The Lord Jesus said, “But let your communication be, Yes, yes; No, no: for whatever is more than these comes of evil” (Matthew 5:37). The Lord is holy and faithful. He requires us to be honest people, and being an honest person is in accordance with God’s intentions. I now have realized the importance of being honest. But in real life, I still involuntarily tell lies. Please fellowship on how to practice honesty in real life.

March 29, 2021

Relevant Words of God:

You ought to know that God likes those who are honest. In essence, God is faithful, and so His words can always be trusted; His actions, furthermore, are faultless and unquestionable, which is why God likes those who are absolutely honest with Him. Honesty means giving your heart to God, being genuine with God in all things, being open with Him in all things, never hiding the facts, not trying to deceive those above and below you, and not doing things only to curry favor with God. In short, to be honest is to be pure in your actions and words, and to deceive neither God nor man. What I say is very simple, but to you it is doubly arduous. Many people would rather be condemned to hell than speak and act honestly. Little wonder that I have other treatment in store for those who are dishonest. Of course, I know full well how difficult it is for you to be honest. Because you are all so clever, so good at measuring people with your own petty yardstick, this makes My work much simpler. And since you each hug your secrets to your bosom, well then, I shall send you, one by one, into disaster to be “schooled” by fire, so that thereafter you may become dead set on your belief in My words. Ultimately, I shall wrest from your mouth the words “God is a faithful God,” whereupon you shall beat upon your breast and lament, “Devious is the heart of man!” What will be your state of mind at this time? I imagine you will not be as triumphant as you are now. And much less will you be as “profound and abstruse” as you are now. In the presence of God, some people are all prim and proper, they take pains to be “well-behaved,” yet they bare their fangs and brandish their claws in the presence of the Spirit. Would you number such people among the ranks of the honest? If you are a hypocrite, someone who is skilled in “interpersonal relations,” then I say that you are definitely someone who tries to trifle with God. If your words are riddled with excuses and valueless justifications, then I say that you are someone who is loath to put the truth into practice. If you have many confidences that you are reluctant to share, if you are highly averse to laying bare your secrets—your difficulties—before others to seek the way of the light, then I say that you are someone who will not attain salvation easily, and who will not easily emerge from the darkness. If seeking the way of the truth pleases you well, then you are someone who dwells always in the light. If you are very glad to be a service-doer in the house of God, working diligently and conscientiously in obscurity, always giving and never taking, then I say that you are a loyal saint, because you seek no reward and are simply being an honest person. If you are willing to be candid, if you are willing to expend your all, if you are able to sacrifice your life for God and stand firm in your testimony, if you are honest to the point where you know only to satisfy God and not to consider yourself or take for yourself, then I say that such people are those who are nourished in the light and who shall live forever in the kingdom.

—The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Three Admonitions

Today, most people are too afraid to bring their actions before God; while you may deceive His flesh, you cannot deceive His Spirit. Any matter that cannot withstand God’s scrutiny is at odds with the truth, and should be cast aside; to do otherwise is to commit a sin against God. So, you must lay your heart before God at all times, when you pray, when you speak and fellowship with your brothers and sisters, and when you perform your duty and go about your business. When you fulfill your function, God is with you, and so long as your intent is correct and is for the work of God’s house, He will accept all that you do; you should sincerely devote yourself to fulfilling your function. When you pray, if you have love for God in your heart and seek God’s care, protection and scrutiny, if these things are your intent, your prayers will be effective. For example, when you pray at meetings, if you open your heart and pray to God and tell Him what is in your heart without speaking falsehoods, then your prayers will surely be effective.

—The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. God Perfects Those Who Are After His Own Heart

Today, all who cannot accept God’s scrutiny cannot receive His approval, and those who do not know God incarnate cannot be perfected. Look at all that you do, and see if it can be brought before God. If you cannot bring all that you do before God, this shows that you are an evildoer. Can evildoers be perfected? All that you do, every action, every intention, and every reaction should be brought before God. Even your daily spiritual life—your prayers, your closeness to God, how you eat and drink of God’s words, your fellowship with your brothers and sisters, and your life within the church—and your service in partnership can be brought before God for His scrutiny. It is such practice that will help you achieve growth in life. The process of accepting God’s scrutiny is the process of purification. The more you can accept God’s scrutiny, the more you are purified and the more you are in accord with God’s will, so that you will not be drawn into debauchery, and your heart will live in His presence. The more you accept His scrutiny, the greater are Satan’s humiliation and your ability to forsake the flesh. So, the acceptance of God’s scrutiny is a path of practice people should follow. No matter what you do, even when communing with your brothers and sisters, you can bring your acts before God and seek His scrutiny and aim to obey God Himself; this will make what you practice much more correct. Only if you bring all you do before God and accept God’s scrutiny can you be someone who lives in the presence of God.

—The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. God Perfects Those Who Are After His Own Heart

When practicing to be an honest person, one first must learn to open their heart to God and pray every day, telling God what is in their heart. Suppose today you have spoken falsely; no one has yet discovered it, and you have not yet mustered up the courage to be open with everyone. At the very least, you must at once take to God the mistakes and falsehoods and lies you have scrutinized and found in your conduct today, and confess your sins, and say: “Oh God, I have told a lie again. I did it for the sake of such-and-such. I beg You to discipline me.” If you have such an attitude, God will accept you, and He will remember it. Perhaps it will be very strenuous and laborious for you to resolve the defect or corrupt disposition of lying, but never fear—God is with you, and He will guide you and help you past this recurring difficulty, giving you the courage not to tell lies or the courage to acknowledge that you have told lies; to acknowledge what lies you have told, why you lied, and what your intentions and aims were; to acknowledge that you are not an honest person; to acknowledge that you are a deceitful person; and He will give you the courage to break through this barrier, and break out of Satan’s cage and away from its control. In this way, you will gradually come to live in the light, under God’s guidance and blessing. When you have broken through this barrier of fleshly constraints and are able to submit to the truth, you will have become free and liberated. When you live this way, not only will people like you, but God too, will like you. Though you will at times still be capable of wrong actions, and though you will at times still be capable of telling lies, and though you will at times still have your own intentions, as well as selfish motives, and selfish and contemptible actions and ideas, you can accept God’s scrutiny and reveal your heart, your actual state, and your corrupt disposition before God—and thus will you have a correct path of practice. If your path of practice is correct and your direction forward is correct, your prospects will be beautiful and bright. In this way, you will live with your heart at ease; your spirit will be nourished, and you will feel enriched and joyful. If you are unable to break through this barrier of fleshly constraints and are always bound up in emotions and satanic philosophies, and your speech and actions are always furtive and secret, never in broad daylight, then you are one who lives under the domain of Satan. When you understand the truth and are able to break through the barrier of fleshly constraints, you gradually take on a human likeness. You speak and act frankly and straightforwardly, and show others any view or thoughts you may have or anything you have done wrong, so that everyone may see it clearly—and, ultimately, they will say you are a transparent person. What is a transparent person? It is someone who does not tell lies, who is exceedingly honest in speech, and whose words everyone believes to be true. Even if they tell a lie unconsciously or say something wrong, everyone is able to forgive them, knowing that they do it unconsciously. Once they are aware of it, they will come back to apologize and put it right. This is a transparent person. Everyone likes and can trust this kind of person. If you reach this level and gain God’s and others’ trust, you will have accomplished no simple task—this is the highest dignity a person can have, and only such people have self-respect.

—“Only by Being Honest Can One Live Out a True Human Likeness” in Records of Christ’s Talks

As an honest person, you must first lay your heart bare so that everyone can look into it, see all that you are thinking, and glimpse your true face; you must not try to disguise or package yourself to look good. Only then will people trust you and consider you honest. This is the most fundamental practice, and the prerequisite, of being an honest person. You are always pretending, always feigning holiness, virtuousness, greatness, and feigning high moral qualities. You do not let people see your corruption and your failings. You present a false image to people so that they believe you are upstanding, great, self-sacrificing, impartial, and selfless. This is deceitfulness. Do not put on a disguise, and do not package yourself; instead, lay yourself and your heart bare for others to see. If you can lay your heart bare for others to see, and lay bare all your thoughts and plans—both positive and negative—then are you not being honest? If you can lay yourself bare for others to see, then God, too, will see you and say, “You have laid yourself bare for others to see, and so you are surely honest before Me, too.” If you only lay yourself bare to God when out of view of other people, and always pretend to be great and virtuous or just and selfless when in their company, then what will God think and say? He will say, “You are genuinely deceitful; you are purely hypocritical and petty; and you are not an honest person.” God will condemn you thusly. If you wish to be an honest person, then regardless of what you do before God or others, you should be able to open yourself up and lay yourself bare. Is this easy to achieve? It requires time; it requires an internal struggle, and we must practice constantly. Little by little, our hearts will open up and we will be able to lay ourselves bare.

—“The Most Fundamental Practice of Being an Honest Person” in Records of Christ’s Talks

Against a certain background or in a certain environment, you may have felt that acting a certain way was quite wise or that you had ample reasons to do so, and so you acted; afterward, you felt you were fully justified in your actions and had no remorse. When evening came, and you reflected upon what you had done—or, one day when you gained enlightenment or were reproached—you then felt that the reason you had given at that time was not a reason at all, and that you should have behaved in another way. At such times, how should you practice? For example, let us say you cheated someone, or spoke adulterations to him and had your own ulterior motives. Well, you should go and find that person and dissect your actions. You should say, “I had an ulterior motive in saying what I said to you at that time. If you can accept my apology, then please forgive me.” In this way, you dissect yourself and lay yourself bare. It takes courage to be an honest person who dissects and lays himself bare. Whether people come before God to pray and admit their mistakes, to repent, or to dissect their corrupt dispositions, they can say whatever they want, because people cannot see anything with their eyes closed. It is like speaking to the air; they can bring themselves to light, and when doing so, they can voice whatever they were thinking and saying before, whatever motives they might have been harboring, and whatever treachery they were engaging in. However, if you lay yourself bare to another person, you may lose your courage and your resolve to act because you want to save face; as such, it will be very difficult for you to put these things into practice. If you are asked to speak in generalities, you are able to say that there are occasionally personal incentives and ulterior motives behind the things you do or say, and that your words and actions contain treachery, impurities, lies, and deceit. However, when you encounter a problem that makes you have to uncover how what happened to you played out from beginning to end, which of the words you said were deceptive, what kinds of ulterior motives they contained, what you were thinking, and how malicious and insidious you were, then you could well lose your nerve and be unwilling to reveal yourself to that level of detail or be so specific in what you say. There will even be people who gloss over it and say, “It was just one of those things. Suffice to say, humans are pretty deceitful, insidious, and unreliable.” This shows an inability to correctly face your corrupt essence, deceitfulness, and insidiousness; your attitude is always evasive, and you are always in an evasive state of being. You are constantly forgiving yourself, and in this matter, you are incapable of suffering and paying a price. There are therefore many people who have cried out for years, always saying, “I’m so deceitful and insidious; I’m often duplicitous in my actions, and not at all genuine toward others.” To this day, however, they remain totally and utterly deceitful, for you have never heard them express remorse for, or dissect the deceitfulness and insidiousness exposed in their words or actions. Although there is no way for us to be sure that they have or have not confessed their sins and repented before God, when faced with other people, once they have finished cheating, tricking, or manipulating them, they have never apologized, dissected themselves, or come to know themselves, or spoken of what they have learned from this matter. That they do not do so proves something: In such matters, they have never rebelled against themselves; they merely voice catchphrases and doctrines. They may speak catchphrases and doctrines to follow the trend, or may have been forced to do so by their environments. Whatever the case, uttering such catchphrases and doctrines can never change them.

When God asks that people put every truth into practice, they are required to pay a price, and to really and literally act, practice, and experience, to incorporate them into their real lives. God does not ask that people speak catchphrases or spend the whole day repeating that they are deceitful, and a liar, and manipulative, and that there are motivations in everything they do, whilst still, when something happens to them, employing the same means and methods as before; their means and methods have never changed, the way they behave toward others has never changed, and the way in which they act has never changed. What do you say, is someone like this capable of change? No, they can never change!

—“The Most Fundamental Practice of Being an Honest Person” in Records of Christ’s Talks