In order to restore the likeness of a normal person, that is, to achieve normal humanity, people cannot merely please God with their words. They only harm themselves in doing so, and it does not benefit their entry or transformation. Therefore, to attain transformation, people must practice little by little. They must enter slowly, seek and explore bit by bit, enter in from the positive, and live a practical life of truth; a life of a saint. Thereafter, real things, real events, and real environments allow people to have practical training. People are not required to pay any lip service; instead, they are to train in real environments. People first come to realize that they are of poor caliber, and then they eat and drink of God’s words normally, and enter into and practice normally as well; only in this way can they obtain reality, and this is how entry may occur even more rapidly. In order to transform people, there must be some practicality; they must practice with real things, real events, and real environments. Can one achieve true training by relying on church life alone? Could people enter into reality this way? No! If people are unable to enter into real life, then they are unable to transform their old lifestyle and ways of doing things. This is not entirely due to people’s laziness and high level of dependency, but rather it is because people simply do not have the capacity for living, and, moreover, they have no understanding of God’s standard of the likeness of a normal person. In the past, people were always talking, speaking, communicating—and they even became “orators”—yet none of them sought transformation in their life disposition; instead, they blindly sought profound theories. Thus, people of today must change this religious style of belief in God in their lives. They must enter into practice by focusing on one event, one thing, one person. They must do it with focus—only then can they attain results. People’s transformation begins with a change in their substance. The work must be aimed at people’s substance, their life, and at their laziness, dependency, and slavishness—only in this way can they be transformed.

Even though church life can produce results in some areas, the key is still that real life can transform people. One’s old nature cannot be transformed without real life. Let us take, for example, the work of Jesus during the Age of Grace. When Jesus abolished the previous laws and established the commandments of the new age, He spoke using actual examples from real life. As Jesus was leading His disciples through the wheat field on a Sabbath, His disciples became hungry and plucked ears of grain to eat. The Pharisees saw this and said that they were not observing the Sabbath. They also said that people were not allowed to save the calves that had fallen into a pit on the Sabbath, saying that no work might be performed during the Sabbath. Jesus cited these incidents to gradually promulgate the commandments of the new age. At the time, He used many practical matters to help people understand and transform. This is the principle by which the Holy Spirit performs His work, and it is the only way that can transform people. Without practical matters, people can only gain a theoretical and intellectual understanding—this is not an effective way to transform. So how does one acquire wisdom and insight through training? Can people acquire wisdom and insight simply from listening, reading, and advancing their knowledge? How could this be so? People must understand and experience in real life! Therefore, one must train, and one must not depart from real life. People must pay attention to different aspects and have entry in various aspects: level of education, expressiveness, the ability to see things, discernment, the ability to understand God’s words, the common sense and rules of humanity, and other things relating to humanity that people must be equipped with. After understanding has been attained, people must focus on entry, and only then can transformation be attained. If someone has attained understanding, yet they neglect practice, how can transformation occur? Presently, people understand much, but they do not live out reality; thus, they possess little substantive understanding of God’s words. You have only been marginally enlightened; you have received a little illumination from the Holy Spirit, yet you have no entry into real life—or you might not even care about entry—thus your transformation is lessened. After such a long time, people understand a lot. They are able to talk a lot about their knowledge of theories, but their external disposition remains the same, and their original caliber remains as it was, not advancing in the slightest. If this is the case, when will you finally enter in?

—The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Discussing Church Life and Real Life