196. Obedience to God and submission to the work of God are one and the same. Those who submit only to God but not to His work cannot be deemed obedient, even less can those who do not truly submit but are outwardly sycophantic. Those who truly submit to God are all able to gain from the work and achieve understanding of the disposition and work of God. Only such men truly submit to God. Such men are able to gain new knowledge from new work and experience new changes from the same. Only such men have the approval of God; only this kind of man is one who is perfected, one who has undergone a transformation of his disposition.
from “Those Who
Obey God With a True Heart Shall Surely Be Gained by God” in The Word Appears in the Flesh
197. If man can let go of religious conceptions, then he will not use his mind to measure the words and work of God today, and instead will obey directly. Even though
God’s work today is manifestly unlike that of the past, you are able to let go of the views of the past and directly obey the work of God today. If you are capable of such knowledge that you give pride of place to the work of God today no matter how He worked in the past, then you are someone who has let go of their conceptions, who obeys God, and who is able to obey the work and words of God and follow the footsteps of God. In this, you will be someone who truly obeys God. You do not analyze or scrutinize the work of God; it is as if God has forgotten His previous work, and you, too, have forgotten it. The present is the present, and the past is the past, and since today God has put aside that which He did in the past, you should not dwell on it. Only then will you be someone who completely obeys God and has completely let go of their religious conceptions.
from “Only Those Who Know the Work of God Today Can Serve God” in The Word Appears in the Flesh
198. During God’s time in the flesh, the obedience He requires of people is not what people imagine—to not make judgments or resist. Rather, He requires that people make His words their principle for life and the foundation of their survival, that they absolutely put the essence of His words into practice, and that they absolutely satisfy His will. One aspect of requiring people to obey God incarnate refers to putting His words into practice, and another aspect refers to being able to obey His normalcy and practicality. These must be both absolute. Those who can achieve both of these aspects are all those who have a heart of genuine love for God. They are all people who have been gained by God, and they all love God as they love their own life.
from “People Who Can Be Absolutely Obedient Toward God’s Practicality Are Those Who Truly Love God” in The Word Appears in the Flesh
199. What is vital now for you all to do is to learn how to obey that which is right and how to obey that which comes from
the truth and that which conforms to the truth; in this way, you are walking and practicing toward being obedient to God.
from “If You Wish to Attain the Truth, Then You Must Learn From the People, Matters, and Things Around You” in Records of Christ’s Talks
200. Measurement of whether people are able to obey God depends on whether they make demands of God. If you do make demands of God, then you are without obedience. If you make demands of God, this proves that you are making a deal, that you are choosing your own thoughts, and acting according to your own thoughts. In this, you betray God, and are without obedience. There’s no sense in making demands of God; if you truly believed in Him and truly believed that He is God, then you would not dare to make demands of Him, nor would you be qualified to make demands of Him, whether they be reasonable or not. If you have true belief, and believe that He is God, then you will have no choice but to worship and obey Him.
from “People Make Too Many Demands of God” in Records of Christ’s Talks
202. If you are unable to accept the new light of God, and cannot understand all that God does today, and do not seek it, or else doubt it, pass judgment on it, or scrutinize and analyze it, then you have no mind to obey. If, when the light of the here and now appears, you still treasure the light of yesterday and oppose God’s new work, then you are nothing more than a joke, you are one of those who deliberately oppose God. Key to obeying God is appreciating the new light, and being able to accept it and put it into practice. Only this is true obedience.
from “In Your
Faith in God You Should Obey God” in The Word Appears in the Flesh
203. If you submit only to work and words that are simple, and are incapable of accepting any of a deeper intensity, then you are one who keeps to old ways and cannot keep pace with the work of
the Holy Spirit. The work done by God differs from period to period. If you show great obedience in one phase, yet in the next phase show less or none at all, then God shall desert you. If you keep pace with God as He ascends this step, then you must continue to keep pace when He ascends the next. Only then are you one who is obedient to the Holy Spirit. Since you
believe in God, you must remain constant in your obedience. You cannot simply obey when you please and disobey when you do not. This kind of obedience does not meet with God’s approval.
from “Those Who Obey God With a True Heart Shall Surely Be Gained by God” in The Word Appears in the Flesh
204. Your obedience is indeed an obedience in which you pick and choose—though you may be able to obey one person, you find it hard to obey somebody else. There is indeed no way people can be obedient when they rely on their conceptions. However the ideas of God always surpass those of man! Christ obeyed unto death and died on the cross. Christ said nothing about any conditions or reasons; so long as it was His Father’s will, He obeyed willingly. Your current obedience is too limited. I say to you all, obedience is not obeying those outside yourselves, it is obeying the inner life within and it is obeying
God Himself.
from “The Twentieth Utterance” in The Word Appears in the Flesh
205. All those who do not seek obedience to God in their faith oppose God. God asks that people seek the truth, that they thirst for God’s words, and eat and drink God’s words, and put them into practice, so that they may achieve obedience to God. If your motivations are truly thus, then God will surely raise you up, and will surely be gracious toward you. No one can doubt this, and no one can change it. If your motivations are not for the sake of obedience to God, and you have other aims, then all that you say and do—your prayers before God, and even your every action—will be in opposition to God. You may be soft-spoken and mild-mannered, your every action and expression may look right, you may appear to be one who obeys, but when it comes to your motivations and your views about faith in God, everything you do is in opposition to God, and evil.
from “In Your Faith in God You Should Obey God” in The Word Appears in the Flesh
206. You can plan to have structure for every day of your life, plan what you need to do and that you will perform your duty well, that you will live every moment in God’s presence, that you will reflect on everything you do each day, everything that fell through, and everything you understood. However, it is impossible for man to plan what he will do tomorrow, or the day after, or in the future. You can only have one hope: that you can submit to each day’s environment that God prepares and each day of life He gives you, letting Him lead you, that you can most happily and peacefully live in His presence, allow Him to lead you, and are able to submit to His sovereignty. If you have this kind of attitude, you will then come to see without conscious effort that all this is under God’s command.
from “A Person Can Live Life With Dignity Only by Submitting to and Revering God” in Records of Christ’s Talks
207. All things under God’s arrangements and sovereignty obey natural laws, and if you resolve to let God arrange and dictate everything for you, you should learn to wait, you should learn to seek, you should learn to submit. This is the attitude that every person who wants to submit to God’s authority must take, the basic quality that every person who wants to accept God’s sovereignty and arrangements must possess. To hold such an attitude, to possess such a quality, you must work harder; and only thus can you enter into the true reality.
from “God Himself, the Unique III” in Continuation of The Word Appears in the Flesh
208. Those who seek to know God are able to set aside their desires, are willing to submit to God’s sovereignty and God’s arrangements; they try to be the kind of people who are submissive to God’s authority and satisfy God’s desire. Such people live in light, live in the midst of God’s blessings; they will surely be commended by God. No matter what, human choice is useless, humans have no say in how long God’s work will take. It is better for people to put themselves at the mercy of God, to submit to His sovereignty. If you do not put yourself at His mercy, what can you do? Will God suffer a loss? If you do not put yourself at His mercy, if you try to be in charge, you are making a foolish choice, and you are the only one who will suffer a loss in the end. Only if people cooperate with God as soon as possible, only if they make haste to accept His orchestrations, know His authority, and understand all He has done for them, will they have hope, will their lives not be lived in vain, will they attain salvation.
from “God Himself, the Unique III” in Continuation of The Word Appears in the Flesh
209. If a person’s attitude toward fate is passive, it proves that he or she is resisting everything that God has arranged for him or her, that he or she does not have a submissive attitude. If one’s attitude toward God’s sovereignty over human fate is active, then when one looks back upon one’s journey, when one truly comes to grips with God’s sovereignty, one will more earnestly desire to submit to everything that God has arranged, will have more of the determination and confidence to let God orchestrate one’s fate, to stop rebelling against God. For one sees that when one does not comprehend fate, when one does not understand God’s sovereignty, when one gropes forward willfully, staggering and tottering, through the fog, the journey is too difficult, too heartbreaking. So when people recognize God’s sovereignty over human fate, the smart ones choose to know it and accept it, to bid farewell to the painful days when they tried to build a good life with their own two hands, instead of continuing to struggle against fate and pursue their so-called life goals in their own manner. When one has no God, when one cannot see Him, when one cannot clearly recognize God’s sovereignty, every day is meaningless, worthless, miserable. Wherever one is, whatever one’s job is, one’s means of living and the pursuit of one’s goals bring one nothing but endless heartbreak and irrelievable suffering, such that one cannot bear to look back. Only when one accepts the Creator’s sovereignty, submits to His orchestrations and arrangements, and seeks true human life, will one gradually break free from all heartbreak and suffering, shake off all the emptiness of life.
from “God Himself, the Unique III” in Continuation of The Word Appears in the Flesh
210. The sadness of man is not that man seeks happy life, not that he pursues fame and fortune or struggles against his own fate through the fog, but that after he has seen the Creator’s existence, after he has learned the fact that the Creator has sovereignty over human fate, he still cannot mend his ways, cannot pull his feet out of the mire, but hardens his heart and persists in his errors. He would rather keep thrashing in the mud, vying obstinately against the Creator’s sovereignty, resisting it until the bitter end, without the slightest shred of contrition, and only when he lies broken and bleeding does he at last decide to give up and turn back. This is true human sorrow. So I say, those who choose to submit are wise, and those who choose to escape are pig-headed.
from “God Himself, the Unique III” in Continuation of The Word Appears in the Flesh
211. When Noah did as God instructed he didn’t know what God’s intentions were. He didn’t know what God wanted to accomplish. God had only given him a command, instructed him to do something, but without much explanation, and he went ahead and did it. He didn’t try to figure out God’s intentions in private, nor did he resist God or have a double heart. He just went and did it accordingly with a pure and simple heart. Whatever God let him do he did, and obeying and listening to God’s word were his conviction for doing things. That was how straightforwardly and simply he dealt with what God entrusted. His essence—the essence of his actions was obedience, not second-guessing, not resisting, and moreover, not thinking of his own personal interests and his gains and losses. Further, when God said He would destroy the world with a flood, he did not ask when or try to get to the bottom of it, and he certainly did not ask God just how He was going to destroy the world. He simply did as God instructed. However God wanted it to be made and made with what, he did exactly as God asked and also commenced action immediately thereafter. He did it with an attitude of wanting to satisfy God. … He simply just obeyed, listened, and did it accordingly.
from “God’s Work, God’s Disposition, and God Himself I” in Continuation of The Word Appears in the Flesh
212. Job lived his life in the subjective pursuit of belief, recognition, and submission to God’s sovereignty, and it was with this belief, recognition, and submission that he passed the important junctures in life, lived out his last years, and greeted his life’s final juncture. Regardless of what Job experienced, his pursuits and goals in life were happy, not painful. He was happy not only because of the blessings or commendation bestowed on him by the Creator, but more importantly, because of his pursuits and life goals, because of the gradual knowledge and true understanding of the Creator’s sovereignty that he attained through fearing God and shunning evil, and moreover, because of the wondrous deeds of His that Job experienced personally during his time as a subject to the Creator’s sovereignty, and the warm and unforgettable experiences and memories of the coexistence, acquaintance, and mutual understanding between man and God; because of the comfort and happiness that came from knowing the Creator’s will; because of the reverence that arose after seeing that He is great, wondrous, lovable, and faithful. The reason that Job was able to face death without any suffering was that he knew that, in dying, he would return to the Creator’s side. And it was his pursuits and gains in life that allowed him to face death calmly, to face the prospect of the Creator taking back his life, with an even heart, and moreover, to stand up, unsullied and free from care, before the Creator.
from “God Himself, the Unique III” in Continuation of The Word Appears in the Flesh
213. Job did not talk of trades with God, and made no requests or demands of God. His praising of God’s name was because of the great power and authority of God in ruling all things, and was not dependent on whether he gained blessings or was struck by disaster. He believed that regardless of whether God blesses people or brings disaster upon them, God’s power and authority will not change, and thus, regardless of a person’s circumstances, God’s name should be praised. That man is blessed by God is because of God’s sovereignty, and when disaster befalls man, so, too, is it because of God’s sovereignty. God’s power and authority rule over and arrange everything of man; the vagaries of man’s fortune are the manifestation of God’s power and authority, and regardless of one’s viewpoint, God’s name should be praised. This is what Job experienced and came to know during the years of his life. All of Job’s thoughts and actions reached the ears of God, and arrived before God, and were seen as important by God. God cherished this knowledge of Job, and treasured Job for having such a heart. This heart awaited God’s command always, and in all places, and no matter what the time or place it welcomed whatever befell him. Job made no demands of God. What he demanded of himself was to wait for, accept, face, and obey all of the arrangements that came from God; Job believed this to be his duty, and it was precisely what was wanted by God.
from “God’s Work, God’s Disposition, and God Himself II” in Continuation of The Word Appears in the Flesh
214. A person who has gained the knowledge of the Creator’s sovereignty after experiencing several decades of life, is a person with a correct appreciation for the meaning and value of life; a person with a deep knowledge of life’s purpose, with real experience and understanding of the Creator’s sovereignty; and even more, a person who is able to submit to the Creator’s authority. Such a person understands the meaning of God’s creation of mankind, understands that man should worship the Creator, that everything man possesses comes from the Creator and will return to Him some day not far in the future; such a person understands that the Creator arranges man’s birth and has sovereignty over man’s death, and that both life and death are predestined by the Creator’s authority. So, when one truly grasps these things, one will naturally be able to face death calmly, to lay aside all of one’s worldly possessions calmly, accept and submit happily to all that follows, and welcome the last life-juncture arranged by the Creator rather than blindly dread it and struggle against it. If one views life as an opportunity to experience the Creator’s sovereignty and come to know His authority, if one sees one’s life as a rare chance to perform one’s duty as a created human being and to fulfill one’s mission, then one will necessarily have the correct outlook on life, will live a life blessed and guided by the Creator, will walk in the light of the Creator, know the Creator’s sovereignty, come under His dominion, become a witness to His miraculous deeds and to His authority.
from “God Himself, the Unique III” in Continuation of The Word Appears in the Flesh
215. Are you willing to enjoy My blessings on earth, blessings that are akin to those in heaven? Are you willing to treat the understanding of Me, and the enjoyment of My words and the knowledge of Me, as the most valuable and meaningful things in your life? Are you truly able to fully submit to Me, without thought to your own prospects? Are you truly able to allow yourselves to be put to death by Me, and led by Me, like a sheep? Are there any among you capable of achieving such things? Could it be that all who are accepted by Me and receive My promises are the ones who gain My blessings? Have you understood anything from these words? If I test you, can you truly put yourselves at My mercy, and, in the midst of these trials, search for My intentions and perceive My heart? I do not wish for you to be able to speak many touching words, or tell many exciting stories; rather, I ask that you are able to bear fine testimony to Me, and that you can fully and deeply enter into reality. If I did not speak directly, could you forsake everything around you and allow yourself to be used by Me? Is this not the reality that I require? Who is able to grasp the meaning in My words? Yet I ask that you no longer be weighed down by misgivings, that you be proactive in your entry and grasp the substance of My words. This will prevent you misunderstanding My words, and being unclear as to My meaning, and thus violating My administrative decrees. I hope that you grasp My intentions for you in My words. Think no more of your own prospects, and act as you have resolved before Me to submit to God’s orchestrations in all things. All of those who stand within My household should do as much as they possibly can; you should offer the best of yourself to the last section of My work on earth. Are you truly willing to put such things into practice?
from “The Fourth Utterance” of God’s Utterances to the Entire Universe in The Word Appears in the Flesh
216. Bearing a resounding witness for God is mainly related to whether you have an understanding of the practical God or not, and whether or not you are able to obey in front of this person who is not only ordinary, but normal, and even obey until the death. If you truly bear a witness for God through this obedience, that means you have been obtained by God. Being able to obey to the death, and being free of complaints in front of Him, not making judgments, not slandering, not having notions, and not having any other intentions—this way God will gain glory. Obedience in front of a regular person who is looked down upon by man and being able to obey to the death without any notions—this is true testimony. The reality that God requires people to enter into is that you are able to obey His words, able to put His words into practice, able to bow down in front of the practical God and know your own corruption, able to open up your heart in front of Him, and in the end be gained by Him through these words of His. God gains glory when these words conquer you and make you fully obedient to Him; through this He shames Satan and completes His work. When you don’t have any notions of the practicality of God incarnate, that is, when you stand firm in this trial, then you bear a good witness. If there is a day when you have full understanding of the practical God and you can obey until the death like Peter, you will be gained by God, and be perfected by Him.
from “People Who Can Be Absolutely Obedient Toward God’s Practicality Are Those Who Truly Love God” in The Word Appears in the Flesh
56 Why do people always use the Bible to define God? Why is it wrong to define God within the Bible? The answer from God’s word: “...
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