Words on Performing a Duty (Excerpt 37)
What are the primary principles that performing one’s duties is based on? One must act according to the standards, principles, and demands of God’s house, practice according to the truth, and perform their own duties well with all their heart and all their strength by using God’s words, the truth, and protecting the work and the interests of God’s house as principles. Then how does one generally act for themselves? They do whatever they please, prioritizing their interests in their actions and placing them above all else. They do whatever is in their own interest, acting entirely to satisfy their selfish fleshly desires and not considering justice, conscience, and reason in the slightest; such things are not in their hearts. They only follow a satanic disposition and act according to man’s preferences, scheming right and left and living according to satanic philosophies. What kind of way to live is this? It is Satan’s way to live. When following God and performing one’s duties, one should act according to the truth principles, and at the very least one must have a conscience and reason—this is the bare minimum. Some people say: “I’m in a bad mood today, so I want to be cursory in this matter.” Is this a conscientious way of doing things? (It is not.) In times when you want to be cursory, are you conscious of this? (We are.) Are there times when you are not conscious of it? (Yes, there are.) Then are you able to examine yourself and detect this after the fact? (Somewhat.) After you detect that you were cursory, the next time you have similar ideas of being perfunctory, are you able to rebel against them and resolve them? (When I am aware of these ideas, I can rebel against them somewhat.) Every time you rebel against your own thoughts and wishes, a battle will take place, and if your selfish desires prevail at the end of this battle, then you have intentionally opposed God and are in danger. Let’s say you believe in God for 10 years, and for the first three years you muddle along and are somewhat earnest, but three years later you realize that when believing in God one must practice the truth, enter the truth reality, and rebel against one’s flesh. Then, little by little you begin to recognize your own corruption and malice and your own wicked and arrogant nature, and by then you truly know yourself—you know your own corrupt essence. You feel that accepting the truth is extremely necessary and that it is crucial to resolve your corrupt dispositions, and only at this time do you feel that not having the truth reality is quite pitiful. Though there is a battle waged in one’s heart each time their corruption is revealed, in each of these battles they are unable to defeat their own selfish desires and still act according to their own preferences. In fact, they themselves know all too well that in their heart, Satan’s disposition is still calling the shots, and therefore it is difficult to put the truth into practice. This proves that they do not have any truth reality, and it is very hard to say whether or not they will be able to attain salvation in the end. If you truly have the will, you should put the truths that you understand into practice, and no matter which corrupt dispositions obstruct you when you practice these truths, you should always pray to and rely on God, seek the truth to resolve the corrupt dispositions, dare to fight against them, and dare to rebel against your flesh. If you have this kind of faith, then you can put the truth into practice. Although there will occasionally be times in which you fail, you will not become discouraged and will still be able to rely on praying to God and looking up to Him in order to triumph over Satan. Fighting like this for several years, the times in which you triumph over your flesh and practice the truth will increase, and those in which you fail will gradually be reduced, and even if you fail on occasion, you will not become negative and will continue praying and looking up to God until you are able to put the truth into practice. This will mean that there is hope for you, that the clouds have parted and you can see the blue sky. As long as there are times in which you succeed when you are practicing the truth, this proves that you are someone who has will and who has hopes of being able to attain salvation. People who pursue the truth only finally enter the truth reality after going through many failures when practicing it. No matter how many times one fails and no matter how negative they are, as long as they can rely on and look up to God, they will always have times in which they succeed. No matter how many times they fail over and over again, there will still be hope for them as long as they do not give up. When the day comes that they truly discover that they can practice the truth, act according to the principles, not make compromises with Satan on key matters—particularly in regard to performing their duties—and not give up on their duties while also standing firm in their testimony, then there is absolutely hope for them to be saved.
Every time you practice the truth, you will go through an inner battle. Have any of you not experienced any battles in your practicing of the truth? Absolutely not. Only if a person has already entered the truth reality and hardly reveals any corrupt dispositions could they basically not have major battles. However, under special circumstances and in certain contexts, they would still battle a bit. That is to say, the more one understands the truth, the less they battle, and the less one understands the truth, the more battles they have. Especially with new believers, the battles in their hearts each time they practice the truth must all be extremely fierce. Why are they fierce? Because people do not only have their own preferences and fleshly choices, they also have actual difficulties, in addition to the corrupt dispositions holding them back. For every aspect of the truth you understand, you must battle against these four aspects that are obstructing you, meaning that you at least have to pass through these three or four obstructing barriers before you can put the truth into practice. Do you have this experience of continuously battling against your corrupt dispositions? When you need to practice the truth and protect the interests of God’s house, are you able to overcome the constraint of your corrupt dispositions and stand on the side of the truth? For example, you are paired with someone to carry out the work of cleansing the church, but they always fellowship to the brothers and sisters that God saves people to the greatest possible extent, and that we must treat people with love and give them opportunities to repent. You become aware that something is wrong with their fellowship, and although the words that they speak seem quite correct, you discover upon detailed analysis that they are harboring intentions and goals, are not willing to offend anyone, and do not want to carry out the work arrangements. When they fellowship like this, people who are small in stature and undiscerning will be disturbed by them, recklessly show love in an unprincipled manner, pay no heed to being discerning toward others, and not expose or report antichrists, evil people, and disbelievers. This is an obstruction to the work of cleansing the church. If antichrists, evil people, and disbelievers cannot be cleansed away in a timely manner, it will affect God’s chosen ones’ normal eating and drinking of His words and the normal performance of their duties, and will especially disrupt and disturb the work of the church while harming the interests of God’s house. At a time like this, how should you practice? When you notice the problem, you must stand up and expose this person; you must put a stop to them and protect the work of the church. You may ponder: “We are work partners. If I directly exposed them and they did not accept it, then wouldn’t we have a falling out? No, I can’t just speak out, I have to be a bit more tactful.” So, you give them a simple reminder and some words of exhortation. After hearing what you say, they do not accept it, and also rattle off a bunch of reasons to refute you. If they do not accept it, the work of God’s house will suffer losses. What should you do? You pray to God, saying: “God, please arrange and orchestrate this. Discipline them—there is nothing I can do.” You think that you cannot stop them and so you let them go unchecked. Is this responsible behavior? Do you practice the truth? If you cannot stop them, why do you not report this to the leaders and workers? Why do you not take this matter to a gathering and let everyone fellowship on it and discuss it? If you do not do this, then would you really not blame yourself afterward? If you say, “I can’t manage this, so I’ll just ignore it. I have a clear conscience,” then what kind of heart do you have? Is it a heart that truly loves or is it one that harms others? Your heart is such a vicious one, because when something befalls you, you are afraid of offending people and do not adhere to the principles. Actually, you know very well that this person has their own goal in acting this way and that you cannot listen to them on this matter. However, you are unable to adhere to the principles and stop them from misleading others, and this ultimately harms the interests of God’s house. Would you blame yourself at all after this? (I would.) Does blaming yourself enable you to retrieve the losses? They are irretrievable. Afterward, you ponder again: “I have fulfilled my responsibilities anyway, and God knows. God scrutinizes the bottom of people’s hearts.” What kind of words are these? These are deceptive, devilish words that cheat both man and God. You have not fulfilled your responsibilities, and still look for reasons and excuses to shirk them. This is deceitful and intransigent. Does a person like this have any sincerity toward God? Do they have a sense of justice? (They do not.) This is a person who does not accept the truth in the slightest, a person of Satan’s ilk. When something befalls you, you live by philosophies for worldly dealings, and do not practice the truth. You are always afraid of offending others, but not of offending God, and will even sacrifice the interests of God’s house to protect your interpersonal relationships. What are the consequences of acting in this way? You will have protected your interpersonal relationships quite well, but you will have offended God, and He will spurn you, and be angry with you. Which is better, on balance? If you cannot tell, then you are completely muddled; it proves that you do not have the slightest understanding of the truth. If you go on like that without ever waking up to it, the danger is great indeed, and if you are unable to attain the truth in the end, it will be you who has suffered a loss. If you do not seek the truth in this matter, and you fail, will you be able to seek the truth in the future? If you still cannot, it will no longer be an issue of suffering a loss—you will ultimately be eliminated. If you have the motivations and perspective of a people pleaser, then, in all matters, you will be incapable of practicing the truth and abiding by principle, and you will always fail and fall down. If you do not awaken and do not ever seek the truth, then you are a disbeliever, and you will never gain the truth and life. What, then, should you do? When faced with such things, you must pray to God and call out to Him, begging for salvation and asking that He give you more faith and strength and enable you to abide by the principles, do what you should do, handle things according to the principles, stand firm in the position you should stand in, protect the interests of God’s house, and prevent any harm from coming to the work of God’s house. If you are able to rebel against your self-interests, your pride, and your standpoint of a people pleaser, and if you do what you should do with an honest, undivided heart, then you will have defeated Satan and gained this aspect of the truth. If you always persist in living by the philosophy of Satan, protecting your relationships with others, never practicing the truth, and not daring to abide by the principles, then will you be able to practice the truth in other matters? You will still have no faith or strength. If you are never able to seek or accept the truth, then will such faith in God allow you to obtain the truth? (No.) And if you cannot obtain the truth, can you be saved? You cannot. If you always live by the philosophy of Satan, utterly devoid of the truth reality, then you can never be saved. It should be clear to you that obtaining the truth is a necessary condition for salvation. How, then, can you obtain the truth? If you are able to practice the truth, if you can live by the truth, and the truth becomes the basis of your life, then you will gain the truth and have life, and so you will be one of those who are saved.
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