Inside the thoughts and notions of all mankind, God’s becoming an ordinary human being through incarnation is the last form that God should take, because ordinary people are low in society and despised by others, and God, who is so lofty, should not incarnate Himself as someone so unremarkable. This is something so at odds with people’s notions. The fact that you are able to accept and acknowledge that God is your God when, today, He has become flesh and turned into such an unremarkable human being, is itself testimony. And that being so, what could possibly influence or harm your normal relationship with God? Nothing. With this in mind, being able to recognize Christ as your God is a most important criterion for measuring the relationship between you and God. Many people believe in God but do not acknowledge that God is the truth, and can those who do not acknowledge that God is the truth acknowledge that God is their God? Just what sort of relationship with God do they who do not acknowledge that God is the truth have? Are they able to truly submit to God? Are they not capable of defying God? You must see these things clearly. Both you and the incarnate God have a human appearance, human form, human predilections, human language, and you both live in the world of man. But you are able to set your position aright, you can tell the difference between your status and God’s, and you can rectify your relationship with God. You are not to go beyond this relationship, and you are not to overstep it. If you can achieve this stature, then to God, you are adequate, and no force can destroy your relationship with God. This should be the most stable relationship of all, and the standard will have been met. If your relationship with this fleshly body does not rise to the level of the relationship between man and God, if you are not possessed of such a relationship, then when you say, “I have a good relationship with God in heaven, and it’s a very normal relationship,” is this true? It is not. You say you have a good relationship with God, but who has ever seen it? Where is it shown? It has no factual basis. Because people live in their flesh and cannot penetrate the spiritual realm or access God, how then can they interact with the Spirit of God? At the moment, are you capable of attaining a normal relationship between man and God with God in the flesh? (No.) Where does the difficulty lie? There are many truths that man does not understand. What does it mean that man does not understand? It means that mankind, which is corrupt, has views and opinions that, in many respects, do not accord with the views and opinions of God incarnate, that the principles by which man handles things do not accord with those of God incarnate, and that man even has many notions and imaginings about God. These problems are still not resolved. And where does the root of these problems lie? What factor is influencing relations between God and mankind? It is mankind’s corrupt disposition. That is, mankind still stands on the side of Satan living in reliance on Satan’s poison, and it is Satan’s disposition and essence that people live out. God’s essence is truth. His essence is immutable. So, who is it who must change in order to achieve accord with God? Of course it is mankind; that is definitive. How should mankind change, then? They must submit to God’s work, accept the truth, accept judgment and chastisement, and accept being pruned. This is man’s only path to reach accord with God. Only when you set foot upon this path can you gradually come to understand the truth, cast off your corrupt disposition, and view both people and things according to God’s words and the truth. In this way, the principles by which you act, the perspective from which you view things, your outlook on life and your values will all accord with God’s. The barriers between you and God will become ever fewer, there will be no more contradictions, you will study God less and less, your submission will naturally grow and grow, and you will gradually attain to total accord with God.

Are you afraid of interacting with Me? (No.) You may not be, but I am. What am I afraid of? You are so small of stature, and there are many truths you do not understand, and with some things I do and say, I must consider whether your stature can keep up. I cannot say or do them directly, but must give you enough space, as well as enough time, to undergo and to experience those truths. Then, I wait. I wait for you to understand those truths, to accept them gradually, to grow in stature, at which point I try again, bit by bit, to approach you. I then observe you and see whether you have grown in stature. If you have, I say a bit more to you; if you are still small of stature, I keep a bit more distance. Why must I keep a little distance from you? If I were to get too close to you and ask too much of you, too quickly, haste would easily make waste. And if haste made waste, what would the consequences be? They might be dangerous, more than you could bear. As things stand now, not only can we not reach harmony and accord in our interaction, but even genuine rapport may be beyond us. If I were to persist in coming into frequent contact with you or living with you, coaching you in every aspect of the matters involved in your duty, it would be stressful for you. You would feel that you were suffering in that case. Would it not be something I must endure? And in enduring it, would I suffer? I would have to suffer, too. If that suffering were to your benefit, if it could quicken your progress, I would not care whether I suffered a little. I would simply put up with more, speak a bit less, be more lenient and wait for you a bit more, with a bit of patience. This would be no bother. If you suffered some things before time, could it yield results, to an extent? Perhaps to a special few, those who can comprehend the truth and who possess both conscience and sense, who are fair and reasonable, and who, furthermore, especially love the truth, who can persistently pursue the truth, and who, in the pit of their heart, are uncompromising in their love and pursuit of the light and positive things—people like Peter, who was proactive and positive in pursuing the truth—only people with such a humanity, such a pursuit, and with such comprehension could undergo such suffering ahead of time. Are there any among you who meet these criteria? (No.) Well then, I’m sorry to say we will have to keep our distance, so that you do not undergo such suffering prematurely. So, when will you undergo it? When you have grown to a certain stature, God will naturally arrange environments, people, events, and things for you. It is just as with Job: When he grew to a certain stature, Satan came before God with a charge against him, and God permitted Satan to tempt Job, to submit him to temptation, resulting in Job’s being deprived of his whole fortune. Is this far off for you? How far? One side of this depends on your pursuit; the other depends on the demands of God’s work, on the articulation He has established in His plan. And what articulation is that? It is when that time comes at which people are essentially equipped with all the truth and understand it. Yet if some people are still not there in terms of stature, what is to be done? When the time is right, God will act. Do you think you can hide? There is no one who can sneak past this juncture. This is called the inspection of man’s work, and everyone must go through it. None can pass early, and none can lag behind. “None can pass early” means that if a person’s stature is not there, and they did not hear much of the truth, then when that person asks God to test them, He will not. No one will be exempt from this, for God sees everyone as equals, and gives everyone equal opportunities, and He provides and works the same for all. So now, is My adopting such an attitude according to your state and the stature you possess not of benefit to you? (It is.) It is just right for you, just what you need now. While you are normally performing your duties in each area, you are also being supplied with the truths you need to possess and understand, without the least delay, so that you may be availed of provision and aid, in time and by measure. Then, as you perform your duty, you will gradually digest, absorb, and experience these truths, and find the principles of the truth and the path of practice; little by little, you will grasp God’s will, and thereby man and God’s relationship will be set aright and you will occupy the station of a created being, which is to assume your post and be steadfast in your duty. And after this, there may be some people who, without their realizing it, undergo trials and refinement. When will that happen? I will tell you, with the one sentence that applies: Trials will come as planned. This may be a bit abstract, but to God, that is simply how it is. When the time comes for God to act, you will not be able to hide, try as you might. What will I do now? I will keep My post, occupy My station, and do My work, neither holding back nor rushing forward, but doing My work according to its prescribed order. All of your paths to salvation are open—I will not seal them, much less delay you.

Does anyone ask in worry: “By following You, can we be saved?” Perhaps some people have never considered this question, but that is not the same as not having had doubt, and this doubt may yet exist. So, I will tell you something true: You have no need to worry. I should worry before you should; it is I who most ought to worry, but I never do, so what are you worried about? Are you not worrying too much? You worry too much and there is no need to. I never worry about this matter because it is not something for which I must take responsibility. Is that not a good thing? So, who does take responsibility for it? Some say, “It’s so irresponsible of You to say that! If You’re not responsible, who is?” I do not need to take responsibility because I never have such worries. I have no need for apprehension, no need to look into this matter. If I were to worry, saying, “Oh! I cannot bear the burden of your outcomes and destinations! I must take care to study and analyze every step I take and every word I say, and act after I’ve seen their results,” that would be negligent of Me. Yet I never do worry; I never look into what something might lead to. Why is this? Some say, “You’ve seen through this matter.” No. In general, one can only be said to have seen through something after they have subjected it to research and analysis, but I instinctively never look into this matter, just as a person would never look into why they look like their parents. I instinctively do not look into such things—they do not exist in My thought. Not to look into things would be a great outcome, so should you not learn how to do this? Some may say, “You instinctively do not look into things. How are we supposed to learn to do that? That’s not something we can learn!” There is something in this that needs a bit of fellowship. God’s incarnation, His realization in the flesh, His becoming human—how, exactly, this person came to be is a process that requires no looking into. Simply put, God has become a human. Is there a mystery in what God does in this human body and how He manifests? (Yes.) Does this matter call for research? It does not call for research, but for you to seek its truth. What is its truth? Can you see through to it? A person’s essence, status, and their mission are made one. Their mission is their essence, their instinct; what they live out, what they reveal, what they are willing to do, and what fills them—that is their essence, as well as their instinct and mission, which all may constitute a union. What does this tell you? There is a fact here that you should be able to see, which is that the matter of God’s incarnation is indisputable. God expresses so many truths, and the more man reads them, the more they understand them; the more they read them, the more they feel them to be the truth; and the more they experience them and put them into practice, the brighter their hearts grow, and as this happens, their relationship to God also grows more normal. Does this really need to be researched? Research it all you like; you will not understand what the truth is about through research. Understanding of the truth relies on experience. As one gains more experiences, they naturally understand what the truth is about, and, having understood the truth, they naturally come to have knowledge of God. This is why I say that achieving knowledge of God’s work relies on understanding the truth. Some absurd people do not love the truth and never put it into practice, and from the time they came to believe in God, they have been studying Him. Study as they may, can they attain knowledge of God in this way? It is an impossibility. The religious world has been studying God for millennia and not a single person has genuinely known Him. They believe in God for years, and in the end, all they can say is “I believe deeply in God’s existence.” Are those the words of someone who knows God? Do you still study God now? How many years have you been studying Him for? Has your study yielded any results? I tell you: God incarnate never researches who He is, and neither is there another voice in Him, but only one. As man sees it, all He thinks, lives out, and does is the thought and action of one person, and He, too, feels Himself to be one person who is acting and thinking. What is happening here? In Him, there is only one life and no other. So, what is the essence of this life? One may not be able to see through to it from the outside, thinking it to be just the life of an ordinary person, but to look at it in light of His mission and the essence of the work He does, how is it that the shadow of God is on Him? This is worth understanding. Who exactly this fleshly body is, which has the shadow of God and the revelation of God’s essence, is worthy of seeking and deep investigation. Is it normal, then, that this body of flesh does not know why He is such a person, or who He is in essence? It is only too normal; it is not supernatural. Some will say, “Not supernatural? That doesn’t sound like God. God ought to be supernatural!” Where does this “ought to” come from? It comes from people’s notions and imaginings. In fact, what is the first act, the first behavior of God’s of which man knows, of which man has an impression? In the beginning, God created the heavens and earth and all things, and on the sixth day, He scooped up some clay and from it, created a person, whom He named Adam. Then, He had Adam fall asleep and took a rib from his body, which He made into another person, Eve. Looking at this whole sequence of God’s actions and behaviors, is it not particularly pictorial? Each action is so real, which does not square with the God of people’s imaginings and notions. It surpasses man’s imaginings of the supernatural. So now, when people come into contact with God incarnate, and hear the words He speaks, and see all He does, then hold those things up for comparison against God’s actual actions and behaviors when He created man in the beginning, are there discrepancies there? Is there a disparity? There may be, because you have never seen those actions. To look at it practically, however, when one compares the manner and source of God’s utterances in the beginning with the manner and source of His speaking now, there is no fundamental disparity. Why do I say “fundamental”? The word “fundamental” has its meaning. What does “fundamental” mean here? It means that in man’s heart, there is yet something of a supernatural element to the actual things that man thinks God does and the manner in which man thinks He speaks, whereas the manner and method and tone of God’s speech that man sees and hears now are quite practical, able to be grasped and seen, without a supernatural element and without room for man’s imaginings. There is distance between these two things, and that distance is ultimately and fundamentally identical from your point of view. That is where that “fundamental” comes from.

Is it necessary to fellowship these most truthful, heartfelt words to you today? (It is.) Why speak of such things? Many people have constantly felt these matters of God incarnate to be quite mysterious, unfathomable, and wish always to study them. Studying these things interferes with your relationship with God. Can you still enter the truth if you are always studying God? If you are always studying Him, you will not take His words as the truth, and your relationship with Him will be distorted, deviant, and abnormal. So, how can you make your relationship increasingly normal? By regarding all He does normally, including this fleshly body of His, and seeking bit by bit to accept Him in your heart. Accept Him in every aspect—the manner and tone of His speech, and even His appearance, the way He looks. You must accept this. If you do not, but always study Him, studying this and studying that, then in the end, the one who gets the worst of it and suffers a loss will be you. This fact, brought about by God, will not change. God has launched a new age, and He will influence all of it and lead all of it. This fact will not change. So, what choice should a person make in this matter? Not to study Him, but to accept and know Him, and unceasingly rectify their relationship with God, and remind themselves at all times: “I am a created being, and I am of corrupted mankind; God is an ordinary person on the surface, but His essence within is that of God. The fact that He is God is undeniable; whatever He does externally, whatever He says, and however He acts is not in the purview of my study. This is the sort of reason I should have, and this is the station I should occupy.” I have spoken with you today a bit about Myself, so that you may have understanding and clarity about these things, and not always in a haze about them, as if I were concealing something I would not have you know. In truth, I have no secrets I cannot tell you. This is what I think, and it is what I set out to do. There is nothing abstract in it, nor is there anything mysterious. That of Me which you see is thus, and that of Me which is behind the scenes and which you cannot see is also thus. This is truly how it is. Yet there is one thing you must understand: Whatever facts and external phenomena you see before you, if you do not understand the truth, you will take those phenomena as the truth and as fact; and if you do understand the truth, you will come to know the essence and the truth through these phenomena and externalities, so your relationship with God will grow increasingly normal. For you, God’s identity, status, and essence will never change. He is the Creator, the One who is sovereign over all. This is fixed. You are a created being, and if you always study the appearance of God’s flesh, you are in trouble. Your relationship with God will be no more, meaning that your relation as a created being to the Creator will be no more. There is no need to elaborate on the consequences of this. They are very bad. Anything at all could come about as a consequence—anything could happen. Without this relationship, there is no communication to speak of between us. Does that put it plainly? If we are to maintain our close relations, to keep our relationship, what, then, should man’s identity be? (That of a created being.) Forever that of a created being. That is the only way we can associate, the only way a real relationship can exist. If you do not admit that you are a created being, then we have no relationship at all. I will not engage with you, nor will I wish to know who you are. Nothing will bind us. I will not meddle with you. Live as you will—it has nothing to do with Me. You do not need to study Me or to condemn Me. My identity, status, and all that I do are not things that you, an ordinary person, can condemn or draw conclusions about. It is not man who judges all this, but God. That puts it plainly, does it not? Is that not the truth? (It is.) So, what is the truth people should understand here? On what basis, on what foundation can a person have a normal relationship with God? They must know that they are a created being. If you acknowledge that you are a created being and have that foundation, then, as you progress forward, there will be many matters in which you do not go astray. However, if you always wish to study Him, and do not approach the relationship from the perspective of a created being, the consequences will be troublesome, too awful to contemplate. You understand this, right?

Some say, “If I don’t acknowledge that I’m a created being, then do we have nothing to do with each other? Don’t we know each other? Without a relationship on that level, we can be buddies, friends, relations—right?” No. I have no “buddies,” nor do I have friends, and I certainly have no such relations. Someone asks, “Who are Your true relations, then? Are they Your family?” No. I have no relations, nor do I have brothers-in-arms. I have no subordinates and no attendants. For the Creator, the only things that have a relationship with Him are the created beings. To all created mankind, to all created beings, God has only one identity—that of the Lord of Creation. That is the only relationship. If someone were to ask, “We have a pretty good relationship. Can’t we be friends? Can’t we come to be pals?” No. I do not know you; I do not know who you are. Why would I be friends with you? There is no such relationship for us. They say, “You’re speaking too definitively here, aren’t You? Aren’t You being too callous?” It is as definitive as this. I have no need of such relationships. All I do and say is given to provide for viable targets of provision—and who are those targets? They are created mankind, the mankind that loves the truth; these are the targets that God will save, and there is only this relationship. Other than this relationship, there is not a single sort of relationship I recognize. Do you understand? (Yes.) Some may say, “You’re a tough person to associate with!” It is not that I am tough to associate with, but that such a relationship has no way to exist. So, let no one say, “I’ve been in contact with You for years. Aren’t we friends?” If you acknowledge that you are a created being, then we have the closest relationship, the best relationship, the most legitimate and purest relationship. Some say, “I’ve served You for so many years. Don’t we know each other fairly well? Aren’t I Your confidant, Your close friend?” No. I have no close friends. Some say, “You always tell me what You like to wear and which people You like, and I tell You the same. There’s nothing we don’t discuss, so aren’t we friends?” No. I do not make friends with people. I have no friends. If you are a created being, then we have something to discuss; we can interact, and establish a relationship, and build camaraderie. But are we friends once camaraderie has been built between us? No. The relationship between created beings and the Creator never changes. Some people have taken Me in and shielded Me, and for that, they think they have merit, that they are My rescuers. That is not the way to put it; everything is orchestrated by God. And should they ask, “Aren’t You devoid of gratitude?” how is that statement to be explained? If someone cannot see something clearly, they cannot arbitrarily apply regulations to it. Doing so leads easily to judgment. If you know that you are a created being, how should you regard this matter? If you brandish this relationship to coerce Me, or to get close to Me or ingratiate yourself to Me, then I tell you, you are mistaken. Do not try to do this, and if you try to ingratiate yourself to Me, I will get sick of you. Some people ask, “Wouldn’t You not put up with that?” No. It is wrong for people to try to ingratiate themselves to Me—it does not constitute a normal relationship. A few may say, “I’m young, good-looking, and articulate. Doesn’t God like people like me?” You must not speak like this. If you have such thoughts, you can look for the answers in God’s words. Do not ever disgust Me so. Does that put it plainly? It cannot be made any clearer. So, how should you understand this? (The only relationship between man and God is that of a created being and the Creator.) Correct. Man must put their station aright. Do not, at any time, flaunt your qualifications, or rely on seniority, or play clever little games, and do not use any philosophy for worldly dealings in an attempt to alter your identity or your relationship with God. Do not try to, under any circumstances; you would be courting a rebuff. Do not engage in such a pointless struggle. It’s useless! Why do people always relapse into their old ways? After today’s talk, most of you will not get this wrong again, will you? (No.) That spares Me much worry. I do not wish to dwell on these things—they pain Me! To a person with reason, these things are easy to understand. So many of God’s words make mention of these things, and those who truly have comprehension ability should not find them hard to understand. For those who have followed God for many years and understand some truth, understanding these things will not be a problem, for people have gained much from God and know His work completely.

January 23, 2019