? Do you need someone who speaks false and honeyed words? Do you need someone who judges, condemns, and criticizes you? (No.) What kind of person do you need the most then? You need a person who can show sympathy for your difficulties and console you, who can listen to you talk about the pain in your heart and then help you to emerge from your negativity, weakness, and suffering. This person can help you—they won’t laugh at you or kick you when you’re down, and they won’t turn a blind eye to your difficulties. That is, if you need them to comfort you, and you have difficulties, times of weakness, and private problems, you can share these things with them, and they won’t spread them around behind your back, mock you, ridicule you, or make a mess of your personal affairs. They can approach your difficulties, weakness, negativity, and the weak parts of your humanity correctly. Isn’t it principled to approach these things correctly? Aren’t these manifestations of a good person? This kind of person can understand you, tolerate you, and care for you. They can support you, provide for you, and help you to pull yourself out of your pain and weakness. They provide such great assistance to you. A person like this is exceedingly precious. This is a good person! Say that someone ignores you, and even ridicules and mocks you when he sees that you have a problem. You want to confide in him about something, but then you think to yourself, “I can’t tell him. If I do, there could be repercussions. He might go and talk about my personal affairs behind my back. Then everyone would laugh at me, and who knows what stories he’d make up to slander me.” Would you dare talk to someone like that? You’d have no idea exactly what he’d be capable of doing. Not only might he not help or support you, he could make a mess of your personal affairs, and deceive and harm you. Would you dare confide in him? At this time, you’d realize just how important, valuable, and precious good people are, and that there is more value in being a good person than in being any other kind of person. Even your parents might not truly understand your difficulties and needs when you are suffering and in pain, and they won’t be able to console you. There are some children who work hard and take on jobs outside the home—in particular, some women have to curry favor with their bosses or even sell their bodies to make a bit of money—and their parents never ask about how hard it is for their children to work outside the home or how difficult it is for them to make money. They even complain if their children don’t bring a lot of money home, and compare them to others. How does this make their children feel? (Sad, dejected.) Their hearts sink. They feel the world is such a dark place, and that even their own parents are this way, and wonder how they’re going to go on living. That’s why you must be a good person. Everyone needs a good person. And how do good people come about? Do they just fall out of the sky? Do they sprout from the ground? Is there some animal out of which they evolve? Are they products of the education of high-ranking schools? Or products of ascetic religious cultivation? No, none of these explanations are correct, all of them are absolutely impossible. One can only become a good person by following God, practicing the truth, and accepting God’s salvation. Good people do not arise through the sudden transformation of corrupt humans—people must believe in God and receive His salvation, they must pursue the truth, obtain the work of the Holy Spirit, and be made perfect in order to become good people. Everyone needs a good person by their side as a friend and confidant. Tell Me, does God need them too? (Yes.) God needs good people, and people need good people too. What effect will understanding this matter have on you? You must have this resolve and this desire to strive to become a good person. If you say, “Being a good person is difficult and tiring, but I must have the resolve to strive toward becoming one. People desperately need good people, and I also need good people. So I’ll become a good person myself first, and assist and support others, endeavoring to help God gain more good people,” then this is correct. If everyone strives to be a good person, then there will be hope for humankind. You might say, “Humanity is so corrupt and evil. It’s no use if only a couple believers in God are good people. They’ll still be pushed around because there are too many evil people.” This is a foolish thing to say. You believe in God to attain salvation. If you become a good and righteous person, God will bless you. No matter how evil and corrupt humans are, God has ways of dealing with them. People do not need to worry themselves about this. You only have to focus on pursuing the truth and attaining God’s salvation. This is what accords with His will. Only eight people were ultimately saved when Noah made the ark. All those who did not believe God’s words and did not walk the right path were destroyed in the end by God’s flood. This is a recognized fact. Why is it that you cannot recognize God’s almightiness? Why can you not recognize that God is a righteous God? When God concludes His work, no matter how many people attain salvation, this age must come to an end. The great disasters must descend, and God will resolve all of these problems. You pursue the truth and become a righteous person for your own sake—it benefits you, and it benefits others. Some people say, “The good do not get what they deserve,” but this is incorrect. Those who pursue the truth will ultimately have their place in the kingdom of heaven, and no matter how much the evil prosper on earth, they will all ultimately be destroyed and cast down into hell. So, both the good and the evil get their just deserts, do they not? What does it say in the Bible? “My reward is with Me, to give every man according as his work shall be” (Revelation 22:12).

The things that Job did which are recorded in the Book of Job actually take up very little space, they are very simple, and there aren’t very many of them. But you should be able to seek out clues within Job’s actions, and find Job’s principles and path of practice for being a good person. First of all, what was Job’s principle regarding his treatment of his children and those closest to him? It was to not depend on his affections, but to adhere to principles. He was not going to sin against God because of the things that happened. This was the first criterion of his fearing God and shunning evil—it began with his treatment of his own family members. Secondly, there was his treatment of his assets. Job knew that, although his assets were mere worldly possessions, they came from God and were that which God had bestowed upon him and with which God had blessed him. People should manage and look after these things carefully and well. Looking after them well does not mean greedily possessing or enjoying them, and it does not mean living for these things; it means thanking God for them, seeing the orchestrations of God’s hands and His sovereignty within them, and knowing God through these things. When people know God, they are then able to submit to His sovereignty, and this really is the most crucial criterion for being a good person. If you can adhere to principles when dealing with others, but you are unable to submit to God, then are you really being a good person? No, you aren’t. Furthermore, in his treatment of God’s sovereignty and arrangements, Job was able to submit to all of God’s sovereignty and arrangements. God’s arrangements include His deprivation and His trials. Sometimes God deprives, sometimes He tests. What do His trials include? Sometimes He may make you ill, or cause some adverse circumstances to occur within your family, or He may cause you to encounter some difficulties and prunings, and be chastened, disciplined, judged, and chastised by Him in the course of performing your duty. These are all God’s arrangements—and how should you approach them? If you cannot submit to them, and you constantly want to escape from them, then you are not experiencing God’s work. Additionally, people must be loyal in how they approach their duties. They must demonstrate their loyalty. What does loyalty mean here? It means offering up all they are capable of and all they possess. That is loyalty! This is the standard for being a good person. If among you now there were just one person like Job—no need for more, just one—then you’d have a pillar among you. When something befell you, they would serve as your role model at all times. You’d only have to do as they did, and over time you’d change. You’d keep improving, from your thoughts to your actions, from seeking the truth to practicing it. Your state would rise straight up, moving in a positive direction, allowing you to embark on the right path of belief in God. After experiencing God’s work for some number of years in this way, you too would be able to fear God and shun evil like Job, and become a perfect person.