Relevant Words of God:

Today, most people do not have that knowledge. They believe that suffering is without value, they are rejected by the world, their home life is troubled, God does not find them pleasing, and their prospects are bleak. Some people suffer to a certain extent, even wanting to die. This is not true love for God; such people are cowards, they have no perseverance, they are weak and incompetent! God is eager for man to love Him, but the more man loves Him, the greater man’s suffering, and the more man loves Him, the greater man’s trials. If you love Him, then every kind of suffering will befall you—and if you do not, then perhaps everything will go smoothly for you and all will be peaceful around you. When you love God, you will always feel that much around you is insurmountable, and because your stature is too small you will be refined; moreover, you will be incapable of satisfying God, and you will always feel that God’s intentions are too high, that they are beyond the reach of man. Because of all this you will be refined—because there is much weakness within you, and much that is incapable of satisfying the intentions of God, you will be refined internally. Yet you must clearly see that purification is only achieved through refinement. Thus, during these last days you must bear testimony to God. No matter how great your suffering, you should walk until the very end, and even at your last breath, still you must be loyal to God and at the mercy of God’s orchestration; only this is truly loving God, and only this is the strong and resounding testimony.

—The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Only by Experiencing Painful Trials Can You Know the Loveliness of God

Do not be discouraged, do not be weak, and I will reveal things to you. The road to the kingdom is not so smooth; nothing is that simple! You want blessings to come to you easily, do you not? Today, everyone will have bitter trials to face. Without such trials, the loving heart you have for Me will not grow stronger and you will not have true love for Me. Even if these trials consist merely of minor circumstances, everyone must pass through them; it’s just that the intensity of the trials will vary. Trials are a blessing from Me, and how many of you often kneel before Me, begging for My blessing? Silly children! You always think that a few auspicious words count as My blessing, yet you never believe that bitterness is My blessing. Those who share in My bitterness will certainly share in My sweetness. That is My promise and My blessing to you.

—The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Utterances of Christ in the Beginning, Chapter 41

When God works to refine man, man suffers. The greater a person’s refinement, the more of a God-loving heart they’ll possess, and the more of God’s might will be revealed in them. Conversely, the less refinement a person receives, the less of a God-loving heart they’ll possess, and the less God’s might will be revealed in them. The greater such a person’s refinement and pain and the more torment they experience, the deeper their love of God will grow, the more genuine their faith in God will become, and the more profound their knowledge of God will be. In your experiences, you will see that those people who undergo great refinement and suffering, who are pruned and disciplined a lot, have a deep love for God and a more profound and penetrating knowledge of God, and that those who have not experienced being pruned have but a superficial knowledge. They can only say: “God is so good, He bestows grace upon people so that they can enjoy Him.” If people have experienced being pruned and disciplined, then they are able to speak about the true knowledge of God. So the more wondrous God’s work in man is, the more valuable and significant it is. The more impenetrable it is to you and the more incompatible it is with your notions, the more God’s work is able to conquer you, gain you, and make you perfect. How great is the significance of God’s work! If God did not refine man in this way, if He did not work according to this method, then His work would be ineffectual and without significance. It was said in the past that God would select and gain this group, and make them complete in the last days; in this, there is extraordinary significance. The greater the work He carries out within you, the deeper and purer your love for God. The greater the work of God, the more man is able to grasp something of His wisdom and the deeper is man’s knowledge of Him.

—The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Those Who Are to Be Made Perfect Must Undergo Refinement

You must suffer hardship for the truth, you must sacrifice yourself for the truth, you must endure humiliation for the truth, and you must undergo more suffering for the sake of gaining more of the truth. This is what you should do. You must not throw away the truth for the sake of the enjoyment of family harmony, and you must not lose a lifetime of dignity and integrity for the sake of temporary enjoyment. You should pursue all that is beautiful and good, and you should pursue a path in life that is more meaningful. If you lead such a mundane and worldly life, and do not have any goal to pursue, isn’t this wasting your life? What can you gain from such a life? You should forsake all enjoyments of the flesh for the sake of one truth, and should not throw away all truths for the sake of a little enjoyment. People like this have no integrity or dignity; there is no meaning to their existence!

—The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. The Experiences of Peter: His Knowledge of Chastisement and Judgment

When accepting the judgment of God’s words, don’t be afraid of suffering or pain, and moreover, don’t be afraid that God’s words will pierce your hearts and expose your ugly states. It is so beneficial to suffer these things. If you believe in God, you should read more of God’s words judging and chastising people, especially those that expose the essence of humankind’s corruption. You should compare them to your practical state more, and you should connect them to yourself more and others less. The types of states God exposes exist in every person, and they can all be found in you. If you don’t believe this, try experiencing it. The more you experience, the more you will know yourself, and the more you will feel that God’s words are very accurate. … We have to first realize that everything God says is the truth, and in line with the facts, and that no matter how severe His words that judge and expose people are, or how gentle His words of fellowshipping the truth or exhorting people are, whether His words are judgment or blessings, whether they are condemnations or curses, whether they give people a bitter feeling or a sweet one, people must accept them all. Such is the attitude people should have toward God’s words. What sort of attitude is this? Is it a devout attitude, a pious attitude, a patient attitude, or an attitude of embracing suffering? You are somewhat confused. I tell you that it is not any of these. In their faith, people must firmly maintain that God’s words are the truth. Since they are indeed the truth, people should accept them with reason. Whether or not they are able to recognize or admit it, their first attitude toward God’s words should be one of absolute acceptance.

—The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. The Importance of Pursuing the Truth and the Path of Its Pursuit

Loving God requires seeking God’s intentions in all things, and that you probe deep within when anything happens to you, trying to grasp God’s intentions, and trying to see what God’s intentions are in these matters, what He asks you to achieve, and how you should be considerate of His intentions. For example: Something happens that requires you to endure hardship, at which time you should understand what God’s intentions are and how you should be considerate of His intentions. You must not satisfy yourself: First deny yourself. Nothing is more abject than the flesh. You must seek to satisfy God, and you must fulfill your duty. With such thoughts, God will bring especial enlightenment to you in this matter, and your heart will also find comfort. Be it big or small, when something happens to you, you must first deny yourself and regard the flesh as the most lowly of all things. The more you satisfy the flesh, the more liberties it takes; if you satisfy it this time, next time it will ask for more. As this carries on, people come to love the flesh even more. The flesh always has extravagant desires; it always asks that you satisfy it and that you gratify it within, whether it be in the things you eat, what you wear, or in losing your temper, or pandering to your own weaknesses and laziness…. The more you satisfy the flesh, the greater its desires become and the more indulgent the flesh becomes, until it gets to the point when people’s flesh harbors even deeper notions, and rebels against God, and exalts itself, and becomes doubtful about the work of God. … Thus, you must rebel against the flesh, and not pander to it: “My husband (wife), children, prospects, marriage, family—none of them matter! In my heart there is only God, and I must try my best to satisfy God and not satisfy the flesh.” You must have this resolve. If you are always possessed of such resolve, then when you put the truth into practice and put yourself aside, you will be able to do so with but a little effort.

—The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Only Loving God Is Truly Believing in God

Whether you can gain life before God and what your ultimate outcome will be, depend on how you practice your rebellion against the flesh. God has saved you and chosen you and predestined you, yet if today you are unwilling to satisfy Him, you are unwilling to put the truth into practice, you are unwilling to rebel against your own flesh with a genuine God-loving heart, ultimately you will ruin yourself, and will thus endure extreme pain. If you always pander to the flesh, Satan will gradually swallow you up, and leave you without life, or the touch of the Spirit, until the day comes when you are completely dark inside. When you live in darkness, you will have been taken captive by Satan, you will no longer have God in your heart, and at that time you will deny God’s existence and leave Him. Thus, if people wish to love God, they must pay the price of pain and endure hardship. There is no need for external fervency and hardship, reading more and running about more; instead, they should put aside the things within them: the extravagant thoughts, personal interests, and their own plans, notions, and intents. This is God’s intention.

—The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Only Loving God Is Truly Believing in God

God asks people to put the truth into practice primarily to prune the things inside them, to prune their thoughts and notions that are not in line with God’s intentions. The Holy Spirit touches people in their hearts and enlightens and illuminates them. So behind everything that happens is a battle: Every time people put the truth into practice, or put the love of God into practice, there is a great battle, and though all may seem well with their flesh, in the depths of their hearts a life-and-death battle will, in fact, be going on—and only after this intense battle, after a tremendous amount of reflection, can victory or defeat be decided. One does not know whether to laugh or cry. Because many of the intentions within people are wrong, or else because much of God’s work is at odds with their notions, when people put the truth into practice, a great battle is waged behind the scenes. Having put this truth into practice, behind the scenes, people will have shed countless tears of sadness before finally making up their mind to satisfy God. It is because of this battle that people endure suffering and refinement; this is true suffering. When the battle comes upon you, if you are able to truly stand on the side of God, you will be able to satisfy God. While practicing the truth, it is inevitable that one will suffer inside; if, when they put the truth into practice, everything within people were right, then they would not need to be made perfect by God, and there would be no battle, and they would not suffer. It is because there are many things within people that are not fit for use by God, and because there is much of the rebellious disposition of the flesh, that people need to learn the lesson of rebelling against the flesh more profoundly. This is what God calls the suffering that He asked man to undergo with Him.

—The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Only Loving God Is Truly Believing in God

In their belief in God, what people seek is to obtain blessings for the future; this is their goal in their belief. All people have this intent and hope, but the corruption in their nature must be resolved through trials and refinement. In whichever aspects people are not purified and reveal corruption, these are the aspects in which they must be refined—this is God’s arrangement. God sets up an environment for you, forcing you to be refined there so that you can know your own corruption. Ultimately, you reach a point at which you want to give up your designs and desires and to submit to God’s sovereignty and arrangement even if it means dying. Therefore, if people do not undergo several years of refinement, if they do not endure a certain amount of suffering, they will not be able to rid themselves of the constraints of corruption of the flesh in their thoughts and in their hearts. In whichever aspects people are still subject to the constraints of their satanic nature, and in whichever aspects they still have their own desires and their own demands, these are the aspects in which they should suffer. Only through suffering can lessons be learned, which means being able to gain truth, and understand God’s intentions. In fact, many truths are understood by experiencing suffering and trials. Nobody can understand God’s intentions, recognize God’s almightiness and wisdom, or appreciate God’s righteous disposition when in a comfortable and easy environment or when circumstances are favorable. That would be impossible!

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

God works in every single person, and no matter what His method is, what kind of people, events, and things He makes use of in His service, or what kind of tone His words have, He only has one end goal: saving you. And how does He save you? He changes you. So how could you not suffer a bit? You are going to have to suffer. This suffering can involve many things. First, people must suffer when they accept the judgment and chastisement of God’s words. When God’s words are too severe and explicit and people misunderstand God—and even have notions—that can be painful, too. Sometimes God raises up an environment around people to reveal their corruption, to make them reflect on and know themselves, and they will suffer a little then, too. Sometimes, when they are directly pruned and exposed, people must suffer. It is as if they are undergoing surgery—if there is no suffering, there is no effect. If every time you are pruned, and every time you are revealed by an environment, it stirs your heart and gives you a boost, then through these kinds of experiences, you will enter the truth reality, and will have stature. If, every time you are subjected to being pruned, and to being revealed by an environment, you feel no pain or discomfort whatsoever, and feel nothing at all, and you do not come before God to seek His intentions, neither praying nor seeking the truth, then you are so numb! God does not work in you when your spirit feels nothing, when it does not react. He will say, “This person is overly numb, and has been corrupted too deeply. No matter how I discipline him, prune him, or try to keep him in check, I still cannot move his heart or awaken his spirit. This person will be in trouble; he is not easy to save.” Suppose that God sets up certain environments, people, events, and things for you, or He prunes you, and you learn lessons from it; you learn to come before God, to seek the truth, and, unknowingly, are enlightened and illuminated and gain the truth; you experience changes in these environments, gain something, and make progress, and you begin to have a little understanding of God’s intention and cease to complain. This means that you have stood firm in the midst of the trials of these environments, and have withstood the test. In that case, you will have gotten over this hurdle.

—The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. To Gain the Truth, One Must Learn From the People, Events, and Things Nearby