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| The Church of Almighty God, Eastern Lightning, Prayer |
Be Closer to God | To Serve God One Must Learn How to Discern All Kinds of People
Serving God is the work of guiding God’s chosen people into the reality of God’s words based on God’s words and in accordance with God’s requirements. When a person gradually understands the truth and gains knowledge of God through experiencing God’s work, they will be able to often exalt God, bear witness to God, help people gain supply and edification, and bring people onto the right path to believing in God.
This is the work of fulfilling one’s duties to serve God. Among the people who believe in God, only those who pursue the truth and hunger for God’s words can enter onto the right track to believing in God and be saved by God. Therefore, those serving God must be clear on which people pursue the truth, accept God’s words, and can receive the work of the Holy Spirit and be saved and perfected by God, and which people don’t love God’s words and detest and reject the truth, resulting in them losing the work of the Holy Spirit and being eliminated. God’s work in the last days is the work of ending an age and is also the work of exposing all kinds of different people. Accordingly, after God puts all humans with their own kind, He will use this to determine their fate. Through God’s words, we understand what kind of people God saves, what kind of people God perfects, what kind of people God punishes, and what kind of people God condemns and curses. At the same time, we also know the principles and wisdom of how to discern all kinds of people and how to deal with each kind to conform with God’s will. As such, we now have precise principles of practice on how to serve God. People who serve God can only accurately coordinate with the work of the Holy Spirit if they have a grasp of the principles of practice for how to deal with various kinds of people. If someone does not know how to discern between people, it will be easy for them to choose the wrong people, use the wrong people, and this will of course affect the work of the Holy Spirit and delay the life entry of God’s chosen people. This is precisely a display of disruption to God’s work. Therefore, learning how to discern between various kinds of people is very important. It requires us to have an accurate benchmark for all people who believe in God. So how do we differentiate? The main thing is still to differentiate between the various kinds of people based on the attitudes with which they treat God’s words, which is to differentiate between them based on their attitudes toward the truth. Differentiating in this way completely conforms with God’s principles of saving people. Although there are many people who believe in God, only a small proportion of them pursue the truth. It could also be said that only a small proportion of people have good humanity. Good people are people who are kind, love positive things, and are willing to pursue the truth and righteousness, which is why they can be saved by God. Wicked people are also in the minority, but due to their evil and greedy nature, wicked people are capable of committing all sorts of bad deeds. These people have been completely possessed by Satan and don’t have anything positive inside them. They even don’t have a conscience or reason. As a result, they totally detest and hate the truth and are hostile toward positive things, which is why they don’t have any hope of being saved. After distinguishing good from wicked people, what’s left is people with bad humanity. These people cannot be called good people, nor can they be called wicked people; they can only be called people with bad humanity. Such people are also a part of the congregation of God’s house. Corrupted mankind can generally be separated into these three groups. Those we call “good people” are people who can be saved, while “people with bad humanity” refer to those who can still be saved if they can pursue the truth and obey God’s work. There are a small proportion of people among those with bad humanity who can be saved. Wicked people cannot be saved because they don’t love the truth and hate positive things. That is why wicked people are destined to be eliminated and annihilated. Next, I will provide some explanations, which you can refer to later, on how to discern good people, bad people, and wicked people to a high degree of certainty.
What is a good person? As all mankind has been deeply corrupted by Satan, there are no truly righteous or good people, which is why the “good people” we are talking about now are only relatively good. A good person is someone who is relatively kind-hearted, in love with the truth, yearns for the light, likes fairness and justice, despises evil things, and has a bit of conscience and reason. That is why they are willing to believe in God and pursue the truth. Good people are relatively innocent and honest, are enthusiastic toward people, have empathy, are willing to be charitable and help others, don’t take advantage of others and moreover don’t extort money from people. Good people never intend to harm others, but are instead easily harmed, deceived and bullied by others. Good people of course also have corrupt dispositions and can reveal all kinds of corruption, but if they do something bad their conscience won’t be at ease, and if they do something that offends God they will suffer and regret it, and feel as though they cannot bear to continue living. If a good person pursues the truth, their thoughts and actions will transform faster, and if they can accept God’s judgment and chastisement and His pruning and dealing, then they will surely attain a change in life disposition. Good people are easily deceived and have a foolish side because they are quite honest and innocent, but they will conform with God’s will if they can do things with principle and wisdom. If a good person pursues the truth dauntlessly and can devote themselves to just causes, they will certainly be able to be used by God, attain perfection, and become a righteous person blessed by God.
What is a wicked person? A wicked person is someone who has been possessed by Satan and has completely lost their humanity. They are unconscionable and unreasonable, and are people who know no shame. The nature of wicked people is the nature of demons: No matter what bad deeds they commit, their hearts are still at ease and don’t have any regret at all. They can perpetrate any manner of evil in order to achieve their personal aims and ambitions. Wicked people certainly detest the truth and despise positive things, so they will surely not be dissuaded by anyone. The main principle of wicked people when doing things is to be self-seeking and do whatever pleases them. Therefore, wicked people absolutely never walk on the right path and are the type of people destined to suffer perdition and be destroyed. This has been determined by their demonic nature. Even if a wicked person sneaks into God’s house, they are still destined to be eliminated and annihilated.
What is a person with bad humanity? A person with bad humanity is someone who cannot be called a good person but also cannot be categorized as a wicked person. This category of people includes those who are deceitful, self-serving, wickedly greedy, of lowly character, impervious to reason, or detest the truth, and those who always blow with the wind, appear to comply with God’s work but secretly oppose it, conduct themselves secretively, like to instigate discord and disputes, like to harm people and castigate them, don’t have conscience and reason, believe in God but don’t willingly fulfill their duties, or always want to reap some benefit from God’s house…. These people have ulterior motives when performing their duties and also act perfunctorily. It can be said that all those who don’t love positive things and detest the truth can be regarded as people with bad humanity. As such people don’t pursue the truth, they don’t achieve any change even after believing in God for many years. They don’t have a place for God in their hearts at all, let alone have fear of God. This type of people believe in God purely because they are driven by their motive to receive blessings, and the fulfillment of their duties is completely just a transaction to them. When they are expelled from God’s house, they will fly into a shameful rage, shout complaints, and even do reckless things because they think they are hopeless. But some people with bad humanity truly believe in God. If they are willing to pursue the truth and truly show repentant behavior, they can still be saved in the end. There are also fools who cling to their desire to be blessed and won’t believe in God unless they receive blessings. They are people who might leave God’s house at any time and will surely be expelled. We have indeed discovered some people with bad humanity who fulfill their duties faithfully, to the extent that they are happily willing to do service for God unto death. Such people can also be saved by God and receive His grace to survive. This is of course very important blessing. The facts prove that if a person with bad humanity truly believes in God, is willing to pay the price, does many good deeds, repents for their evil ways, and is loyal to the end, then they will certainly be saved by God. All those who genuinely believe in God and pursue the truth are within the scope of being saved by God. If a person with bad humanity can pursue the truth, they will also be able to be perfected by God because God does not show favoritism.
In using and cultivating people, God’s house only selects people with relatively good humanity, that is, people who love positive things and pursue the truth. Such people may have done some transgressions and evil deeds in their past, but as they display true repentance, and their life disposition, thoughts and deeds continue to renew and change through accepting God’s work, God won’t hold them to their past transgressions. A person who pursues the truth and displays repentance is precisely the type of person God’s house chooses to use. A person who pursues the truth and can truly obey God’s work is precisely the type of person God perfects. If in your belief of God you do not pursue the truth, then even if you do not appear to be transgressing, you are still not a truly good person. Those who do not pursue the truth certainly have no sense of righteousness, nor can they love what God loves or hate what God hates. They absolutely cannot stand at God’s side, much less be compatible with God. How then can those without a sense of righteousness be called good people? Not only do those that are described by worldly people as “nice people” have no sense of righteousness, they have no goals in life either. They are merely people who never want to offend anyone, so what are they worth? A truly good person indicates someone who loves positive things, someone who pursues the truth and yearns for the light, someone who can discern good from evil and who has the correct goals in life; only this kind of person does God love. All those who don’t love positive things and are also not willing to pursue the truth are not people with conscience or reason, so of course they cannot be called good people. On the other hand, only those who pursue the truth and yearn for the light can obey God’s work and be perfected by God. Only those who can be saved by God can be called good people.
Next, let’s communicate about how people who pursue the truth express themselves.
1. By reading God’s words, those who pursue the truth can measure their own corrupt condition against God’s words. Their fellowship about God’s words is not done just to talk about understanding God’s words, but to talk also about understanding themselves. No matter what corruption is expressed, they can get it out in the open so that brothers and sisters can achieve something real, whilst at the same time resolving their own corruption. This is also the best method to lead people into God’s words. Arrogant and conceited people cannot accomplish this, and deceitful people also cannot accomplish this; only honest, innocent, and open people can talk about knowing themselves. This is the most important element in discerning whether or not a person can accept the truth and enter into reality. This method of practice is the best for revealing people. People who don’t have true knowledge of themselves surely don’t have reality. If a leader or worker rarely discusses self-knowledge and seldom communicates knowledge of their own corruption and transgressions simply and openly, then that is sufficient to prove that they are an arrogant, conceited, deceitful and hypocritical person, and are certainly a person devoid of reality. All those who talk only about literal meanings and who are devoid of reality, do not deserve to be leaders in God’s family. This type of leader and worker should be replaced.
2. Those who pursue the truth can accept the judgment and chastisement of God’s words and accept pruning and dealing. They can understand that God’s judgment and chastisement is completely fair and can fully save and change people. It is not easy for those who are not pruned and dealt with to know themselves. Only by accepting pruning and dealing can one truly accept God’s work. Only by more deeply experiencing the judgment and chastisement of God’s words can one gain more truths. Those who pursue the truth can all understand and experience that accepting God’s judgment and chastisement, and pruning and dealing, is the most honorable thing for them and, in every way, is God’s exaltation. This is why they are able to treasure God’s words of judgment, wherein they find meaning and goals in life and see the path of light in life. If corrupted mankind does not experience God’s judgment and chastisement, and does not accept God’s pruning and dealing, they will never be able to achieve dispositional change. The more a person understands the truth, the more they can feel the preciousness of God’s judgment and chastisement and the necessity of His pruning and dealing. All those who do not accept the judgment and chastisement of God’s words—and those who do not accept being pruned and dealt with—are people who don’t love the truth. They are all wildly arrogant, conceited, and self-righteous people. If they don’t repent, they will surely be eliminated.
3. When those who pursue the truth have their own conceptions about God, they can seek the truth to resolve them and can use God’s words to deal with their conceptions and thoughts. Even if they cannot fully understand the truth, they still believe that God is the truth and deny their own conceptions and thoughts. On the other hand, people who are wildly arrogant, conceited, self-important, and self-righteous always think they are right and aren’t willing to let go of their own conceptions and thoughts. In their eyes, God is not necessarily always right and can also make mistakes. This shows that they are very foolish and absurd people. They dare to judge and condemn God, proving without doubt that their God-resisting and God-betraying nature has not changed at all. All those who cannot resolve their conceptions after a long time are all wildly arrogant, irrational people. They are all people who have believed in God for many years but have not gained the truth; they are people who don’t have life. They have already transformed themselves into antichrists and will certainly be punished. In the work of the incarnate God, it is normal for believers to have conceptions. This is because people don’t possess the truth and can only look at things through the lens of doctrines, conceptions and their imaginations. However, God’s work constantly strikes back against their conceptions, and they also can’t deny that God is the truth, so when they gain true knowledge of God their conceptions will collapse on themselves. No conception can be upheld, and hence people who have conceptions will know the shame of failure sooner or later. Why do people who pursue the truth have fewer and fewer conceptions? It’s because conceptions and the truth are in opposition to each other. The truth is the nemesis of conceptions. As long as people understand the truth they won’t have conceptions. If a person has conceptions, it proves that they still don’t understand the truth. That is why people who pursue the truth have fewer and fewer conceptions and all their conceptions will be cleansed in the end. Those who keep holding on to their conceptions and who are full of conceptions but don’t seek to use the truth to resolve them are all foolish people who do not have spiritual understanding. They don’t know how to look at things from a different perspective, and moreover don’t know how to look at problems impartially through God’s words. Therefore, those who don’t possess the truth all look at problems very absurdly—what they hold are all the viewpoints and opinions of corrupted mankind. How could such people’s service to God be tenable? God’s house would never use such people.
4. Those who pursue the truth fulfill their duties in accordance with God’s requirements and don’t do things perfunctorily. People who pursue the truth are always grateful toward God, want to do a good job of fulfilling their duties to repay God’s love, and hate that they have too much corruption. They think they shouldn’t hurt God or make Him suffer any more. They think that they should fulfill their duties well in order to comfort God’s heart, and can thus summon up the will to fulfill their duties well to satisfy Him. People who pursue the truth willingly fulfill their duties no matter how much suffering they endure. No matter what difficulties they encounter, they don’t get negative, they don’t give up, and they never shy away from them. Rather, they seek to use the truth to resolve problems and rely on God to stand up to them. They can accept pruning and dealing when they reveal corruption to ensure that they can better fulfill their duties to complete God’s entrustment, and mature in life through the fulfillment of their duties. All those who pursue the truth fulfill their duties loyally and are mindful of God’s intentions. Such people are anxious about what God is anxious about, and think about what God thinks about. They treat each of these things seriously and seek to serve God’s will. They are people who are after God’s heart. All those who fulfill their duties faithfully have fear of God and are people whom God’s house chooses to use. Those who don’t fulfill their duties faithfully and always act perfunctorily are all people who don’t have a conscience or reason. The church should not promote or use such people.
These are the four manifestations of pursuing the truth. A person equipped with these four manifestations is someone who pursues the truth, whose belief in God has reality, someone who obeys God’s work, and someone who will surely be perfected by God. These are the four standards by which God’s house uses people. If a person has worked for many years but doesn’t show these four manifestations, then that proves they are certainly not someone who pursues the truth but rather they are an opportunist, an unbeliever, an evil-doer, and they ought to be expelled. Whoever displays these four manifestations should be promoted and put in important positions. The four manifestations of pursuing the truth are the standards by which leaders and workers of God’s house are measured, and are also the path of practice and entry for God’s chosen people in experiencing God’s work. It is inevitable for people to be differentiated by the extent of their entry regarding these several aspects in their experiencing, but they will have hope and are the right kind of person as long as they have entry, regardless of the aspect in which it is achieved. Such people should be properly supported and cultivated. If someone who does the work is not able to reach these four standards, then that proves they don’t love the truth, don’t have the reality that a believer should have, are a hypocrite, and aren’t the right kind of person. The church should never promote or use this person again and should immediately replace them.
Serving God requires being able to discern all kinds of people. This mainly requires seeing clearly which type of people believe in God and can be saved, which type of people believe in God but can’t be saved, which type of people are destined to be eliminated, which type of people can do service for God’s work, and which type of people can render service and survive. People who can discern these few types of people clearly and understand how to treat them will be able to understand God’s intentions and know how to coordinate with God’s work. Those who are truly mindful of God’s intentions will be able to achieve the main goal of providing for and watering the type of people that truly believe in God and pursue the truth, and support and help people that can fulfill their duties and willingly do service for God’s work. For all those who believe in God but don’t willingly fulfill their duties, don’t pursue the truth, and may even do evil to disrupt church life, put them aside and wait for an opportunity to deal with them. Working in this way conforms with God’s will. Accordingly, serving God requires being able to discern these few types of people. This is very important to coordinating with God’s work and fulfilling one’s duty properly.
May 21, 2005
Source from: The Church of Almighty God | Selected Annals of the Work Arrangements of The Church of Almighty God
Serving God is the work of guiding God’s chosen people into the reality of God’s words based on God’s words and in accordance with God’s requirements. When a person gradually understands the truth and gains knowledge of God through experiencing God’s work, they will be able to often exalt God, bear witness to God, help people gain supply and edification, and bring people onto the right path to believing in God.
This is the work of fulfilling one’s duties to serve God. Among the people who believe in God, only those who pursue the truth and hunger for God’s words can enter onto the right track to believing in God and be saved by God. Therefore, those serving God must be clear on which people pursue the truth, accept God’s words, and can receive the work of the Holy Spirit and be saved and perfected by God, and which people don’t love God’s words and detest and reject the truth, resulting in them losing the work of the Holy Spirit and being eliminated. God’s work in the last days is the work of ending an age and is also the work of exposing all kinds of different people. Accordingly, after God puts all humans with their own kind, He will use this to determine their fate. Through God’s words, we understand what kind of people God saves, what kind of people God perfects, what kind of people God punishes, and what kind of people God condemns and curses. At the same time, we also know the principles and wisdom of how to discern all kinds of people and how to deal with each kind to conform with God’s will. As such, we now have precise principles of practice on how to serve God. People who serve God can only accurately coordinate with the work of the Holy Spirit if they have a grasp of the principles of practice for how to deal with various kinds of people. If someone does not know how to discern between people, it will be easy for them to choose the wrong people, use the wrong people, and this will of course affect the work of the Holy Spirit and delay the life entry of God’s chosen people. This is precisely a display of disruption to God’s work. Therefore, learning how to discern between various kinds of people is very important. It requires us to have an accurate benchmark for all people who believe in God. So how do we differentiate? The main thing is still to differentiate between the various kinds of people based on the attitudes with which they treat God’s words, which is to differentiate between them based on their attitudes toward the truth. Differentiating in this way completely conforms with God’s principles of saving people. Although there are many people who believe in God, only a small proportion of them pursue the truth. It could also be said that only a small proportion of people have good humanity. Good people are people who are kind, love positive things, and are willing to pursue the truth and righteousness, which is why they can be saved by God. Wicked people are also in the minority, but due to their evil and greedy nature, wicked people are capable of committing all sorts of bad deeds. These people have been completely possessed by Satan and don’t have anything positive inside them. They even don’t have a conscience or reason. As a result, they totally detest and hate the truth and are hostile toward positive things, which is why they don’t have any hope of being saved. After distinguishing good from wicked people, what’s left is people with bad humanity. These people cannot be called good people, nor can they be called wicked people; they can only be called people with bad humanity. Such people are also a part of the congregation of God’s house. Corrupted mankind can generally be separated into these three groups. Those we call “good people” are people who can be saved, while “people with bad humanity” refer to those who can still be saved if they can pursue the truth and obey God’s work. There are a small proportion of people among those with bad humanity who can be saved. Wicked people cannot be saved because they don’t love the truth and hate positive things. That is why wicked people are destined to be eliminated and annihilated. Next, I will provide some explanations, which you can refer to later, on how to discern good people, bad people, and wicked people to a high degree of certainty.
What is a good person? As all mankind has been deeply corrupted by Satan, there are no truly righteous or good people, which is why the “good people” we are talking about now are only relatively good. A good person is someone who is relatively kind-hearted, in love with the truth, yearns for the light, likes fairness and justice, despises evil things, and has a bit of conscience and reason. That is why they are willing to believe in God and pursue the truth. Good people are relatively innocent and honest, are enthusiastic toward people, have empathy, are willing to be charitable and help others, don’t take advantage of others and moreover don’t extort money from people. Good people never intend to harm others, but are instead easily harmed, deceived and bullied by others. Good people of course also have corrupt dispositions and can reveal all kinds of corruption, but if they do something bad their conscience won’t be at ease, and if they do something that offends God they will suffer and regret it, and feel as though they cannot bear to continue living. If a good person pursues the truth, their thoughts and actions will transform faster, and if they can accept God’s judgment and chastisement and His pruning and dealing, then they will surely attain a change in life disposition. Good people are easily deceived and have a foolish side because they are quite honest and innocent, but they will conform with God’s will if they can do things with principle and wisdom. If a good person pursues the truth dauntlessly and can devote themselves to just causes, they will certainly be able to be used by God, attain perfection, and become a righteous person blessed by God.
What is a wicked person? A wicked person is someone who has been possessed by Satan and has completely lost their humanity. They are unconscionable and unreasonable, and are people who know no shame. The nature of wicked people is the nature of demons: No matter what bad deeds they commit, their hearts are still at ease and don’t have any regret at all. They can perpetrate any manner of evil in order to achieve their personal aims and ambitions. Wicked people certainly detest the truth and despise positive things, so they will surely not be dissuaded by anyone. The main principle of wicked people when doing things is to be self-seeking and do whatever pleases them. Therefore, wicked people absolutely never walk on the right path and are the type of people destined to suffer perdition and be destroyed. This has been determined by their demonic nature. Even if a wicked person sneaks into God’s house, they are still destined to be eliminated and annihilated.
What is a person with bad humanity? A person with bad humanity is someone who cannot be called a good person but also cannot be categorized as a wicked person. This category of people includes those who are deceitful, self-serving, wickedly greedy, of lowly character, impervious to reason, or detest the truth, and those who always blow with the wind, appear to comply with God’s work but secretly oppose it, conduct themselves secretively, like to instigate discord and disputes, like to harm people and castigate them, don’t have conscience and reason, believe in God but don’t willingly fulfill their duties, or always want to reap some benefit from God’s house…. These people have ulterior motives when performing their duties and also act perfunctorily. It can be said that all those who don’t love positive things and detest the truth can be regarded as people with bad humanity. As such people don’t pursue the truth, they don’t achieve any change even after believing in God for many years. They don’t have a place for God in their hearts at all, let alone have fear of God. This type of people believe in God purely because they are driven by their motive to receive blessings, and the fulfillment of their duties is completely just a transaction to them. When they are expelled from God’s house, they will fly into a shameful rage, shout complaints, and even do reckless things because they think they are hopeless. But some people with bad humanity truly believe in God. If they are willing to pursue the truth and truly show repentant behavior, they can still be saved in the end. There are also fools who cling to their desire to be blessed and won’t believe in God unless they receive blessings. They are people who might leave God’s house at any time and will surely be expelled. We have indeed discovered some people with bad humanity who fulfill their duties faithfully, to the extent that they are happily willing to do service for God unto death. Such people can also be saved by God and receive His grace to survive. This is of course very important blessing. The facts prove that if a person with bad humanity truly believes in God, is willing to pay the price, does many good deeds, repents for their evil ways, and is loyal to the end, then they will certainly be saved by God. All those who genuinely believe in God and pursue the truth are within the scope of being saved by God. If a person with bad humanity can pursue the truth, they will also be able to be perfected by God because God does not show favoritism.
In using and cultivating people, God’s house only selects people with relatively good humanity, that is, people who love positive things and pursue the truth. Such people may have done some transgressions and evil deeds in their past, but as they display true repentance, and their life disposition, thoughts and deeds continue to renew and change through accepting God’s work, God won’t hold them to their past transgressions. A person who pursues the truth and displays repentance is precisely the type of person God’s house chooses to use. A person who pursues the truth and can truly obey God’s work is precisely the type of person God perfects. If in your belief of God you do not pursue the truth, then even if you do not appear to be transgressing, you are still not a truly good person. Those who do not pursue the truth certainly have no sense of righteousness, nor can they love what God loves or hate what God hates. They absolutely cannot stand at God’s side, much less be compatible with God. How then can those without a sense of righteousness be called good people? Not only do those that are described by worldly people as “nice people” have no sense of righteousness, they have no goals in life either. They are merely people who never want to offend anyone, so what are they worth? A truly good person indicates someone who loves positive things, someone who pursues the truth and yearns for the light, someone who can discern good from evil and who has the correct goals in life; only this kind of person does God love. All those who don’t love positive things and are also not willing to pursue the truth are not people with conscience or reason, so of course they cannot be called good people. On the other hand, only those who pursue the truth and yearn for the light can obey God’s work and be perfected by God. Only those who can be saved by God can be called good people.
Next, let’s communicate about how people who pursue the truth express themselves.
1. By reading God’s words, those who pursue the truth can measure their own corrupt condition against God’s words. Their fellowship about God’s words is not done just to talk about understanding God’s words, but to talk also about understanding themselves. No matter what corruption is expressed, they can get it out in the open so that brothers and sisters can achieve something real, whilst at the same time resolving their own corruption. This is also the best method to lead people into God’s words. Arrogant and conceited people cannot accomplish this, and deceitful people also cannot accomplish this; only honest, innocent, and open people can talk about knowing themselves. This is the most important element in discerning whether or not a person can accept the truth and enter into reality. This method of practice is the best for revealing people. People who don’t have true knowledge of themselves surely don’t have reality. If a leader or worker rarely discusses self-knowledge and seldom communicates knowledge of their own corruption and transgressions simply and openly, then that is sufficient to prove that they are an arrogant, conceited, deceitful and hypocritical person, and are certainly a person devoid of reality. All those who talk only about literal meanings and who are devoid of reality, do not deserve to be leaders in God’s family. This type of leader and worker should be replaced.
2. Those who pursue the truth can accept the judgment and chastisement of God’s words and accept pruning and dealing. They can understand that God’s judgment and chastisement is completely fair and can fully save and change people. It is not easy for those who are not pruned and dealt with to know themselves. Only by accepting pruning and dealing can one truly accept God’s work. Only by more deeply experiencing the judgment and chastisement of God’s words can one gain more truths. Those who pursue the truth can all understand and experience that accepting God’s judgment and chastisement, and pruning and dealing, is the most honorable thing for them and, in every way, is God’s exaltation. This is why they are able to treasure God’s words of judgment, wherein they find meaning and goals in life and see the path of light in life. If corrupted mankind does not experience God’s judgment and chastisement, and does not accept God’s pruning and dealing, they will never be able to achieve dispositional change. The more a person understands the truth, the more they can feel the preciousness of God’s judgment and chastisement and the necessity of His pruning and dealing. All those who do not accept the judgment and chastisement of God’s words—and those who do not accept being pruned and dealt with—are people who don’t love the truth. They are all wildly arrogant, conceited, and self-righteous people. If they don’t repent, they will surely be eliminated.
3. When those who pursue the truth have their own conceptions about God, they can seek the truth to resolve them and can use God’s words to deal with their conceptions and thoughts. Even if they cannot fully understand the truth, they still believe that God is the truth and deny their own conceptions and thoughts. On the other hand, people who are wildly arrogant, conceited, self-important, and self-righteous always think they are right and aren’t willing to let go of their own conceptions and thoughts. In their eyes, God is not necessarily always right and can also make mistakes. This shows that they are very foolish and absurd people. They dare to judge and condemn God, proving without doubt that their God-resisting and God-betraying nature has not changed at all. All those who cannot resolve their conceptions after a long time are all wildly arrogant, irrational people. They are all people who have believed in God for many years but have not gained the truth; they are people who don’t have life. They have already transformed themselves into antichrists and will certainly be punished. In the work of the incarnate God, it is normal for believers to have conceptions. This is because people don’t possess the truth and can only look at things through the lens of doctrines, conceptions and their imaginations. However, God’s work constantly strikes back against their conceptions, and they also can’t deny that God is the truth, so when they gain true knowledge of God their conceptions will collapse on themselves. No conception can be upheld, and hence people who have conceptions will know the shame of failure sooner or later. Why do people who pursue the truth have fewer and fewer conceptions? It’s because conceptions and the truth are in opposition to each other. The truth is the nemesis of conceptions. As long as people understand the truth they won’t have conceptions. If a person has conceptions, it proves that they still don’t understand the truth. That is why people who pursue the truth have fewer and fewer conceptions and all their conceptions will be cleansed in the end. Those who keep holding on to their conceptions and who are full of conceptions but don’t seek to use the truth to resolve them are all foolish people who do not have spiritual understanding. They don’t know how to look at things from a different perspective, and moreover don’t know how to look at problems impartially through God’s words. Therefore, those who don’t possess the truth all look at problems very absurdly—what they hold are all the viewpoints and opinions of corrupted mankind. How could such people’s service to God be tenable? God’s house would never use such people.
4. Those who pursue the truth fulfill their duties in accordance with God’s requirements and don’t do things perfunctorily. People who pursue the truth are always grateful toward God, want to do a good job of fulfilling their duties to repay God’s love, and hate that they have too much corruption. They think they shouldn’t hurt God or make Him suffer any more. They think that they should fulfill their duties well in order to comfort God’s heart, and can thus summon up the will to fulfill their duties well to satisfy Him. People who pursue the truth willingly fulfill their duties no matter how much suffering they endure. No matter what difficulties they encounter, they don’t get negative, they don’t give up, and they never shy away from them. Rather, they seek to use the truth to resolve problems and rely on God to stand up to them. They can accept pruning and dealing when they reveal corruption to ensure that they can better fulfill their duties to complete God’s entrustment, and mature in life through the fulfillment of their duties. All those who pursue the truth fulfill their duties loyally and are mindful of God’s intentions. Such people are anxious about what God is anxious about, and think about what God thinks about. They treat each of these things seriously and seek to serve God’s will. They are people who are after God’s heart. All those who fulfill their duties faithfully have fear of God and are people whom God’s house chooses to use. Those who don’t fulfill their duties faithfully and always act perfunctorily are all people who don’t have a conscience or reason. The church should not promote or use such people.
These are the four manifestations of pursuing the truth. A person equipped with these four manifestations is someone who pursues the truth, whose belief in God has reality, someone who obeys God’s work, and someone who will surely be perfected by God. These are the four standards by which God’s house uses people. If a person has worked for many years but doesn’t show these four manifestations, then that proves they are certainly not someone who pursues the truth but rather they are an opportunist, an unbeliever, an evil-doer, and they ought to be expelled. Whoever displays these four manifestations should be promoted and put in important positions. The four manifestations of pursuing the truth are the standards by which leaders and workers of God’s house are measured, and are also the path of practice and entry for God’s chosen people in experiencing God’s work. It is inevitable for people to be differentiated by the extent of their entry regarding these several aspects in their experiencing, but they will have hope and are the right kind of person as long as they have entry, regardless of the aspect in which it is achieved. Such people should be properly supported and cultivated. If someone who does the work is not able to reach these four standards, then that proves they don’t love the truth, don’t have the reality that a believer should have, are a hypocrite, and aren’t the right kind of person. The church should never promote or use this person again and should immediately replace them.
Serving God requires being able to discern all kinds of people. This mainly requires seeing clearly which type of people believe in God and can be saved, which type of people believe in God but can’t be saved, which type of people are destined to be eliminated, which type of people can do service for God’s work, and which type of people can render service and survive. People who can discern these few types of people clearly and understand how to treat them will be able to understand God’s intentions and know how to coordinate with God’s work. Those who are truly mindful of God’s intentions will be able to achieve the main goal of providing for and watering the type of people that truly believe in God and pursue the truth, and support and help people that can fulfill their duties and willingly do service for God’s work. For all those who believe in God but don’t willingly fulfill their duties, don’t pursue the truth, and may even do evil to disrupt church life, put them aside and wait for an opportunity to deal with them. Working in this way conforms with God’s will. Accordingly, serving God requires being able to discern these few types of people. This is very important to coordinating with God’s work and fulfilling one’s duty properly.
May 21, 2005
Source from: The Church of Almighty God | Selected Annals of the Work Arrangements of The Church of Almighty God
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