Many people wish to truly love Me, but because their hearts are not their own, they have no control over themselves; many people truly love Me among the trials given by Me, yet they are incapable of grasping that I really exist, and merely love Me amid emptiness, and not because of My actual existence; many people, after laying their hearts before Me, pay them no heed, and thus their hearts are snatched away by Satan whenever it gets the chance, after which they leave Me; many people genuinely love Me when I provide My words, yet do not cherish My words in their souls, instead casually using them like public property and tossing them back to where they came from whenever they feel like it. Man searches for Me in the midst of pain, and he looks unto Me among trials. During times of peace he enjoys Me, when in peril he denies Me, when he is busy he forgets Me, and when he is idle he goes through the motions for Me—yet never has anyone loved Me throughout their whole life. I wish for man to be earnest before Me: I do not ask that he give Me anything, but only that all people take Me seriously, that, instead of misleading Me, they allow Me to bring back the sincerity of man. My enlightenment, illumination, and the cost of My efforts penetrate among all people, yet so too does the true fact of man’s every action penetrate among all people, penetrating their deception of Me. It is as if the ingredients of man’s deception have been with him since the womb, as if he has possessed these special skills of trickery since birth. What’s more, he has never given the game away; no one has ever seen through to the source of these deceitful skills. As a result, man lives amid deception without realizing it, and it is as if he forgives himself, as if it is the arrangements of God rather than his deliberate deception of Me. Is this not the very source of man’s deception of Me? Is this not his cunning scheme? Never have I been befuddled by the blandishments and chicanery of man, for I figured out his essence long ago. Who knows how much impurity is in his blood, and how much of Satan’s venom is within his marrow? Man grows more accustomed to it with each passing day, such that he is insensible to Satan’s affliction, and thus has no interest in finding out the “art of a healthy existence.”

—The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. God’s Words to the Entire Universe, Chapter 21