If you wish to achieve understanding of the truth, it is crucial that you know how to eat and drink God’s words. If you read God’s words too little, don’t read them in earnest, and don’t contemplate them with your heart, then you won’t be able to understand the truth. All you will be able to understand is a little bit of doctrine, and so it will be very difficult for you to understand God’s will and God’s purpose in His words. If you do not understand the aims and results that God’s words intend to achieve, if you do not understand what His words seek to accomplish and perfect in man, then it proves that you do not yet comprehend the truth. Why does God say what He says? Why does He speak in that tone? Why is He so earnest and sincere in every word He speaks? Why does He choose to use certain words? Do you know? If you cannot say for sure, it means you do not understand God’s will or His intentions. If you do not understand the context behind His words, then how can you understand or practice the truth? To gain the truth, you must first understand what God means in every word that He utters, and after grasping these words put them into practice, causing God’s words to be lived out in you, and to become your reality. By doing so you will enter into the truth reality. Only when you have a thorough understanding of the word of God can you really grasp the truth. After merely coming to understand a few words and doctrines, you think you understand the truth and possess reality. This is self-deception. You don’t even understand why God requires people to practice the truth. This proves that you don’t understand God’s will, and that you still don’t understand the truth. In fact, God makes this requirement of people to purify and save them, so that people can cast off their corrupt dispositions, and become ones who submit to and know God. This is the goal God wants to achieve by requiring people to practice the truth.

God expresses the truth for people who love the truth, thirst for the truth, and seek the truth. As for those who concern themselves with words and doctrines and like to give lengthy, pompous speeches, they will never gain the truth; they are fooling themselves. Their perspective of the truth and God’s words is wrong, they twist their necks to read that which is upright—their perspective is all wrong. Some people prefer to study God’s words. They always study how God’s words talk about destination or about how to be blessed. They are most interested in these kinds of words. If God’s words do not conform to their notions and do not satisfy their desire for blessings, they will become negative, no longer pursue the truth, and not want to expend themselves for God. This shows that they are not interested in the truth. As a result, they are not earnest toward the truth; they are only capable of accepting the truth that conforms to their notions and imaginings. Although such people are fervent in their belief in God and try every way they can to do some good deeds and present themselves well, they are only doing it in order to have a good destination in the future. Despite the fact that they also engage in church life, eating and drinking God’s words, they will not practice the truth or gain it. There are some people who eat and drink the words of God, but who merely go through the motions; they think they have gained the truth simply by having come to understand a few words and doctrines. What fools they are! The word of God is the truth. However, one will not necessarily understand and gain the truth after they read God’s words. If you fail to gain the truth through eating and drinking the words of God, then what you gain will be words and doctrines. If you do not know how to practice the truth or how to act according to the principles, then you remain without the truth reality. You may read God’s words often, but afterward, you fail to understand God’s will, and acquire only some words and doctrines. How to eat and drink God’s words in order to understand the truth? First of all, you should realize that the word of God is not so straightforward; the word of God is utterly profound. Even one sentence of God’s words requires a lifetime to experience. Without several years of experience, how could you possibly understand the word of God? If, when reading God’s words, you do not understand God’s will, and do not understand the intentions of His words, their origin, the effect they seek to achieve, or what they seek to accomplish, then does it mean that you understand the truth? You may have read God’s words many times and perhaps you can recite many passages by heart, but you cannot practice the truth and have not changed at all, and your relationship with God is just as distant and estranged as ever. When encountering something that is at odds with your notions, you remain doubtful toward Him, and you do not understand Him, but reason with Him and harbor notions about Him and misunderstandings of Him, resisting Him and even blaspheming Him. What kind of disposition is this? This disposition is one of arrogance, of being averse to the truth. How can people who are so arrogant and so averse to the truth accept or practice it? Such people will absolutely never be able to gain the truth or God.

—The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. Part Three