There are many people who, as soon as their duty gets busy, become incapable of experiencing, and are unable to maintain a normal state, and as a result, are constantly asking for a gathering, and for the truth to be fellowshiped to them. What is going on here? They do not understand the truth, they lack a foundation in the true way, such people are driven by zeal when they perform their duty, and cannot endure for long. When people do not understand the truth, there is no principle to anything they do. If it is arranged for them to do something, they make a mess of it, they are careless in what they do, they do not seek principles, and there is no obedience in their hearts—which proves that they do not love the truth and are incapable of experiencing God’s work. No matter what you do, you should first understand why you are doing it, what intention it is that directs you to do this thing, what the significance is in your doing it, what the nature of the matter is, and whether what you are doing is a positive thing or a negative thing. You must have a clear understanding of all these matters; this is quite necessary for you to be able to act with principle. If you are doing something which can be classified as fulfilling your duty, then you should ponder: How should I fulfill my duty well so that I am not just doing it perfunctorily? You should pray and draw close to God in this matter. Praying to God is in order to seek the truth, the way to practice, the intention of God, and how to satisfy God. Prayer is in order to achieve these effects. Praying to God, drawing close to God, and reading God’s words are not religious ceremonies or outward actions. It is done for the purpose of practicing in accordance with the truth after seeking God’s will. If you always say “thanks be to God” when you haven’t done anything, and you might seem very spiritual and insightful, but if, when the time comes to act, you still do as you want, without seeking the truth at all, then this “thanks be to God” is nothing more than a mantra, it is false spirituality. When fulfilling your duty, you should always think: “How should I fulfill this duty? What is God’s will?” Praying to God and drawing close to God in order to seek principles and truths for your actions, seeking the will of God in your heart, and not departing from God’s words or the truth principles in anything you do—only this is someone who truly believes in God; all this is unattainable to people who do not love the truth. There are many people who follow their own ideas no matter what they do, and consider things in highly simplistic terms, and do not seek the truth, either. There is a total absence of principle, and in their hearts they give no thought to how to act according to what God asks, or in a way that satisfies God, and they know only to mulishly follow their own will. God has no place in such people’s hearts. Some people say, “I only pray to God when I encounter difficulty, but still it doesn’t feel like this has any effect—so generally when things happen to me now I don’t pray to God, because praying to God is of no use.” God is utterly absent from the hearts of such people. They do not seek the truth no matter what they are doing at ordinary times; they only follow their own ideas. So are there principles to their actions? Definitely not. They see everything in simple terms. Even when people fellowship the truth principles to them, they are not able to accept them, because there have never been any principles to their actions, God has no place in their hearts, and there is no one but them in their hearts. They feel their intentions are good, that they are not committing evil, that they cannot be considered in violation of the truth, they think that acting according to their own intentions should be practicing the truth, that acting thus is obeying God. In fact, they are not truly seeking or praying to God in this matter, but acting on impulse, according to their own zealous intentions, they are not performing their duty as God asks, they do not have a God-obeying heart, they are absent of this wish. This is the greatest mistake in people’s practice. If you believe in God yet He is not in your heart, are you not trying to deceive God? And what effect can such faith in God have? Just what can you gain? And what is the point of such faith in God?

How should you reflect on yourself, and try to know yourself, when you have done something that violates the truth principles and is displeasing to God? When you were about to do that thing, did you pray to Him? Did you ever consider, “Is doing things in this way in line with the truth? How would this matter be viewed by God if it were brought before Him? Would He be happy or irritated if He knew about it? Would He detest or be disgusted by it?” You did not seek it out, did you? Even if others reminded you, you would still think that the matter was no big deal, and that it did not run against any principles and was not a sin. As a result, you offended God’s disposition and provoked Him to anger, even to the point of His despising you. This is produced by people’s rebelliousness. Therefore, you should seek the truth in all things. This is what you must follow. If you can earnestly come before God to pray beforehand, and then seek the truth according to God’s words, you will not go wrong. You may have some deviations in your practice of the truth, but this is hard to avoid, and you will be able to practice correctly after you gain some experience. However, if you know how to act in accordance with the truth, yet don’t practice it, the problem is your dislike of the truth. Those who do not love the truth will never seek it, no matter what may happen to them. Only those who love the truth have God-fearing hearts, and when things happen that they don’t understand, they are able to seek the truth. If you can’t grasp God’s will and don’t know how to practice, then you should fellowship with some people who understand the truth. If you can’t find those who understand the truth, you should find a few people who have a pure understanding to pray to God together with one mind and one heart, seek from God, await God’s time, and wait for God to open a way for you. As long as you all yearn for the truth, seek the truth, and fellowship on the truth together, the time may come when one of you comes up with a good solution. If you all find the solution suitable and a good way, then this may have been due to the enlightenment and illumination of the Holy Spirit. If you then continue to fellowship together to come up with a more accurate path of practice, it will certainly be in line with the truth principles. In your practice, if you discover your way of practice is still somewhat unsuitable, then you need to quickly correct it. If you err slightly, God will not condemn you, because your intentions in what you do are right, and you are practicing according to the truth. You are simply a little confused about the principles and have made an error in your practice, which is excusable. But when most people do things, they do them on the basis of how they imagine them to be done. They don’t use God’s words as a basis to contemplate how to practice according to the truth or how to gain God’s approval. Instead, they only think about how to benefit themselves, how to make others look up to them, and how to make others admire them. They do things entirely based on their own ideas and purely to satisfy themselves, which is troublesome. Such people will never do things in accordance with the truth, and God will always hate them. If you are truly someone with conscience and reason, then no matter what happens, you should be able to come before God to pray and seek, be able to seriously examine the motives and adulteration in your actions, be able to determine what is appropriate to do according to God’s words and requirements, and repeatedly weigh and contemplate what actions please God, what actions disgust God, and what actions earn God’s approval. You must go over these matters time and again in your mind until you clearly understand them. If you know that you have your own motives for doing something, then you must reflect on what your motives are, whether it is to satisfy yourself or to satisfy God, whether it is beneficial to yourself or to God’s chosen people, and what consequences it will cause…. If you seek and contemplate more like this in your prayers, and ask yourself more questions to seek the truth, then the deviations in your actions will become smaller and smaller. Only those who can seek the truth in this way are people who are considerate of God’s will and who fear God, because you are seeking in accordance with the requirements of God’s words and with an obedient heart, and the conclusions you reach from seeking this way will be in line with the truth principles.

If a believer’s actions are out of touch with the truth, then they are the same as an unbeliever. This is the type of person who does not have God in their heart, and who strays from God, and such a person is like a hired worker in God’s house who does some odd jobs for their master, receives a little compensation, and then leaves. This is simply not a person who believes in God. What to do to gain God’s approval is the first thing you should think about and work for when you do things; it should be the principle and scope of your actions. The reason you should determine whether what you are doing is in line with the truth is that if it is in line with the truth, then it certainly conforms with God’s will. It is not that you should measure whether the matter is right or wrong, or if it accords with everyone else’s tastes, or if it is in line with your own desires; rather, you should determine whether it is in accordance with the truth, and whether or not it benefits the work and interests of the church. If you give consideration to these things, then you will be more and more in line with God’s will when you do things. If you do not consider these aspects, and merely rely on your own will when doing things, then you are guaranteed to do them incorrectly, because the will of man is not the truth and, of course, is incompatible with God. If you wish to be approved by God, then you must practice according to the truth rather than according to your own will. Some people engage in certain private matters in the name of fulfilling their duties. Their brothers and sisters then see this as inappropriate, and reproach them for it, but these people do not accept the blame. They think that it was a personal matter that did not involve the church’s work, finances, or people, and it was not evildoing, therefore people should not interfere. Some things might seem to you to be private matters that do not involve any principle or truth. However, looking at the thing you did, you were very selfish. You gave no consideration to the work of the church or the interests of God’s house, nor to whether this would be satisfactory to God; you were only considering your own benefit. This already involves the propriety of the saints, as well as a person’s humanity. Even though what you were doing did not involve the interests of the church, nor did it involve the truth, engaging in a private matter while claiming to be performing your duty is not in line with the truth. Regardless of what you are doing, how big or small a matter is, and whether it is your duty in God’s family or your own private affair, you must consider whether what you are doing conforms with God’s will, as well as whether it is something that a person with humanity should do. If you seek the truth like that in everything you do, then you are a person who truly believes in God. If you seriously treat every matter and every truth in this way, then you will be able to achieve changes in your disposition. There are those who think, “Having me practice the truth when I perform my duty is fair enough, but when I’m taking care of my private affairs, I don’t care what the truth has to say—I’ll do what I like, whatever it takes to benefit myself.” In these words, you can see that they are no lovers of the truth. There are no principles to what they do. They will do whatever is of benefit to them, without even considering the effect it will have on God’s house. As a result, when they have done something, God is not present in them, and they feel dark and upset, and do not know what is going on. Is this not their just desert? If you do not practice the truth in your actions and dishonor God, then you are sinning against Him. If someone does not love the truth and frequently acts according to their own will, then they will frequently offend God. He will detest and reject them, and set them off to the side. What such a person does often fails to meet with God’s approval, and if they know no repentance, then punishment is not far off.