Man experiences God, knows himself, rids himself of his corrupt disposition, and seeks a growth in life all for the sake of knowing God. If you only seek to know yourself and deal with your own corrupt disposition, and have no knowledge of what work God does to man, of how great His salvation is, or of how you experience God and witness the deeds of God, then your experience is fatuous. If you think that being able to put the truth into practice, and being able to endure means that one’s life has grown up, then this means that you still do not understand the true meaning of life, and still do not understand God’s purpose in working man. One day, when you are in the religious churches, among members of the Repentance Church or the Life Church, you will encounter many devout people whose prayers contain visions, and who feel touched and have words to guide them in their pursuit of life. What’s more, in many matters they are able to endure, and forsake themselves, not led by the flesh. At that time, you won’t be able to tell the difference: You will believe that everything they do is right, is the natural expression of life, and what a pity it is that the name that they believe in is wrong. Are such beliefs not foolish? Why is it said that many people have no life? Because they do not know God, and thus it is said that they have no God, and have no life. If your belief in God has reached a certain point where you are capable of thoroughly knowing the deeds of God, the reality of God, and every stage of God’s work, then you are possessed of the truth. If you do not know the work and disposition of God, then your experience is still lacking. How Jesus carried out that stage of His work, how this stage is being carried out, how God did His work in the Age of Grace and what work was done, what work is being done in this stage—if you do not have a thorough knowledge of these things, then you will never feel assured and secure. If, after a period of experience, you are able to know the work done by God and every step of God’s work, and have a thorough knowledge of the aims of God’s words, and why so many words spoken by Him have not been fulfilled, then you can rest easy and boldly pursue the road ahead, free from worry or refinement. You should see what God uses to achieve so much work of His. He uses the words He speaks, refining man and transforming man’s conceptions through many kinds of words. All the suffering that you have endured, all the refinement that you have experienced, the dealing that you have accepted within you, the enlightenment that you have experienced—they have all been achieved using the words spoken by God. Because of what does man follow God? Because of the words of God! The words of God are deeply mysterious, and can touch man’s heart, reveal things deep within man’s heart, can make him know things that happened in the past, and allow him to see into the future. And so man endures suffering because of God’s words, and is made perfect because of God’s words, and only then does man follow God. What man should do in this stage is accept the words of God, and regardless of whether he is made perfect, or refined, what’s key are the words of God; this is the work of God, and is the vision that man should know today.

—The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Only Those Who Know God Can Bear Testimony to God