33. The changes that gaining the truth brings upon people
Words of Almighty God of the Last Days
The truth is the reality of all positive things. It can be a person’s life and the direction in which they walk; it can allow one to cast off their corrupt disposition, to come to fear God and shun evil, to become one who submits to God and is a qualified created being, one whom God loves and finds acceptable. … As the truth is people’s ready aid and provision, and can be their life, they should treat the truth as the most precious thing. This is because they must rely on the truth to live, to come to satisfy God’s demands, to come to fear Him and shun evil, and to find within their daily life the path of practice and grasp the principles of practice, achieving submission to God; people must also rely on the truth to cast off their corrupt disposition, to become one who is saved and a qualified created being.
—The Word, Vol. 4. Exposing Antichrists. Item Ten: They Despise the Truth, Brazenly Flout Principles, and Ignore the Arrangements of God’s House (Part Seven)
God has bestowed His life, all He is and all He has, on man, so that they can live it out, so that they can take all that He is and has, and the truths He has bestowed on man, and turn them into their life direction and goal, so that they can live according to His words, and make His words into their life. In this way, could it not be said that God has bestowed His life freely on man so that He could become their life? (It could.) So what is it that people get from God? His expectations? His promises? Or what? What people get from God is not an empty word, it is God’s life! At the same time that God grants people life, His only requirement of them is that they live His life out as their own. When God sees you living out this life, He is gratified; this is His only requirement. So, what people obtain from God is something priceless, but at the same time that He grants them this priceless thing, He gets nothing. The greatest beneficiary is man; man reaps the greatest harvest, and man is the greatest beneficiary. At the same time that people accept God’s words as their life, they understand the truth and have principles and a foundation for conducting themselves, so they have a direction for their life path. They are not misled or bound by Satan any longer, nor are they misled or used by evil people any longer; they are no longer polluted or enticed by evil trends. They live free and liberated between the heaven and earth, and are able to truly live under God’s dominion, never again to be brutalized by any evil or dark force. That is to say, as a person lives out this kind of life, they no longer suffer pain, and they have no difficulties; they live happily, free and easy. They have a normal relationship with God; they do not rebel against Him, nor resist Him. Truly living under His sovereignty, inside and out they live in a way that is perfectly justified; they have the truth and humanity, and become worthy of the name of mankind.
—The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. Man Is the Greatest Beneficiary of God’s Management Plan
When people accept the words of God as their life, they also enter into the reality of God’s words, and are able to regard and think about questions using the truth, and resolve issues using the truth. Once people have resolved their various notions and misunderstandings about God, they can then immediately improve their relationship with God while at the same time pave their road toward life entry. When people achieve such changes, what becomes of their relationship with God? It becomes one of created beings and Creator. In relationships at this level, there is no competition, no testing, and very little rebellion; people are much more submissive, understanding, worshipful, loyal, and honest toward God, and they truly fear God.
—The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. Only by Resolving One’s Notions Can One Embark on the Right Track of Belief in God (1)
When God’s words take root in your heart, you will be able to practice the truth. As you live out some realities of God’s words, you will see external matters with great penetration and clarity. You will have an accurate assessment, understanding, and discernment of evil trends, the way of life of humankind, your own marriage and family, various interpersonal relationships, and all kinds of people, events, and things. Where does this accurate understanding, assessment, and discernment come from? It comes from God’s words. The source is God’s words; you will have received the provision of God’s words. And what is the path? The path is that you undergo experiences in God’s words, become able to engage with the truth, and gain from God the wisdom to discern good and evil and the ability to recognize evil trends. Most importantly, what else do you gain? (Life.) To say you gain life is just doctrine. What else do you gain? By having experiences with various people, events, and things, you come to see how God orchestrates everything; through various people, events, and things, you see what God’s intentions are, what God’s disposition is, what God’s wisdom is, what His way and principles of doing things are, and the wisdom in how God deals with different kinds of people. You must see these things to know the Creator.
—God’s Fellowship
When people experience until the day that their outlook on life, and the meaning and basis of their existence, have entirely changed, when they have been altered to their very bones and have become someone else, is this not incredible? This is a great change, an earth-shattering change. Only when you become disinterested in the fame, gain, status, money, pleasure, power and glory of the world, and can easily forgo them, will you have the likeness of a human being. Those who will ultimately be made complete by God are a group such as this; they live for the truth, live for God, and live for that which is just. This is the likeness of a true human being.
—The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. Part Three
In people who truly know God, understand the truth, and gain the truth, there is a real change in their worldview and outlook on life, following which, a real change also occurs in their life disposition. When people have the correct life goals, are able to pursue the truth, and comport themselves according to the truth, when they submit absolutely to God and live by His words, when they feel peaceful and illuminated to the depths of their hearts, when their hearts are free of darkness, and when they can live entirely free and unrestrained in God’s presence, only then do they lead genuine human lives, and only then have they become those who possess the truth and humanity. In addition, all the truths that you have understood and gained have come from God’s words and from God Himself. Only when you gain the approval of God Most High—the Creator, and He says that you are a qualified created being who lives out a human likeness, will your life be most meaningful. Having God’s approval means that you have obtained the truth, and that you are someone who possesses the truth and humanity. In today’s world that is dominated by Satan, and for at least thousands of years of history, who among all of humanity has obtained a true human life? No one. Because people have been profoundly corrupted by Satan, and live by the philosophies of Satan, and everything they do is antagonistic to God, and their every utterance and theory is born of the corruption of Satan, and in direct antipathy to God’s words, they are thus precisely the kind of people who oppose God. If they do not accept God’s salvation, they shall be plunged into perdition and destruction, with no life to speak of at all. They pursue fame and gain, try to be some great or renowned individual, and hope to “have their names passed down for generations to come,” and to be “famous throughout all history.” These are devilish words, and utterly untenable. Every great or renowned figure is, in fact, the ilk of Satan, and has long been plunged into the eighteenth level of hell for punishment, never to be reincarnated. When corrupt mankind venerates these people, and accepts their devilish words and their fallacies, corrupt mankind becomes the victim of devils and Satan. Created beings should worship the Creator. This is perfectly natural and justified, for only God is the truth. God controls the heavens and earth and everything, and rules over all. To not believe in God and to not submit to God is to be unable to obtain the truth. If you live in accordance with God’s words, then in the depths of your heart, you will feel brightened and at ease, and you will also enjoy an incomparable sweetness. When this happens, you will have truly obtained life.
—The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. How to Know Man’s Nature
Once a person is saved and gains the truth, their point of view toward things will completely transform, aligning perfectly with God’s words and in accordance with God. When this stage is reached, a person will no longer rebel against God, and God will no longer chastise or judge them, nor will He detest them. It is because this person is no longer an enemy of God, they no longer stand in opposition to God, and God has truly and rightfully become the Creator of His created beings. People have returned under God’s dominion, and God enjoys the worship, submission, and fear that people should offer to Him. Everything falls naturally into place. … When you understand the basis of comporting yourself according to God’s words, and comprehend and enter into the truth principles, then you will know how to comport yourself, and you will become a real human being. This is the foundation for self-comportment, and only such a person’s life is worthwhile, only they deserve to live and should not die.
—The Word, Vol. 6. On the Pursuit of the Truth I. How to Pursue the Truth (8)
If a person takes the truth reality as their life, how will that manifest? First of all, they will be able to submit to God, and to live out human likeness; they will be an honest person, someone whose life disposition has changed. There are several characteristics of change in life disposition. The first characteristic is being able to submit to things that are right and conform to the truth. No matter who offers an opinion, whether they are old or young, whether you are able to get along with them or not, whether you know them or not, whether you are familiar with them or not, whether your relationship with them is good or bad, so long as what they say is right, conforms to the truth, and is beneficial to the work of God’s house, you will be able to listen to, adopt, and accept it, without being influenced by any other factors. To be able to accept and submit to things that are right and conform to the truth is the first characteristic. The second characteristic is being able to seek the truth when something happens; it is not only about being able to accept the truth, it is also about practicing the truth, and not handling matters based on your own will. No matter what happens to you, you will be able to seek when you cannot see things clearly, and look at how to handle the issue, and how to practice in a way that conforms to the truth principles and satisfies God’s requirements. The third characteristic is considering God’s intentions no matter what issue you face, rebelling against the flesh to achieve submission to God. You will consider God’s intentions no matter what duty you are performing, and you will perform your duty according to God’s requirements. Whatever requirements God has for this duty, you will act according to those requirements while performing it, and act in order to satisfy God. You must grasp this principle, and perform your duty responsibly and loyally. That is what it means to consider God’s intentions. If you do not know how to consider God’s intentions or satisfy God in a certain matter, then you must seek. You should compare yourselves to these three characteristics of dispositional change, and look to see if you possess these characteristics or not. If you have practical experience and paths of practice in these three areas, then you will be handling matters with principles.
—The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. Only by Practicing the Truth Can One Cast Off the Shackles of a Corrupt Disposition
Once the truth has become life in you, when you observe someone who is blasphemous toward God, unfearful of God, and perfunctory while performing their duty, or who disrupts and disturbs church work, you will respond according to the truth principles, and will be able to identify and expose them as necessary. If the truth has not become your life, and you still live within your satanic disposition, then when you discover evil people and devils who cause disruptions and disturbances to the work of the church, you will turn a blind eye and a deaf ear; you will brush them aside, without reproach from your conscience. You will even think that anyone causing disturbances to the work of the church has nothing to do with you. No matter how much the work of the church and the interests of the house of God suffer, you don’t care, intervene, or feel guilty—which makes you someone who has no conscience or reason, a disbeliever, a laborer. You eat what is of God’s, drink what is of God’s, and enjoy all that comes from God, yet feel that any harm to the interests of the house of God is not related to you—which makes you a traitor who bites the hand that feeds you. If you do not protect the interests of the house of God, are you even human? This is a demon that has insinuated itself into the church. You feign belief in God, pretend to be a chosen one, and you want to freeload in God’s house. You are not living the life of a human being, are more like a fiend than a person, and are clearly one of the disbelievers. If you are someone who truly believes in God, then even if you have yet to gain the truth and life, at the very least you will speak and act from the side of God; at the very least, you will not stand idly by when you see the interests of the house of God being compromised. When you have the urge to turn a blind eye, you will feel guilty, and ill at ease, and will say to yourself, “I can’t sit here and do nothing, I must stand up and say something, I must take responsibility, I must expose this evil behavior, I must stop it, so that the interests of the house of God are not harmed, and the church life is not disturbed.” If the truth has become your life, then not only will you have this courage and resolve, and will you be capable of understanding the matter completely, but you will also fulfill the responsibility you should bear for God’s work and for the interests of His house, and your duty will thereby be fulfilled. If you could consider your duty as your responsibility and obligation and as God’s commission, and you feel that this is necessary in order to face God and your conscience, would you not then be living out the integrity and dignity of normal humanity? Your deeds and behavior would be the “fearing God and shunning evil” of which He speaks. You would be performing the essence of these words and living out their reality. When the truth becomes a person’s life, they are then able to live out this reality.
—The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. Part Three
If one can satisfy God while doing one’s duty, is principled in their words and actions, and enter the reality of all aspects of the truth, then they are a person who is perfected by God. It can be said that the work and words of God have been completely effective for them, that God’s words have become their life, they have obtained the truth, and that they are able to live in accordance with God’s words. After this, the nature of their flesh—that is, the very foundation of their original existence—will shake apart and collapse. Only after people possess God’s words as their life will they become new people. If the words of God become people’s lives, if the vision of God’s work, His exposure and requirements of humanity, and the standards for human life that God requires people to meet become their life, if people live according to these words and truths, then they are perfected by the words of God. Such people are reborn and have become new people through God’s words. This is the path by which Peter pursued the truth. This is the path of being perfected. Peter was perfected by God’s words, he gained life from the words of God, the truth expressed by God became his life, and he became a person who obtained the truth.
—The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. How to Walk the Path of Peter
Related Hymns
God Has Freely Given Life to Man
This Is the Likeness of a True Person