Everyone who has resolved to can serve God—but it must be that only those who give every care to God’s will and understand God’s will are qualified and entitled to serve God. In your experiences, it can be seen that many people believe that serving God means fervently spreading the gospel for God, going on the road for God, spending and sacrificing for God, and so on; even more religious people believe that serving God means running around with a Bible in their hands, spreading the gospel of the kingdom of heaven and saving people by making them repent and confess; there are many religious officials who think that serving God is preaching in chapels after studying at the seminary, teaching people by reading chapters of the Bible; many fellow brothers and sisters believe that serving God means never getting married or raising a family, and dedicating their entire being to God; there are also people in impoverished regions who believe that serving God means healing and casting out demons, or praying for the brothers and sisters, or serving them; amongst you, there are many who believe that serving God means eating and drinking the words of God, and praying to God every day, and visiting churches everywhere; so, too, are there people who say that living the life of the church is serving God. Yet few people know what it actually means to serve God. Although there are as many who serve God as stars in the sky, the number of those who can serve directly, and who are able to serve God’s will, is paltry—pifflingly small. Why do I say this? I say this because you do not understand the substance of the phrase “service to God,” and you understand so little of how to serve God’s will. Today, we are mainly communing how to serve in accordance with God’s will, how to serve in order to satisfy God’s will.

If you wish to serve God’s will, you must first understand what kind of people are beloved by God, what kind of people are loathed by God, what kind of people are made perfect by God, and what kind of people are qualified to serve God. This is the very least that you ought to be equipped with. Moreover, you should know the aims of God’s work, and the work that God shall do in the here and now. After understanding this, and through the guidance of God’s words, you will first enter, and first receive God’s commission. When you actually experience based upon God’s words, and when you truly know God’s work, you will be qualified to serve God. And it is when you serve Him that God enlightens your spiritual eyes, and allows you to have a greater understanding of His work and see it more clearly. When you enter this reality, your experiences will be more profound and real, and all those who have had such experiences will be able to walk among the churches and provide to their brothers and sisters, each side drawing on the strengths of the other to make up for their own deficiencies, and gaining a richer knowledge in their spirits. Only after achieving this effect will you be able to serve God’s will and be made perfect by God in the course of your service.

Those who serve God should be God’s intimates, they should be beloved by God, and capable of the utmost loyalty to God. Regardless of whether you act behind people, or in front of them, you are able to gain the joy of God before God, you are able to stand firm before God, and regardless of how other people treat you, you always walk your own path, and give every care to God’s burden. Only this is an intimate of God. That God’s intimates are able to serve Him directly is because they have been given God’s great commission, and God’s burden, they are able to take God’s heart as their own, and God’s burden as their own, and they give no consideration to whether they gain or lose prospect: Even when they have no prospects, and they will gain nothing, they will always believe in God with a loving heart. And so, this kind of person is God’s intimate. God’s intimates are also His confidants; only God’s confidants could share His restlessness, and His wants, and although their flesh is painful and weak, they are able to endure pain and forsake that which they love to satisfy God. God gives more burdens to such people, and that which God shall do is expressed through these people. Thus, these people are beloved by God, they are servants of God who are after His own heart, and only people such as this can rule together with God. When you have truly become God’s intimate is precisely when you will rule together with God.

—The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. How to Serve in Harmony With God’s Will