Now, can things befalling you that do not accord with your notions affect the performance of your duty? For example, sometimes the work becomes busy, and people are required to endure some hardship and pay a bit of a price to perform their duties well; some people then develop notions in their minds and resistance arises in them, and they may become negative and slack off in their work. Sometimes, the work is not busy, and people’s duties become easier to perform, and some people then feel happy and think, “It would be great if performing my duty was always this easy.” What kind of people are they? They are lazy individuals who are greedy for the comforts of the flesh. Are such people loyal in performing their duties? (No.) Such people claim to be willing to submit to God, but their submission comes with conditions—things must fit with their own notions and not cause them to suffer any hardship in order for them to submit. If they might encounter adversity and need to endure hardship, they complain a lot and even rebel against and oppose God. What kind of people are they? They are people who do not love the truth. When God’s actions accord with their own notions and desires, and they don’t have to endure hardship or pay a price, they are able to submit. But if God’s work does not align with their notions or preferences, and it requires them to endure hardship and pay a price, they are not able to submit. Even if they don’t openly oppose it, in their hearts, they are resistant and annoyed. They perceive themselves as enduring great hardship and they harbor complaints in their hearts. What kind of problem is this? It shows that they do not love the truth. Can prayer, vows, or resolutions resolve this problem? (No, they cannot.) How should this problem be resolved, then? First, you must understand God’s intentions and His requirements, and understand what true submission is. You must know what rebelliousness and opposition are, reflect on which corrupt dispositions are hindering your submission to God, and see through to these matters. If you are someone who loves the truth, you will be able to rebel against the flesh, especially your fleshly preferences, and then practice submission to God, and act according to His requirements. In this way, you will be able to resolve your corruption and rebelliousness and achieve submission to God. If you do not understand the truth, you will be unable to see through to these matters, unable to discern your inner states, and unable to see through to what things are hindering your submission to God. Consequently, it will be impossible for you to rebel against the flesh and practice submission to God. If a person cannot even rebel against their fleshly preferences, it will be very difficult for them to achieve loyalty in the performance of their duty. Can such people be considered as submitting to God? Without loyalty, can people perform their duties adequately? Can they meet God’s requirements? Certainly not. If a person wants to perform their duty adequately, they must, at the very least, be able to practice the truth and genuinely submit to God. If someone cannot rebel against their fleshly preferences, then they cannot put the truth into practice. If you always act according to your own will, then you are not a person who submits to God. Even if you occasionally submit to Him, it is conditional; you can only submit when things align with your own notions and when you are in a good mood. If God’s actions do not align with your notions, if the duty that God arranges and the environments that He orchestrates for you bring you great hardship, embarrassment, or a strong sense of discontentment, will you still be able to submit? It will be difficult for you to submit; you will find many reasons to rebel against God and to oppose Him. Even upon later self-reflection, it will not be easy for you to rebel against the flesh, as rebelling against the flesh is not a simple matter. How does one rebel against the flesh? Naturally, one must seek the truth. One must also recognize their corrupt essence and their corrupt ugliness, reaching a point of hating themselves, and of hating their fleshly preferences and the essence of the flesh. Only then will they be willing to rebel against the flesh. If one does not understand the truth, they will not be able to hate fleshly things, and without hatred, it is impossible to rebel against the flesh. Therefore, it is necessary to pray to God and rely on Him in order to have a path to follow. Without the truth, people lack strength, and they could not put the truth into practice, even if they want to. One absolutely must pray to God and rely on Him.

Some people do not pursue the truth; they are only greedy for the comforts of the flesh, and they are unwilling to endure hardship for the sake of attaining the truth. Whenever they face even a little hardship, they complain and blame God, and they do not seek the truth to resolve this. They also pray to God, saying, “Oh God, Your identity and essence are so noble. I am unworthy of loving You, but I am willing to submit to You. No matter the situation, I am willing to submit to You. May You guide, illuminate, and enlighten me. If I cannot truly love You and submit to You, please scrutinize and punish me. Let Your judgment come upon me.” After praying in this way, they feel quite good about it, but is this not just a pile of empty words? Can constantly praying with empty words and reciting a few words and doctrines resolve problems? (No, it cannot.) When a person prays with empty words, what kind of problem is this? Does it not have a bit of a deceptive nature to it? Is it useful to pray like this before God? Being lazy and unable to endure suffering, while being greedy for the comforts of the flesh, knowing the truth but being unable to submit to it, knowing one’s duty but failing to uphold it, and talking about how one wishes to love God while knowing that they have not given all of their heart and strength—is this not duping God? There is nothing God loathes more than the prayers of religious ceremony. God only accepts prayers when they are sincere. If you have nothing sincere to say, then keep quiet; do not always come before God speaking false words or blindly making oaths to deceive Him. Do not talk about how much you love Him, about how much you wish to be loyal to Him. If you are incapable of achieving your wishes, if you lack this resolve and stature, you absolutely must not come before God and pray thusly. That is ridiculing God. What does ridiculing mean? Ridiculing means making fun of someone, toying with them. When people come before God to pray with this kind of disposition, then at the very least, this is deception. At worst, if you do this often, then you are of utterly base character. If God were to condemn you, He would call this blasphemy! People do not have God-fearing hearts, they do not know how to fear God, or how to love and satisfy Him. If the truth is not clear to them, or if they have corrupt dispositions, God will let it slide. But they come before God while living amid their corrupt dispositions and use the nonbelievers’ methods for duping other people on God, and they “solemnly” kneel before Him in prayer, using these words to try and dupe God. When they are finished praying, they not only feel no self-reproach, but also have no sense of the seriousness of their actions. That being the case, is God with them? God is not with them. Can someone who is utterly without the presence of God gain His enlightenment and illumination? Can they gain light with regard to the truth? (No, they can’t.) Then they are in trouble. Have you prayed thus many times? Do you not do so often? (Yes.) When people spend too long in the secular world, they reek of society’s stench, their scummy nature becomes too severe, and they become suffused with satanic poisons and philosophies; what comes from their mouths are words of falseness and deceit, and their prayers are full of empty words and words of doctrine, devoid of any speech that comes from the heart or any talk of their real difficulties. They always appeal to God for the sake of their personal preferences and seek His blessings, rarely having a heart that seeks the truth, and they do not pray based upon a heart of submission to God. Such prayers only reveal deceit and falseness. These people have severely corrupt dispositions, they have simply become living demons. When coming before God in prayer, they do not speak human words or speak from the heart. Instead, they bring Satan’s deception and falseness before God. Does this not offend God’s disposition? Can God listen to such prayers? God feels aversion toward such individuals and certainly does not like them. Such prayers can be said to be attempts to deceive and fool God. These people are not seeking the truth at all, nor are they speaking from the heart and confiding in God. Their prayers are incompatible with God’s intentions and His requirements. At the root, this is caused by human nature rather than a momentary revelation of corruption. These people think, “Well, I can’t see or feel God, and I don’t know where God is. I’ll just say a few random words to God, who knows if He is even listening.” They pray to God with a mindset of skepticism and of testing Him—what kind of feeling will they have after praying like that? Is it not still hollowness? Is being without any feeling at all not troublesome? Prayer is built upon a foundation of faith. It is praying to God within one’s heart, speaking to God from the heart, opening one’s heart to Him, and seeking the truth from Him. When a person prays in this manner, they will have a sense of peace within and a feeling of God’s presence. This is God listening to them, unseen. Whenever a person prays to God from the heart like this, they will feel as if they have had a personal encounter with Him. Their faith will be strengthened, their relationship with God will become more intimate, and they will take a step closer to Him. They will feel a sense of fulfillment and will be particularly steadfast in their heart. These are the genuine feelings that arise after prayer. By chanting religious prayers, people merely go through the motions, repeating the same few phrases every day, to the point where they no longer desire to say them. After such prayers, they feel nothing, and no results are achieved at all. Can people like this have true faith? It is impossible.

Some people are not loyal in performing their duties. They are always perfunctory, or they feel that their duties are too difficult and tiring. They don’t want to submit, they constantly wish to escape and refuse them, and they always want to perform duties that are easier, that do not expose them to the elements, that do not come with any risk, and allow them their fleshly comforts. In their hearts, they know they are lazy, greedy for the comforts of the flesh, and unable to endure hardship. However, they never express their true thoughts to anyone, fearing they will be laughed at. Verbally, they say, “I must perform my duty well and be loyal to God,” and when they fail to do anything well, they tell everyone, “I have no humanity and no loyalty in performing my duty.” However, in reality, they do not think that at all. When a person is in such a state, how can they pray in a manner that has reason? The Lord Jesus said to worship God with one’s heart and with honesty. When you come before God, your heart must be honest and without falseness. Do not say one thing in front of others while thinking differently in your heart. If you come before God putting on a front, spouting some pleasant and pretty words like you’re trying to write an essay, is doing so not deceiving God? As a result, God will see that you are not someone who worships Him with their heart and with honesty. He will see that your heart is not honest, that it is extremely sinister and wicked, and that you harbor evil intentions, and He will abandon you. So how should people pray about the things that frequently happen to them and the problems they often encounter in their daily lives? They must learn to speak to God from the heart. You say, “Oh God, I’m finding this duty so exhausting. I’m a person who is greedy for the comforts of the flesh, lazy, and averse to hard work. I cannot offer my loyalty in the duty You have entrusted to me, and I cannot even perform it with all my strength. I always want to escape and refuse it, and I am always perfunctory. Please discipline me.” Are these not true words? (Yes, they are.) Do you dare to speak like this? You are afraid of what might happen if God really disciplines you one day after saying it, and you become fearful, always on edge, and paranoid. When people perform their duties, they always want to avoid hardship. They are greedy for the comforts of the flesh and want to shrink back when they face a little difficulty, when some effort is required, or when they feel a little bit tired. They are constantly picking and choosing, and when they experience a little hardship, they ponder, “Does God know? Will He remember? After enduring such great hardship, will I receive any reward in the future?” They are always seeking a result. These problems all need to be resolved. In the past, I assigned someone to pass on a message and when he came back to report to Me, he first talked about his great achievements. He explained how he’d resolved the problem, talking about how much he’d worried about it and how much he’d had to talk, how difficult that person had been to handle, and how many nice-sounding words he had used with them, finally completing the task. He constantly took credit for it and kept talking about it. What is the underlying implication in this? “You must praise me, make me a promise, and tell me what rewards I will get in the future.” He was openly seeking a reward. Tell Me, is doing this small task worthy of praise? If one always seeks praise for performing a bit of one’s duty, what disposition is that? Is it not Satan’s nature? He expected praise and rewards for this small task—does this not mean that if he were to undertake significant tasks or accomplish great work, his behavior would be even worse? If he couldn’t obtain God’s approval and blessing, would he rebel? Would he go up to the third heaven and argue with God? Then what path is he walking in his belief in God? (The path of antichrists.) The path of antichrists, just like Paul. Paul always sought rewards and status from God. If God did not grant it, he would become negative and he would slack off in his work, opposing the Lord, and betraying Him. Tell Me, what kind of person wants a reward after enduring a little bit of hardship in their duty? (An evil person.) Their humanity is very evil. Do ordinary people have these states within them? Every person has these states. The nature essence is the same in everyone, it’s just that some people do not exhibit it as strongly. They possess rationality and know that such actions and thoughts are wrong, and that they cannot solicit rewards from God. But what should one do about such a state? One must seek the truth to resolve it. What aspect of the truth can resolve this state? It is crucial for a person to know who they are, what position they should stand in, what path they should pursue, and what kind of person they should be. These are the minimum things one should know. If a person doesn’t even know these things, they are far from understanding the truth, practicing the truth, or pursuing salvation.

When it comes to performing certain special duties or more strenuous and tiring duties, in one respect, people must always contemplate on how to perform those duties, what hardships they should endure, and how they should uphold their duties and submit. In another respect, people must also examine what adulterations there are in their intentions and how these hinder their performance of their duties. People are born with an aversion toward suffering hardship—not a single individual derives more enthusiasm or more joy from enduring more hardship. Such people do not exist. It is the nature of man’s flesh for people to feel worried and distressed as soon as their flesh endures hardship. But how much hardship do you have to endure now in the duty you perform? You only have to endure your flesh feeling a little tired and toiling a little. If you cannot endure even this little bit of hardship, can you be considered as having resolve? Can you be considered as sincerely believing in God? (No.) This won’t do. When you are performing your duty in God’s house, no person is supervising you. It is entirely reliant on you taking the initiative yourself. In God’s house, there are work arrangements and systems, and it is up to individuals to rely on their faith, and on their conscience and reason. Only God scrutinizes whether you do well or not at your duty. If, no matter what corrupt dispositions they reveal while performing their duties or when engaging with the people, events, and things around them, people are always unaware of it and feel no reproach, is this a good thing or a bad thing? (It is a bad thing.) Why is it considered a bad thing? Man’s conscience and reason have a minimum standard. If your conscience lacks any awareness and cannot hold you back from doing bad things, or restrain your behavior, if you act in a way that violates the administrative decrees and the principles, and lacks humanity, but you are bereft of reproach in your heart, is this not lacking a moral baseline? Is this not being without the awareness of your conscience? (Yes.) Are you usually aware of it when you do something wrong, or violate the principles, or when you are not loyal in performing your duty over a long period of time? (Yes.) Then, can your conscience restrain you and make you do things according to your conscience and reason, and in accordance with the truth principles? If you are a person who understands the truth, can you rise up from acting based on your conscience to acting in accordance with the truth principles? If you can do that, you can be saved. Being able to endure hardship in performing one’s duty is not an easy task. It is also not easy to perform a particular kind of work well. It is certain that the truth of God’s words is at work within people who can do these things. It is not that they were born without fear of hardship and fatigue. Where could such a person be found? These people all have some motivation, and they have some of the truth of God’s words as their foundation. When they take up their duties, their views and standpoints change—performing their duties becomes easier and enduring some fleshly hardship and fatigue begins to feel insignificant to them. Those who do not understand the truth and whose views on things haven’t changed live according to human ideas, notions, selfish desires, and personal preferences, so they are reluctant and unwilling to perform their duties. For example, when it comes to doing dirty and tiring work, some people say, “I will obey the arrangements of God’s house. Whatever duty the church arranges for me, I will perform it, regardless of whether it is dirty or tiring, whether it is impressive or unremarkable. I have no demands, and I will accept it as my duty. This is the commission that God has entrusted to me, and a little dirt and fatigue are the hardships that I should endure.” As a result, when they are engaged in their work, they don’t feel they are enduring any hardship at all. While others may find it dirty and tiring, they find it easy, because their hearts are calm and undisturbed. They are doing it for God, so they don’t feel that it is difficult. Some people consider doing dirty, tiring, or unremarkable work an insult to their status and character. They perceive it as others not respecting them, bullying them, or looking down on them. As a result, even when faced with the same tasks and workload, they find it strenuous. Whatever they do, they carry a sense of resentment in their hearts, and feel that things are not the way they want them to be or that they are unsatisfactory. Inside, they are full of negativity and resistance. Why are they negative and resistant? What is the root of it? Most often, it’s because performing their duties doesn’t earn them a salary; it feels like working for free. If there were rewards, it might be acceptable for them, but they do not know whether they will get them or not. Therefore, people feel that performing duties is not worthwhile, equating it to working for nothing, so they often become negative and resistant when it comes to performing duties. Is this not the case? Frankly speaking, these people are unwilling to perform duties. Since no one is forcing them, why are they still coming to perform their duties? It is because they force themselves—because of their desire to gain blessings and enter the kingdom of heaven they have no choice but to perform their duties. It is a manifestation of how stuck they are. This is the mindset behind them trying to strike a deal with God. Some ask how such people can resolve the problem of having negativity and resistance in their hearts. This problem can only be resolved by fellowshipping on the truth. If they do not love the truth, no matter how the truth is fellowshipped on with them, they will be unable to accept it. In that case, they are disbelievers, and they have been revealed. Because they want to strike deals and won’t do anything unless it benefits them, if God promises them rewards and entry into the kingdom of heaven, and writes them a guarantee, they will certainly perform their duties enthusiastically. In reality, God’s promise is open, and those who pursue the truth can obtain it. Those who do not pursue the truth, however, are unable to obtain it. It is not that they are unaware of God’s promise; it’s just that in their hearts it feels intangible and uncertain. To them, God’s promise is like a rubber check—they’re not able to believe in it, and they do not have true faith in it, and there is nothing that can be done about this. They desire tangible things, and if you were to pay them a salary, they would surely be energized. However, those without conscience and reason may not necessarily be energized; they are so wretched. If they were to be employed in the secular world, they wouldn’t work diligently, they would be slippery and slack off, and they would certainly be sacked. This is simply a problem with their nature. For those who are consistently perfunctory in the performance of their duties, the only solution is to clear them out and eliminate them. There is no other way for those who do not accept the truth. Their excuses and justifications are all unreasonable, and it is not necessary to discuss the quality of their humanity.

Nowadays, most people have begun to perform duties. Do you understand what duties are, how they arise, and who gives them? (Duties are commissions entrusted to people by God.) That’s right. If you believe in God and come to His house, if you are able to accept God’s commission, then you are a member of His house. The tasks that God’s house arranges for you, the way that God tells you to follow, and the commissions entrusted to you by God are your duties‚ and they are what God has given to you. When you eat and drink the words of God, comprehend His intentions, and listen to and understand the arrangements of God’s house, when you know in your heart what duty you should perform and the responsibilities you are capable of fulfilling, and when you accept God’s commission and start performing your duty, you become a member of God’s house and a part of the expansion of the gospel. God regards you as a member of His house and as a part of the expansion of His work. At this point, you have the duty that you ought to perform. Whatever you are capable of doing, whatever you are able to achieve, they are your responsibilities and your duty. It can be said that they are God’s commission, your mission, and your bounden duty. Duties come from God; they are the responsibilities and commissions that God entrusts to man. How, then, should man understand them? “Since this is my duty and the commission that God has entrusted to me, it is my obligation and responsibility. It is only right that I accept it as my bounden duty. I can’t decline or refuse it; I can’t pick and choose. What falls to me is certainly what I ought to do. It’s not that I’m not entitled to make a choice—it’s that I shouldn’t make a choice. This is the reason that a created being ought to have.” This is an attitude of submission. Some people constantly cherry-pick when performing their duties, always wanting to do work that is easy and that they enjoy, unable to submit to the arrangements of God’s house. This shows that their stature is too small, and that they do not possess normal human reason. If it is a young person and they have been pampered and spoiled at home without experiencing any hardships, it is understandable for them to be a bit willful. As long as they can accept the truth, this will gradually change. However, if an adult in their thirties or forties behaves in this revolting way, then it is a problem of laziness. The disease of laziness is congenital and the most difficult to treat. It is a problem with one’s nature, and it is only through being left without any other choices in particular environments or situations that people like this are able to endure a bit of hardship and fatigue. It is just like how some beggars are well aware that being a beggar invites disdain and discrimination from others, but due to their laziness and unwillingness to work, they have no other choice but to resort to begging. Otherwise, they would have to starve. In sum, if a person cannot perform their duty conscientiously and responsibly, sooner or later they will be eliminated. The greatest transgression is to believe in God but not submit to Him. If you refuse to perform your duty or are consistently averse to hardships and afraid of exertion, then you are a person without conscience and reason. You are unsuited to performing duties, and you may leave. One day, when you realize that not performing your duty is tantamount to refusing the commission entrusted to you by the Creator, and that you are a person who is rebelling against God, without conscience and reason, when you realize that those who believe in God should perform their duties well and that it is necessary, then you should behave yourself and perform your duty well. This is submission. If a person is rebellious or negative in their duty, that is, if they show a complete lack of submission to God, such a person is not sincerely expending for Him. Willingly performing one’s duty well is the minimum expression of submission to God. So, how do duties arise? (Duties come from God; they are responsibilities given to people by God.) Duties are responsibilities given to people by God, so do nonbelievers have duties? (No, they don’t.) Why do you say that they don’t? (They are not people of God’s house.) That’s right, nonbelievers only busy themselves for their fleshly lives, and their actions are not worthy to be called duties. Nonbelievers are of the world and of Satan. God only arranges their life destiny—the time of their birth, the family they are born into, the work they do when they grow up, and the time of their death—He does not choose them, nor does He save them. Those who believe in God are different. On a smaller scale, all the work they do in God’s house are duties that they should perform. On a broader scale, within God’s entire management plan, the duty performed by every created being is cooperating with God’s work. To put it plainly, they are rendering service for God’s management plan. Whether you render service with loyalty or not, you are far from being a person who follows God’s will. In fact, a person can only be considered as one of God’s people and adequate created beings when they can truly perform their duty, achieve the outcome of bearing witness for God, and gain His approval. If you perform every duty well that God entrusts to you, meeting the standards required, then you are a member of God’s house, and someone that God recognizes as a person of His house.