Look back on your lives until now, at all the work God has done on you in all the years of your faith. Whether the feelings this evokes for you are deep or shallow, is this not the thing that was most necessary of all for you? Was it not what you most needed to obtain? (Yes.) Is this not truth? Is this not life? (Yes.) Has God ever bestowed enlightenment upon you, and then asked you to give anything to Him in return for all that He has given to you? (No.) So what is God’s purpose? Why does God do this? Does God have the objective of occupying you? (No.) Does God want to ascend His throne within the heart of man? (Yes.) So what is the difference between God ascending His throne and Satan’s forceful occupation? God wants to gain the heart of man, He wants to occupy the heart of man—what does this mean? Does it mean that God wants man to become His puppets, His machines? (No.) So what is God’s purpose? Is there a difference between God wanting to occupy the heart of man and Satan’s forceful occupation and possession of man? (Yes.) What is the difference? Can you tell Me clearly? (Satan does it through force whereas God lets man volunteer.) Is this the difference? What use does God have for your heart? And what use does God have for occupying you? How in your hearts do you understand “God occupies man’s heart”? We must be fair in how we talk about God here, otherwise people will always misunderstand, and think: “God always wants to occupy me. What does He want to occupy me for? I do not want to be occupied, I just want to be my own master. You say Satan occupies people, but God also occupies people. Isn’t it the same either way? I do not want to let anyone occupy me. I am myself!” What is the difference here? Give it some thought. I ask you, is “God occupies man” an empty phrase? Does God’s occupation of man mean that He lives in your heart and controls your every word and every move? If He tells you to sit, do you dare not stand? If He tells you to go east, do you dare not go west? Does this “occupation” refer to something along these lines? (No, it does not. God wants man to live out what God has and is.) Through these years that God has managed man, in His work on man up until now in this last stage, what has been the intended effect on man of all the words He has spoken? Is it that man lives out what God has and is? Looking at the literal meaning of “God occupies man’s heart,” it seems as if God takes man’s heart and occupies it, lives in it and does not come out again; He becomes the master of man’s heart and is able to dominate and manipulate man’s heart at will, so that man must do whatever God tells him to do. In this sense, it would seem as though every person could become God and possess His essence and disposition. So in this case, could man also perform the deeds of God? Can “occupation” be explained in this way? (No.) So what is it? I ask you this: Are all the words and truth that God supplies to man a revelation of the essence of God and what He has and is? (Yes.) This is certainly true. But is it essential that God Himself practice and possess all of the words that He supplies to man? Give this some thought. When God judges man, why does He judge? How did these words come into being? What is the content of these words that God speaks when He judges man? What are they based on? Is it man’s corrupt disposition upon which they are based? (Yes.) So is the effect achieved by God’s judgment of man based on the essence of God? (Yes.) So is God’s “occupation of man” an empty phrase? It certainly is not. So why does God say these words to man? What is His purpose in saying these words? Does He want to use these words to serve as the life of man? (Yes.) God wants to use all of this truth that He has spoken in these words to act as the life of man. When man takes all of this truth and the word of God and transforms them into his own life, can man then obey God? Can man then fear God? Can man then shun evil? When man has reached this point, can he then obey God’s sovereignty and arrangement? Is man then in a position to submit to the authority of God? When people like Job, or like Peter, reach the end of their road, when their life can be considered to have reached maturity, when they have a real understanding of God—can Satan then still lead them away? Can Satan then still occupy them? Can Satan still forcefully possess them? (No.) So what kind of person is this? Is this someone who has been completely gained by God? (Yes.) At this level of meaning, how do you see this kind of person who has been completely gained by God? From God’s perspective, under these circumstances, He has already occupied this person’s heart. But what does this person feel? Is it that the word of God, God’s authority, and God’s way, become life within man, that this life then occupies man’s entire being, making the things that he lives out as well as his essence adequate to satisfy God? From God’s perspective, is mankind’s heart at this very moment occupied by Him? (Yes.) How do you understand this level of meaning now? Is it God’s Spirit that occupies you? (No, it is the word of God that occupies us.) It is the way of God and the word of God that have become your life, and it is the truth that has become your life. At this time, man then possesses the life that comes from God, but we cannot say that this life is God’s life. In other words, we cannot say that the life man should derive from the word of God is God’s life. So no matter how long man follows God, no matter how many words man obtains from God, man can never become God. Even if one day God said, “I have occupied your heart, you now possess My life,” would you then feel that you are God? (No.) What would you then become? Would you not have an absolute obedience to God? Would your heart not be filled with the life God has bestowed on you? This would be a very normal manifestation of what happens when God occupies man’s heart. This is fact. So looking at it from this aspect, can man become God? When man is able to live out the reality of the words of God, and becomes someone who fears God and shuns evil, can man then possess the life essence and holiness of God? Absolutely not. No matter what happens, man is still man when all is said and done. You are a being of creation; when you have received the word of God from God and received God’s way, you only possess the life that comes from the words of God, you become someone who is praised by God, but you will never possess the life essence of God, much less the holiness of God.

—The Word, Vol. 2. On Knowing God. God Himself, the Unique IV