I

If you don’t experience God’s work, you won’t be perfected.

If you can experience God’s work, this means you have stature.

If you only appear to have vigor,

this is not true stature and you absolutely can’t stand firm.

Only when you can experience God’s work

and you can experience and ponder it at any time and in any place,

when you can leave the shepherds

and live independently in reliance upon God,

and you can see God’s practical actions—

only then will God’s intentions be achieved.

II

Now, most people don’t know how to experience God’s work

or lead a spiritual life.

You must take God’s words and work into your real life.

Sometimes God gives you a certain type of feeling

where you lose inner enjoyment and God’s presence,

and you’re plunged into darkness.

This is a type of refinement.

Whenever you do anything, it always goes awry, or you hit a wall.

This is God’s discipline.

Sometimes, when you do something that is rebellious and resistant to God,

nobody else may know of it—but God does.

He will not let you off, and He will discipline you.

The work of the Holy Spirit is very detailed.

He very carefully observes people’s every word and action,

their every act and move, and their every thought and idea

so that they can gain internal awareness of these things.

III

You do something once and it goes awry,

you do something again and it still goes awry,

and gradually you will come to understand the work of the Holy Spirit.

Through many times of being disciplined,

you will know what to do to be in line with God’s intentions

and what is not in line with His intentions.

In the end, you’ll have accurate responses to the Holy Spirit’s guidance within you.

Sometimes you will be rebellious

and you will be rebuked by God from within.

This all comes from God’s discipline.

If you do not treasure God’s word, if you slight His work,

then He will pay you no mind.

The more seriously you take God’s words,

the more He will enlighten you.

from The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Those Who Are to Be Made Perfect Must Undergo Refinement