If you truly wish to gain the way of eternal life, and if you are voracious in your search for it, then first answer this question: Where is God today? Perhaps you would reply, “God lives in heaven, of course—He wouldn’t be living in your home, would He?” Perhaps you might say that God obviously lives among all things. Or you might say that God lives in each person’s heart, or that God is in the spiritual realm. I don’t deny any of this, but I must clarify the issue. It isn’t totally correct to say that God lives in the heart of man, but neither is it entirely wrong. That is because, among believers in God, there are those whose belief is true and those whose belief is false, there are those of whom God approves and those of whom He disapproves, there are those who are pleasing to Him and those whom He detests, and there are those whom He makes perfect and those whom He eliminates. And so I say that God lives in but a few people’s hearts, and these people are undoubtedly those who truly believe in God, those of whom God approves, those who are pleasing to Him, and those whom He makes perfect. They are the ones who are led by God. Since they are led by God, they are the people who have already heard and seen God’s way of eternal life. Those whose belief in God is false, those who are not approved of by God, those who are detested by God, those who are eliminated by God—they are bound to be rejected by God, are bound to remain without the way of life, and are bound to remain ignorant of where God is. In contrast, those who have God living in their hearts know where He is. They are the people unto whom God bestows the way of eternal life, and they are the ones who follow God. Now do you know where God is? God is both in the heart of man and at man’s side. He is not only in the spiritual realm, and above all things, but even more on the earth upon which man exists. And so the arrival of the last days has taken the steps of God’s work into new territory. God is amid all things, holding sovereignty over everything, and He is also within man’s heart, serving as man’s support, and even more so, He exists among man. Only in this way can He bring the way of life to mankind, and bring man into the way of life. God has come to earth, and lives among man, so that man may gain the way of life, and for the sake of man’s existence. At the same time, He is amid all things, commanding everything, so as to facilitate the management He does among man. And so, if you only acknowledge the doctrine that God is in heaven and in the heart of man, yet do not acknowledge the truth of God’s existence among man, then you shall never gain life, and shall never gain the way of truth.

God Himself is life, and the truth, and His life and truth coexist. Those who are incapable of gaining the truth will surely not gain life. Without the guidance, support, and provision of the truth, all that you’ll gain is mere words, doctrines, and, even more so, death. God’s life is ever-present, and His truth and life coexist simultaneously. If you cannot find the source of truth, then you will not gain the nourishment of life; if you cannot gain the provision of life, then you will surely have no truth, and apart from imaginings and notions, your whole being shall contain nothing but your flesh—your stench-ridden flesh. Know that the mere words of books cannot count as life, the records of history cannot be enshrined as the truth, and the regulations of the past cannot serve as an account of God’s current words, and that only the words expressed by God when He comes to earth and lives among man are the truth, life, God’s intentions, and His current way of working. If you take the records of words spoken by God during ages past and adhere to them today, that makes you an archaeologist, in which case, the most fitting way of describing you is as an expert in the research on historical relics. You always believe in traces of the work that God did in times past, you only believe in the shadow of God left from when He previously worked among man, and only believe in the way that God told His followers in former times, but you do not believe in the orientation of God’s work today, do not believe in the glorious countenance of God today, and do not believe in the way of truth currently expressed by God. Therefore, you are undeniably a daydreamer who is completely out of touch with reality. If now you still cling to words that are incapable of enabling man to live, then you are a hopeless piece of deadwood, for you are too conservative, too intractable, too impervious to reason!

—The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Only Christ of the Last Days Can Give Man the Way of Eternal Life