I

Whether you truly have a heart and a spirit

and whether you are a person who loves the truth

depends on what kind of attitude you take

toward God’s sovereignty and toward the truth.

Naturally, this determines whether you can

truly know and understand God’s authority.

If you have never in your life sensed God’s sovereignty and His arrangements,

much less recognized and accepted God’s authority,

then you will be utterly worthless,

and you will without a doubt be spurned by God,

due to the path you’ve taken and the choice you’ve made.

II

But those who, in God’s work,

can accept His trial and accept His sovereignty,

submit to His authority, and gradually gain real experience of His words

will have attained real knowledge of God’s authority,

real understanding of His sovereignty;

they will have truly surrendered to the Creator.

Only such people will have truly been saved.

III

Because they have known God’s sovereignty,

because they have accepted it,

their appreciation of the fact of God’s sovereignty over human fate,

their submission to it, is real and accurate.

When they face death, face death,

they will have, like Job, a mind undaunted by death,

a mind undaunted by death,

and submit to God’s orchestrations and arrangements in all things like Job,

with no individual choice, with no individual desire.

Only such a person will be able to return to the Creator’s side

as a true, created human being,

as a true, created human being.

from The Word, Vol. 2. On Knowing God. God Himself, the Unique III