Let’s continue talking about the matter of not scheming. In daily life, people are often schemed against by others in various things that happen to them. Some vie with you for fame and gain, some debate right and wrong with you, some even argue with you over a single word, some judge you and undermine you behind your back, and some trip you up and act unreasonably toward you. When faced with various people’s schemes, how do you handle them? You must firmly adhere to one principle: “No matter how others scheme against me, I will not scheme against them; I will stay away from them! I must understand what God’s intentions are and what lesson He wants me to learn. I must stand firm in my position and practice God’s words and hold fast to my duty. Acting according to the principles of God’s words will never be wrong and will never lead to loss. No matter how highly others think of me, that’s not a crown or a reward; it’s a calamity!” If you adhere to such a principle, it can keep you from doing evil and from being condemned by God. If, throughout your life, you can stand firm in the position of a created being, fulfill the duty of a created being, and accomplish the work entrusted to you by God with all your heart and mind, and you devote all your thoughts to doing your duty—regardless of whether you’re so into it you neglect food and sleep or you tax your mind—you do the work God has entrusted to you well, and you achieve doing your duty in a way that is up to standard, then you will live a life of value. In this life, we should not seek to do great things, to carry out any undertakings, or create some miracle. We are just insignificant people and should read more of God’s words, seek to understand the truth in the things that come upon us, fulfill our responsibilities, and do what we ought to do well. We should ensure that we can conform to the truth principles in every matter, that the duty we do conforms to the principles required by the work arrangements, and that when we carefully examine the motivation, purpose, and principles of each thing we do, they all conform to the requirements of God’s words, and can withstand scrutiny and God’s examination. Each day, you do your duty normally, with peace and joy, always living before God. When you have something to say to God in your heart, you pray to Him; when you don’t have any words to pray, you can still draw near to God in your heart, and when you pray you receive God’s enlightenment and guidance, and are moved by Him. You can also be loyal to God when doing your duty, and conduct yourself in an open and upright manner. How wonderful that is! In treating people and engaging and communicating with them, you generally have fewer and fewer blemishes and transgressions. No matter how others scheme against you, you do not react with impetuousness. Whenever you feel unable to overcome your impetuousness, you pray to God; when you are weak, you also pray to God. When the Holy Spirit moves you a bit, you will gain the strength to overcome it, and you will leap over the hurdle. Every time you face people’s scheming, attacks, retaliation, and so on, it’s like crossing a hurdle, like overcoming a difficulty. Ultimately, you can overcome all these schemes, overcome people’s attacks, retaliation, and struggles against you, not reacting based on impetuousness or corrupt dispositions, but being able to adhere to principles. Then you are truly an overcomer. How wonderful that is! However, suppose that you live in impetuousness and corrupt dispositions all day long. When someone schemes against you or says something unpleasant, you take it to heart, are extremely bothered by it, become agitated, your eyes blaze with anger, and you fly into a rage. Or, after you hear unpleasant words, you feel uneasy in your heart, your mouth breaks out in sores, you lose your appetite for food and drink, and you cannot sleep at night. Then, you become distant from God. You live either in impetuousness or in emotions, spending every day in misery, unable to normally eat and drink God’s words, unable to normally do your duty, your heart preoccupied and tangled up with these matters of right and wrong. Once entangled, it’s very difficult for you to break free, and sometimes you cannot do so for several months. If it is a major matter, such as marriage or a lawsuit, then the scheming is even more severe, and once you get tangled up in these things, months—or even years—just slip by, squandering the best years of your life. In the end, your whole life is wasted—you won’t have done your duty well, and you won’t have gained the truth. Doesn’t that mean you’re completely ruined? If you’re constantly living in disputes, scheming, struggles, and pettiness, can you still do your duty well? Not only will you not do your duty well, but in scheming and struggling, you will also accumulate many evil deeds. Living in the schemes and struggles between people, how many bad things will you do, how many presumptuous words, rebellious words, words that violate the truth, and words that resist God will you say? These are all classed as the words of devils. Even if some words are not spoken out loud, they are processed in your mind; you hate, abuse, and curse people in your heart. These things are all as plain as day in God’s eyes. God sees what your designs are, how you plan, and how you practice when things come upon you. Living in these schemes and struggles, you never know to reflect on yourself and repent and confess your sins to God, nor do you know to seek the truth in these matters, instead blindly “enjoying” them. Although you are physically and mentally exhausted, you never reflect on yourself or pray to God and accept God’s discipline and guidance, accept God’s words into your heart, and let God reign. You never resolve to practice God’s words. This proves you are not a person who sincerely believes in God and pursues the truth. Those who sincerely believe in God and pursue the truth focus on how to practice the truth and live out a human likeness in their hearts, valuing God’s approval above all else. This enables them to shun struggles and schemes; their hearts can often draw near to God and they can live before God. As a result, their duties bear ever greater fruit, they feel that living this way has value and makes some contribution to humankind, and so they have true peace and joy in their hearts. Because they can fulfill the duty of a created being, every day they live has true value and meaning. But if you live in various kinds of struggles and schemes, then you are accumulating sins each day that you are alive. Not only do you fail to live out the value and meaning a created human being should have, but you also accumulate sins for your future. In God’s heart, He spurns you more and more, and becomes increasingly disappointed in you. If God sees that His concern and expectations for you are about to come to naught, how would God feel about you? If the things you do make God more and more disappointed, make God more and more disheartened, until one day you truly do not turn back and God wants to give up on you, then tell Me, what value and meaning does your life and faith in God have? What hope is left in your life? Just because others scheme against you and judge you, in order to fight for your pride, and to reclaim your own face and dignity, you get caught up in strife with people and delay your proper affairs. Sometimes, just because someone says something unpleasant or gives you a certain look that offends you, making you lose face and hurting your self-esteem, you even become resentful in your heart and get endlessly tangled up in disputes with them. And what happens in the end? You waste all your precious time on these things, ruining your chance to attain salvation and gaining no truth at all. As a result, God spurns you, no longer pays you any attention, and you are completely ruined. So, what am I trying to tell you by fellowshipping these things? Choosing how to conduct yourself, choosing what way to conduct yourself, is very important. Living among people, each person will often face schemes, struggles, gains and losses in personal interests, and various voices of praise, criticism, judgment, and condemnation; everyone will face these things. I have also lived in this world to this age, and I don’t live in a vacuum either. I also face these things, but My heart will not scheme. Look at Me—how have I lived? These things do not affect My life or My work in the slightest. Every day, I only focus on doing My work. Living until now, I have not been affected by the external environment. My identity and status, My worth in people’s eyes—none of these have been affected. Not only that, but I’m even worried you will mistakenly think I am very lofty, very extraordinary, and very distinct from others, so I have to give some actual examples of My normality, practicality, and ordinariness in a more specific way so that you do not idolize Me and do not have some unrealistic imaginings and notions about Me. Only after I have said these do some people see that I am just an ordinary, normal person, and then they become indifferent to Me. I do not care about these things. As long as you can accept these words I speak, that is enough; I have no other requirements. If you were to spend all day staring at Me, scrutinizing Me, reading My expression, it would make Me uncomfortable. I do not like people idolizing Me or fawning over Me, and much less do I like people always thronging Me. I like quiet. You see, haven’t I lived quite well these years? Then why don’t you try living the same way? See if you can survive without vying for fame and gain, without vying for status, without protecting your own dignity, without contending for any authority in words. If you act, live, conduct yourself, do things, and perform your duty according to God’s words and God’s requirements, see how your life will be—see if you will gain joy and if you will have peace in your heart. Try a different way of living, practice according to the truth principles, and have clear goals, and then you will see a bright future ahead. If you are always keeping score of who is scheming against you, who affects your status, who has a higher reputation than you, who is talking about you behind your back, and so on, living in the midst of these things, then there is no path ahead for you, only darkness. You will always be lost, feeling, “My life is tiring, there is no happiness, I have no blessings!” You do not enjoy the blessings God gives you, but keep burrowing into hell. Tell Me, can you have blessings? Can you have joy and peace?

How do you feel about fellowshipping on these topics? (Good.) In what way is it good? (We feel it can resolve the difficulties we encounter in real life and the corrupt dispositions we reveal. God has also pointed out some specific paths for us: how to avoid struggling and scheming against others, and how to be free from the constraints of people, events, and things and live in the light.) What is the main purpose of fellowshipping on these principles? It’s not just to help you escape a life of struggling with others; the key is to enable you to live within normal humanity and live a life of normal humanity. If you act according to God’s words, you can achieve submission to God, make His words and the truth your life, attain salvation, and fear God and shun evil: You can become such a person. Understood? (Yes.) It’s not just to escape a life of scheming and struggling with others; if it were only for that, you wouldn’t gain the truth. Tell Me, without gaining the truth, what is the goal of a person’s practice? Wouldn’t it still be hollow? Living in this society, among people, you’ll always have your own thoughts and views when things come upon you; it’s impossible to have no thoughts or views at all, as if you’re living in a vacuum. Such a situation does not exist. When no one schemes against you or struggles with you, you can manage not to scheme against or struggle with others. But when someone schemes against you or struggles with you, what do you do? Does merely shouting slogans like “I won’t struggle with them, I won’t scheme against them” solve the problem? (No.) So how should the problem be solved? Some people shout slogans, saying, “Aren’t I too old to still be scheming? God’s work has progressed so far, yet I’m still scheming? What’s the use of scheming about those things?” Can these words solve the problem? (No.) Most people, when things come upon them, still can’t let go in their hearts and still scheme and struggle with others. So how should this problem be solved? It should be solved by resolving the issues of people’s thoughts and views, and their corrupt dispositions, according to God’s words and the truth principles. After you receive a correct thought or viewpoint, your perspective, attitude, and stance on such matters change. Your feelings about such matters will be different; you will feel that struggling with others is meaningless—it wastes your energy, impedes the work, causes inner discomfort, and there is no joy or peace in this. Then, when you read the condemnation of such matters in God’s words, the view on these matters in your heart will completely change, your emotional state will be different, your urge to struggle with others will lessen, your anger will diminish, and your impetuousness will disappear. If others struggle with you, relentlessly provoking you, you will not be affected, feeling that it’s not a big deal and there’s no need to struggle with them. Even onlookers couldn’t stand to look on, saying, “They treat you like that, how can you not feel anything? Are you foolish?” You say, “I used to take such matters very seriously; it would have felt as if the sky were falling in. If I didn’t make things clear to them, or if they didn’t give me an explanation, I would certainly not let it go easily. But now it’s different. I don’t scheme or struggle with others anymore, not because I’m older, but because in God’s words I’ve seen through to the corrupt essence of mankind. Their behavior is the typical revelations and manifestations of an evil person, an antichrist, a Satan, as exposed in God’s words. I used to have these manifestations too, but now, in God’s words, I see that this kind of true face, this kind of disposition, is too ugly and disgusting; God loathes it! Now I myself loathe it, and in my heart, I am unwilling to live in that corrupt disposition. So when they struggle with me again, I just feel fed up and disgusted with them, and have no interest or desire to struggle. In God’s words, I’ve also found the principles of practice, and I know how to treat such people.” What do God’s words say? On the one hand, God’s words expose and characterize such people; on the other hand, God tells people that the principle for treating others is to treat them fairly. If they are true brothers and sisters, and they reveal corrupt dispositions, we should treat them with love, fellowshipping the truth to resolve their transgressions and corrupt dispositions, so that they no longer resist God or transgress. Perhaps through help, their problems will be solved. If they do not accept help, cannot accept the truth, but can perform their duty and do not disturb the church’s work, then they should be allowed to remain in the church doing their duty. If they do not do their duty properly and still struggle and scheme with others, causing a disturbance, then they should be cleansed away according to the administrative decrees of God’s house and the principles of God’s house for treating people. Wouldn’t our hearts then be at peace? God’s house has principles and paths for dealing with bad apples. How to discern and deal with these people, how to treat these people—there are principles and paths in God’s words for all of this. If people practice according to God’s words, it will be handled easily and joyfully, they won’t feel that it’s a difficult matter, their hearts will not be disturbed at all, and it will be resolved very naturally. If they had encountered such matters a few years ago, they wouldn’t have been able to get past them, wouldn’t have known how to resolve them. But now, with a few years of life experience, this matter is no longer a difficulty for them; they can resolve it. Suddenly, they find their stature has grown and they have truly changed. How do most of these people feel then? “Before, I always felt my caliber was poor, and I often rebelled against and resisted God, as if I were beyond saving. Now, by handling this matter, I feel I have no difficulties, that I can solve problems, and have hope.” What hope? (The hope of gaining salvation.) When you see the hope of gaining salvation, do you see light or darkness ahead? (Light.) This fulfills that saying—light is beckoning to me. Right? (Yes.) When your stature can reach this level, you will truly feel that practicing the truth actually doesn’t require shouting slogans; it’s that easy and joyful. As long as you accept God’s words, as long as you accept the truth principles that come from God, practicing the truth is that easy, and your stature grows without you noticing. When you feel your stature has grown, that you have changed, that your years of believing in God have borne fruit and not been in vain, if someone then speaks presumptuous words, saying, “What have I gained from believing in God? In the 20 years I’ve believed in God, all I’ve done is suffer and exert effort; I have forsaken and expended so much, yet haven’t enjoyed a single blessing—just endless exhaustion!” you will despise them in your heart, “This person has no conscience, and only speaks devilish words! Judging by how pathetic they look, they truly haven’t gained anything—all they can do is be unreasonable and obstructive, and the only things they can say are presumptuous words!” They always say, “What have I gained from believing in God?” Then what exactly do you hope to gain by believing in God? Are you hoping to gain material grace and blessings, or are you hoping to gain the truth and achieve salvation? Believers in God must choose one of these paths. Just what path are you going to walk in your belief in God, that of pursuing grace and blessings, or that of pursuing the truth? If you are a person who pursues the truth, and you put all the truths you understand into practice and make them your reality, then you will have gained eternal life, and, having experienced God’s work in the last days, you will not have believed in vain. If you only focus on enjoying grace but do not gain the truth and life, and you complain against God, saying, “What have I gained?” this proves you are not a person who pursues the truth. No matter how much grace you enjoy, if you haven’t gained a bit of truth, then your faith is too pitiful; it shows you are a blind person. Now, God expresses the truth to supply people with life, speaking new words every day, so many that people can eat, drink, and enjoy them into eternity. There are too many truths that should be practiced and entered into; many truths cannot be fully experienced even in a lifetime. Those who have believed in God for many years and pursue the truth have gained so much, and in such abundance. But if people do not pursue the truth, do not love the truth, and do not practice the truth, they will always feel they have gained nothing. Those who enjoy the truth feel truly filled to overflowing with these words. Now, whether in terms of truth or material blessings, what God bestows upon people is abundant; it can be said that God’s house is a land flowing with milk and honey. The words of God eaten and drunk in gatherings are so abundant; experiential testimonies, movies, hymns, dances—all are there, in abundance. Material things—food, clothing, and items for everyday use—are also abundant. In addition, the service rendered by the great red dragon which God has set up, the performances of antichrists and false leaders, and the exhibition of various kinds of negative things before people every day, allow people to learn lessons and grow in discernment. If you can’t learn a whole lesson in one go, God will continue to set up environments, people, events, and things for you, only removing them when you’ve learned enough. Therefore, if you can accept God’s work, if you are a person who loves the truth, you are attending a bountiful banquet. A few years of faith will bring you great progress and real change. God has personally shepherded, watered, and led His chosen people for these years. All who can accept the truth can feel they have gained so much, and they have had some true changes. In particular, those who do their duty full-time have changed even more. You can feel that when following God, the path becomes brighter and brighter, and you have true faith in gaining salvation and entering the kingdom of heaven. But if you always refuse to accept the truth, and you’re unwilling to practice the truth in your heart, you won’t be able to feel that you have any hope of salvation. You’ll keep asking those around you, “Do you think I have spiritual understanding?” If someone says, “You don’t seem to have spiritual understanding,” you will think, “It’s over, I have no hope!” Actually, it’s not that you have no hope; it’s that you do not pursue the truth. If you understand the truth and can also practice the truth, you will gradually gain spiritual understanding. Once you have spiritual understanding, you will understand more and more truths, and you will be able to share some experiential testimonies in every aspect. You will feel enriched and very fulfilled inside, and feel that you have gained so much from following God. Right? (Yes.) If a person does not practice the truth or accept it as their life, in their heart they will always feel lost and aimless, without true faith. They will always ask those around them if they have any hope of gaining salvation. Some also constantly ask others if they have spiritual understanding, taking whether or not they have spiritual understanding as proof of whether they have hope. Tell Me, are such people foolish? (Foolish.) Whether you have spiritual understanding or not, you should strive for the truth—and not only strive to understand it, but also strive to practice it. Once you can understand the truth and practice the truth, won’t there be hope of attaining salvation? Isn’t that so? (Yes.) You should consider this issue.

That’s all for our fellowship today. Goodbye!

September 7, 2024