13. How to resolve the problem of being afraid of enduring suffering and taking on responsibility in one’s duty
Words of Almighty God of the Last Days
Eating and drinking of God’s words, practicing prayer, accepting God’s burden, and accepting the tasks He entrusts to you—all of this is so that there may be a path before you. The more burden you have for God’s commission, the easier it will be for you to be perfected by Him. Some are unwilling to coordinate with others in service to God, even when they have been called upon; these are lazy people who wish only to revel in comfort. The more you are asked to serve in coordination with others, the more experience you will gain. Due to having more burdens and experiences, you will gain more opportunities to be perfected. Therefore, if you can serve God with sincerity, then you will be mindful of God’s burden; as such, you will have more opportunities to be perfected by God. It is just such a group of people that is currently being perfected. The more the Holy Spirit touches you, the more time you will devote to being mindful of God’s burden, the more you will be perfected by God, and the more you will be gained by Him—until, in the end, you will become a person whom God uses. At present, there are some who carry no burdens for the church. These people are slack and sloppy, and only care about their own flesh. Such people are extremely selfish, and they are also blind. If you cannot see this matter clearly, you will not carry any burden. The more considerate you are of God’s intentions, the greater the burden He will entrust to you. The selfish are unwilling to suffer such things; they are unwilling to pay the price, and, as a result, they will miss opportunities to be perfected by God. Are they not doing themselves harm? If you are someone who is considerate of God’s intentions, then you will develop a true burden for the church. In fact, instead of calling this a burden you bear for the church, it would be better to call it a burden you bear for your own life’s sake, because the purpose of this burden you develop for the church is to have you use such experiences to be perfected by God. Therefore, whoever carries the greatest burden for the church, whoever carries a burden for life entry—they will be the ones who are perfected by God. Have you seen this clearly? If the church you are with is scattered like sand, but you are neither worried nor anxious, and you even turn a blind eye when your brothers and sisters are not normally eating and drinking of God’s words, then you are not carrying any burdens. Such people are not the kind in whom God delights. The kind of people in whom God delights hunger and thirst for righteousness and are considerate of God’s intentions. Thus, you should become mindful of God’s burden, here and now; you should not wait for God to reveal His righteous disposition to all humanity before growing mindful of God’s burden. Would it not be too late by then? Now is a good opportunity to be perfected by God. If you allow this chance to slip through your fingers, you will regret it for the rest of your life, just as Moses was unable to enter the good land of Canaan and regretted it for the rest of his life, dying with remorse. Once God has revealed His righteous disposition to all peoples, you will be filled with regret. Even if God does not chastise you, you will chastise yourself out of your own remorse. Some are not convinced by this, but if you do not believe it, just wait and see. There are some people whose sole purpose is to fulfill these words. Are you willing to sacrifice yourself for the sake of these words?
—The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Be Considerate of God’s Intentions in Order to Attain Perfection
Some people are afraid of shouldering responsibility while performing their duty. If the church gives them a job to do, they will first consider whether the job requires them to shoulder responsibility, and if it does, they will not accept the job. Their conditions for performing a duty are, first, that it must be a slack job; second, that it is not busy or tiring; and third, that no matter what they do, they do not shoulder any responsibility. This is the only kind of duty they take on. What sort of a person is this? Is this not a slippery, deceitful person? They do not want to shoulder even the smallest amount of responsibility. They even fear that leaves will break their skull when they fall from trees. What duty can a person like this perform? What use could they have in the house of God? The work of the house of God has to do with the work of battling Satan, as well as spreading the kingdom gospel. What duty does not entail responsibilities? Would you say that being a leader carries responsibility? Are their responsibilities not all the greater, and must they not bear responsibility all the more? Regardless of whether you spread the gospel, testify, make videos, and so on—no matter what work you do—so long as it pertains to the truth principles, it carries with it responsibilities. If the performance of your duty is unprincipled, it will affect the work of God’s house, and if you are afraid of shouldering responsibility, then you cannot perform any duty. Is someone who fears taking on responsibility in performing their duty cowardly, or is there a problem with their disposition? You must be able to tell the difference. The fact is that this is not an issue of cowardice. If that person were after wealth, or they were doing something in their own interest, how could they be so brave? They would take on any risk. But when they do things for the church, for God’s house, they take on no risk at all. Such people are selfish and vile, the most treacherous of all. Anyone who does not take on responsibility in performing a duty is not the least bit sincere to God, to say nothing of their loyalty. What sort of person dares to take on responsibility? What sort of person has the courage to bear a heavy burden? Someone who takes the lead and goes bravely forth at the most crucial moment in the work of God’s house, who is not afraid to bear a heavy responsibility and endure great hardship when they see the work that is most important and crucial. That is someone loyal to God, a good soldier of Christ. Is it the case that everyone who fears taking on responsibility in their duty does so because they do not understand the truth? No; it is a problem in their humanity. They have no sense of justice or responsibility, they are selfish and vile people, not true-hearted believers in God, and they do not accept the truth in the least. For this reason, they cannot be saved. Believers in God must pay a great price in order to gain the truth, and they will encounter many obstacles to practicing it. They must forsake things, abandon their fleshly interests, and endure some suffering. Only then will they be able to put the truth into practice. So, can one who fears taking on responsibility practice the truth? They certainly cannot practice the truth, let alone gain it. They are afraid of practicing the truth, of incurring a loss to their interests; they are afraid of being humiliated, of disparagement, and of judgment, and they do not dare to practice the truth. Consequently, they cannot gain it, and no matter how many years they believe in God, they cannot attain His salvation. Those who can perform a duty in God’s house must be people whose burden is the work of the church, who take responsibility, who uphold the truth principles, and who can suffer and pay the price. If one is lacking in these areas, they are unfit to perform a duty, and they do not possess the conditions for the performance of duty. There are many people who are afraid of taking on responsibility in performing a duty. Their fear manifests in three main ways. The first is that they choose duties that do not require taking on responsibility. If a church leader arranges for them to perform a duty, they first ask whether they must take on responsibility for it: If so, they do not accept it. If it does not require them to take on responsibility and to be responsible for it, they accept it reluctantly, but still must see whether the work is tiring or bothersome, and despite their reluctant acceptance of the duty, they are unmotivated to perform it well, preferring still to be perfunctory. Leisure, no labor, and no bodily hardship—this is their principle. The second is that when a difficulty befalls them or they encounter a problem, their first resort is to report it to a leader and have the leader handle and resolve it, in hope that they may keep their ease. They do not care how the leader handles the issue and pay this no mind—so long as they are not responsible themselves, then all is well to them. Is such performance of duty loyal to God? This is called passing the buck, dereliction of duty, playing tricks. It is all talk; they are not doing anything real. They say to themselves, “If this thing is mine to sort out, what if I end up making a mistake? When they look into who’s to blame, won’t they handle me? Won’t the responsibility for it fall first to me?” This is what they worry about. But do you believe that God scrutinizes all? Everyone makes mistakes. If a person whose intention is correct lacks experience and has not handled some sort of matter before, but they have done their best, that is visible to God. You must believe that God scrutinizes all things and the heart of man. If one does not even believe this, are they not a disbeliever? What significance could there be in such a person performing a duty? It doesn’t really matter whether they perform this duty or not, does it? They are afraid of taking responsibility and they shirk responsibility. When something happens, the first thing they do isn’t try to think of a way to handle the problem, rather the first thing they do is call and notify the leader. Of course, some people try to handle the problem themselves as they notify the leader, but some people don’t do this, and the first thing they do is call the leader, and after the call, they just wait passively, awaiting instructions. When the leader instructs them to take a step, they take a step; if the leader says to do something, they do it. If the leader doesn’t say anything or give instructions, they don’t do anything and just procrastinate. Without anyone spurring them on or supervising them they don’t do any work at all. Tell Me, is such a person doing a duty? Even if they are laboring, they have no loyalty! There is one more way in which a person’s fear of taking on responsibility in performing a duty manifests. When they perform their duty, some people do just a bit of superficial, simple work, work that does not entail taking on responsibility. Work that entails difficulties and taking on responsibility, they dump onto others, and if something should go wrong, they shift the blame onto those people and keep their own noses clean. When church leaders see that they are irresponsible, they patiently offer help, or they prune them, so that they may be able to take responsibility. But still, they do not want to, and they think, “This duty is hard to do. I’ll have to take responsibility when things go wrong, and I may even be cleared out and eliminated, and that will be the end for me.” What kind of attitude is this? If they have no sense of responsibility in performing their duty, how can they perform their duty well? Those who don’t genuinely expend themselves for God can’t perform any duty well, and those who fear taking responsibility will only delay things when they perform their duties. Such people are not trustworthy or dependable; they only perform their duty to get food in their mouths. Should “beggars” like this be eliminated? They should. The house of God does not want such people. These are the three manifestations of people who are afraid of taking on responsibility in performing their duty. People who are afraid of shouldering responsibility in their duty cannot even reach the level of a loyal laborer, and are not fit to perform a duty. Some people are eliminated because of this sort of attitude toward their duty. Even now, they may not know the reason and still complain, saying, “I did my duty with fiery enthusiasm, so why did they throw me out so coldly?” Even now, they do not understand. Those who do not understand the truth spend their whole lives unable to understand why they were eliminated. They make excuses for themselves, and keep defending themselves, thinking, “It’s instinctual for people to protect themselves, and they should do so. Who shouldn’t be looking out for themselves a bit? Who shouldn’t be thinking of themselves a bit? Who doesn’t need to keep an escape route open for themselves?” If you protect yourself whenever something befalls you and leave yourself an escape route, a back door, are you putting the truth into practice? This is not practicing the truth—it is being sneaky. You are performing your duty in the house of God now. What is the first principle of performing a duty? It is that you must first perform that duty with your whole heart, sparing no effort, and protect the interests of God’s house. This is a truth principle, one that you should put into practice. Protecting oneself by leaving oneself an escape route, a back door, is the principle of practice followed by nonbelievers, and their most elevated philosophy. Considering oneself first in all things and placing one’s own interests before all else, not thinking of others, having no connection with the interests of God’s house and the interests of others, thinking of one’s own interests first and then thinking of an escape route—is that not what a nonbeliever is? This is precisely what a nonbeliever is. This sort of person is not fit to perform a duty.
—The Word, Vol. 4. Exposing Antichrists. Item Eight: They Would Have Others Submit Only to Them, Not the Truth or God (Part One)
Two people are paired up to perform a duty. They’re both afraid of taking responsibility for it, so it becomes a battle of wits. One says, “You go take care of this.” The other says, “It’d be better for you to handle it. I’m of worse caliber than you.” What they’re really thinking is: “There’ll be no reward for doing this thing well, and if it’s done poorly, I’ll be pruned. I’m not going—I’m not that dumb! I know what you’re up to. Quit trying to get me to go.” What comes in the end of their back-and-forth? Neither of them goes, and the work is delayed as a result. Is that not immoral? (It is.) Isn’t delaying the work a serious consequence? It’s a bad result. So, what is it that these two are living by? They’re both living by satanic philosophies; they’re constrained and bound up by satanic philosophies and their own trickery. They’ve failed to practice the truth, and as such, their performance of their duty isn’t up to standard. It’s perfunctory, and there’s no testimony at all in it. Say two people are paired up to perform a duty. One of them tries to take a dominant position in everything and always wants to have the last word, and the other may think, “They’re the tough one; they like taking the lead. Well, they can take the lead in everything, and when something goes wrong, it’ll be them who get pruned. ‘The bird that sticks its neck out is the one that gets shot’! I won’t stick out, then. It just so happens that I’m of poor caliber, and I don’t like to be bothered with stuff. They love taking the lead, right? Well, if there’s something to do, I’ll leave it to them!” A person who’d say such things enjoys being a people pleaser, a follower. What do you make of their way of performing a duty? What is it they’re living by? (Philosophies for worldly dealings.) They’re thinking something else, too. “Won’t they get mad at me if I steal their thunder? Won’t there be discord between the two of us going forward? If this were to affect our relationship, we’d have a tough time getting along. I’ll be better off if I let them have their way.” Is this not a philosophy for worldly dealings? The way they’re living saves them trouble. It enables them to avoid taking responsibility. They’ll follow along in whatever they’re made to do, without having to take the lead or stick out, and without having to think about any problems. Everything’s being covered by someone else, so they won’t tire themselves out. Their willingness to be a follower proves that they have no sense of responsibility. They’re living by philosophies for worldly dealings. They don’t accept the truth or uphold the principles. That’s not harmonious cooperation—it’s being a follower, a people pleaser. Why is that not cooperation? Because they don’t live up to their responsibility in anything. They don’t act with all their heart or all their mind, and it may be that they don’t act with all their strength, either. That’s why I say they’re living by philosophies for worldly dealings, rather than by the truth.
—The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. What Is It, Exactly, on Which People Rely to Live?
If you feel you can perform a certain duty, but you also fear making a mistake and being eliminated, and so you are timid, stagnant, and can’t make progress, then is that a submissive attitude? For example, if your brothers and sisters choose you as their leader, then you may feel obligated to perform this duty because you were chosen, but you don’t regard this duty with a proactive attitude. Why are you not proactive? Because you have thoughts about it, and feel that, “Being a leader isn’t a good thing at all. It’s like walking on a knife’s edge or treading on thin ice. If I do a good job then there will be no reward, but if I do a bad job then I will be pruned. And being pruned isn’t even the worst of all. What if I get replaced or eliminated? If that were to happen, isn’t it all over for me?” At that point, you start to feel conflicted. What is this attitude? This is being guarded and misunderstanding. This is not the attitude that people should have toward their duty. It is a demoralized and negative attitude. So, what should a positive attitude be like? (We should be open-hearted and forthright, and have the courage to take up burdens.) It should be one of submission and proactive cooperation. What you say is a bit empty. How can you be open-hearted and forthright when you are so afraid like this? And what does it mean to have the courage to take up burdens? What mentality will give you the courage to take up burdens? If you’re always afraid that something will go wrong and you won’t be able to handle it, and you have many internal hindrances, then you will fundamentally lack the courage to take up burdens. The “being open-hearted and forthright,” “having the courage to take up burdens,” or “never retreating even in the face of death” you speak of, sounds a bit like the slogans shouted by angry young people. Can these slogans solve practical problems? What is needed now is a correct attitude. To possess a correct attitude, you must understand this aspect of the truth. This is the only way to resolve your internal difficulties, and allow you to smoothly accept this commission, this duty. This is the path of practice, and only this is the truth. If you use terms like “being open-hearted and forthright” and “having the courage to take up burdens” to address the fear that you feel, will this be effective? (No.) This indicates that these things are not the truth, nor are they a path of practice. You may say, “I am open-hearted and forthright, I am of indomitable stature, there are no other thoughts or contaminants in my heart, and I have the courage to take up burdens.” Outwardly you take up your duty, but later, after pondering it for a while, you still feel that you cannot take it up. You may still feel afraid. In addition, you may see others being pruned, and become even more afraid, like a whipped dog terrified of the strap. You will increasingly feel like your stature is too small, and that this duty is like a vast, uncrossable abyss, and ultimately you will still be unable to take up this burden. This is why chanting slogans cannot solve practical problems. So how can you actually solve this problem? You should actively seek the truth and adopt a submissive and cooperative attitude. That can completely solve the problem. Timidity, fear, and worry are useless. Is there any relationship between whether you will be revealed and eliminated and being a leader? If you are not a leader, will your corrupt disposition disappear? Sooner or later, you must resolve the problem of your corrupt disposition. In addition, if you are not a leader, then you will not have more opportunities to practice and will make slow progress in life, with few chances to be perfected. Although there is a bit more suffering in being a leader or worker, it also brings about many gains, and if you can walk the path of pursuing the truth, you can be perfected. What a great blessing that is! So you should submit and actively cooperate. This is your duty and your responsibility. No matter the road ahead, you should have a heart of submission. This is the attitude with which you should perform your duty.
—The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. What Is the Adequate Performance of Duty?
As leaders and workers, you’re capable of ignoring problems that occur in the performance of duties, and you even look for various pretexts and excuses to avoid responsibility. There are some problems that you are capable of solving, but don’t, and the problems you are incapable of solving you do not report to your superiors, as if they have nothing to do with you. Is this not a dereliction of your duty? Is treating the work of the church thus a clever thing to do, or a foolish thing to do? (Foolish.) Are such leaders and workers not slippery? Are they not devoid of any sense of responsibility? When they ignore problems in front of them, does this not show they are heartless and treacherous? Treacherous people are the most foolish people of all. You must be an honest person, you must have a sense of responsibility when you face problems, and you must try every means possible to seek the truth to resolve problems. You absolutely must not be a treacherous person. If you only concern yourself with shirking responsibility and washing your hands of it when problems arise, you would even be condemned for this behavior among nonbelievers, not to mention in God’s house! This is condemned and cursed by God and God’s chosen people despise and reject such behavior. God loves honest people, but hates deceitful and slippery people. If you are a treacherous person and attempt to play tricks, will God not loathe you? Will God’s house simply let you off the hook? Sooner or later, you will be held accountable. God likes honest people and dislikes treacherous people. Everyone should understand this clearly, and stop being confused and doing foolish things. Momentary ignorance is excusable, but refusing to accept the truth at all is just obstinacy. Honest people can take responsibility. They do not consider their own gains and losses, they just safeguard the work and interests of God’s house. They have kind and honest hearts that are like bowls of clear water that one can see the bottom of at a glance. There is also transparency in their actions. A deceitful person always plays tricks, always disguises things, covers up, and wraps themselves up so tightly that no one can see through them. People can’t see through to their inner thoughts, but God can scrutinize the deepest things in their heart. If God sees that they are not an honest person, and that they are slippery—never accepting the truth, always engaging in deceit against God, and never handing their heart over to Him—then God will not like them, He will loathe and abandon them. Those who prosper among the nonbelievers, who are silver-tongued and quick-witted, what kind of people are they? Is this clear to you? What is their essence? It can be said that they are all extraordinarily shrewd, they are all extremely deceitful and treacherous, they are the genuine devils and Satans. Could God save someone such as this? God loathes nothing more than devils—people who are deceitful and treacherous. God definitely will not save such people, so you absolutely must not be this kind of person. Those who are quick-witted and consider all the angles when they speak, who are smooth and slick and look to see which way the wind blows when they deal with matters—I tell you, God loathes these people the most, people like this are beyond saving. When people are deceitful and treacherous, no matter how nice their words may sound, they are still devilish words that deceive people. The nicer their words sound, the more they are devils and Satans. These are exactly the kind of people that God despises most. What do you say: Can people who are deceitful and smooth-tongued, and often lie, receive the work of the Holy Spirit? Can they receive the illumination and enlightenment of the Holy Spirit? Absolutely not. What is God’s attitude toward people who are deceitful and treacherous? He spurns them, He sets them aside and pays them no heed, He regards them as of the same class as animals. In God’s eyes, such people are merely wearing human skin; in their essence, they are of the same kind as the devils and Satan, they are walking corpses, and God will never save them.
—The Word, Vol. 5. The Responsibilities of Leaders and Workers. The Responsibilities of Leaders and Workers (8)
Right now, a wide range of problems still exist in many of those who perform duties. Some people are always very passive in their duties, always sitting and waiting and relying on others. What sort of attitude is that? It is irresponsibility. God’s house has arranged for you to do a duty, yet you ponder on it for days without getting any concrete work done. You are nowhere to be seen at the workplace, and people cannot find you when they have problems that need resolving. You do not bear a burden for this work. If a leader inquires about the work, what will you tell them? You are not doing any kind of work right now. You are well aware that this work is your responsibility, but you do not do it. What on earth are you thinking? Do you not do any work because you are incapable of it? Or are you just greedy for comfort? What attitude do you have toward your duty? You only talk about words and doctrines, and you only say pleasant-sounding things, but you do not do any actual work. If you do not wish to perform your duty, you should resign. Do not hold your position and not do anything there. Is doing so not inflicting harm on God’s chosen people and compromising the work of the church? In the way you talk, you seem to understand all manner of doctrine, but when asked to perform a duty, you are perfunctory, and not conscientious in the least. Is that expending yourself sincerely for God? You are not sincere when it comes to God, yet you feign sincerity. Are you capable of deceiving Him? In the way you usually talk, there seems to be such great faith; you would like to be the pillar of the church and its rock. But when you perform a duty, you are less useful than a matchstick. Is this not deceiving God with your eyes wide open? Do you know what will come of you trying to deceive God? He will spurn and eliminate you! All people are revealed in performing their duties—just set a person to a duty, and it will not take long before it is revealed whether they are an honest person or a deceitful person, and whether or not they are a lover of the truth. Those who love the truth can perform their duties sincerely and uphold the work of God’s house; those who do not love the truth do not uphold the work of God’s house in the least, and they are irresponsible in performing their duties. This is immediately clear to those who are clear-sighted. No one who performs their duty poorly is a lover of the truth or an honest person; such people will all be revealed and eliminated. To perform their duties well, people must have a sense of responsibility and a sense of burden. This way, the work will definitely be done properly. It is only worrying when someone does not have a sense of burden or responsibility, when they have to be prompted to do everything, when they’re always perfunctory, and they try to shift the blame when problems arise, leading to delays in their resolution. Can the work still be done well then? Can their performance of their duty yield any results? They do not wish to do any of the tasks that are arranged for them, and when they see others who need help with their work, they ignore them. They only do a bit of work when ordered, only when push comes to shove and they have no choice. This is not performing a duty—this is hired labor! A hired laborer works for an employer, doing a day’s work for a day’s pay, an hour’s work for an hour’s pay; they’re waiting to get paid. They’re afraid of doing any work their boss doesn’t see, they’re afraid of not being rewarded for anything they do, they only ever work for appearances’ sake—which means they have no loyalty. Much of the time, you are unable to reply when asked about work issues. Some of you have gotten involved in the work, but you have never asked how the work is going or carefully thought about this. Given your caliber and knowledge, you ought to know something at least, because all of you have taken part in this work. So why do most people say nothing? It is possible that you really don’t know what to say—that you don’t know whether or not things are going well. There are two reasons for this: One is that you are totally indifferent, and have never cared about these things, and have only ever treated them as a task to be completed. The other is that you are irresponsible and are unwilling to care about these things. If you truly cared, and were really engaged, you would have a view and perspective on everything. Having no perspective or view often comes from being indifferent and apathetic, and not taking any responsibility. You are not diligent toward the duty you perform, you do not take any responsibility, you are not willing to pay a price or get involved. You do not take any pains, nor are you willing to expend any greater energy; you merely wish to be an underling, which is no different from how a nonbeliever works for their boss. This kind of performance of a duty is disliked by God and it does not please Him. It cannot meet with His approval.
—The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. Only an Honest Person Can Live Out True Human Likeness
All who do not pursue the truth perform their duties with a mindset lacking in responsibility. “If someone leads, I follow; wherever they lead, I go. I’ll do whatever they’d have me do. As for taking on responsibility and concern, or taking more trouble to do something, doing something with all my heart and strength—I’m not up for that.” These people are unwilling to pay the price. They are only willing to exert themselves, not to take on responsibility. This is not the attitude with which one truly performs a duty. One must learn to put their heart into their performance of their duty, and a person with a conscience can accomplish this. If one never puts their heart into the performance of their duty, that means they have no conscience, and those without a conscience cannot gain the truth. Why do I say they cannot gain the truth? They do not know how to pray to God and seek the Holy Spirit’s enlightenment, nor how to show consideration for God’s intentions, nor how to put their heart into contemplating God’s words, nor do they know how to seek the truth, how to seek to understand God’s requirements and His desires. This is what it is to not be able to seek the truth. Do you experience states where, no matter what happens, or what sort of duty you perform, you are able to frequently quiet yourself before God, and to put your heart into contemplating His words, and into seeking the truth, and into considering how you must perform that duty to accord with God’s intentions, and which truths you should possess in order to perform that duty satisfactorily? Are there many times in which you seek the truth in this way? (No.) Putting your heart into your duty and being able to take on responsibility require you to suffer and to pay a price—it is not enough simply to talk about these things. If you do not put your heart into your duty, always wanting to toil instead, then your duty will certainly not be done well. You will simply go through the motions and nothing more, and you will not know whether you have done your duty well or not. If you put your heart into it, you will gradually come to understand the truth; if you do not, then you will not. When you put your heart into performing your duty and pursuing the truth, you will gradually come to understand God’s intentions, to discover your own corruption and deficiencies, and to master all your various states. When your only focus is on exerting effort, and you do not put your heart into reflecting on yourself, you will be unable to discover the true states in your heart and the myriad reactions and the revelations of corruption that you have in different environments. If you do not know what the consequences will be when problems go unresolved, then you’re in a lot of trouble. This is why it’s no good to believe in God in a confused way. You must live before God at all times, in all places; whatever befalls you, you must always seek the truth, and while you do, you must also reflect on yourself and know what problems there are in your state, seeking the truth at once to resolve them. Only thus can you perform your duty well and avoid delaying the work. Not only will you be able to perform your duty well, what’s most important is that you will also have life entry and be able to resolve your corrupt dispositions. Only thus can you enter the truth reality. If what you often ponder in your heart is not matters related to your duty, or matters that have to do with the truth, and instead, you are entangled in external things, with your thoughts on affairs of the flesh, will you be able to understand the truth? Will you be able to perform your duty well and live before God? Certainly not. A person like that cannot be saved.
—The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. Only an Honest Person Can Live Out True Human Likeness
The most important manifestation of an honest person is seeking and practicing the truth in all matters—this is most crucial. You say that you are honest, but you always push God’s words to the back of your mind and just do whatever you want. Is that the manifestation of an honest person? You say, “Although my caliber is poor, I have an honest heart.” And yet when a duty falls to you, you are afraid of suffering and bearing responsibility if you do not do it well, so you make excuses to shirk your duty or suggest that someone else do it. Is this the manifestation of an honest person? Clearly, it is not. How, then, should an honest person behave? They should submit to God’s arrangements, be loyal to the duty they are supposed to perform, and strive to satisfy God’s intentions. This manifests itself in several ways: One is accepting your duty with an honest heart, not considering your fleshly interests, not being half-hearted about it, and not plotting for your own benefit. Those are manifestations of honesty. Another is putting all your heart and strength into performing your duty well, doing things properly, and putting your heart and love into your duty to satisfy God. These are the manifestations an honest person should have while performing their duty. If you do not carry out what you know and understand, and if you only put in 50 or 60 percent of your effort, then you are not putting all your heart and strength into it. Rather, you are sly and slacking off. Are people who perform their duties in this way honest? Absolutely not. God has no use for such slippery and deceitful people; they must be eliminated. God only uses honest people to perform duties. Even loyal laborers must be honest. People who are perennially perfunctory and sly and looking for ways to slack off are all deceitful, and are all demons. None of them truly believe in God, and they shall all be eliminated. Some people think, “Being an honest person is just about telling the truth and not telling lies. It’s easy to be an honest person, really.” What do you think of this sentiment? Is being an honest person so limited in scope? Absolutely not. You must reveal your heart and give it to God; this is the attitude an honest person ought to have. That is why an honest heart is very precious. What does this imply? That an honest heart can control your behavior and change your state. It can lead you to make the right choices, and to submit to God and gain His approval. A heart like this is truly precious. If you have an honest heart like this, then that is the state you should live in, that is how you should behave, and that is how you should give of yourself.
—The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. Part Three
In the house of God, no matter what duty you perform, you must grasp the principles, and be able to practice the truth. Then you will have principles. If you cannot see through something, if you are not sure what the appropriate way to act is, you should seek and fellowship to come to a consensus. Once you have determined what’s beneficial to the church’s work and to the brothers and sisters, do that. Do not be constrained by any regulations, do not delay, do not wait, and do not be a passive observer. If you are always a passive observer and never have an opinion of your own, if you always wait until someone else has made a decision before doing anything, and if you just drag your heels and wait when no one has made a decision, what will the consequence be? Every item of work will come to a standstill, and nothing will get done. You should learn to seek the truth, or at least be able to act based on your conscience and reason. So long as you can see through to the appropriate way to do something, and the majority of people also think that method is workable, then that is how you should practice. Do not be afraid of taking responsibility, or of offending others, or of bearing consequences. If someone does not do anything real, and they are always calculating, and afraid of taking responsibility, and do not dare to hold to the principles in their actions, then this shows that they are too slippery and deceitful, and that they harbor too many crafty schemes. How lacking in virtue it is to wish to enjoy God’s grace and blessings and yet do nothing real. There is no one God despises more than these kinds of cunning and deceitful people. Regardless of what you are thinking, if you are not practicing according to the truth, have no loyalty, are always tainted by personal adulterations, and always have your own thoughts and ideas, God scrutinizes all these things, and knows about them. Do you think God does not know about them? In that case, you are so foolish! And if you do not immediately repent, you will not have God’s work. Why is that? Because God scrutinizes the depths of people’s hearts. He sees, with absolute clarity, all the little crafty schemes they have, and He sees that their hearts are walled off from Him, that they are not of one heart with Him. What are the main things that keep people’s hearts from God? Their thoughts, their interests and pride, their status, and their own little crafty schemes. When there is a wall of these things in people’s hearts that separates them from God, and they are constantly hiding away secrets and always have their own motives, this means trouble. If you are of slightly poor caliber and have slightly shallow experience, but are willing to pursue the truth, and are always of one heart with God, and can give your all to what God entrusts of you, without playing any tricks, then God will see this. If your heart is always walled off from God, and you always harbor petty schemes, and if you always live for your own interests and pride, are always calculating these things in your heart, and are possessed by them, then God will not be satisfied with you, and He will not enlighten or illuminate you, and He will ignore you, and your heart will grow ever darker. This means that when you perform your duty or do anything, you will make a mess of it, and there will be nothing worthwhile about it. That is because you are so selfish and vile, always scheming for your own sake, without being sincere toward God, and you dare to be deceitful and try to trick God, and you not only do not accept the truth, but are sly in performing your duty—which is not sincerely expending for God. And since you do not perform your duty sincerely, merely toil a little, and use this as an opportunity to get more benefits, and since you also wish to conspire to obtain fame, gain, and status for yourself, and do not accept and obey when you are pruned, it is likely that you will offend God’s disposition. God scrutinizes the depths of people’s hearts. If you do not repent, you will be in danger, and you will likely be eliminated by God, in which case you will never again have the chance to receive God’s approval.
—God’s Fellowship
Some people do not believe that God’s house can treat people fairly. They do not believe that God reigns in His house, and that the truth reigns there. They believe that no matter what duty a person performs, if a problem arises in it, God’s house will handle that person immediately, stripping them of their right to perform that duty, sending them away, or even clearing them out of the church. Is that really how things work? It certainly is not. God’s house treats every person according to the truth principles. God is righteous in His treatment of every person. He does not look only at how a person behaves in a single instance; He looks at a person’s nature essence, at their intentions, at their attitude, and He looks in particular at whether a person can reflect on themselves when they make a mistake, whether they are remorseful, and whether they can penetrate the essence of the problem based on His words, come to understand the truth, hate themselves, and truly repent. If someone lacks this correct attitude, and they are entirely adulterated by personal intentions, if they are filled with cunning schemes and revelations of corrupt dispositions, and when problems arise, they resort to pretense, sophistry, and self-justification, and stubbornly refuse to acknowledge their actions, then such a person cannot be saved. They don’t accept the truth at all and have been completely revealed. People who aren’t right, and who can’t accept the truth in the slightest, are disbelievers in essence and can only be eliminated. How can disbelievers who serve as leaders and workers not be revealed and eliminated? A disbeliever, regardless of what duty they perform, is revealed most quickly of all, because the corrupt dispositions that they reveal are too numerous and too obvious. Moreover, they don’t accept the truth at all and act recklessly and arbitrarily. In the end, when they have been eliminated, and have lost the opportunity to perform their duty, they start to worry, thinking, “I’m done for. If I’m not allowed to perform my duty, I can’t be saved. What should I do?” In reality, Heaven will always leave a way out for man. There is one final path, which is to genuinely repent, and to hurry to spread the gospel and gain people, making up for their faults by doing good deeds. If they don’t take this path, then they are truly done for. If they possess some reason and know that they don’t have any talent, they should properly equip themselves with the truth and train to spread the gospel—this is also performing a duty. This is entirely feasible. If someone acknowledges they were eliminated because they didn’t perform their duty well, yet they still do not accept the truth and don’t have the slightest heart of remorse, and instead abandon themselves to despair, isn’t that foolish and ignorant? Tell Me, if a person has made a mistake, but they are capable of true understanding and willing to repent, would God’s house not give them a chance? As God’s six-thousand-year management plan draws to a close, there are so many duties that need to be performed. But if you have no conscience or reason, and don’t attend to your proper work, if you have gained the opportunity to perform a duty but do not know to treasure it, do not pursue the truth in the least, letting the best time pass them by, then you will be revealed. If you are consistently perfunctory in performing your duty, and you do not submit at all when faced with being pruned, will God’s house still use you to perform a duty? In God’s house, it is the truth that reigns, not Satan. God has the final say over everything. It is He who is doing the work of saving man, it is He who holds sovereignty over everything. There is no need for you to analyze what is right and wrong, you just need to listen and submit. When faced with being pruned, you must accept the truth and be able to correct your mistakes. If you do, God’s house will not strip you of your right to perform a duty. If you are always afraid of being eliminated, always giving excuses, always justifying yourself, that is a problem. If you let others see that you do not accept the truth in the least, and that you are impervious to reason, you are in trouble. The church will be obliged to handle you. If you do not accept the truth at all in performing your duty and are always afraid of being revealed and eliminated, then this fear of yours is tainted with human intent and a corrupt satanic disposition, and with suspicion, guardedness, and misapprehension. None of these are attitudes that a person should have. You must begin by resolving your fear, as well as your misunderstandings of God. How do a person’s misunderstandings of God arise? When things are going well for a person, they certainly do not misunderstand Him. They believe that God is good, that God is honorable, that God is righteous, that God is merciful and loving, that God is right in everything that He does. However, when they are faced with something that does not conform to their notions, they think, “It seems God is not very righteous, at least not in this matter.” Is this not a misunderstanding? How is it that God is not righteous? What was it that gave rise to this misunderstanding? What was it that made you form this opinion and understanding that God is not righteous? Can you say for sure what it was? Which sentence was it? Which matter? Which situation? Say it, so that everyone can work it out and see if you have a leg to stand on. And when a person misunderstands God or faces something that does not conform to their notions, what attitude should they have? (One of seeking the truth and submission.) They need to submit first and consider: “I do not understand, but I will submit because this is what God has done and not something that man should analyze. Moreover, I cannot doubt God’s words or His work because God’s word is the truth.” Is this not the attitude a person should have? With this attitude, would your misunderstanding still pose a problem? (It would not.) It would not affect or disturb your performance of your duty.
—The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. Part Three
After people come to believe in God, what is the most painful and most upsetting thing that can happen to them? The biggest thing is nothing more than learning that they have been cleared out and expelled, and that they have been revealed and eliminated by God—this is the most painful and most sorrowful thing, and no one wants this to happen to them after they come to believe in God. So, how can people avoid this happening to them? At the very least, they must act according to their conscience, that is, they must first learn how to fulfill their responsibilities; people absolutely must not be perfunctory, and they must not delay that which God has commissioned them to do. Since you are a person, you should contemplate what a person’s responsibilities are. Responsibilities that the nonbelievers hold in the highest esteem, such as being filial, providing for your parents, and making a name for your family need not be mentioned. These are all empty and devoid of any real meaning. What is the very minimum responsibility that a person should fulfill? Most practical is how you do your duty well today. Only ever being satisfied with going through the motions is not fulfilling your responsibilities, and only being able to speak about words and doctrines is not fulfilling your responsibilities. Only practicing the truth and doing things according to principle is fulfilling your responsibilities. Only when your practicing of the truth has been effective, and of benefit to people, will you have truly fulfilled your responsibility. No matter what duty you are doing, only when you persist in acting according to the truth principles in all things, will you have truly fulfilled your responsibility. Going through the motions according to the human way of doing things is to be perfunctory; only adhering to the truth principles is properly doing your duty and fulfilling your responsibility. And when you fulfill your responsibility, is this not the manifestation of loyalty? This is the manifestation of loyalty toward your duty. Only when you have this sense of responsibility, this will and desire, and this manifestation of loyalty with regard to your duty, shall God favor you, and look upon you with approval. If you don’t even have this sense of responsibility, God will treat you as an idler, a blockhead, and will despise you. From a human point of view, it means disrespecting you, not taking you seriously, and looking down on you. It’s like how, if you’ve been in contact with someone for a while, and you see them speaking without restraint, and talking in an extravagant and baseless way, and you notice that they like to brag and talk big, and that they’re not reliable—would you respect them? Would you dare entrust them with any task? Perhaps they would delay the task you entrust to them due to some reason or another, and so you wouldn’t dare to entrust anything to people like that, you would detest them from the bottom of your heart, and you would regret having ever associated with them. You’d feel fortunate that you hadn’t entrusted them with anything, as if you had, then you would regret it for the rest of your life. Say that you interact with someone and, through conversation and contact with them, you see that not only do they possess good humanity, but they also have a sense of responsibility, and when you entrust them with a task, they imprint in their mind any casual thing you say, and they think of ways they can handle the task well to satisfy you, and if they don’t handle the task you’ve handed to them well, they feel embarrassed to see you afterward—this is someone with a sense of responsibility. Take a person with a sense of responsibility, whenever they are told something or something is instructed to them, regardless of whether it is by a leader, worker, or the Above, they will always think, “Well, since they think this highly of me, I must handle this matter well and not let them down.” Wouldn’t you dare entrust a matter to such a person with conscience and reason? The person you can entrust to handle a matter is definitely someone whom you think well of and believe to be trustworthy. Particularly if the things they have done for you have all been carried out very conscientiously and have completely reached your requirements, you will think they are a person worthy of trust. Inside you will really admire and think highly of them. People are willing to associate with this type of person, to say nothing of God. Do you think God would entrust church work and a duty man is obligated to do to a person who is not trustworthy? (No, He would not.) What is God’s expectation of a person to whom He has allocated a particular task in the church? Firstly, God hopes that they are responsible, that they treat the task with great importance, and do it well. Secondly, God hopes they are a person who is worthy of trust, that no matter how much time passes, and no matter how their environment changes, their sense of responsibility does not waver, and their character stands up to the test. If they are a trustworthy person, God will be reassured. He will no longer monitor or follow up on this matter because inside, God trusts them. When God gives them this task, they are sure to complete it without any slipups. When God entrusts a task to people, is this not His wish? (It is.) Then once you understand God’s intention, you should then know in your heart how to meet God’s requirements, how to get God to find favor in you, and how to get God to trust you. If you can see clearly your own performance and behavior, and the attitude with which you approach your duty, if you have self-knowledge, and you know what you are, is it not then unreasonable for you to demand that God find favor in you and show you grace, or give you special treatment? (Yes, it is.) Even you look down on yourself, even you despise yourself, so it does not make sense for you to demand that God find favor in you. As such, if you want God to find favor in you, other people should at least be able to trust you. If you want others to trust you, to favor you, to think well of you, then at the very least you must be dignified, responsible, true to your word, and trustworthy. And then in front of God, you must be responsible and loyal—then you have mostly fulfilled God’s requirements of you. Then there is hope of you gaining God’s approval, is there not? (Yes, there is.)
—The Word, Vol. 5. The Responsibilities of Leaders and Workers. The Responsibilities of Leaders and Workers (8)
No matter what God asks of you, you need only work toward it with all your strength, and I hope you will be able to come before God and give Him your utmost devotion in the end. As long as you can see God’s gratified smile as He sits upon His throne, even if this moment is the appointed time of your death, you should be able to laugh and smile as you close your eyes. You must, during your time on earth, do your final duty for God. In the past, Peter was crucified upside down for the sake of God; but you should satisfy God in the end, and exhaust all your energy for His sake. What can a created being do on behalf of God? You should therefore give yourself up to God, sooner rather than later, for Him to dispose of you as He wishes. As long as it makes God happy and pleased, then let Him do as He will with you. What right do men have to speak words of complaint?
—The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Interpretations of the Mysteries of “God’s Words to the Entire Universe,” Chapter 41
Today, what you are required to achieve are not additional demands, but the duty of man, and that which should be done by all people. If you are incapable of even doing your duty, or of doing it well, then are you not bringing trouble upon yourselves? Are you not courting death? How could you still expect to have a future and prospects? The work of God is done for the sake of mankind, and the cooperation of man is given for the sake of God’s management. After God has done all that He is supposed to do, man is required to be unstinting in his practice, and to cooperate with God. In the work of God, man should spare no effort, should offer up his loyalty, and should not indulge in numerous notions, or sit passively and await death. God can sacrifice Himself for man, so why can man not offer his loyalty to God? God is of one heart and mind toward man, so why can man not offer a little cooperation? God works for mankind, so why can man not perform some of his duty for the sake of God’s management? God’s work has come this far, yet still you see but do not act, you hear but do not move. Are not such people the objects of perdition? God has already devoted His all to man, so why, today, is man incapable of earnestly performing his duty? For God, His work is His first priority, and the work of His management is of the utmost importance. For man, putting God’s words into practice and fulfilling God’s requirements are his first priority. This you should all understand.
—The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. God’s Work and Man’s Practice
After accepting God’s commission, Noah began planning how to create the ark that God had entrusted to him. He sought out various materials, and the people and tools necessary for building the ark. Naturally, this involved a lot of things; it wasn’t as easy and simple as suggested by the text. In that pre-industrial age, an age in which everything was done by hand, by means of physical labor, it isn’t difficult to imagine how hard it was to build such an ark, such a colossus, to complete the task of building an ark as entrusted by God. Of course, how Noah planned, prepared, designed, and found various things like materials and tools were not simple matters, and Noah may never have seen such a massive boat. After accepting this commission, reading between the lines of God’s words, and judging from everything God had said, Noah knew that this was no simple matter, no easy task. This was no simple or easy task—what were the implications of this? For one thing, it meant that, after accepting this commission, Noah would have a heavy burden on his shoulders. What’s more, judging by how God personally summoned Noah and personally instructed him how to build the ark, this was no ordinary thing, it was no small matter. Judging by the details of everything God said, this was not something that any ordinary person could bear. The fact that God summoned Noah and commissioned him to build an ark shows the importance that Noah held in God’s heart. When it came to this matter, Noah was of course able to understand some of God’s intentions—and having done so, Noah realized the kind of life he would face in the years to come, and was aware of some of the difficulties he was going to encounter. Although Noah realized and understood the great difficulty of what God had entrusted to him, and how great the ordeals he faced would be, he had no intention of refusing, but was instead profoundly grateful to Jehovah God. Why was Noah grateful? Because God had unexpectedly entrusted something so significant to him, and had personally told and explained every detail to him. Even more importantly, God had also told Noah the whole story, from beginning to end, of why the ark was to be built. This was a matter of God’s own management plan, it was God’s own business, but God had told him about this matter, so Noah sensed its importance. In sum, judging by these various signs, judging by the tone of God’s speech, and the various aspects of what God imparted to Noah, Noah could sense the importance of the task of building the ark which God had entrusted to him, he could appreciate this in his heart, and dared not treat it lightly, nor did he dare to overlook any detail. Therefore, once God had finished giving His instructions, Noah formulated his plan, and he got to work making all the arrangements for building the ark, looking for manpower, preparing all kinds of materials, and, in accordance with God’s words, gradually gathering the various kinds of living creatures to the ark.
The entire process of building the ark was filled with difficulty. For the moment, let’s put aside how Noah got through the whipping winds, scorching sun, and lashing rain, the searing heat and bitter cold, and the four turning seasons, year after year. Let us first speak of what a colossal undertaking building the ark was, and of his preparation of the various materials, and the myriad difficulties he faced in the course of building the ark. What did these difficulties include? Contrary to people’s perceptions, some physical tasks didn’t always go right the first time, and Noah had to go through many failures. After finishing something, if it looked wrong, he’d take it apart, and after he’d finished taking it apart, he’d have to prepare materials, and do it all over again. It wasn’t like the modern era, where everyone does everything by electronic equipment, and once it has been set up the work is carried out according to a set program. When such work is carried out today, it is mechanized, and once you turn a machine on, it can get the work done. But Noah was living in an age of primitive society, and all work was done by hand and you had to do all work with your own two hands, using your eyes and minds, and your own diligence and strength. Of course, most of all, people needed to rely on God; they needed to seek God everywhere and at all times. In the process of encountering all manner of difficulties, and in the days and nights spent building the ark, Noah had to face not only the various situations that occurred while completing this colossal undertaking, but also the various environments around him, as well as the ridicule, slander, and verbal abuse of others. Though we did not personally experience those scenes when they took place, isn’t it possible to imagine some of the various difficulties that Noah was confronted with and experienced, and the various challenges he faced? In the course of building the ark, the first thing Noah had to face was his family’s lack of understanding, their nagging, complaints, and even vilification. Second was his being slandered, ridiculed, and judged by those around him—his relatives, his friends, and every kind of other person. But Noah only had one attitude, which was to obey God’s words, implement them to the very end, and never waver from this. What had Noah determined? “As long as I am alive, as long as I can still move, I will not abandon God’s commission.” This was his motivation as he carried out the great enterprise of building the ark, as well as his attitude when presented with God’s commands, and after hearing God’s words. Faced with all manner of troubles, difficult situations, and challenges, Noah did not shrink back. When some of his more difficult engineering tasks frequently failed and underwent damage, even though Noah felt upset and anxious in his heart, when he thought of God’s words, when he remembered every word that God commanded of him, and God’s elevation of him, then he often felt extremely motivated: “I cannot give up, I cannot discard what God commanded and entrusted me to do; this is God’s commission, and since I accepted it, since I heard the words spoken by God and the voice of God, and since I accepted this from God, then I should submit absolutely, which is what ought to be attained by a human being.” So, no matter what kind of difficulties he faced, no matter what kind of mockery or slander he encountered, no matter how exhausted his body became, how tired, he did not forsake what had been entrusted to him by God, and constantly kept in mind every single word of what God had said and commanded. No matter how his environments changed, no matter how great the difficulty he faced, he trusted that none of this would go on forever, that God’s words alone would never pass away, and only that which God commanded to be done would surely be accomplished. Noah had in him true faith in God, and the submission that he ought to have, and he continued to build the ark that God had asked him to build. Day by day, year by year, Noah grew older, but his faith did not diminish, and there was no change in his attitude and determination to complete God’s commission. Though there were times when his body felt tired and exhausted, and he fell ill, and in his heart he was weak, his determination and perseverance toward completing God’s commission and submitting to God’s words did not lessen. During the years that Noah built the ark, Noah was practicing listening to and submitting to the words God had said, and he was also practicing an important truth of a created being and ordinary person needing to complete God’s commission. To all appearances, the entire process was actually only one thing: building the ark, carrying out what God had told him to do well and to completion. But what was required to do this thing well, and to complete it successfully? It did not require people’s zeal, or their slogans, much less some oaths made on a passing whim, nor people’s so-called admiration for the Creator. It did not require these things. In the face of Noah’s construction of the ark, people’s so-called admiration, their oaths, their zeal, and their belief in God in their spiritual world, these are all of no use whatsoever; in the face of Noah’s true faith and true submission to God, people seem so poor, pitiful, and the few doctrines they understand seem so hollow, pale, feeble and weak—not to mention shameful, despicable and sordid.
—The Word, Vol. 4. Exposing Antichrists. Excursus Three: How Noah and Abraham Obeyed God’s Words and Submitted to Him (Part Two)
Man’s performance of his duty is, in actuality, the accomplishment of all that is inherent within man, which is to say, that which is possible for man. It is then that his duty is fulfilled. The defects of man during his service are gradually reduced through progressive experience and the process of his undergoing judgment; they do not hinder or affect man’s duty. Those who cease to serve or yield and fall back for fear that there may be drawbacks to their service are the most cowardly of all. If people cannot express what they ought to express during service or achieve what is inherently possible for them, and instead go through the motions, they have lost the function that a created being should have. Such people are what are known as “mediocrities”; they are useless refuse. How can such people properly be called created beings? Are they not corrupt beings that shine on the outside but are rotten within? … There is no correlation between the duty of man and whether he is blessed or cursed. Duty is what man ought to fulfill; it is his heaven-sent vocation, and should not depend on recompense, conditions, or reasons. Only then is he doing his duty. To be blessed is when someone is made perfect and enjoys God’s blessings after experiencing judgment. To be cursed is when someone’s disposition does not change after they have experienced chastisement and judgment, it is when they do not experience being made perfect but are punished. But regardless of whether they are blessed or cursed, created beings should fulfill their duty, doing what they ought to do, and doing what they are able to do; this is the least that a person, a person who pursues God, should do. You should not do your duty only to be blessed, and you should not refuse to act for fear of being cursed. Let Me tell you this one thing: Man’s performance of his duty is what he ought to do, and if he is incapable of performing his duty, then this is his rebelliousness. It is through the process of doing his duty that man is gradually changed, and it is through this process that he demonstrates his loyalty. As such, the more you are able to do your duty, the more truth you shall receive, and the more real your expression shall become. Those who merely go through the motions in doing their duty and do not seek the truth shall be eliminated in the end, for such people do not do their duty in the practice of truth, and do not practice truth in the performance of their duty. They are those who remain unchanged and will be cursed. Not only are their expressions impure, but everything they express is evil.
—The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. The Difference Between the Ministry of God Incarnate and the Duty of Man
Related Experiential Testimonies
Consequences of Shunning Responsibility
The Hidden Reasons for Fearing Responsibility
Related Hymns
Bear More Burden to Be More Easily Perfected by God