Relevant Words of God:

What internal state in people are trials aimed at? They are targeted at the rebellious disposition in people that is incapable of satisfying God. There is much that is impure within people, and much that is hypocritical, and so God subjects people to trials in order to purify them. …

If you do not know God’s disposition, then you will inevitably fall during trials, because you are unaware of how God makes people perfect, by what means He makes them perfect, and when God’s trials come upon you and they do not match your notions, you will be unable to stand firm. God’s true love is His entire disposition, and when God’s entire disposition is revealed to people, what does this bring to your flesh? When God’s righteous disposition is revealed to people, their flesh will inevitably suffer much pain. If you do not suffer this pain, then you cannot be made perfect by God, nor will you be able to devote true love to God. If God makes you perfect, He will surely reveal His entire disposition to you. From the time of creation until today, God has never revealed His entire disposition to man—but during the last days He reveals it to this group of people whom He has predestined and selected, and by making people perfect, He reveals His dispositions, through which He makes complete a group of people. Such is God’s true love for people. Experiencing God’s true love requires that people endure extreme pain, and pay a high price. Only then can people ultimately be gained by God, and finally be able to give their true love back to God, and only then will God’s heart be satisfied. If people wish to be made perfect by God, and if they wish to follow His will, and fully give their true love to God, then they must experience a lot of pain and many torments from their circumstances, suffering agony worse than death. Ultimately they will be forced to give their true heart back to God. Whether or not someone truly loves God is revealed during suffering and refinement. God’s purification of people’s love is also only achieved through suffering and refinement.

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

Faced with man’s state and man’s attitude toward God, God has done new work, allowing man to possess both knowledge of and submission toward Him, and both love and testimony. Thus, man must experience God’s refinement of him, as well as His judgment and pruning of him, without which man would never know God and would never be capable of truly loving and bearing witness to Him. God’s refinement of man is not merely for the sake of a one-sided effect, but for the sake of a multi-faceted effect. So God does the work of refinement in those who are willing to seek the truth, in order that their resolve and love be made perfect by God. To those who are willing to seek the truth and who yearn for God, nothing is more meaningful, or of greater assistance, than refinement such as this. God’s disposition is not so easily understood or comprehended by man, for God, in the end, is God. Ultimately, it is impossible for God to have the same disposition as man, and thus it is not easy for man to understand His disposition. The truth is not inherently possessed by man, and is not easily comprehended by those who have been corrupted by Satan; man is devoid of the truth, and of the resolve to put the truth into practice, and if he does not suffer and is not refined or judged, then his resolve will never be made perfect. For all people, refinement is excruciating, and very difficult to accept—yet it is during refinement that God reveals His righteous disposition to man, and makes public His requirements for man, and provides more enlightenment and more practical pruning. Through the comparison between the facts and the truth, man gains a greater knowledge of himself and the truth, and a greater understanding of God’s intentions, thus allowing man to have a truer and purer love of God. Such are God’s aims in carrying out the work of refinement. All the work that God does in man has its own aims and significance; God does not do meaningless work, nor does He do work that is without benefit to man. Refinement does not mean removing people from before God, nor does it mean destroying them in hell. Rather, it means changing man’s disposition during refinement, changing his intentions, his old views, changing his love for God, and changing his whole life. Refinement is a practical test of man, and a form of practical training, and only during refinement can his love serve its inherent function.

—The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Only by Experiencing Refinement Can Man Possess True Love

The more God refines people, the more people’s hearts are able to love God. The torment in their hearts is of benefit to their lives, they are more able to be at peace before God, their relationship with God is closer, and they are better able to see God’s supreme love and His supreme salvation. Peter experienced refinement hundreds of times, and Job underwent several trials. If you wish to be made perfect by God, you too must undergo refinement hundreds of times—you must go through this process and rely upon this step—only then will you be able to satisfy God’s intentions and be made perfect by God. Refinement is the best means by which God makes people perfect; only refinement and bitter trials can bring out the true love for God in people’s hearts. Without suffering, people lack true love for God; if they are not tried within, if they are not subjected to true refinement, then their hearts will always be floating around outside. Having been refined to a certain point, you will see your own weaknesses and difficulties, you will see how much you are lacking and that you are unable to overcome the many problems you encounter, and you will see how much you’ve rebelled. Only during trials are people able to truly know their real states; trials are even more so capable of perfecting people.

During his lifetime, Peter experienced refinement hundreds of times and underwent a lot of painful tempering. This refinement became the foundation of his supreme love of God, and the most significant experience of his entire life. That he was able to possess a supreme love of God was, in one sense, because of his resolve to love God; more importantly, however, it was because of the refinement and suffering that he underwent. This suffering became his guide on the path of loving God, and the thing that was most memorable to him. If people do not undergo the pain of refinement when loving God, then their love is full of impurities and their own preferences; love such as this is full of the ideas of Satan, and fundamentally incapable of satisfying God’s intentions. Having the resolve to love God is not the same as truly loving God. Even though all that they think of in their hearts is for the sake of loving and satisfying God, and seems to be for the sake of God and to be devoid of any human ideas, when such practice of loving God is brought before Him, He does not approve of or bless it. Even if people were to fully understand and to come to know all truths, this could not be said to be a sign of loving God, it could not be said that these people have the reality of loving God. Despite having understood many truths without undergoing refinement, people are incapable of putting these truths into practice; only during refinement can people understand the real meaning of these truths, only then can people genuinely appreciate their inner meaning. At that time, when they practice these truths again, they are able to do so accurately, and in accordance with God’s intentions; in their practice at that time, their own ideas are lessened, their human corruption is reduced, and their human feelings are diminished; only at that time is their practice a true manifestation of the love of God.

—The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Only by Experiencing Refinement Can Man Possess True Love

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

God can perfect man in both positive and negative aspects. It depends on whether you are able to experience, and on whether you pursue being perfected by God. If you truly pursue being perfected by God, then the negative cannot make you suffer loss, but can bring you things that are more real, and can make you more able to know that which is lacking within you, more able to grasp your real state, and see that man has nothing, and is nothing; if you do not experience trials, you do not know, and will always feel that you are above others and better than everyone else. Through all this you will see that all that came before was done by God and protected by God. Entry into trials leaves you without love or faith, you lack prayer and are unable to sing hymns, and without realizing it, in the midst of this you come to know yourself. God has many means of perfecting man. He employs all manner of environments to prune the corrupt disposition of man, and uses various things to reveal man; in one regard, He prunes man, in another He reveals man, and in another He exposes man, digging out and exposing the “mysteries” in the depths of man’s heart, and showing man his nature by exposing many of his states. God perfects man through many methods—through exposure, through pruning man, through man’s refinement, and chastisement—so that man may know that God is practical.

—The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Only Those Who Focus on Practice Can Be Perfected

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