First, we will listen to a hymn of God’s words: “Follow God’s Words and You Cannot Be Lost.”

1 God hopes you can eat and drink independently, and always live in the light of God’s presence, and never depart from God’s words in your life; only then can you be saturated with God’s words. In your every word and deed, God’s words shall certainly guide you forward. If you genuinely get close to God to this degree, and constantly fellowship with God, then nothing you do will end in confusion or leave you feeling clueless. You will definitely be able to have God by your side, you will always be able to act in accordance with God’s word.

2 With every person, event, and thing you encounter, God’s word will appear to you at any time, guiding you to act according to His will and follow His word in everything you do. God shall lead you forward in each of your acts; you shall never go astray, and you shall be able to live in a new light, with even more and newer enlightenments. You cannot use human notions to mull over what to do; you should submit to the guidance of God’s word, have a clear heart, be quiet before God, and do more pondering. Do not fret for solutions to what you do not understand; bring such matters before God more often, and offer to Him a sincere heart.

3 Believe that God is your almighty. You must have a tremendous aspiration for God, ravenously seeking while refusing Satan’s excuses, intentions, and tricks. Do not despair. Do not be weak. Seek with all your heart; wait with all your heart. Actively cooperate with God, and rid yourself of your internal hindrances.

—God’s Fellowship  

You have just played the hymn “Follow God’s Words and You Cannot Be Lost.” After listening to this hymn, did you gain any light or paths of practice? From which words did you receive inspiration and light? “Follow God’s Words and You Cannot Be Lost”—are these words correct? Are they the truth? (Yes.) Which lines from this hymn do you find to be particularly helpful to your experience in real life? Start reading from the line: “Do not fret for solutions to what you do not understand.” (“Do not fret for solutions to what you do not understand; bring such matters before God more often, and offer to Him a sincere heart. Believe that God is your almighty. You must have a tremendous aspiration for God, ravenously seeking while refusing Satan’s excuses, intentions, and tricks. Do not despair. Do not be weak. Seek with all your heart; wait with all your heart. Actively cooperate with God, and rid yourself of your internal hindrances.”) Which lines in this extract offer a path of practice? Which of them are principles of practice for dealing with situations in real life that God has conveyed to man? Can you find them? The newspapers, magazines, and various books that people read all have parts that they deem worthy of note. Which parts are these? The parts that people care about, the parts that people think are the most important, and the parts that provide important information that people need to know in their daily lives. So which parts of this passage of God’s words are worthy of note? Which parts set out the requirements that God has for people? Which contain the principles that God has specified for people to practice and abide by when confronting situations in their daily lives? Can you see which ones these are? (Not very well.) Read it again. (“Do not fret for solutions to what you do not understand; bring such matters before God more often, and offer to Him a sincere heart. Believe that God is your almighty. You must have a tremendous aspiration for God, ravenously seeking while refusing Satan’s excuses, intentions, and tricks. Do not despair. Do not be weak. Seek with all your heart; wait with all your heart. Actively cooperate with God, and rid yourself of your internal hindrances.”) Do you understand the meaning of each line in this passage? (Yes.) This passage is written in simple words that are easy to understand. It is not abstract. It is easy to understand the literal meaning of these words, so what is the principle that they contain? Can you find it when reading these words? What is a principle? To speak more broadly, God’s words and truths are principles. However, saying it this way sounds quite hollow and even a bit abstract. To be more specific, a principle is the path and criterion of practice that a person should have when doing things. This is what we call a principle. Now then, what is the principle in this passage? To be precise, this passage contains a path of practice. God has already told people how to practice and how to act when things befall them. Read this passage again and listen carefully to the words. (“Do not fret for solutions to what you do not understand; bring such matters before God more often, and offer to Him a sincere heart. Believe that God is your almighty. You must have a tremendous aspiration for God, ravenously seeking while refusing Satan’s excuses, intentions, and tricks. Do not despair. Do not be weak. Seek with all your heart; wait with all your heart. Actively cooperate with God, and rid yourself of your internal hindrances.”) You all have read this passage three times. Has it made something of an impression on you? After reading it three times, do you feel something different than when listening to this song without paying close attention as you normally do? (Yes.) In this passage, what principles of practice can you find and comprehend? What aspect of the truth does God put forth here? This aspect of the truth is related to a principle of practice, but what exactly is the principle here? What kind of real issues does it touch on? The first line touches on a real issue—it talks about things that you do not understand. These things that you do not understand include issues related to the truth, your practice, dispositional change, problems related to your field of work and the personal states you experience while doing your duty, as well as the issue of how to discern the essence of people, and so on. Such things do indeed occur around you, and you have seen and heard them. However, you don’t understand the essence of these issues or the truths that they touch on, and even less do you know the path of practice and the principles that are involved. Naturally, you also do not know God’s will in the matter, and other such things. When a person does not understand, know, or see through to these things, they become their biggest difficulties, and they should be resolved based on God’s words—“Do not fret for solutions to what you do not understand; bring such matters before God more often.” There are many things that you don’t understand, both things in the outside world and things in God’s house. Since you don’t understand these things, what should you do? First, you must seek the truth and see what is said in the word of God and what truth principles can be found there. You must carefully ponder, reading God’s words several times. First, find the reality of the truth, and then understand what God requires of you, next, determine the principles for practicing the truth—that way, it will be easy for you to understand the truth. This is the process of reading God’s words in order to seek the truth. Can you understand what I have said? (Yes.) God has arranged your environment, and the people, events, and things around you. So, what is God’s attitude toward this? You can see it in the word of God. God tells you to not fret for solutions, to not rush to define things, to pass verdicts, or to make any judgments. Why is this? Because you don’t yet understand this event that God has arranged for you. When God tells you not to rush, what does this mean? It means that this event has occurred, that God has laid it before you and placed you in this environment, and God’s attitude is very clear. God tells you, “I am in no hurry to have you fully understand what is going on in this situation. I am in no hurry to have you immediately pass a verdict, give your conclusion, or propose any kind of solution for it.” This matter is unfamiliar to you and you don’t understand it, it is something you have never encountered before, and a lesson that you have not yet learned, moreover, you have no experiential knowledge or instruction regarding it, and you have not experienced it at all before, so God is in no hurry for you to come up with an answer to it. Some people ask: “Since God has arranged this environment, why is He not in a hurry to see the results of it?” Herein also lies God’s will. God’s objective in arranging environments is not to have you quickly produce a theoretical judgment or conclusion about it. God wants you to experience such an environment and event, and He wants you to understand the people, events, and things it contains, so that you may learn a lesson of submitting to God. Once you have gained such an understanding and personal experience, this event will be meaningful to you, and it will hold great significance and value for you. In the end, after experiencing this thing, what you will gain is not a theory, nor a notion, nor an imagining, nor a judgment, nor even experiential knowledge or a lesson summarized by man, but a personal, first-hand experience, and true knowledge of it. This knowledge will be close to the truth or it will accord with the truth. Through experiencing such things, you will be able to see that God’s attitude toward man is very clear and expressed in a way that is easy to comprehend. As God sees it, He is not in any rush for you to quickly give your answer or to hand in your response. God wants you to experience this environment. This is His attitude. And since this is God’s attitude, He has a requirement and a standard for man. This standard is a principle that people should practice. What is a principle of practice? It is the approach, method, and means you employ when you encounter a specific event. When you understand God’s will and attitude regarding an event, you should put God’s requirements into practice. And what does God require of you? God said, “Do not fret for solutions.” This “Do not fret for solutions” has a background to it. So why does God place such a requirement and standard on man? Are you clear on this point? It is because you are an ordinary person. You are not a superman, your thinking is that of a normal person. You are a run-of-the-mill person. No matter if you live to forty, fifty, or even eighty years, you will always continue to grow. You do not remain forever just as you were born. Your current experiences, experiential knowledge, understanding, the things that you see and hear, your life experiences, and so on—all of this—along with all the things that you know and understand in your heart and mind, these are all the cumulative results of years of honing. This is called normal humanity. It is the process of normal human growth set out for man by God and it is an expression of normal humanity. So, when you encounter something that you don’t understand, something that is unfamiliar to you, God does not require you to quickly give an answer to it, and to respond to it very fast as if you were a robot. Because a robot inputs all information into its memory at once, when you ask it for an answer, it responds after a single search—provided the answer can be found in its memory. This is not the same for normal people. Even when they have previously experienced something, it is not necessarily stored in their memories. When it comes to people, it is only things that relate to normal humanity like experiential knowledge, experiences, life experience, and true first-hand knowledge that separate them from supermen, robots, and humans with special powers.

God has set out requirements and standards for people based on what those with normal humanity need and ought to possess, and He has pointed out a path of practice. What is this path of practice? Do not fret for solutions to what you do not understand. This tells you that it is useless for you to rush to find solutions. Why is this so? You are just an ordinary person. Though you may have a bit of experiential knowledge and understanding from your previous experiences, if the same thing were to occur again in the future, you might not necessarily be able to fully grasp God’s will, practice in complete accordance with the truth, or get full marks. This is even less likely when it comes to things that you don’t understand, so in those circumstances, you should be even less in a hurry to find a solution. What does the instruction not to fret for solutions tell people? The point of it is to make people understand normal humanity. Normal humanity is not exceptional, extraordinary, or special. People’s understanding, experiential knowledge, recognition, and comprehension of various things, as well as their views on the essence of various types of people, are all achieved through their experience of various environments, people, events, and things. This is normal humanity. There is nothing transcendent about it, and it is a hurdle that no person can jump. If you wish to go beyond these laws that God has made for man, that would not be normal. In one respect, it would only show that you do not know what normal humanity is. In another respect, it would reveal your excessive arrogance and impracticality. God has told people not to fret for solutions to what they do not understand. As you are a normal person, you need God to arrange more environments for you, so that you can experience, understand, and recognize the corruption of man shown therein, and also understand God’s will through these people, events, and things. This is what people with normal humanity should do. Now then, what path of practice can be found in “Do not fret for solutions to what you do not understand”? (Do not fret for solutions.) When a person encounters a situation and cannot see through to or understand it, when they have never previously encountered or conceived of it, and when it is impossible for them to even imagine how to solve this matter by relying on human notions, what should they do? What is the principle that God demands? (Do not fret for solutions.) God has demanded this of you, so how should you practice? With what attitude should you approach such things? When people who possess normal humanity encounter things that they cannot see through to, cannot understand, and have no experience of, or even situations in which they are completely helpless, they should first adopt a proper attitude and say, “I do not understand, cannot see through to, and have no experience of this sort of thing, nor do I know what to do. I am just an ordinary person, so there are limits to what I can achieve. There is no shame in being unable to see through to or understand some things, and there is certainly no shame in lacking experience of them.” When you come to the realization that this is not shameful, is that the end of the matter? Will the problem have been resolved? Not worrying about bringing shame upon oneself is just an understanding and an attitude that people can adopt toward such things. It is not the same as practicing according to God’s requirements. So how can one practice according to God’s requirements? Say that you think to yourself, “I have never experienced this kind of thing before, and I can’t see through to it. I don’t know what God’s arrangement of such an environment means, or what outcome it is meant to achieve. I do not know the attitude of God, either. Therefore, I see no need to bother myself about it. I’ll just let it run its course, and ignore it”—what do you think of such an attitude? Is this the attitude of seeking the truth? Is this the attitude of practicing according to God’s will? Is this the attitude of following the word of God? (No.) Other people, upon encountering such a situation, think to themselves, “I cannot see through to or understand this matter, and I have never experienced it before. This was never covered in my university classes. I have a master’s degree, a Ph.D., and I have even worked as a professor—if I cannot understand this, who possibly could? Wouldn’t it be too embarrassing to let everyone know that I cannot see through to this and have no experience of it? Wouldn’t they all look down on me? No, I cannot say that this is something I can’t see through to. I must say, ‘Concerning matters of this sort, look to the word of God, seek, and you will find the answer.’ I would rather die than admit I cannot see through to or understand this matter.” What do you think of this attitude? (It is not good.) Who does this person think they are? They think they are a saint, a perfect person. They think, “Can there really be things that I, a dignified university student, a renowned scholar, a master’s degree and Ph.D. holder, a great and famous figure, cannot understand or see through to? Impossible! And even if there was, it would be something that none of you could understand, so that’s not a problem. Even if I couldn’t see through to it, I would surely not let you know that. ‘I can’t see through to it,’ ‘I don’t understand,’ ‘I can’t,’ such words must never leave my mouth!” What sort of person is this? (An arrogant person.) This is an arrogant and conceited person who lacks reason. If this sort of person reads the words “Do not fret for solutions to what you do not understand,” would they gain a path of practice? Would they receive a spark of inspiration? If not, them reading these words would all have been in vain. These words are plainly written and easy to comprehend, so why can’t they understand them? All those years you spent studying and learning words were of no use. If you can’t even understand these simple and straightforward words, then you truly are good for nothing!

Now, let’s take another look at what path of practice is contained in the line “Do not fret for solutions to what you do not understand.” First of all, you should adopt an attitude of not fretting over solutions and, instead, first recognize what your intrinsic capabilities can achieve, recognize what normal humanity is, and understand what God means when He speaks of normal humanity. You should understand what God really means when He says that He does not want people to be supermen or transcendent, extraordinary individuals, and that He just wants them to be regular people. You must first understand these things. It is useless to pretend to know things that you don’t understand. No matter how much you pretend otherwise, you still won’t know them. Even if you can fool everyone else, you won’t be able to deceive God. When such things befall you, if you don’t understand them, then just say that you don’t understand them. You must have a sincere attitude and a pious heart, and allow those around you to see that there are things that you do not know and that you cannot see through to, things that you have not experienced before, and that you are just an ordinary person, no different from anyone else. There is nothing shameful in that. It is a manifestation of normal humanity, and you must accept this fact. After you accept this fact, then what? Tell it to everyone, saying, “I have never experienced this thing before, I cannot see through to it, and I don’t know what to do. I am just like you, though it is possible that I surpass you in one area: I have seen the light and found the path of practice in God’s words, I have hope, and I know how to practice.” Where does this hope lie? It lies in God’s words: “Do not fret for solutions to what you do not understand; bring such matters before God more often, and offer to Him a sincere heart.” This means taking the matter to heart, and bringing it before God from time to time to seek on it. You must take the matter into your heart, transform it into a kind of onus on you to understand the truth and God’s will in it, and turn it into your responsibility and the direction and goal of your seeking. If you practice in this way, you will come before God, you will be able to resolve your problem, and you will have entered into the reality of these words. How should you practice this, specifically? You must come before God to pray and seek, and you should also find opportunities to share this matter while you are fellowshipping at gatherings, and to commune and ponder on it with everyone. “Bring such matters before God more often, and offer to Him a sincere heart.” Your heart must be sincere and true. You must not just go through the motions or act in a perfunctory manner, and you must mean the things that you say. You must take on a burden regarding this matter, and bring with you a heart that hungers and thirsts for righteousness, wanting to understand God’s will in this matter and to see through to the essence of this matter, while at the same time, wishing to resolve the problems and confusion that people face when they encounter this matter, as well as problems like your own corrupt disposition or various abnormal states. “Bring such matters before God more often, and offer to Him a sincere heart.” This is a complete path of practice that God has told man. What do you see in this line? That God’s objective in arranging environments for man is, in one respect, to allow people to experience various things in a multitude of ways, to learn lessons from them, to enter into the various truth realities contained in the word of God, to enrich people’s experiences, and to help them gain a more comprehensive and multi-faceted understanding of God, themselves, their environments, and humanity. In another respect, God wants people to maintain a normal relationship with Him by orchestrating some special environments and arranging some special lessons for them. This way, people come before Him more frequently, rather than living in a godless state, saying that they believe in God, but acting in a way that has nothing to do with God or the truth, which will lead to trouble. Therefore, in the environments arranged by God, people are, in fact, reluctantly and passively brought before God by God Himself. This shows the good intentions of God. The more you lack understanding in a certain matter, the more you should have a God-fearing and pious heart, and frequently come before God to seek God’s will and the truth. When you don’t understand things, you need God’s enlightenment and guidance. When you encounter things that you do not understand, you need to ask God to work more upon you. These are God’s good intentions. The more you come before God, the closer your heart will be to God. And isn’t it true that the closer your heart is to God, the more God will dwell within it? The more God is in a person’s heart, the better their pursuit, the path they walk, and the state in their heart will become. The closer your relationship with God, the easier it will be for you to come often before God to offer your sincere heart, and the more genuine your faith in God will become. At the same time, your life, actions, and conduct will be restrained. How does such restraint arise? It arises when people often pray to God, seek the truth, and accept God’s scrutiny. This is the most important thing. So, in what context and on what conditions can a person accept God’s scrutiny? (When they have a normal relationship with God.) That is right, when they have a normal relationship with God. If you have a normal relationship with God will this not mean that God is in your heart and that you are very close to Him? It will mean that God always has a place in your heart, and that God occupies a very prominent position in your heart. As a result, you will always think of God, think on the word of God, think on God’s identity and essence, think on God’s sovereignty, and think on everything that is of God. To use a vernacular phrase, your heart will be packed to the brim with God, and God will have a very high place in your heart. If your heart is filled with God, then you will have a normal relationship with God, you will be able to accept God’s scrutiny, and, at the same time, you will also have a God-fearing heart. Only then will you be able to act with restraint. “Bring such matters before God more often” is a simple sentence, but it contains many layers of meaning. It contains God’s intentions for mankind and the attitude with which God requires people to act, while also conveying the requirements that God places on mankind. And so, what are God’s requirements for mankind? That you do not give up, run away, or adopt an indifferent attitude toward the things that befall you. What should you do if you are confronted with something that you do not understand and cannot see through to, or that you cannot overcome, or that even makes you weak? Do not fret for solutions. God does not push people beyond their abilities. God never requires people to do things that are beyond the scope of human capabilities. What God would have you do and the things that He requires of you are all things that can be achieved, attained, and accomplished by people with normal humanity. Therefore, God’s requirements and standards for man are not the least bit empty or vague. God’s requirements for man are nothing more than a standard that covers the scope of what people with normal humanity can achieve. If you always follow your imaginings, and want to be better, superior, and more capable than others, if you always want to outperform others, then you have misunderstood God’s meaning. Arrogant and self-righteous people are often like this. God says not to fret for solutions, He says to seek the truth and act with principles, but arrogant and self-righteous people do not carefully consider these requirements of God. Instead, they insist on trying to accomplish things with a burst of strength and energy, to do things in a neat and beautiful way, and to surpass everyone else in the blink of an eye. They want to be supermen and they refuse to be ordinary people. Is this not going against the laws of nature that God has laid out for man? (Yes.) Obviously, they are not normal people. They lack normal humanity, and they are too arrogant. They disregard the requirements that are within the scope of normal humanity which God has put forward for mankind. They disregard the standards that can be attained by people with normal humanity which God has set out for mankind. Therefore, they disdain God’s requirements and think, “God’s requirements are too low. How can believers in God be normal people? They must be extraordinary people, individuals who transcend and surpass regular people. They must be great and renowned figures.” They disregard God’s words, thinking that although God’s words are correct and the truth, they are just too common and ordinary, so they ignore His words and they look down upon them. But it is exactly in these normal and ordinary words, so disdained by those so-called supermen and great figures, that God points out the principles and paths that people should abide by and practice. God’s words are so sincere, objective, and practical. They do not place high demands on people at all. They are all things that people can and should achieve. As long as people have a bit of normal reason, they should not try to float around in mid-air, and they should instead accept God’s words and the truth with their feet firmly planted on the ground, perform their duties well, live before God, and treat the truth as the principle of their conduct and actions. They should not be overly ambitious. In the line “bring such matters before God more often,” people should understand even more that God’s words are the truth, and that truths are the principles that people should practice. Who does “people” refer to here? It refers to normal people who have normal rationality and normal judgment, who love positive things, and who understand what is objective, what is practical, what is commonplace, and what is ordinary. Take time to savor the words “bring such matters before God more often.” Although these are plain, ordinary words, they describe something that people who possess the reason of normal humanity should be able to do and they are also the truth principle that a person with normal humanity most ought to practice when encountering difficulties in their real life. They are the truth most needed by people who possess the reason of normal humanity. They are not empty words at all. You have sung and listened to these ordinary words many times, but none of you have treated these words as truths to carefully ponder and attentively fellowship on. In this way, you have allowed these precious words to run through your fingers. In fact, these words contain God’s will, God’s reminders and admonitions to people, and God’s requirements for people. They contain so much. People are heartless and irrational, and they treat these words as ordinary words; they do not treasure them, ponder on them, or practice them, and who will be the ones to suffer and lose out in the end because of this? The people themselves. Is this not a lesson?

It is very easy for normal people to practice the requirements set out by God in this passage. There is nothing difficult or exhausting about this practice, and it is effective. Ultimately, it can enable you to gradually grow and progress. Of course, after you put the principle of “Do not fret for solutions; bring such matters before God more often, and offer to Him a sincere heart” into practice, you will make progress in terms of the truth, dispositional change, the understanding you gain from experiencing various environments, and so on. How wonderful these words are! If people have reason and put these words into practice, then under the guidance and direction of God’s words, they will come to know what God’s will is when He arranges various environments. After a period of time, they will eventually be able to reap rewards, gain experience, and come to understand the truth in those environments. When you reap such rewards, you will know why God has arranged these environments, what God’s will is, and what God wishes people to gain from them. Furthermore, the detours people go down, the setbacks they experience, the distorted understandings they harbor, the unrealistic ideas they possess, the notions and resistance toward God that has arisen within them, and so on, will all gradually be exposed and revealed while they experience these environments. Regardless of whether these things are positive or negative, it takes a period of experience to clearly see and understand that which is exposed and revealed through these environments. In this way, the true meaning of God’s words “Do not fret for solutions to what you do not understand” is fulfilled. That is, when God arranges something that you cannot see through to or understand, and have not experienced before, the things that God wants you to understand, gain, and personally experience from that situation cannot be attained in just a couple of days. It is only after some time and with God’s direction, enlightenment, and guidance at each step that you will gradually gain an understanding and attain results. It is not as people imagine, you do not suddenly understand everything in a burst of enlightenment or know what God means in a flash of inspiration. God does not do such things by supernatural means, God does not act in this way. This is the way in which God works. God allows you to experience the causes and consequences of a situation, and you gradually come to realize: “So the essence of this sort of person is like this, and the reality and essence of that kind of thing is like this, and this fulfills such-and-such line of the word of God. I finally understand what God meant when He said that. I finally understand why God said such things about matters like this and people like that.” God allows you to come to such realizations through your experiences. Doesn’t it take some time to realize these things? (Yes.) The knowledge that you attain and the truths that you come to understand through a period of experience are not doctrines or theoretical things, but your personal experiences and true knowledge. This is the truth reality that you enter into. Here lies the cause and the source of God’s words “Do not fret for solutions.” When God allows you to reap rewards from the events that you experience, He does not want you to simply go through a process or learn a theory, but to gain an understanding, some knowledge, a positive point of view, and a correct method of practice. Although this passage contains only a few lines and doesn’t cover a lot of content, the requirements God puts forward in this passage and the principles of practice He gives people through it are very important. People should not treat God’s words with the same attitude they adopt toward human knowledge and doctrines. To practice God’s words, you must have principles. This means that you must have a principle, a method, to put into practice when you encounter a certain sort of situation. This is what it means to practice the truth. This is what we call a principle. Therefore, these are not just a few simple words. Although the way that they are expressed and presented is plain and accessible, and the words seem very straightforward, and they are not adorned with beautiful, flowery language, or elegant terms, or refined turns of phrase, and they are certainly not spoken with a tone of condescension, and they are rather just sincere admonitions and requirements spoken face-to-face and heart-to-heart, they actually tell people the most important principles and paths of practice.

Many people never take the most ordinary words spoken by God seriously. They only regard the profound and mysterious words that God speaks as His words. Isn’t this a manifestation of a distorted understanding? Every sentence of God’s words is the truth. Regardless of whether they are ordinary words or profound words, all of God’s words contain truths and mysteries, and it requires years of experience and a certain stature to understand and know them. Just like the good and important words of God contained in the hymn you just sang—no one takes those words seriously. Although they are set to music and everyone has sung them for years, no one has ever found this most important principle of practice that they contain. Even if some people have a feeling in their consciousness that God’s words seem to be telling them, “Do not fret for solutions; bring such matters before God more often, and offer to Him a sincere heart,” and feel that these are requirements that God has for people, who has ever truly practiced, implemented, and entered into the reality of these words of God in their real life? Has anyone done this? (No.) No one has done this. These words of God are so simple, but no one can follow them. Is there not an essential problem contained within this? (Yes, it shows that people are averse to the truth.) Anything else? (These words that God has spoken to us are very practical. They are all words of principle. But we haven’t taken God’s words seriously, we haven’t paid attention to them, and we haven’t put them into practice.) So how do you usually read God’s words? (When we read God’s words, we usually just skim through them. After we understand the literal meaning of the words, we move on. We don’t understand what God’s will is in those words or what truth principles we should practice. We haven’t carefully pondered on them like that.) You have replied with some theoretical ideas and what you say sounds correct, but you have not seen through to the root cause of this, which is that people do not treasure the word of God. If you treasure God’s words, you will be able to discover the treasures, gold, and diamonds they contain and you will enjoy these things for a lifetime. If you do not treasure God’s words, you will not be able to obtain these treasures. What does it mean to not treasure God’s words? It means that you do not cherish God’s words. You feel that there are so many of God’s words, and that all of them are the truth, and you don’t know which ones to treasure. You feel that they are all ordinary, and this means trouble. What does it mean to treasure God’s words? It means that you know that God’s words are all truths, and that these truths are the most useful and priceless treasures for the lives and living of people. It means that you treat God’s words as treasures that you love too much to part with. This attitude toward God’s words is called treasuring. Treasuring God’s words means that you have discovered that all of God’s words are treasures of the greatest value, that they are a hundred, a thousand times more precious than the life mottos of any famous or great figure. It means that you have obtained the truth of God’s words and that you have discovered the greatest and most valuable treasures of life. Gaining these treasures can help you to increase your worth and attain God’s approval. For this reason, you especially treasure these truths. I will give a real-life example of this. Say a woman buys a beautiful dress, and when she returns home, she tries it on in the mirror. Looking left and right, she thinks: “This dress is so beautiful, its fabric is excellent, its workmanship is exquisite, and it is comfortable and soft to wear. How blessed I am to be able to buy such nice clothes. This is my favorite piece of clothing, but I can’t wear it all the time. I will wear it when I attend the most high-class events and meet the most distinguished people.” When she has some spare time, she often takes out the dress to admire it and try it on. Six months later, she is still just as excited about the dress and she can’t bear to part with it. This is what it means to treasure something. Has your attitude toward God’s words reached this level? (No.) How pitiful it is that you do not yet treasure the words of God as much as a woman treasures her favorite dress! No wonder you have read many of God’s words but failed to discover so many truths, and have never been able to enter into reality. You always say that all of God’s words are the truth, but these are only theoretical and verbal claims. If one of the simplest and first expressed passages of God’s words were brought out, and you were asked what truths were in those words, what the will of God was, or what requirements and standards God gives to man, you would be speechless and not be able to utter a single word in response. You have read and listened to God’s words a lot, so why do you not have a true understanding of them? Where is the root of the problem? Actually, it is that people do not treasure the words of God enough. At the current degree to which you treasure the words of God, you are far from discovering the truth in God’s words and far from discovering the requirements, principles, and paths of practice that God bestows upon man through them. This is why you are always confused when things befall you and can never find the principles. This is why you experience many things, but never know the will of God, or grow or change very much, or reap more than slight rewards. Aren’t people like this very pitiful?

Read this passage again. (“Do not fret for solutions to what you do not understand; bring such matters before God more often, and offer to Him a sincere heart. Believe that God is your almighty. You must have a tremendous aspiration for God, ravenously seeking while refusing Satan’s excuses, intentions, and tricks. Do not despair. Do not be weak. Seek with all your heart; wait with all your heart. Actively cooperate with God, and rid yourself of your internal hindrances.”) Let Me draw your attention to the important points and explain to you the principles for reading God’s words and how to find a path of practice in them. Read the passage again, line by line. (“Do not fret for solutions to what you do not understand.”) This line contains a principle that people must understand. It is this: Don’t hurry, don’t panic, don’t rush to see results. This is an attitude. This first line contains the correct attitude that people should adopt toward things. This correct attitude lies within the scope of the reason of normal humanity; it falls within the scope of the reason and abilities of people who possess normal humanity. Now, read the second line. (“Bring such matters before God more often, and offer to Him a sincere heart.”) What does this mean? (This is the path of practice God gives to man.) Right, it’s that simple. This is the path of practice. Here, “more often” means that this should not be done whenever you feel like it, and certainly not only once in a blue moon; it means that as soon as these matters cross your mind, you should bring them before God to pray and seek. If you bear a burden in these matters, if you have a heart that hungers and thirsts for righteousness, if you are eager to understand God’s will and God’s requirements in these matters, as well as the essence of the problems that you want to see through to, then you should come before God often, which means at a very high frequency. Depending on the environment that you are in, when you are busy, find a moment of free time to consider these matters, as if you were thinking about them, or praying to God and seeking on them. Is this mode of practice not very clear? (It is.) For example, when you take a break after finishing a meal, ponder and pray, saying, “God, I have experienced such-and-such an environment. I don’t understand Your will, and I can’t see through to why this has happened to me. What exactly is this person’s intent? How should I solve this sort of problem? What do You want me to understand from this matter?” In these few simple words, you pray to and seek from God about the matters you wish to seek on and the problems whose essence you want to understand. What is the purpose of praying like this? You are not simply laying the problem before God, you are seeking the truth from God, you are trying to get God to open up a way out for you and to tell you what to do about this matter, and you are asking God to enlighten and guide you. What are the necessary conditions for you to be able to do this? (I must not fret for solutions.) Not fretting over solutions is just an attitude—it is not that you are not fretting over solutions, but that under the great precondition of you not fretting for solutions, you have a heart that hungers and thirsts for righteousness, and you bear a burden in this matter. To put it another way, this matter acts as a kind of pressure on you, and that pressure places a burden on your shoulders, so that you have a problem that you want to understand and solve. This is your path of practice. In your spare time, during regular devotional time, or when you are chatting with your brothers and sisters, you can bring up your practical difficulties and problems, and fellowship and seek with your brothers and sisters. If you still can’t solve the problems, then bring them before God to pray and seek the truth. When you do this, say, “God, I still don’t know how I should experience the environment that You have arranged for me. I still have no understanding of it, and I do not know where to start or how to practice. I am small in stature and I do not understand many truths. Please enlighten me and guide me. I don’t know what You want me to gain or understand from this environment, or what You want to reveal about me through this environment. Please enlighten me and allow me to understand Your will.” This is the path of practice found in the line: “bring such matters before God more often.” Practice like this, sometimes thinking in your heart, sometimes praying to God silently and sometimes out loud, and sometimes fellowshipping with your brothers and sisters. If you have these manifestations it proves that you are already living before God. If you often communicate with God like this in your heart, then you have a normal relationship with God. After several years of such experience, you will naturally enter into the truth reality. Are there any difficulties regarding this practice? (No.) That is good. For example, sometimes when you read God’s words, the more you read, the brighter your heart will feel—this means that you’ve read words that you have experience of, and your previous notions and imaginings will unravel all at once. At this time, you should pray to God and say, “God, reading this passage has brightened my heart. The problems I had before are now suddenly clear to me. I know that this is Your enlightenment, and I thank You for allowing me to understand this passage of Your words.” Is this not praying and coming before God again? (Yes.) Is this difficult to do? Can you make time for this? (Yes.) From the start of your seeking to this prayer, will you not have been constantly practicing the principle of God’s words: “bring such matters before God more often”? When you constantly live in the practice of these words, and always cling to the principle of practice that they contain, and always live in this sort of reality, this is called abiding by a principle of practice. Is this difficult? (It is not difficult.) It only requires you to use your heart, move your mouth, spare some time and a little thought, occasionally finding a moment to chat with God and to confide and share the words that are in your heart. This is coming before God more often. It is as simple, effortless, and easy as that. There’s nothing hard about it. You carry something that you regard as very significant in your heart, and you treat it as a burden, and never forget it or let go of it—you have such a thing in your heart, and you come before God from time to time to pray to Him, and to speak and chat with Him about it. What sort of heart should you have when you speak with God? (A sincere heart.) That’s right, you should have a sincere heart. If you bear a burden, then your heart will be true. When others engage in chit-chat, you will pray and fellowship with God in your heart. Sometimes, when you are tired from work and taking a break, you will remember the matter, and say, “This is no good, I still don’t understand this matter. I still have to chat about it with God.” Why will you remember this matter whenever you have time? Because you take it very seriously in your heart, you regard it as your own burden and a kind of responsibility, and you want to understand it and solve it. When you come before God and talk to and chat with Him intimately, your heart will naturally become sincere. When you fellowship with God in this context and with this mentality, you will feel that your relationship with God is no longer as cold and distant as it was before, and you will feel instead that you are drawing closer to Him. This is how effective the paths of practice that God gives to man are on people. What do you think, is it difficult to engage with God like this? You take a matter to heart, speak to God about it occasionally, you come before God and greet Him from time to time, you talk to God about what is in your heart and about your difficulties, you talk about the things you want to understand, the things you think about, your doubts, your difficulties, and your responsibilities—if you talk to God about all of these things, are you not living before God by practicing in this way? This is practicing according to God’s requirements. If you practice like this for a period of time, will you not be able to see results and reap rewards very quickly? (Yes.) But it’s not that simple, it’s a process. If you practice in this way for some time, your relationship with God will become closer and closer, your mentality will improve, your state will become increasingly normal, and your interest in God’s words and the truth will grow greater and greater. This is having a normal relationship with God. If you can understand some truths and put them into practice, you will have begun to enter into the reality of God’s words. However, this cannot be achieved in a short period of time. It may take six months, a year, or even two or three years before you see clear results. Will people be free from corruption and rebelliousness during this period? No. Even if you have prayed to God countless times, and practiced in this way, does that mean you will definitely get results? Must God show you a result? Must He give you an answer? Not necessarily. Some people say: “If it is uncertain whether I will get results and if results are not guaranteed, why does God still act like this? Why does He make people practice in this way?” Don’t worry, practicing in this way will definitely not be fruitless. Even if you practice in this way for a year or two and do not think that you have gotten any results in the immediate or short term, it may be that, five or ten years later, when God arranges a similar environment for you again, you will quickly realize an aspect of the truth that you were not able to realize before. However, this truth that you come to realize and understand after five or ten years requires the foundation built by your current experiences, knowledge, and understanding. This later realization must be based on this foundation. Do you think it is easy for people to understand an aspect of the truth? (It is not easy.) This is the significance and value of paying a price in order to practice the truth. This is the principle of practice contained in the second line. “Bring such matters before God more often, and offer to Him a sincere heart”—this line is written in plain and accessible language, and it is very easy to understand. It means that you must pray more and possess a sincere heart, as a sincere heart brings things to fruition. It is as simple as that. However, these words truly are a truth reality that every person must enter into and the only path by which they can come before God and ultimately attain salvation. Although this line is said in plain and simple words, everyone has to experience and enter in this way. It is the same as constructing a building. No matter whether it has 30 stories, 50 stories, or even about a hundred stories, it must have a foundation. If the building’s foundation is not firm, then no matter how tall the building is, it will not stand for very long, it will collapse within a few years. This means that while living in this world, people must have the truth as their foundation. This is the only way for them to stand firm and earn the approval of God. If people want to come to an understanding of deeper and higher truths, they must have the most basic things—that is, the things that make up a foundation. Having a shaky foundation is the most dangerous thing. Don’t look down on these most basic truths, these most basic principles and paths of practice. As long as they are truths, they are things that people should possess and practice. Whether they are great or small, high or low, it doesn’t matter. You must start from the basics. This is the only way to lay a solid foundation.

Now, read the third line. (“Believe that God is your almighty.”) What does “Believe that God is your almighty” refer to? It refers to faith and vision. When you are supported and guided by this vision, you will have a path before you. Will practicing in this way have an effect? Some people say, “I’ve become bored with all this practicing, and God still hasn’t enlightened me or told me anything. I can’t feel the presence of God. Is there really a God?” You can’t think this way. God is almighty whether or not He speaks to you. When God wants to speak to you, and He speaks to you, He is almighty. When God doesn’t want to speak to you, and does not speak to you, He is still almighty. God is almighty whether or not He allows you to understand things. The essence and identity of God are immutable. This is the vision that people must understand. This is the third line, it’s very simple. Although it is simple, people must actually experience it. When people do so, it will confirm to them that these words are actually the truth and they will no longer dare to doubt them in any way.

Read on to the fourth line. (“You must have a tremendous aspiration for God.”) “You must have a tremendous aspiration for God,” this is what God requires of man. People need to understand what is meant by “tremendous.” Is swaggering around and showing off, having a heart full of ambition, being arrogant and self-righteous, domineering and dictatorial, and not obeying anyone “tremendous”? How should the line “a tremendous aspiration for God” be understood? How do you have an “aspiration for God”? It is as the previous line stated, you must “bring such matters before God more often, and offer to Him a sincere heart”—you must have a desire and an aspiration to pursue an understanding of the truth, and to pursue salvation, and you must also have a desire to accept God’s sovereignty and God’s orchestrations, to attain an understanding of God’s will and submission to God’s sovereignty. This is called a tremendous aspiration for God. Although God uses human language to vividly describe this matter, people should comprehend its meaning in a pure way, and not interpret it in an extreme manner. The word “tremendous” here does not refer to artificially using an excessive amount of brute force to do things in a foolhardy way. It does not involve violence, let alone ignorance or recklessness. “Tremendous” mainly refers to one’s aspiration. It is like when a person treasures something to such an extent that they simply must have it, and when they are determined to possess it and will not give up until they do so. This “tremendous aspiration for God” is a completely positive thing and can only achieve positive results. So, what is the precise meaning of “tremendous aspiration for God”? (It means to come before God more often and have the desire and aspiration to understand the truth and to understand God’s will in the things that one encounters.) That’s right, it’s as simple as that. It just means to abandon the interests and pleasures of your flesh, and to also give up your private leisure time, and to use this time for positive things, such as to seek from God, to pray to God, to come before God, and to seek to understand God’s sovereignty. It is about rationally praying for something, and seeking, expending your time and energy, and paying a certain price in order to understand an aspect of the truth. This is called a tremendous aspiration for God. Is this an accurate way to describe it? Is this in line with the reason of normal humanity? Are these words easy to understand? (Yes.) So, do these manifestations involve baring one’s teeth and claws and violently seizing what one wants? Does it manifest itself in rudeness, recklessness, and a lack of wisdom? (No.) Then what is meant by “tremendous”? Repeat what I just said to you. (It means being able to come before God more often, having the aspiration to understand the truth, being able to give up some of the pleasures of the flesh, spending more time and energy on seeking the truth, and being able to expend energy and pay a price for this.) So how is this concretely put into practice? I’ll give an example. Sometimes you will suddenly realize that it has been a long time since you saw your favorite actor and wonder what movies he is in. You will want to go search for news about him on the computer, but then you will ponder and think, “That’s not right, what do the movies he stars in have to do with me? Watching movies all the time is called neglecting one’s proper work. I have to come before God and pray.” Then, you will calm down and remember the problem you were previously seeking an answer to in the presence of God. You still lack any conception of that matter and you do not understand it at all, so you will just quiet your heart before God, and pray to Him. “God, I am willing to lay my heart before You. The environment that I have been experiencing recently has greatly affected me. Even so, I still cannot submit, and I still cannot see clearly that this is Your sovereignty. Please enlighten me, guide me, and reveal my corruption and rebelliousness in the environments that You arrange for me, so that I can understand Your will and submit.” After praying, you will ponder and think, “No, my problem still hasn’t been solved. I need to read more of God’s words to find a solution.” Then, you will immediately go on to read God’s words for a while. Looking at the time, you will say, “Oh, half an hour has passed already! God’s words are truly good, but the passage I read is not related to my problem at all, so my issue has still not been resolved. I don’t know what God wants me to understand by arranging this environment for me and I don’t know His will. I must quickly get to work performing my duty and I must not put off important matters. Maybe one day I will read the appropriate words of God and solve my problem.” Is this expending time and energy? (Yes.) It is just as simple as that. While rebelling against your own preferences and giving up your entertainment and leisure time, you will gain a small drop of sincerity and practice a little bit of tremendous aspiration for God. In your heart, you will feel incredibly at ease and peaceful. For the first time in your life, you will personally experience the great peace and nourishment of rebelling against the flesh and abandoning the enjoyment of your own flesh. You will also personally taste how quieting yourself before God, reading His words, opening your heart to God, and speaking the words in your heart to Him brings you peace and contentment—which caring about trends and social affairs cannot—and that you can also gain something from it, and come to understand the truth and see through to many things. As a result, you will feel that God’s words really are good, that God truly is good, and that attaining the truth is indeed gaining a treasure. Not only will you be able to see through to many things without confusion, you will also be able to live before God and to live by God’s words. These are the effects that a tremendous aspiration for God can achieve. Practicing in this way, devoting your time and energy, and giving up the enjoyment of your flesh—this is one of the manifestations of a tremendous aspiration for God. So, what do you say? Is this manifestation empty? (It is not empty.) Is it easy to achieve? (Yes.) It is very easy to achieve. It is something that people with normal humanity can achieve.

When people have thoughts, they have choices. If something happens to them and they make the wrong choice, they should turn themselves around and make the right choice; they absolutely must not stick by their mistake. People like this are smart. But if they know they made the wrong choice and don’t turn themselves around, then they are someone who does not love the truth, and such a person does not truly want God. Say, for example, you want to be perfunctory when you perform your duty. You try to slack off, and try to avoid God’s scrutiny. At such times, hurry before God to pray, and reflect on whether this was the right way to act. Then think about it: “Why do I believe in God? Such perfunctoriness might get past people, but will it get past God? What’s more, my belief in God is not to slack off—it is in order to be saved. My acting thus is not the expression of normal humanity, nor is it beloved by God. No, I could slack off and do as I pleased in the outside world, but now I am in the house of God, I am under the sovereignty of God, under the scrutiny of God’s eyes. I am a person, I must act according to my conscience, I cannot do as I please. I must act according to God’s words, I must not be perfunctory, I cannot slack off. So how should I act to not slack off, to not be perfunctory? I must put in some effort. Just now I felt it was too much trouble to do it like this, I wanted to avoid hardship, but now I understand: It may be a lot of trouble to do it like that, but it is effective, and so that is how it should be done.” When you are working and still feel afraid of hardship, at such times you must pray to God: “Oh God! I am a lazy and sly person, I beg You to discipline me, to reproach me, so that my conscience feels something, and I have a sense of shame. I don’t want to be perfunctory. I beg You to guide and enlighten me, to show me my rebelliousness and my ugliness.” When you pray thus, reflect and try to know yourself, this will give rise to a feeling of regret, and you will be able to hate your ugliness, and your wrong state will begin to change, and you will be capable of contemplating this and saying to yourself, “Why am I perfunctory? Why am I always trying to slack off? Acting like this is devoid of any conscience or reason—am I still someone who believes in God? Why don’t I take things seriously? Don’t I just need to put in a little more time and effort? It’s no great burden. This is what I ought to be doing; if I can’t even do this, am I fit to be called a human being?” As a result, you will make a resolution and swear an oath: “Oh God! I have let You down, I truly am too deeply corrupted, I am without conscience or reason, I have no humanity, I wish to repent. I beg You to forgive me, I will surely change. If I do not repent, I would that You punish me.” Afterward, your mentality will turn around, and you will begin to change. You will act and perform your duties with conscientiousness, with less perfunctoriness, and you will be able to suffer and pay a price. You will feel that doing your duty in this way is wonderful, and you will have peace and joy in your heart. When people can accept God’s scrutiny, when they can pray to Him and rely on Him, their states will soon be changed. When the negative state of your heart has been reversed, and you have rebelled against your own intentions and the selfish desires of the flesh, when you are able to let go of the comfort and enjoyment of the flesh, and act according to God’s requirements, and you are no longer arbitrary or reckless, you will have peace in your heart and your conscience will not reproach you. Is it easy to rebel against the flesh and act according to God’s requirements in this way? As long as people have a tremendous aspiration for God, they can rebel against the flesh and practice the truth. And so long as you are able to practice in this way, then before you know it, you will be entering into the truth reality. It will not be difficult at all. Of course, when practicing the truth, you must go through the process of a struggle and the process of changing your thinking, and these must be resolved by seeking the truth. If you are a person who does not love the truth, it will be difficult for you to solve your negative state, and you will not be able to understand and practice the truth. The amount of difficulty that a person faces in the process of changing their thinking depends on whether they can accept the truth. If they cannot accept the truth, then it will be too difficult for them to change their thinking. Those who can accept the truth, on the other hand, will not find it difficult at all. They will naturally be able to practice and submit to the truth. People who really love the truth can rely on God to overcome difficulties of any degree. In this way, they will have experiential testimony, and this is a heart that has a tremendous desire for God. Since your heart has a tremendous desire for God, does this mean that you are not permitted to have corruption and rebelliousness? No. It means that, as you have a heart with a tremendous desire for God, you can at least act according to your conscience and reason, and you can seek the truth. In this way, you can make the right choice in any situation, and practice and enter in the right direction. This is called a heart with a tremendous desire for God. Are these manifestations hollow? (They are not hollow.) They are not hollow or vague, they are very practical and concrete, and not abstract at all. Some people say: “Oh, I have believed in God for many years, but I always encounter difficulties whenever it comes time to practice the truth. I get so anxious that I’m dripping with sweat, but I still don’t have a path. I always want to practice the truth without facing any physical hardship or my interests suffering any losses, and, as a result, I can’t find a path. Only now do I realize that having a heart with a tremendous desire for God is so simple. If only I had known this before and put these words into practice earlier!” Who do you have to blame for not practicing God’s words? Who forced you not to treasure the words of God all these years, and to just blindly flounder around instead? Now, we can summarize a sentence: When you believe in God, you must practice and experience God’s words in order to understand the truth; only by reaching the point where you handle matters in accordance with the truth principles can you gain God’s approval. You absolutely must not do things according to your own will, or pursue fame and gain, and you must not form cliques or search for backers in the church. No good end will come to those who do. Those who don’t focus on doing their duties well, those who don’t pursue the truth, those who always look up to and rely on other people, and those who love to follow false leaders and antichrists in making senseless commotions, all bring themselves to ruin by floundering about, losing their chance at salvation. This will leave them dumbfounded. If you want to stop yourself from going your own way, you must come before God more, and pray to Him and seek the truth in all things. This is how you can attain the result of understanding the truth, embark on the path of practicing the truth, and enter into the reality of the truth. The key point here is that you must never follow or go along with other people, following this person one day because you think that they are great, and then following someone else the next day because you think that they are right, spending so much time floundering around without gaining the truth. No matter what problems you encounter, you should seek the truth and resolve them according to God’s words. If you blindly follow other people, following whoever speaks well and uses high-sounding words, it is likely that you will be deceived. People who believe in God should only believe that God’s words are the truth, they should listen only to God’s words, and practice according to God’s words. Doing so will prevent you from following other people and from going along with them down the wrong path.

Go on and read the next line. (“Ravenously seeking while refusing Satan’s excuses, intentions, and tricks.”) This is also about practice. “Ravenously seeking” refers to wanting to practice the truth but lacking a path, and wanting to satisfy God but not knowing how to practice—when you are ravenous like this, you will seek and pray. Constantly feeling that there is too much that you lack, in particular, finding yourself lacking a path when things happen to you, not knowing what to do to satisfy God, always rebelling and doing things the way you want to, with an uneasy heart, wanting to practice the truth, but not knowing how to do this—this is the feeling of being ravenous. If you are ravenous, you must seek. If you don’t seek, you will not have a path. If you don’t seek, you will fall into darkness. If you never seek, you will be finished. You will be a nonbeliever. What does “refusing Satan’s excuses, intentions, and tricks” mean? It means that when people encounter situations, they always have their own will, they always think about the interests of their own flesh, and they always look for a way out for their flesh. At times like these, your conscience will reproach you, prompting you to practice the truth and submit to God. In such situations, there will be a struggle in your heart, and you should refuse Satan’s excuses and refuse the various reasons of the flesh. “Refusing” means being able to penetrate and see through the various excuses and reasons that people have for not practicing the truth, which are Satan’s intentions and tricks, and then rebelling against them. This is the process of refusal. Sometimes, certain corrupt ideas, intentions, and aims, as well as some human knowledge, philosophies, theories, and ways, means, tricks, and schemes for interacting with others, and so on, arise in people. When this happens, people should immediately be aware that these are corrupt things revealed by them, and they should grab hold of them, seek the truth, thoroughly dissect them, see the reality of them clearly, and thoroughly refuse and rebel against them, nipping them in the bud. No matter when this happens, so long as corrupt ideas, thoughts, intentions, or notions have arisen in a person, they should immediately grab hold of those things, penetrate and see through them, rebel against them, and then come to turn themselves around. The process is like that. This is how to practice refusing Satan and rebelling against the flesh. Isn’t it very simple? In fact, this process was already spoken about in the two examples that were given just now. This is a principle of practice for approaching the improper states that arise in people when things befall them.

Continue reading. (“Do not despair. Do not be weak. Seek with all your heart; wait with all your heart.”) This means to seek and wait with all your heart and mind. These four simple phrases “Do not despair. Do not be weak. Seek with all your heart; wait with all your heart” have two meanings. What are these two meanings? (The first is do not despair and do not be weak. That is, do not lose heart or become discouraged when you encounter difficulties or cannot understand things momentarily in the process of your seeking. The second is that you should seek and wait with all your heart. That is, you must have perseverance in the process of your seeking, you must continue to seek and pray when you do not understand, and wait for God’s will to be revealed. This is the second meaning.) “Do not despair. Do not be weak” means that people must maintain true faith in God, believe that God is almighty, and that God can enlighten them and enable them to understand the truth. So why can’t you understand the truth now? Why doesn’t God enlighten you now? There must be some reason for this. What is one basic reason? It is just that God’s time has not arrived. God is testing your faith, and at the same time, He wants to use this method to strengthen your faith. This is the basic thing that people should understand and know. Suppose that you have acted in accordance with the principles required by God, you have prayed, you have sought, you have a heart with a tremendous desire for God, you have begun to treasure God’s words, you are interested in God’s words, and you often remind yourself to practice and experience God’s words, to come before God, to not stray from Him, and to seek when doing things. However, you think to yourself, “I don’t think I’ve clearly felt that God has given me any special enlightenment, illumination, or guidance, and I don’t even have an obvious feeling that God has given me any special gifts, talents, or special abilities for the duty that I perform. Instead, I feel that people who do not measure up to me understand more than I do, are better at doing their duties, and are more eloquent in spreading the gospel. Why am I not as good as other people? Why am I still standing in the same place and making little progress?” There are two reasons for this: One is that people themselves have many problems, such as their individual methods, intentions, and aims in seeking, as well as their intentions and motives in praying to God and making requests of God, and so on. In all of these things, you need to reflect, gain knowledge, discover the problems within, and promptly reverse your course. There is no need to go into detail about this. The second reason is that, when it comes to how much God gives different people, and how He bestows it upon them, God has His own method. God has spoken the words: “I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy” (Exodus 33:19). Maybe you are the object of God’s graciousness, maybe you are the object of His mercy, or perhaps you are neither of these two types of people that God has spoken of. Maybe God thinks you are stronger than other people, or that you require more time than others for your testing and tempering. There are many reasons, but no matter the reason, anything that God does is right. People should not make any extravagant demands of God. The only thing you ought to do is seek with all your heart and wait with all your heart. Before God allows you to understand and gives you answers, the only thing you should do is seek, while at the same time waiting for the time when God will give you something, the time when God will be gracious to you, and the time when God will enlighten and guide you. Contrary to human notions, God does not equally distribute things to people, so you cannot use the word “equal” to make demands of God. When God gives something to you, that is the time at which you should receive it. When God doesn’t give you something, obviously the time is not suitable or correct in God’s eyes, and so you should not receive it at that time. When God says that you should not receive something and God does not want to give it to you, what should you do? A person with reason would say, “If God doesn’t give it to me, then I will submit and wait. I am not currently worthy of receiving it, maybe because my stature cannot bear it, but my heart can submit to God without complaint or suspicion, and certainly without any doubts.” At this time, people should not lose their reason. No matter how God treats you, you should choose, with reason, to submit to God. There is only one attitude that created beings should have toward God—to listen and submit, there are no other choices. However, God can have different attitudes toward you. There is a basis for this. God has His own will. He makes His own choices and has His own methods when it comes to doing these things and the attitude He adopts toward each person. Of course, behind these choices and methods are God’s intentions. Before people have an understanding of God’s intentions, the only thing they should and can do is seek and wait, while avoiding doing anything to rebel against God. The last thing people should do at these times—that is, when they don’t feel God’s enlightenment, guidance, graciousness, and mercy—is to stray from God and say that He is not righteous, or to yell at God, or to even deny God when they cannot feel His enlightenment and guidance. This is the thing that God least wishes to see. Of course, if you really reach the point of denying God, denying His righteousness, denying His identity and His essence, and of yelling at God, it will confirm that God was right to adopt an attitude of paying no heed to you in the first place. If you cannot even withstand this small trial and test, then you lack the slightest faith in God and your belief is very hollow. When a person does not feel God’s enlightenment and guidance, the most important thing for them to do is to seek and wait with their whole heart. Seeking and waiting are man’s responsibilities, and they are also the reason, attitude, and principle of practice that people should have toward God. When seeking and waiting, don’t harbor a mentality based on chance. Don’t always think, “Perhaps if I wait, God will bestow clear words upon me. I just need to be a bit more sincere and see if God enlightens me or not. Maybe He will enlighten me. If He doesn’t, I will think up some other way.” Don’t harbor a mentality like this that is based on chance. God loathes this sort of attitude in people. What kind of attitude is this? It is an attitude of chance that carries in it temptation. This is what God loathes most. If you are going to wait, do so sincerely. Carry with you a mindset of hungering and thirsting for righteousness while you pray to God and seek the truth, while you resolve your practical problems, and while you beseech God for enlightenment and guidance. No matter how God treats you or whether He ultimately allows you to gain a full understanding, you should abide by the principle of submission without any deviation. In this way, you will be holding firm to the status and duty that a created being ought to have. Regardless of whether God ultimately hides His face from you, whether He shows you only His back, or whether He appears to you, as long as you hold firm to your duty and your original station as a created being, then you will have borne witness and you will be an overcomer. “Do not despair. Do not be weak. Seek with all your heart; wait with all your heart.” These four short statements are very important. They encompass the reason that man should possess, the original station upon which man should stand, and the path of practice that man should follow. Some people say, “We all seek and wait with all our hearts and minds, so why doesn’t God enlighten us? Why doesn’t He give me any inspiration?” God has His own will. Do not make demands of God. This is the reason of normal humanity; this is the reason that created beings ought most to possess. According to human minds, thoughts, and notions, there are too many things that people don’t understand, and God must tell people these things. However, God says, “It is not My responsibility or obligation to tell you those things. If I want you to know something, you will know a little, and this will be Me showing you favor. When I do not want you to know something, I will not say one word about it, and do not imagine that you will be able to understand it then!” Some people say: “Why are You setting Yourself against us in this?” God is not setting Himself against you. The Creator will always be the Creator, and He has His own ways and methods of doing things. Even though His ways and methods do not conform to man’s tastes, or ideas and notions, and certainly not to man’s traditional culture, regardless of what aspects of man they do not accord with, simply put, regardless of the fact that they do not accord with the requirements and standards of man—no matter what the Creator does, and no matter if people can understand it or not, the identity and essence of the Creator will never change. People should never use human language, human notions, or any human method to measure the Creator. This is the reason that people ought to possess. If you lack even this bit of reason, then I will be honest with you—you are not capable of acting like a created being. One day, sooner or later, something bad will happen to you. If you lack even this bit of reason, one day, sooner or later, your satanic disposition will burst forth. At that time, you will doubt God, verbally abuse God, deny God, and betray God. Then, you will be completely finished, and you should be cast out. Therefore, the reason that created beings ought to possess is very important. “Do not despair. Do not be weak. Seek with all your heart; wait with all your heart.” These four statements are the reason and principles that created beings ought to have when approaching the various environments that people often face in their real lives, and for improving their relationship with God.

The first part of this passage says, “Do not fret for solutions to what you do not understand,” and the penultimate line says, “Seek with all your heart; wait with all your heart.” Some people say: “Is the unspoken meaning of the words ‘Do not fret for solutions’ that the final outcome is inevitable? If we seek and wait with all our hearts, have a heart with a tremendous desire for God, and long for God’s words, is God necessitated to give us the answer and allow us to understand the truth of the matter?” This is My answer to you: It is uncertain and not necessarily so. Every word in this passage is a requirement that God proposes for man, a principle of practice that created beings should abide by. God gives a path of practice to man, principles people should put into practice and observe in the situations in which they find themselves in daily life. However, God did not tell people, “No matter the extent to which you understand these words, as long as you abide by these principles, I must tell you the facts, I must give you the answer, and I must give you an explanation in the end.” God does not have this responsibility. He has no such “must.” People should not make such unreasonable demands of God. This is something each one of you must understand. This “not necessarily so” tells people one fact: God will never abide by the rules of the game set down by humans according to their human notions, human philosophies, and human experience and lessons, nor will He even abide by human law. Rather, human beings must abide by the principles of God’s requirements and enter into the reality of each truth that God has brought forth. Have you understood this? (Yes.) The principles for people to abide by are clearly explained in this passage. Start with the first line. (“Do not fret for solutions to what you do not understand.”) This is a principle that is easy to put into practice and understand. Putting it into practice does not create any burden or put any pressure on you. It is exceptionally easy. And the second line? (“Bring such matters before God more often, and offer to Him a sincere heart.”) You are a normal person living in the world. That’s all you need to achieve “bring such matters before God more often, and offer to Him a sincere heart.” As long as you are not without a heart, you can do it. You have twenty-four hours in a day. In addition to your normal work, rest time, meals, and personal spiritual devotions, is it an easy thing to “bring such matters before God more often, and offer to Him a sincere heart”? (It is easy to do.) It can be done while walking, chatting, or resting, it will not interfere with your normal business, with doing your duty, or with the work at hand. It’s really a simple thing! Regardless of a person’s caliber, as long as they offer a sincere heart and strive after the truth, they will gradually come to understand the truth and enter into this reality with ease.

What is the next line? (“Believe that God is your almighty.”) Now, I will turn it around and ask you all, do you believe that “God is your almighty”? When did you start to believe this? In what matters did you come to believe this? Have you borne witness to this? Have you had this experience? What if someone asks you, “Do you believe that God is your almighty?” Perhaps, theoretically, you would say without hesitation, “God is my almighty! How could God not be my almighty?” What if they asked you again, “Is God your almighty? In what matters have you relied on God and witnessed God’s deeds? To what extent has God’s almightiness been revealed in you personally? When did you discover that God is your almighty? In what matters do you feel that God is your almighty? If you admit that God is almighty and, with Him, nothing is impossible, why is it that you are so weak at times? Why are you still negative? Why can’t you rebel against the flesh and practice the truth when something happens to you? Why do you always live by satanic philosophy in your dealings with others? Why do you still often tell lies without feeling God’s rebuke? Is God really your almighty? What exactly do you think God’s almightiness refers to? Is it in line with the essence of God?” If you were asked these questions, would you still dare to answer with such certainty? When I ask in this way, people are left speechless. You have no such experience, you have not established a relationship with God at this level. In all the years you have believed in God, you have never experienced God’s sovereignty, never seen God’s hand, never seen the sovereignty over people, events, and things wielded by God’s almighty hand. This you have never seen, never heard of, much less experienced or personally felt. Therefore, on the question “Is God my almighty?” you don’t know and do not dare to speak. This proves you lack such faith. For you, this line should become your vision. It must be the most powerful evidence that you believe in God and follow Him. It is also one aspect of the vision that supports you as you continue on. Yet you dare not answer with certainty. Why? Because your faith in God is just a belief that God exists. As yet, you have not truly followed God, you have not truly established a relationship with God, you have not yet entered into the reality of God’s words, you have not yet partaken in the experience of submitting to God’s sovereignty, and you have not yet realized first-hand the fact of God’s sovereignty over all things. You have not seen or experienced these things, much less do you understand them. If you were simply asked, “Is God your almighty?” you would certainly answer “yes.” If you were then asked how you experienced this and how you came to this understanding, you would certainly hang your head speechless, not daring to answer. What is the reason for this fact? (We have no experience in this regard.) You are speaking from a theoretical standpoint. As a matter of fact, you verbally declare yourself to be a follower of God and a created being. However, since the day you started to follow God, you have never fulfilled the responsibility of a created being. Accepting God’s word as the foundation of your existence, taking God’s word as the principle and path of practice for doing your duty, and entering into the reality of God’s word: This is your responsibility. If you haven’t yet entered into these truth realities, what does this imply? It is that, even though you follow God, even though you have abandoned family, work, and career and have been able to follow God until today, your heart has not accepted the truth and life God bestows on mankind, but instead you pursue the things you yourself love and have never let them go. Does this count as following God and submitting to the work of God? If, in your heart, you don’t accept the life goals, directions, and criteria of life and living that God has set for man but only parrot the words you hear and mouth some doctrines, is this considered accepting the truth? Although you follow God and, outwardly, you can perform your duty, your heart has not accepted the truth. Although you have believed in God for many years, the principles you live by, your methods, and the path your life follows are still those of Satan. You are still the same old person you always were, you still live according to your satanic disposition and the way of corrupt man, and you have not accepted the requirements and principles that come from God. From this essential perspective, what you are doing is not truly following God. You are just admitting that you are a created being and that the Creator is your God. On this theoretical foundation, you do a bit for God and make Him some little offerings. Given this premise, with reluctance you admit that God is your God and you are His follower, but your heart has never truly accepted God as your life, your Lord, and your God. This brings us back to the question I just asked, “Is God your almighty?” For the above reasons, you do not dare answer with certainty. To all things and for the entire universe, God is almighty, but for you, you can admit that God is almighty as a matter of theory, but in fact you have not experienced or seen this. On the question of God’s almightiness, you have a question mark drawn in your heart. When will people be able to truly confirm the words “God is your almighty” and make this vision the foundation of their faith in Him? Only when people accept God’s identity, God’s essence, and God’s status in their hearts, enter into the reality of God’s words, and turn God’s words into the foundation of their existence, can they truly acknowledge that “God is your almighty.” These words are actually the most difficult to achieve, but God has brought them forth, showing the importance they hold for man. Someone who wants to experience and realize these words must spend an entire lifetime in doing so. In order to give a true and certain answer to the question posed by these words from the depths of their heart, they need to spend an entire lifetime working to establish a normal relationship between themselves and God, that is, the relationship of a created being to their Creator. All this can be achieved on the basis of putting the principle “bring such matters before God more often, and offer to Him a sincere heart” into practice. It is actually quite simple to put this into practice, but it is not easy to truly achieve the goal required by God. One must expend time and effort and pay a price for it.

What is the next line? (“You must have a tremendous aspiration for God, ravenously seeking.”) These are all requirements that God makes of man. If people want to understand the truth and be saved, their hearts must yearn for this, they must have the will to pursue it, and they must have a real longing. Then, they must practice and enter in accordance with the path of practice laid out by God. Gradually, God will bring these people into the truth reality and into a correct and normal state. Such people will understand more and more of the truths in God’s words in an increasingly practical way. In the end, the many abnormal states possessed by these people, the corruption revealed in them, and their rebellion will be gradually resolved by the various methods of God’s work in the many diverse environments He arranges. So then, what is it you should understand? It is this: The things that people should do, the things they should put into practice, must be accomplished according to the requirements of God. When people practice and act in accord with God’s requirements, they will walk on the correct path that God has pointed out for them. When people walk on this correct path, God will, in His way and by His requirements and principles, bestow a proper portion upon them in due time. What should people understand here? The cooperation of people, the price they pay, and their expenditures are indispensable. People must act and practice according to God’s requirements. They must not act in accord with human desires or on the basis of human imaginings and notions. What end result is attained, how much someone can change, how much someone can gain: are these things determined by the wishes of the individual person? No, that is God’s business, and it has nothing to do with you. In the end, what and how much God gives to you, when He gives it to you, the age at which you receive what is given you: That is God’s business, and it has nothing to do with you. What is My meaning in this? It is that you only need to focus on practicing the truth, enter according to the path God gives to you, act as is proper of a created being, and provide the cooperation you should. As for what and how much you will receive, when you will receive it, and how God will dispose of these matters, that is God’s business and will occur in God’s time. Some people say, “If I put this into practice, will I be saved in the end?” Tell Me, do you think they can be saved? These words and truths that God has bestowed on and provided to man are man’s path to salvation. If you practice in accordance with these words and truths of God and enter into the reality of God’s word, do you still need to worry that you might not be saved? Do you still spend every day in worry and anxiety for fear that God will abandon you? Is this not caused by too little faith and the failure to understand God’s will? If you have truly entered into the truth reality, if your heart has peace and joy, if you can give real experiential testimony and have a normal relationship with God in your heart, will you still worry that you will not be saved? Do not worry, it is not your business. You should just practice and enter into God’s word. In the word of God, not a line is unimportant. The whole of God’s word is the truth, and the truth is the life that man should have. The whole of God’s words is what people need and should possess to achieve salvation. If you follow these words of God in practice but are still worried that you will not be saved, are you foolish and ignorant? Are your nerves oversensitive? You would get more enjoyment if, instead of entertaining such idle thoughts, you show consideration for the will of God. If you are walking the right path, the final destination you arrive at will certainly be the right one—the destination that God has specified for you. You will not go wrong. Therefore, if you practice and enter into God’s requirements, you do not need to worry over whether or not you can be saved. Just practice and pursue the path of salvation pointed out by God, that’s the right way. Some people say: “What will it feel like to attain salvation? Will we feel like we are floating on air? Will we feel different from how we feel now?” This question is a bit premature. This is not something you need to know right now. You will find out when you are truly saved. Some people say: “When I am saved, will God appear to me as He did to Job?” Is this a reasonable request? Do not ask for this. You still don’t know if you can be saved, so what’s the use of making this request? None at all. For example, say you are currently in primary school. You should focus on doing well in all of your classes and satisfying your teacher’s requirements. Don’t always ponder about “Which university will I go to in the future? What kind of job will I have later in life?” Thinking about those things is useless. It is too far away and unrealistic. As long as you practice and enter into correct methods and paths, you will certainly be able to achieve the ultimate goal. Besides, with God’s guidance, what are you still afraid of? Do you believe that God is your almighty? (I believe.) God is almighty, so is it difficult for God to save a small person like you? For God, it would be no difficult task to take the whole world and give it to you, so how could it be hard to save one little corrupt human being? So do you still need to be anxious? Don’t worry about whether God can save you, don’t worry about whether God’s words can save you. Rather, you should worry about whether you can understand God’s words and whether you can find a path of practice in God’s words. You should worry about whether you have now entered into the reality of God’s words and whether, in your actions, you are walking the path that God has pointed out. That’s much better. Thinking about these things is practical and realistic. It’s useless to worry about anything else.

What is the next line? (“Refusing Satan’s excuses, intentions, and tricks.”) We just fellowshipped about this line, so this problem should be easy to solve. It is only needed for man to understand that, most of the time, “Satan’s excuses, intentions, and tricks” stem from the various reasons, excuses, intentions, and tricks produced by man’s corrupt disposition as well as the methods used by various evil people and nonbelievers who you come into contact with. As for how you can distinguish and reject such things and the choices you should make, that is your personal pursuit. Read the next line. (“Do not despair. Do not be weak. Seek with all your heart; wait with all your heart.”) We just fellowshipped about this line in detail as well. For man, every line is a warning and reminder, and at the same time, a kind of support, help, and provision. Of course, these words contain God’s will for mankind and carry His overflowing hope for mankind. When people encounter weakness and difficulties, God does not want to see them lose hope, lose faith, lose their aspiration to pursue the truth and salvation, and lose the opportunity to gain the truth and be perfected by God. God does not want people to be cowards. Instead, no matter how many difficulties they encounter, no matter how weak they are, and no matter how much of their corruption is revealed, God hopes that people will never give up, persevere through it all, continue to pursue the truth, follow the paths of practice God has indicated for them in their pursuit, and still have a heart with a tremendous desire for God. People’s faith in God should grow increasingly with experience and with their understanding of God’s words, and they should not shrink when weakness is encountered, become negative when difficulties are encountered, sob when a little corruption is revealed, and shrink back instead of moving forward. God does not want to see displays such as these. God hopes that people will direct themselves to God wholeheartedly, never changing this for reasons of time, environment, physical location, or any situations that may occur. If your desire to seek God does not change and your resolve in seeking God does not slacken, God will see and know your sincere heart. In the end, what God bestows on you will certainly exceed all you could want. During the decades when Job experienced God’s sovereignty, he never dared to imagine that God would speak to him or appear to him in person. He never dared to imagine it, but God did appear to him after his last trial, talking to him personally from a whirlwind. Is this not beyond all man could ask for? (Yes.) This is beyond anything someone could ask, and no one dares to even entertain the idea. No matter what God does, man must stand in his proper place, do the things he should do, walk the path he should walk, do the duties given to him without going beyond what is asked of him, and refrain from doing things that God detests. Whenever you feel that you are asking too much of God, that your requests are the product of ambitions and desires and a lack of reason, you must immediately come before God, prostrate yourself before Him, and confess your sins. You must truly repent and turn yourself around from the bottom of your heart. This is what God requires of mankind and what He hopes for everyone who follows Him and loves the truth.

Here we end our fellowship on this passage. After so much fellowship, I have enjoined what should be enjoined and made you understand what is proper for man to understand. This sort of fellowship is meant to tell you how to read God’s words, to teach you the way to read God’s words, and to make it known to all that no passage in the word of God is spoken in vain. All of them are full of God’s will and carry God’s hope. Viewed this way, all of God’s words are things that, whether they are profound or simple, man should possess and abide by. Just a few simple words contain the principles of practice that man should most abide by, yet no one accomplishes this. No one gives any importance to these few words of God and no one has any regard for them. Tell Me, how numb is man? Actually, numb is a nice way of putting it. In fact, it is due to man’s boundless arrogance that they all disdain these words and do not wish to see or read them. What do they want to read? They want to read deep, elevated, philosophical, and systematic words. Don’t talk about those high and deep words, it’s good enough if people can understand these few simple ones. These words may seem simple and anyone who reads them can understand them, but who really puts them into practice? Who can really take the things that happen to them before God and pray? Who waits for God’s time without fretting for solutions? How many people can practice this? Up to now, I haven’t found anyone who has observed and practiced these words of God, nor have I found anyone who has been attracted by these words, who has treasured the words of God after seeing how heartfelt, sincere, and precious they are. Hearing you playing this hymn just now, I asked you how you ate and drank this passage of the word of God. Has anyone discovered God’s will from these few simple, plain, and straightforward words by pray-reading them? Has anyone pray-read them so as to find the path of practice that man should understand and enter into? Has anyone understood any truth from them? What I am asking is, have the truths they contain been brought to fruition in individual persons? Have they had an effect? Our fellowship has shown that actually they have not. Your stature is far too small. It seems that most of the words spoken by God over these years have yet to truly take root in your hearts. You have not attained the level at which you treasure them as truths. This is not a good omen. It is not a good sign. Some people say: “We are too busy performing our duties each day. We don’t have time to ponder the words of God.” In fact, it’s not that they don’t have the time, it’s that they don’t put in the effort or pay attention. No matter what duty someone performs, can it affect how they ponder the words of God in their heart? Can’t they ponder God’s words while eating and resting? It all depends on whether they have the desire. People think that being so busy means one is fulfilled. Actually, when you have free time to think, you will realize that you have never truly pondered any of God’s words in your heart. You have not retained anything and they have not become the guide for your life and the criterion for your practice. When you consider this, you will be ashamed. Your busyness is only an illusion that deceives you. It makes you feel that, because of your faith in God, your life is full rather than empty, that you are different from the people of the world, that you do not chase after the trends of the world. Rather, you are among the most just people, you are cooperating in the work of God, doing just deeds. You feel that you are already saved, or have already embarked on the road to salvation. Some people go so far as to think that they are already overcomers. Given all this, you even adopt this sort of attitude toward such a simple hymn and a few simple words of God, the very earliest that God expressed. No one has gained anything or found any enlightenment in these words, or put them into practice in any way. I cannot see anyone who has obtained any gains or results for themselves. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? (A bad thing.) During these years, you have been busily doing your duties, and especially have been busying yourselves with the work of the gospel. You have achieved some success and your hearts all feel wonderful. One way or another, the word of God and the work of the gospel have spread. God’s word has been brought to people in every country and region, and more people are eating and drinking the word of God. On the surface, you seem to have achieved success, but do you have any clue about that great matter in life, your salvation? Judging from the attitude people take to this passage of God’s word, they don’t have a clue. To use a local expression, the first stroke of the pen has not been made. Tell Me, how do I feel seeing you all like this? It’s just a few simple words, but I still need to elaborate and discuss them in detail with you. My words are too exhaustive and over-detailed. Are you willing to listen? Will you say that I nag too much? I don’t want to nag like this either. All of you look upright. You all have a bit of brains and knowledge, and most of you have a skill. Even so, you don’t pay any heed to the little words of this hymn and have not put them in your hearts. Up to now, not one person has entered into the reality of these words. That’s really a headache and irritation! So then, what’s the point of all the work you do in the church? Is it for the goal Paul was talking about when he said, “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: From now on there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness”? If this is really the goal, then you are all Pauls and what follows can’t be good! Is that it? (Yes.) If you don’t work hard at eating and drinking God’s words, sooner or later, you’ll be cast out, and it will gain you nothing. On the day you are cast out, you will say, “What have I gained?” Not one thing have you gained, so you are completely ashamed, and even wish you were dead. It is too pathetic. God’s words are rich and abundant, speaking on all matters. What a pity that you have never put your heart into their pursuit, that you have never earnestly read God’s words. Out of all the many words of God, not a single line holds a place in your heart. If you are not cast out, who possibly could be? Is this how things stand? (Yes.) Eating and drinking God’s words, making God’s words into your reality: that is a major event. It is more important than anything else, more important than giving birth to the next generation, more important than doing one’s duty, more important than learning a professional skill, more important than working to spread the gospel, more important than all else. If you have not entered into the reality of God’s words, no matter what duties you perform, no matter how far you run, all of it will be of no value. In the end, you will achieve no results and all you do will come to nothing. No matter how hard you are running now, regardless of your current position, the job you are doing, or what grand achievements you have made, it’s just a wisp of smoke that will eventually pass out of sight. Only when a person enters into the reality of God’s words, obtains the truth they contain, and finds the principles, paths, and directions of practice in the words of God, then no one can take these things from them. It is only when they have entered into these truth realities that their performance of their duties and the price they have paid for everything will have meaning and value. Only then will it be accepted by God. After you have entered into the reality of God’s word and practiced the principles and standards required by God’s word in everything you do, then your duty is not performed in vain and a part of it will be accepted by God. Do you understand? (Yes.) If you only rely on your own self-restraint, human perseverance, human brains and gifts, and human ways and methods to bear suffering and pay the price, then all that you do has nothing to do with God’s words. What the final result will be should be clear to you. Many people can tally up their economic accounts and cost-benefit accounts, but there is no one to tally this account. You seem to be quite intelligent in handling external affairs, you have your means and methods, and you are quite shrewd, but you have neglected the matter of your faith in God and salvation and the matter of how to treat God’s words, never giving these things any notice. Did you think that by a lack of attention, you could escape the law that God requires? Did you think that, with a bit of effort, you would get lucky and escape God’s righteous judgment? Don’t deceive yourself! The laws made by man are all the product of human knowledge and insights. They are all human cleverness. They are not laws produced by God’s righteous disposition. Don’t adopt the mentality of chance when it comes to your salvation. You can only deceive yourself, you cannot deceive God.

What is the first great thing you should do in the pursuit of salvation? Eat and drink the words of God so that you understand the truth and enter into reality. This is the first great thing. No matter how busy you are in doing your duty, no matter how much work you have piled up, you must still take time to eat and drink God’s words, to find in them the principles and paths for practicing the truth in all things, and to enter into the truth reality. This is the sole aim of faith in God. Once you have entered into the truth reality and have obtained principles of practice, then everything you do will be the satisfactory performance of your duty, and it will become valuable and meaningful. Otherwise, all you do is rendering service and you are not doing your duty. Nor will this service help to save you. If you don’t eat and drink God’s words, don’t practice and experience God’s words, don’t take entering into the truth reality as something serious, and are satisfied with simply exerting yourself and doing things without concern for putting the truth into practice, wouldn’t you be a fool? Everyone thinks they are smart and reliable in their work. “Now that I’m here, this job is sure to be done well. As long as I’m here to keep an eye out, nothing will disturb the church’s work. As long as I’m not idle, as long as I keep doing my duty in God’s house, then I will be saved.” Don’t fool yourself. God has never said that, as long as someone constantly does their duty, they will be saved. This comes from man’s own imagination and wishful thinking. Those who say this don’t know themselves at all, and they don’t understand the essence and truth of the depth to which man is corrupted by Satan. This is why they can speak such silly words. Through all the ages, were not the followers of God all doing their duties? Were they saved? No. Are they eligible to enter the kingdom of heaven? No. God’s work of judgment in the last days has clearly exposed the truth of man’s corruption. This allows everyone to understand, change course, and gain the truth and enter into reality, undergoing real changes. This is what God requires of man. Can you achieve real change if you only focus on constantly performing your duty? Can you gain the truth? Can you achieve submission to God? Not a chance. The critical thing is that one must pursue the truth, submit to God’s judgment and chastisement, and obtain the truth in order to conform to God’s will. In saying these words, God pays the price of His own heart’s blood and offers His life for man. If you don’t cherish them, but always ignore and despise them in your heart, never taking God’s words seriously, can you be saved? Can the end result possibly be good? You don’t even need to think about it. What is the first great thing when you believe in God? It is to eat and drink God’s words to understand the truth, and by this, to enter into the truth reality without delay. Start with the things happening around you, what you can see and feel. Use God’s word to reflect on yourself, seek the truth and solve all problems, and achieve real changes. If you don’t eat and drink God’s word and don’t enter into the reality of God’s word, your chances of being saved stand at zero. You have completely forfeited any chance of salvation. When God’s work has ended, you will say, “Previously, during the work of spreading God’s gospel, I did my part. During the work of spreading the gospel, I paid the price and dedicated my time and effort in such and such important step.” Yet up to that day, you still haven’t gained the truth, you can’t eat and drink God’s words normally, and you can’t perform your duty normally. Fundamentally, you are not a person who submits to God. Only then will you know that you have already forfeited your chance of salvation. Is it already too late? You have no chance, you have already fallen into disaster, and so your death is imminent. Therefore, this chance at salvation is very rare, and you must cherish every day and every minute. Start with the little things around you first, then gradually move to more things and bigger things. Seek God’s words and seek the truth, and enter into God’s words and the truth reality. You should often pray to God in your heart and get close to Him. Never let your heart be occupied by the wants of the flesh, the trends of the world, and other such satanic things. Instead, let God’s words and the truth wield power in your heart, and your heart will begin to treasure the words of God. As long as God’s words and the truth hold a place in your heart and lead your life, your life will have a goal and a light to guide it, and your heart will know enjoyment. If you understand three and then five of God’s words, and then ten words, and then a hundred words, these words will accumulate and, gradually, the words of God will, more and more, come to occupy your heart, lead your thoughts, lead your actions, and lead your life. More and more, you will enter into the reality of God’s words, and you will come to grasp more and more truth principles. Your actions will no longer be based on your own will and individual wants. Fewer and fewer impurities will be mixed up in your doing your duty, and you will increasingly treat God with a sincere heart. Slowly, the doctrines you understand will transform into the truth reality. In this way, there will be a real change in your life disposition. Your hope of salvation will no longer be slim or invisible, but will become increasingly perceivable and great. When you can see this light, this is actually the time when you start to gain an interest in God’s words and invest great hope in the matter of salvation. At such time, God will, more and more, let you understand His words, let you enter into His words, protect you against falling into temptation, protect you against falling into Satan’s snares and dark influence, and protect you against entanglements, conflicts, jealousies, and disputes, among other things. In this way, God will have you live in the light and live under the guidance of His words. This is happiness, joy, and peace. Accomplishing all of this starts with treasuring God’s words and practicing and experiencing God’s words to understand the truth. In fact, it is not difficult. If you often listen to sermons and can practice and experience God’s words, you will gradually come to understand the truth. In this way, gradually transitioning a little at a time and moving forward bit by bit, you will not find it difficult. The key thing is whether or not one loves the truth. If you love the truth, then with faith in God, you will be able to attend to proper matters, strive for the truth, and focus on reading and pondering God’s words. Learn to ponder God’s words and learn to pray-read God’s words. Then you will be able to understand the meaning of God’s words, you will be able to find paths of practice in God’s words, you will be able to understand God’s will, and you will begin to understand the truth. Then, reflect on and recognize your own corrupt disposition based on your understanding of the truth, dissect the essence of your corrupt disposition, and then use the truth to resolve it. If you practice and enter in this way, you will be able to truly know yourself, and it will be easy to cast off your corrupt disposition. Through gaining knowledge little by little, gaining experience little by little, coming to understand God’s will little by little, and casting off their corruption little by little, people will start to change without even realizing it. This is the process of life experience. Understanding the truth is the most critical thing. Once someone understands the truth, they will know the standards God requires man to follow. They will also know why God wants to say this and the effect He seeks to achieve. They will also know that the standards God requires of man are actually all achievable by human beings. They are all things human conscience and reason can achieve. These processes are all a matter of life entry. Life entry requires you to perform your duties diligently, seek the truth and practice the truth diligently, and pray to God and rely on God to perform your duties well. Through such experience and practice, you will have better and better results. People who do not love the truth will not show interest in such things. They do not feel a burden regarding life entry and have no interest in doing so. Therefore, although they have believed in God for many years, they cannot talk about their experiential testimony. People who love the truth are not like this. They can write out testimonies of everything they have experienced and each period of their experiences. They truly gain from all of their experiences, with these gains accumulating over the days and months. After ten or twenty years, they will have undergone great changes. At that time, they can write out their experiential testimonies without effort, and for them, engaging in fellowship on the truth is no hard thing. In doing their duty, they do everything properly.

Are you people who love the truth? Do you have hearts with a tremendous desire for God? Do you have sincere hearts? It’s hard to answer, isn’t it? In fact, in your hearts, you are all clear on this point. When you want to do your duty in a perfunctory manner, when you want to be slippery or slack off, when you want to be willful and reckless, can you recognize this? Can you rebel against the flesh? What choice do you make? Do you choose to practice the truth or choose the wants of the flesh? Do you choose the positive or the negative? Do you choose to suffer and pay the price in order to gain the truth, or do you choose to chase the comfort of the flesh? These are the questions that will be used to measure whether you have a heart that truly loves and submits to God, and whether you sincerely expend yourself for God. If you don’t have a sincere heart for God, you like to do things willfully and recklessly, you’re happy so long as you’re satisfied and get angry and throw a tantrum when you’re not, and you walk away when things don’t go your way, is this the proper state of mind? Is this what it means to have a heart of submission to God? Is this loyally doing your duty? Why don’t you practice the truth? Is it that you do not understand God’s words? Or is it that you do not love the truth? Some people think, “God’s words are simple, but it’s hard to put them into practice. The house of God always requires people to practice the truth, but this is hard for people and gives them a lot of problems. If my heart is uncomfortable, I don’t practice the truth. As long as the church does not clear me out or cast me out, I will choose to be free and at ease and do whatever I want.” Is this someone who truly believes in God? Isn’t this a nonbeliever? This is the attitude nonbelievers adopt when doing their duties. Because they do not accept the truth, they love freedom and being dissolute and they love to be perfunctory. No matter how they are pruned, it is no use. Their ears will hear nothing from fellowship on the truth. There is nothing to do but eliminate and cast them out. Because they do not accept the truth but are instead people who are averse to the truth, they are unbelievers, and God will not save them. For people who love the truth, even when their corrupt disposition is revealed, they can accept being pruned, they can seek the truth, reflect on themselves, and come to know themselves, and they can know to repent. These are the people whom God wants to save. When someone does not love the truth, it is hard for them to accept the truth. What is the greatest danger of this inability to accept the truth? It is betrayal of God. Those who do not accept the truth are the most likely to betray God, and they may betray God at any time or place. They can betray God when a minor thing does not go their way. They can betray God because they cannot accept being pruned one time. When confronted with a disaster, they are even more likely to complain and betray God. No matter what, those who do not love or accept the truth are in the most danger. Whether someone can be saved depends on the extent to which they love the truth and positive things as well as whether they can accept the truth and practice the truth. Use the requirements of the truth to measure your true stature, to discern yourself, and to know the truth of your own corruption and recognize what your nature actually is. In one respect, such discernment helps you to know yourself and be able to attain true repentance. In another respect, it allows you to know God and understand His will. The inability to accept the truth is a manifestation of rebellion and resistance to God. A clear understanding of this problem will help you walk the path of salvation. When someone truly loves the truth, they can have a heart with a tremendous desire for God, a sincere heart, and the drive to practice the truth and submit to God. Possessing real strength, they are able to pay the price, devote their energy and time, forsake their personal benefits, and let go of all entanglements of the flesh, clearing the way for the practice of God’s words, the practice of the truth, and entry into the reality of the word of God. If, in order to enter into the reality of God’s word, you can let go of your own notions, let go of the interests of your own flesh, reputation, status, fame, and the enjoyments of the flesh—if you can let go of all such things, you will then enter more and more into the truth reality. Whatever difficulties and troubles you have will no longer be problems—they will be easily solved—and you will easily enter into the reality of God’s words. To enter into the truth reality, a sincere heart and a heart with a tremendous desire for God are the two indispensable conditions. If you only have a sincere heart, but are always cowardly, lack a tremendous desire for God, and shrink back when you encounter difficulties, this is not enough. If you only have a tremendous desire for God in your heart, and you are a bit impulsive, and you just have this aspiration, but you lack a sincere heart when things happen to you, and you shrink back, and choose your own interests, this is also not enough. You need both a sincere heart and a heart with a tremendous desire for God. The level of the sincerity of your heart and the strength of your tremendous desire for God determines the power of your drive to practice the truth. If you do not have a sincere heart and your heart does not have a tremendous desire for God, you will not be able to understand God’s words and will not have the drive to practice the truth. Like this, you cannot enter into the truth reality and it will be difficult for you to attain salvation.

Many people don’t know clearly what it means to be saved. Some people believe that if they have believed in God for a long time, then they are likely to be saved. Some people think that if they understand a lot of spiritual doctrines, then they are likely to be saved, or some think that leaders and workers will certainly be saved. These are all human notions and imaginings. The key thing is that people must understand what salvation means. To be saved primarily means to be freed from sin, freed from Satan’s influence, and genuinely turn to God and submit to God. What must you possess to be free from sin and from Satan’s influence? The truth. If people hope to obtain the truth, they must be equipped with many of God’s words, they must be able to experience and practice them, so that they may understand the truth and enter into reality. Only then can they be saved. Whether or not one can be saved has nothing to do with how long they have believed in God, how much knowledge they have, whether they possess gifts or strengths, or how much they suffer. The only thing that has a direct relationship to salvation is whether or not a person can obtain the truth. So today, how many truths have you genuinely understood? And how many of God’s words have become your life? Of all of God’s requirements, into which have you achieved entry? During your years of belief in God, how much have you entered into the reality of God’s word? If you don’t know, or if you have not achieved entry into the reality of any of God’s words, then frankly, you have no hope of salvation. You cannot possibly be saved. It doesn’t matter if you possess a high degree of knowledge, or if you have believed in God for a long time, have a good appearance, can speak well, and have been a leader or worker for several years. If you don’t pursue the truth and do not properly practice and experience God’s words, and you lack real experiential testimony, then there is no hope for you to be saved. I don’t care what you look like, how much scientific knowledge you have, how much you have suffered, or how great price you have paid. I tell you this: If you do not accept the truth and never enter the reality of God’s words, you cannot be saved. This is for certain. If you tell Me how much you have entered the reality of the words of God, then I will tell you how much hope you have of salvation. Now that I have told you of the criteria for measuring this, you should be able to measure it on your own. What fact do these words tell you? God used words to create the world, He used words to accomplish every manner of fact, to accomplish all the facts that God wished to be done, and God used words to carry out two stages of His work. Today, God is doing the third stage of His work, and in this stage of work, God has spoken more words than in any other stage. This is the time when God has spoken the most in His work throughout all the history of humankind. That God could use words to create the world, to accomplish all facts, to bring all facts from nothing into existence, and existence into nothing—this is the authority of God’s words, and ultimately, God shall also use words to accomplish the fact of humankind’s salvation. Today, you can all see this fact, during the last days God has done no work that is not connected to His words, He has spoken throughout, used words throughout to guide man unto today. Of course, while speaking, God has also used words to preserve His relationship with those who follow Him, He has used words to guide them, and these words are of the utmost importance for those who wish to be saved, or whom God wishes to save, God shall use these words to accomplish the fact of humankind’s salvation. Evidently, whether viewed in terms of their content or number, no matter what kind of words they are, and no matter which portion of God’s words they are, they are of the utmost importance to each of those who wish to be saved. God is using these words to achieve the ultimate effect of His six-thousand-year management plan. To humankind—whether to the humankind of today or the future—they are of the utmost importance. Such is the attitude of God, such is the aim and significance of His words. So what should humankind do? Humankind should cooperate in God’s words and work, not ignore them. But such is not the way of some people’s faith in God: No matter what God says, it is as if His words have nothing to do with them. They still pursue what they want to, do what they want to, and do not seek the truth on the basis of God’s words. This is not experiencing the work of God. There are others who pay no attention no matter what God says, who have but a single conviction in their hearts: “I will do whatever God asks, if God tells me to go west, I’ll go west, if He tells me to go east, I’ll go east, if He tells me to die, I will let Him see me die.” But there’s just one thing: They do not take in the words of God. They think to themselves, “There are so many of God’s words, they should be a little more straightforward, and they should tell me exactly what to do. I am able to submit to God in my heart.” No matter how many words God speaks, such people ultimately remain incapable of understanding the truth, nor can they talk of their experiences and knowledge. They are like a layman who lacks spiritual understanding. Do you think such people are beloved of God? Does God wish to be merciful toward such people? (No.) He certainly does not. God does not like such people. God says, “I have spoken untold thousands of words. How is it that, like someone blind or deaf, you have neither seen nor heard them? What, exactly, are you thinking in your heart? I see you as nothing more than someone who is obsessed with chasing after blessings and the beautiful destination—you are chasing after the same goals as Paul. If you do not want to listen to My words, if you do not wish to follow My way, then why do you believe in God? You are not chasing after salvation, you are chasing after the beautiful destination and the desire for blessings. And since this is what you are plotting, what is most suitable for you is being a service-doer.” In fact, being a loyal service-doer is also one manifestation of submission to God, but this is the minimum standard. Remaining as a loyal service-doer is much better than being plunged into perdition and destruction like an unbeliever. In particular, the house of God has a need for service-doers, and being able to render service to God also counts as a blessing. This is far better—incomparably better—than being lackeys of the devil kings. However, rendering service unto God is not wholly satisfactory to God, because God’s work of judgment is in order to save, cleanse, and perfect people. If people are content with merely rendering service to God, this is not the aim that God wishes to achieve by working in people, nor is it the effect that God wishes to see. But people burn with desire, they are foolish and blind: They are bewitched, consumed, by some petty profit, and dismiss the precious words of life uttered by God. They can’t even treat them seriously, let alone hold them dear. Not reading God’s words or cherishing the truth: is this smart or stupid? Can people achieve salvation this way? People should understand all this. They only have hope of salvation if they put aside their notions and imaginings and focus on pursuing the truth.

Some people ask: “God’s words require man to assume the stand of a created being and fulfill his duty as a created being. We are not required to be a superman or great man, but I always feel such ambitions and desires. I am not content to be an ordinary person. What should I do then?” This problem is very simple. Why are you unwilling to be an ordinary person? If you first dig to the root of this question, your problem will be easily solved. God requires that man be an honest person. This is the most meaningful thing. If you understand the truth of what it is to be an honest person, you will know that being an honest person is to be a person possessing normal humanity, a true person. What are the outward signs of an honest person? To be an honest person is to be a normal person. What are the natural instincts, thoughts, and reason of normal people? How do the words and deeds of normal people appear? A normal person can speak from their heart. They will say whatever is in their heart without any falsehood or deceit. If they can understand a matter they encounter, they will act according to their conscience and reason. If they cannot see through it clearly, they will make mistakes and fail, they will entertain misconceptions, notions, and their personal imaginings, and they will be blinded by the illusions before their eyes. These are the outward signs of normal humanity. Do these outward signs of normal humanity satisfy the requirements of God? No. People cannot satisfy God’s requirements if they do not have the truth. These outward signs of normal humanity are the possessions of an ordinary, corrupt man. These are the things man is born with, the things native to him. You have to allow yourself to show these outward signs and revelations. While allowing yourself to show these outward signs and revelations, you must understand that such are man’s natural instincts, caliber, and inborn nature. What should you do once you understand this? You should regard it correctly. But how do you put this correct regard into practice? This is done by reading more of God’s words, further equipping yourself with the truth, bringing things that you don’t understand, things about which you entertain notions, and things about which you may make wrong judgments to God more often to reflect on them and seek the truth in order to solve all your problems. If you experience like this for a while, it doesn’t matter if you fail and stumble a few times. The most important thing is that you can clearly see these matters in God’s words and know how to practice in accordance with principles and God’s will. This shows that you have learned a lesson. After going through several years of failures and stumbles, if you clearly understand the essence of corrupt man, see to the root of the darkness and evil in the world, and discern the varied types of people, events and things, then you will be able to act according to the truth principles. As you are not a superman, nor a great man, you cannot penetrate and understand all things. It is impossible for you to see through the world at a glance, see through humankind at a glance, and see through everything happening around you at a glance. You are an ordinary person. You must undergo many failures, many periods of bewilderment, many errors of judgment, and many deviations. This can fully reveal your corrupt disposition, your weaknesses and deficiencies, your ignorance and foolishness, enabling you to reexamine and know yourself, and to have knowledge of God’s almightiness, full wisdom, and His disposition. You will gain positive things from Him, and come to understand the truth and enter reality. There will be much amid your experience that does not go as you wish, against which you will feel powerless. With these, you must seek and wait; you must gain from God the answer to each matter, and understand from His words the underlying essence of each matter and the essence of each sort of person. This is how an ordinary, normal person behaves. You must learn to say, “I can’t,” “It’s beyond me,” “I can’t penetrate it,” “I haven’t experienced it,” “I don’t know anything at all,” “Why am I so weak? Why am I so good for nothing?” “I am of such poor caliber,” “I’m so numb and dull-witted,” “I’m so ignorant that it will take me several days before I can understand this thing and take care of it,” and “I need to discuss this with someone.” You must learn to practice in this way. This is the outward sign of your admission that you are a normal person and your desire to be a normal person. Those who regard themselves as the great and mighty, who think they are not ordinary but superior and superhuman, they never say “I can’t,” “It’s beyond me,” “I can’t penetrate it,” “I don’t know, I have to learn, I have to look it up, I have to find people to fellowship with, I have to seek from the Above.” They never say such words. Especially once they have gained status, someone like this doesn’t want people to think that they are an ordinary person and that, just like everyone else, there are things that they are incapable of, things they can’t see through or understand. Instead, they always want people to mistake them for a superman. Therefore, when things happen to them, they do not need to bring such matters before God more often, and offer to Him a sincere heart. They do not need to seek. They understand, learn, and see through everything that happens to them in a matter of minutes. They have nothing of corruption or weakness. There is nothing that they cannot see through, there is nothing they have not experienced. Even if there was something they had not yet experienced, they would see through it at a glance. They are simply a perfect superman. Is this the manifestation of normal humanity? (No.) So then, are they a normal person? Certainly not. This sort of person does not admit that they are an ordinary person, that they have weaknesses, flaws and a corrupt disposition. So can they come before God with a sincere heart more often in order to seek and pray? Certainly not. This shows that they as yet lack the conscience and reason of normal humanity, nor do they live out normal humanity.

Tell Me, how can you be people who are ordinary and normal? How can you, as God says, assume the proper place of a created being—how can you not try to be a superman, or some great figure? How should you practice to be an ordinary and normal person? How can this be done? Who will answer? (First of all, we have to admit that we are ordinary people, very commonplace people. There are many things we don’t understand, don’t comprehend, and can’t see through. We must admit that we are corrupt and flawed. After that, we have to have a sincere heart and come often before God to seek.) Firstly, don’t give yourself a title and become bound by it, saying, “I am the leader, I am the head of the team, I am the supervisor, no one knows this business better than me, no one understands the skills more than me.” Don’t get caught up in your self-appointed title. As soon as you do, it will bind your hands and feet, and what you say and do will be affected. Your normal thinking and judgment will also be affected. You must free yourself from the constraints of this status. First, lower yourself from this official title and position and stand in the place of an ordinary person. If you do, your mentality will become somewhat normal. You must also admit and say, “I don’t know how to do this, and I don’t understand that, either—I’m going to have to do some research and studying,” or “I’ve never experienced this, so I don’t know what to do.” When you are capable of saying what you’re really thinking and speaking honestly, you will be possessed of normal reason. Others will know the real you, and will thus have a normal view of you, and you will not have to put on an act, nor will there be any great pressure on you, and so you will be able to communicate with people normally. Living like this is free and easy; anyone who finds living exhausting has caused this themselves. Don’t pretend or put up a front. First, open up about what you’re thinking in your heart, about your true thoughts, so that everyone is aware of them and understands them. As a result, your concerns and the barriers and suspicions between you and others will all be eliminated. You’re also hobbled by something else. You always consider yourself the head of the team, a leader, a worker, or someone with a title, status, and standing: If you say you don’t understand something, or can’t do something, are you not denigrating yourself? When you put aside these fetters in your heart, when you stop thinking of yourself as a leader or a worker, and when you stop thinking that you’re better than other people and feel that you are an ordinary person, the same as everyone else, and that there are some areas in which you are inferior to others—when you fellowship the truth and work-related matters with this attitude, the effect is different, as is the atmosphere. If, in your heart, you always have misgivings, if you always feel stressed and hobbled, and if you want to rid yourself of these things but can’t, then you should pray seriously to God, reflect on yourself, see your shortcomings, and strive toward the truth. If you can put the truth into practice, you will get results. Whatever you do, don’t speak and act from a certain position or using a certain title. First, put all this to one side, and put yourself in the place of an ordinary person. When someone says, “Aren’t you the leader? Aren’t you in charge of the team? You should understand this.” In response, you say: “Where in the word of God does it say that, if you are a leader or a team leader, you can understand everything? I don’t understand this. Don’t use your eyes to judge me. You require too much. It’s true that I am a leader, but my understanding of the truth is still too shallow and I don’t know what decision to make because I haven’t experienced this thing and I still can’t see it through. I need to pray and seek. God has said, do not fret for solutions to what you do not understand. You always want me to understand right now and make a decision right now. What if I make the wrong decision? Who would be responsible for this? Are you able to take responsibility? Do you want me to make a mistake? In doing this, are you responsible for me? We should work together, pray and seek together, and handle this matter well.” Can you do this? Is this easy to do? If you can talk to others in a heartfelt manner, then you can say, “Actually, my stature is also very small. If I don’t seek and pray, I can make a mistake at any time. Sometimes I can’t help but make mistakes. How big did you think my stature was? You have thought too highly of me.” When the other person hears what you say, they will feel in their heart that you are a very honest person who can speak from the heart. Then, they will not ask too much of you, but work with you instead. If you put this into practice, you will become more rational in the things you do, you will not be restricted and tied down by fame, gain, and status, and your heart will be set free. You will be able to speak and act with an open heart, and you will be able to cooperate in harmony with others and treat brothers and sisters correctly. At this time, your state will grow increasingly normal, and your actions become increasingly reasonable. Everyone will be able to see this and say, “This leader has truly changed. He truly possesses conscience and reason, and he has lived out normal humanity. With such a person as our leader, we also gain many benefits!” At this time, when you again engage in work, whether it is seeking and praying or going to others for fellowship, what you do is right and proper, and you will have no misgivings. In all you do, you proceed solidly and steadily. You do not fret for solutions, but let things play out. No matter what you encounter, you can bring it before God and offer your sincere heart. This is a principle you can practice in all things. Everyone, whether they are leaders and workers or brothers and sisters, is an ordinary person. They should all practice this principle. Everyone has a share in and responsibility for the practice of God’s word. You may be a leader, a worker, the head of a team, a person in charge, or a person highly regarded from among the group. No matter who you are, you should learn to practice in this way. Take off the halo and title you wear on your head, take off the crowns others have bestowed on you. Then, you will find it easy to become a normal person and, with ease, you will act on the basis of conscience and reason. Of course, after that, it is not enough to simply admit that you don’t understand and don’t know. This is not the ultimate solution that solves the problem. What is the ultimate solution? Bring matters and difficulties before God to pray and seek. It’s not enough for one person to pray alone. Instead, together with everyone, you must offer prayers concerning this matter and shoulder this responsibility and obligation. That is a wonderful way to do things! You will avoid taking the path of trying to be a great figure and a superman. If you can do this, you will unconsciously assume the proper place of a created being and free yourself from the shackles of the ambition and desire to be a superman and a great figure.

Standing in the proper place of a created being and being an ordinary person: Is this easy to do? (It is not easy.) Wherein is the difficulty? It is this: People always feel that their heads are topped with many halos and titles. They also give themselves the identity and status of great figures and supermen and engage in all those pretended and false practices and outward shows. If you don’t let go of these things, if your words and deeds are always constrained and controlled by these things, then you will find it difficult to enter into the reality of God’s word. It will be hard to stop fretting for solutions for things you don’t understand and bring such matters before God more often and offer to Him a sincere heart. You won’t be able to do this. It is exactly because your status, your titles, your identity, and all such things are false and untrue, because they go against and contradict God’s words, that these things bind you up so that you cannot come before God. What do these things bring to you? They make you good at disguising yourself, pretending to understand, pretending to be smart, pretending to be a great figure, pretending to be a celebrity, pretending to be capable, pretending to be wise, and even pretending to know everything, be capable of everything, and be able to do everything. This makes it so others will worship and admire you. They will come to you with all their problems, relying on you and looking up to you. Thus, it is as if you put yourself on a fire to roast. Tell Me, does it feel good to roast on the fire? (No.) You don’t understand, but you dare not say that you don’t understand. You can’t see through, but you don’t dare to say you can’t see through. You obviously made a mistake, but you dare not admit it. Your heart is in anguish, but you dare not say, “This time it’s really my fault, I owe a debt to God and to my brothers and sisters. I have caused such a great loss to the house of God, but I don’t have the courage to stand before everyone and admit it.” Why do you dare not speak? You believe, “I need to live up to the reputation and halo my brothers and sisters have given me, I can’t betray the high regard and trust they have for me, much less the eager expectations that they have held for me over so many years. Therefore, I have to keep pretending.” What is such a disguise like? You have successfully made yourself into a great figure and a superman. Brothers and sisters want to come to you to inquire, consult, and even beseech your counsel about whatever problems they face. It seems that they cannot even live without you. But isn’t your heart in anguish? Of course, some people don’t feel this anguish. An antichrist doesn’t feel this anguish. Instead, they delight in it, thinking that their status is above all else. An average, normal person, however, feels anguish when they are roasted on the fire. They feel that they are nothing at all, just like an ordinary person. They do not believe that they are stronger than others. They not only think that they cannot accomplish any practical work, but that they will also delay the work of the church and delay God’s chosen people, so they will take the blame and resign. This is someone with reason. Is this problem easy to solve? It is easy for people with reason to solve this problem, but difficult for those who lack reason. If, once you obtain status, you shamelessly enjoy the benefits of status with the result that you are revealed and cast out for your failure to do real work, you have brought this upon yourself and deserve what you get! You do not merit even one bit of pity or compassion. Why do I say this? It’s because you insist on standing in a high place. You put yourself on the fire to roast. Your wound is self-inflicted. If you don’t want to sit on the fire and roast, you should give up all these titles and halos and tell your brothers and sisters the true states and thoughts in your heart. In this way, the brothers and sisters can treat you correctly and you don’t have to put on a disguise. Now that you have opened up and shed light on your true state, doesn’t your heart feel more at ease, more relaxed? Why walk with such a heavy burden on your back? If you give out your true state, will the brothers and sisters really look down on you? Will they really abandon you? Absolutely not. On the contrary, the brothers and sisters will approve of you and admire you for daring to speak your heart. They will say that you are an honest person. This will not hinder your work in the church, nor have the slightest negative effect on it. If the brothers and sisters really see that you have difficulties, they will voluntarily help you and work with you. What do you say? Isn’t this how it would be? (Yes.) To always put on a disguise so that others will look up to you is the stupidest thing. The best approach is to be an ordinary person with a regular heart, be able to open up to God’s chosen people in a pure and simple manner, and often engage in heartfelt talks. Never accept it when people look up to you, admire you, give you excessive praise, or speak flattering words. These things should all be rejected. For example, some people may say: “Aren’t you a university professor? Since you are so knowledgeable, you must have a great understanding of the truth.” Say to them: “What kind of university professor am I? No amount of knowledge can take the place of the truth. This knowledge has caused me great suffering. It is completely useless. Don’t think highly of me, I’m just an ordinary person.” Of course, some people have a hard time letting go of their status. They do want to be ordinary, everyday people and stand in the proper place of a created being. They do not want to suffer so, but they can’t help themselves. They always see themselves as superior people and can’t step down from their lofty perch. This is problematic. They like it when people revolve around them, gazing at them with admiring eyes. They like that people go to them with all their problems, rely on them, listen to them, and look up to them. They like that people believe that they are superior people who are experts in all things, that they are omniscient so that there is nothing they don’t understand, and they even think that it would be so good and wonderful if people were to regard them as overcomers. This is beyond all remedy. Some people accept the compliments and crowns bestowed by others and play the part of the superman and great figure for a time. But they feel uncomfortable and suffer anguish. What should they do? Whoever wants to flatter you is actually putting you on the fire to roast, and you should stay away from them. Or else, find an opportunity to reveal to them the truth of your corruption, speak to them about your true state, and expose your flaws and failings. In this way, they will not worship or look up to you. Is this easy to do? In fact, it is easy to do. If you really can’t do this, it proves that you are too arrogant and conceited. You really regard yourself as a superman, a great figure, and you don’t at all hate and abhor this kind of disposition in your heart. This being so, you can but wait for the stumble that disgraces you in the eyes of others. If you are someone who truly has reason, you will abhor and feel disgusted by the corrupt disposition that always wants to play the superman and great figure. At the very least, you must have this feeling. Only then can you hate yourself and rebel against the flesh. How should you practice to be an everyday person, an ordinary person, a normal person? First, you should deny and let go of those things you hold on to that you think are so good and valuable, as well as those superficial, pretty words with which others admire and praise you. If, in your heart, you are clear about what kind of person you are, what your essence is, what your failings are, and what corruption you reveal, you should openly fellowship this with other people, so that they can see what your true state is, what your thoughts and opinions are, so that they know what knowledge you have of such things. Whatever you do, don’t pretend or put up a front, don’t hide your own corruption and failings from others, so that no one knows about them. This kind of false behavior is an obstacle in your heart, and it is also a corrupt disposition and can stop people from repenting and changing. You must pray to God, and hold up for reflection and dissection the false things, like the praise others give to you, the glory they shower you with, and the crowns they bestow on you. You must see the harm these things do to you. In so doing, you will know your own measure, you will attain self-knowledge, and will no longer see yourself as a superman, or some great figure. Once you have such self-awareness, it becomes easy for you to accept the truth, to accept God’s words and what God asks of man into your heart, to accept the Creator’s salvation of you, to steadfastly be an ordinary person, someone who is honest and reliable, and to establish a normal relationship between yourself—a created being, and God—the Creator. This is precisely what God asks of people, and it is something that is wholly attainable to them. God only allows ordinary, normal people to come before Him. He does not accept worship from those feigned and false celebrities, great figures, and supermen. When you let go of these false halos, admit that you are an ordinary, normal person, and come to God to seek the truth and pray to Him, the heart that you have for Him will be much more genuine, and you will feel much more at ease. At such time, you will feel that you need God to support and help you, and you will be able to come before God more often to seek and pray to Him. Tell Me, do you think it is easier to be a great figure, a superman, or an ordinary person? (An ordinary person.) In theory, it is easy to be an ordinary person, but hard to be a great figure or superman, which always causes anguish. However, when people make their own choices and put this into practice, they cannot help but want to be a superman or great figure. They cannot help themselves. This is caused by their nature essence. Thus, man requires God’s salvation. In the future, when someone asks you, “How can one stop trying to be a superman and great figure?” will you be able to answer this question? All you need to do is practice the method I laid out. Be an ordinary person, don’t disguise yourself, pray to God, and learn to open yourself up in a simple way and speak with others from the heart. Such practice will naturally bear fruit. Gradually, you will learn to be a normal person, you will no longer be tired of life, no longer be in anguish, and no longer be in pain. All people are ordinary people. There is no difference between them, except that their personal gifts are different and they can vary somewhat in caliber. If not for God’s salvation and protection, they would all do evil and suffer the punishment. If you can admit that you are an ordinary person, if you can step out from within man’s imaginings and empty illusions and seek to be an honest person and do honest deeds, if you can conscientiously submit to God, then you will have no problems and you will fully live out a human likeness. It’s as simple as that, so why is there no path? What I have now said is very simple. In fact, that’s exactly the way it is. Those who love the truth can completely accept it, and they will also say, “Actually, God does not require too much of man. His requirements can all be met with human conscience and reason. It is not difficult for a person to perform their duty well. If a person acts from the heart and has the will and desire to put this into practice, it is easy to achieve.” But some people cannot achieve this. For those who always have ambitions and desires, who always want to be supermen and great figures, although they want to be ordinary people, it is not easy for them. They always feel that they are superior and better than others, so their whole heart and mind are consumed with the desire to be a superman or great figure. Not only are they unwilling to be ordinary people and keep to their status as created beings, but they vow that they will never give up on their pursuit to be supermen and great figures. This is beyond remedy.

Some people do not seek the truth and do not pray to God no matter what they encounter. They only act on the basis of their own wishes, gifts, and caliber. Even when they pray to God, they are only going through the motions, and in their heart, they think, “Whether or not God enlightens me is His business. I will just act in the way I think best.” They feel fully capable of handling these matters themselves and fully competent for the work they do. For them, praying to God is just a matter of going through the motions. What are such people like? Can they admit that they are ordinary, normal people? Can they enter into the reality of the word of God? (Not at all.) Do such people think that they can do anything? (Yes.) They believe that, even if they don’t act according to God’s words, they can handle anything, and they can get things done with no hassles or difficulties without seeking God’s words. What path are people like these walking? Is it the path of seeking to be a superman and great figure? (Yes.) No matter how great the mess they make or how many transgressions they commit, it is as nothing to them. As long as they have done many things, accumulated certain achievements, and felt a certain sense of superiority, they feel that they possess resources and abilities. They think themselves people who have worked hard and achieved much for God’s house. They do not need God’s words. They do not need God’s work. They themselves can do anything. Such people will never come before God. They boast that there is nothing they cannot do. When they encounter something, they never pray to God, nor seek the truth principles, let alone fellowship with their brothers and sisters. Nor do they ever seek from the Above, to say nothing of seeking the truth in God’s words. They think that many things are not touched on and given no concrete explanation in God’s words, so it is fine for them to solve such things on their own. Without knowing it, they have put God to one side. Without knowing it, they are contemptuous of others and trample everyone underfoot. The road they are walking is the road to becoming a celebrity, a great figure, and a superman. In the end, this sort of person cannot stand firm. If you were to ask them to learn to admit that they are ordinary people, that they are capable of making mistakes, committing transgressions, and failing, and that they have many faults and flaws, could they do this? (They could not.) If you told them to take off those halos and crowns, to let go of the high regard given to them by their brothers and sisters, and to give up their prestige and status in the church, would they consent? (They would not.) They would say, “How can I contentedly give up my hard-earned fame and crowns like this? I’m not that stupid!” They eagerly want more people to treat them as supermen and great figures. They don’t like people to see their faults and flaws and treat them as normal people. Even more do they dislike when people expose their mistakes, failures, and conduct. Can such people come before God often to pray and seek the truth? (They cannot.) Even if they come before God to pray, will they have a sincere heart? No. Everything they say and do is for the crown on their head and their own prestige. They do things for everyone to see, but will not accept God’s scrutiny and cannot offer God a sincere heart, which they do not have. In no way can they comprehend God’s will in the word of God and act in accordance with what God requires. Therefore, even if this sort of person wants to seek the truth and wants to be rid of the desire to be a celebrity or a great figure, they are not sincere. They cannot rebel against the flesh, nor can they practice the truth. What sort of person are they? They are nonbelievers. They are antichrists. Once antichrists have status, influence, and a bit of prestige among the people, they will throw themselves into establishing an independent kingdom, setting off down a path from which there is no return. No matter how many times you engage them in fellowship on the truth or prune them, it will come to nothing. In God’s house, fellowship on the truth, talking about experiential testimonies, seeking to love God and testify to God, and engaging in fellowship on pure comprehension and principles of the truth—these positive things are only effective for those who love the truth and have a tremendous aspiration for God. For those who don’t love the truth, those who only pursue blessings, and those who like to play the part of the superman and great figure, they are of no use at all. Any truths, correct words, and positive things are all for those who love the truth, love the word of God, and have a tremendous aspiration for God. After listening to the truth, those who do not possess these qualifications will also say that the truth is right and the truth is good, but they will ponder it and think, “For what do I live? I live for prestige, status, crowns, halos, and God’s rewards. Without these, do I still have dignity? What is the meaning of my life? Is not faith in God just a means to chase after rewards and crowns? Now that I have paid the price with so much of my heart and blood, and after waiting so long, the time has finally come for God to reward the good and punish the evil. This is when I should be crowned and receive my reward. How can I yield this up to someone else? To be a normal person, an ordinary person, just like all the other plain people, what’s the point in living like that? I’m not that stupid!” Is not such a person beyond remedy? (Yes.) Do not seek to persuade such people. The truth is not for them, and what they want is not the truth. This sort of person seeks only blessings and crowns. Their desires and ambitions exceed the bounds of what is necessary for normal people. Some people can’t imagine why this sort of person clings to status and power and won’t let go. This is the essence and inborn nature of this kind of person. You can’t figure it out because your essence is different from theirs, and neither can they comprehend you. They don’t know why you are so stupid. You don’t want ready-made crowns, halos, and prestige and instead would be an ordinary person. They find you inconceivable. This type of person thinks, “You pursue the truth conscientiously, you practice what God tells you, you do what God tells you to do, and you submit to whatever God tells you to do. How can you be so stupid?” They think that being an honest person and practicing the truth is stupid, ignorant, and slow-witted. They believe that they are clever in pursuing knowledge and playing the part of a superior person. Thinking they understand everything, they conclude that “the life of a person who lacks status and prestige, wears no crowns on their head, and has no worth among men and no authority to speak is worthless. If one does not live for fame, they must live for profit. If not for profit, they must live for fame.” Is this not Satan’s logic? Living by Satan’s logic, there is no remedy for them. They could never accept any of God’s words, positive things, or correct advice. If they cannot accept this, what is there to do? These words we speak are not for them. These words are only addressed to people with normal humanity, only to people with a tremendous aspiration for God. They are only for these people. Only these people can earnestly listen to and ponder God’s words, attain an understanding of the truth, act according to the truth principles, perform their duties as God requires, practice and experience God’s words in the environments God has arranged, and gradually enter into the truth reality. As for those who harbor contempt and hostility for positive things and the word of God in their hearts, they cannot be reconciled to live an unremarkable and undistinguished life, be a commonplace person, come before God conscientiously, and seek and wait with all their hearts concerning matters they do not understand. They are not content to be such a person. Thus, it is impossible for such a person to be saved. The kingdom of heaven was not prepared for these people. Do you understand? (We understand.) Whosoever is able to be the ordinary, normal created being of which God speaks, and to stand in the proper place of a created being, whosoever is willing to be that foolish person looked down on by others, and can accept and submit to God’s words no matter what He says, often coming before God, often seeking, and possessing a sincere heart, can become one of the overcomers God speaks of. Whosoever becomes one of the overcomers God speaks of will finally receive that which God has promised to mankind. This is certain.

When God weighs whether an individual is good or bad, whether they pursue the truth, and whether they can attain God’s salvation, He considers their comprehension of His words and their attitude toward His words. He considers whether they can practice the truths they understand. He considers whether they can accept the truth when they are pruned and when they undergo trials. He considers whether they desire and accept God with a sincere heart. God does not judge their level of education, their caliber, how many gifts they possess, how far they have traveled, or how much work they have done. God does not consider these things, nor does He desire these things. Say that you always want to take your desires and ambitions to God and exchange them for rewards and crowns, but you have always dismissed and ignored God’s words. Though God has spoken thousands upon thousands of words, not a single word from God remains in your heart. Not even a word of God’s exhortations, of His warnings, or of His reminders, or even of His judgments, chastisements, or teachings—you do not have a single one of these words in your heart. You do not take a single word spoken by God as your motto in your heart. Your heart does not remember a single word from God and at the same time, you don’t pay any price to practice and enter into God’s words. If this is all true, then, from God’s perspective, your outcome and destination are already settled. If, in the presence of God, in the presence of the Creator, you are not reconciled to being an ordinary or commonplace person; if, in the presence of the Creator, you dare to act insolently; if you always want to play the great figure, the superman, the extraordinary individual, and you do not remain in the position God has given you, then what do you still want to obtain from God? Will God give it to you? If people want to obtain what God has promised to man, they must first follow God’s way. This is the general orientation. For the specific orientation, they must listen to and practice God’s words. This path will never steer them wrong. Listen to and practice God’s words, turn God’s words into the reality of your life, into the basis, principles, direction, and goal of what you say, how you conduct yourself, how you view things, and how you do things. That is to say that what you say and the judgments you make must have God’s words as their basis. Whenever you choose to engage with one type of person and avoid or reject another type of person, you must have the basis of God’s words. Even if you are angry and curse at others, your actions must have principles and context, and basically conform to the truth. In this way, you will live out the reality of God’s word and receive God’s approval. Seeking to enter into the truth reality is a process of pursuing the truth and living out normal humanity to become an eligible created being. It is also a process of freeing yourself from trying to be a superman, an exceptional person, and a celebrity or great figure. If you want to escape from the path of striving to become a superman, a celebrity, and a great figure, or this kind of method of pursuit, then you must first lower your posture, humble yourself, admit that you are a person, an insignificant person, and a person who can do nothing without God’s guidance—just an ordinary person. You must admit that you are nothing apart from God and God’s words. You are a person who is willing to accept the sovereignty and orchestration of the Creator. Without the breath God gave you—without all that He has given you—you are a corpse and good-for-nothing. Of course, while acknowledging these things, you must come before God and accept all the words of life He has spoken. Most importantly, you must enter into the reality of these words spoken by God, make God’s words into your life, have them become the foundation and basis of your life and existence, and make them into a source and a support of your survival throughout your whole life. This is God’s will and His highest requirement for man.

Today, the main topic of our fellowship has been how to treat God’s words, how to eat and drink God’s words, how people should treasure God’s words, and how they should practice God’s words so as to enter into the truth reality and attain salvation. Mainly, we have engaged in fellowship on the importance of the word of God. These things are precisely the things you lack, and the things man should possess. If I did not fellowship in this way, you would not be able to see such things clearly. It seems that you have some subconscious knowledge, but you can’t explain what you know clearly. It’s like writing an article, when the outline is mapped out but you still can’t flesh out the content. This is your actual situation. Today’s fellowship on these things is a reminder and a warning to you. For each person, God’s words are the most important thing, and there is no substitution for the truth. Once you understand this point, you should have a path for how to practice. You must do more to eat and drink God’s words and practice God’s words so as to enter into the reality of God’s words. What should you do if you feel that your stature is too small, your ability to comprehend is lacking, and you cannot penetrate or reach the deep words of God and cannot apply them to yourself? Start by eating and drinking from the shallows. In your heart, memorize the simple, easy-to-understand words that you can practice yourself, make them the principles you follow in practice, and act according to God’s words. If God says go east, then go to the east. If God says go west, then go to the west. If God says pray more, then pray more. Do whatever God says. It is better to be thought a fool by others than to be what Satan would consider a smart and clever person. Only those who choose to practice the truth with the sole aim of gaining God’s approval are the truly intelligent and wise ones.

September 25, 2021