By Florence, Italy

In 2020, the leaders asked me to take responsibility for the work in the area of art and design. To start off with, I saw that the leaders often followed up on the progress of my work, and found out what was going on with my work. I was worried that the leaders would find oversights in my work and prune me or dismiss me. Therefore, I worked overtime to learn how to create images and improve my professional level. I also frequently followed up on how all the teams were progressing with their studies and how they were getting on with creating images. When I discovered deviations, I would help and guide my brothers and sisters promptly. By 2021, the gospel work was getting busier and busier, and I was familiar with all the various items of work, so the leaders didn’t follow up on me as closely as they had in the beginning. Right at the beginning, I often reminded myself that whether somebody was following up on and monitoring my work or not, I had to do my duty well. I could not be wily and treacherous or perfunctory. However, after some time, I saw that there were lots of jobs that needed doing, and when problems cropped up in each job, they all needed time and effort to resolve. I started to feel a bit tired. I thought to myself, “Now, the leaders aren’t monitoring and following up on my work as closely. If I do my work well, then not many people will notice. If I don’t do it well, then nobody will rebuke me. I shouldn’t tire myself out too much. After all, even if I am a little bit lazy, nobody will find out. Where’s the need to suffer so much?” Afterward, I grew quite lax in following up on the work. From inquiring about it once a week, I came to only inquire about it once every two or three weeks. Later, I discovered that one team was not getting good results in their professional studies. Sometimes, the set study direction and the summarized deviations didn’t meet the needs of the majority, and after studying for a time, nobody showed any clear progress. However, I didn’t want to spend time resolving the issue. I pushed the problem onto the team leader and asked her to follow up on it and resolve it. I didn’t expect that the team leader would say, “Recently, you have rarely asked about how the professional studies have been going very much. I have also lacked a burden. This is why the team’s studies have not yielded good results and the brothers and sisters haven’t made very much progress.” I defended myself silently, “Aren’t I following up on it now? If your team doesn’t get good results from their studies, then it’s primarily your responsibility as the team leader.” I just casually said, “Then let’s turn it around and enter in together,” and got past it in a perfunctory manner. Later, I discovered a succession of problems in the work and wanted to arrange a work summary. But then I thought, “Summarizing the work requires an understanding of the difficulties and deviations the brothers and sisters have faced in their professional work. It also requires thought to work out a direction and path toward improvement. This is really mentally exhausting. I’d better not do a summary after all. In any case, nobody asks about these things and nobody would know if I did the summary.” In this way, I put it off a while longer. I looked on as the problems that came up when my brothers and sisters created images showed no improvement. In my heart, I felt some self-reproach. I had already discovered the problems but was not resolving them because I didn’t want to bother. This was being perfunctory and not doing real work! I realized that my state throughout this period had been incorrect, and looked up some relevant words of God to read.

Almighty God says: “Simply going through the motions when performing your duty is a major taboo. If you are always going through the motions while performing your duty, then you have no way of performing your duty to an acceptable standard. If you want to perform your duty with loyalty, you must first fix your problem of going through the motions. You should take steps to rectify the situation as soon as you notice it. If you are muddleheaded, are never able to notice problems, always just go through the motions, and do things in a perfunctory fashion, then you will have no way of doing your duty well. Therefore, you must always put your heart into your duty. This opportunity was very difficult for people to come by! When God gives them a chance, yet they do not grasp it, then that opportunity is lost—and even if, later on, they wish to find such an opportunity, it might not come up again. God’s work waits for no one, and neither do chances to perform one’s duty. … There are not many opportunities currently to perform a duty, so you must take hold of them when you can. It is precisely when faced with a duty that you must exert yourself; that is when you must offer yourself up, expend yourself for God, and when you are required to pay the price. Do not hold anything back, harbor any schemes, leave any leeway, or give yourself a way out. If you leave any leeway, are calculating, or are wily and treacherous, then you are bound to do a poor job. Suppose you say, ‘No one saw me acting in a slick way. How cool!’ What kind of thinking is this? Do you think you have pulled the wool over people’s eyes, and over God’s, too? In actual fact, though, does God know what you have done or not? He knows. In fact, anyone who interacts with you for a while will learn of your corruption and vileness, and though they may not say so outright, they will have their assessments of you in their hearts. There have been many people who were revealed and eliminated because so many others came to understand them. Once everyone saw through to their essence, they exposed those people for who they were and kicked them out. So, whether they pursue the truth or not, people should do their duty well to the best of their ability; they should employ their conscience in doing practical things. You may have defects, but if you can be effective in performing your duty, you will not be eliminated. If you are always thinking that you are fine, that you are sure not to be eliminated, if you still do not reflect or try to know yourself, and you ignore your proper tasks, if you are always perfunctory, then when God’s chosen people really do lose their tolerance with you, they will expose you for who you are, and in all likelihood, you will be eliminated. That’s because everyone has seen through you and you have lost your dignity and integrity. If no one trusts you, could God trust you? God scrutinizes man’s innermost heart: He absolutely could not trust such a person” (The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. Life Entry Begins With the Performance of Duty). What God talked about was precisely my state. I treated my duty in precisely this way. When someone was watching, I put in more effort, but when no one was overseeing me, I turned wily and treacherous, and acted in a perfunctory manner. I thought back to the time when the leaders frequently followed up on my work. Back then, I was afraid that if I didn’t do real work, the leaders would find out and dismiss me. I was rather proactive in doing my duty as a result. I frequently followed up on the work of the various teams and often guided and helped my brothers and sisters to improve the effects of the images they created. However, when the leaders stopped following up on my work regularly, I started to act in a perfunctory way. I thought that even if I were a little bit lazy, nobody would know, and my face and status would not be harmed. Therefore, I didn’t focus on following up on or monitoring the work, and didn’t focus on resolving real problems. This meant that my brothers and sisters were lax and sluggish in the performance of their duties, and problems constantly emerged. The team leader reminded me that the problems were related to me not inquiring about the work, but not only did I not reflect on myself, I even pushed the problem onto her, and complained that she was being perfunctory in the performance of her duty. I truly lacked reason! I was wily and treacherous when doing my duty. I saved effort wherever I could, and was lazy whenever I was able. I didn’t treat the work of the church as something serious. Even though I hoodwinked the leaders for some time, God scrutinizes everything, and I could not deceive Him. If I continued to act in such a perfunctory way, then not only would I fritter away my integrity and dignity, sooner or later I would be revealed and dismissed for not doing real work. At this moment, I finally realized the gravity of the consequences of doing my duty in a perfunctory way.

Later, I read more of God’s words: “What does it mean to ‘uphold one’s duty’? It means that whatever difficulties people encounter, they do not give up their duty, become deserters, or shirk their responsibility. They do all they can. That is what it means to uphold one’s duty. Say, for instance, it has been arranged for you to do something, and no one is there to watch you, supervise you or urge you on. What would upholding your duty look like? (Accepting God’s scrutiny and living in His presence.) Accepting God’s scrutiny is the first step; that is one part of it. The other part is to do your duty with all your heart and mind. What must you do in order to be able to do it with all your heart and mind? You must accept the truth and put it into practice; that is, you must accept and submit to whatever God demands; you must handle your duty as you would handle your own personal affairs, requiring no one else to watch you, supervise you, check to make sure you are doing it right, keep on you, oversee what you are doing, or even prune you. You must think to yourself, ‘Performing this duty is my responsibility. It’s my part, and since it’s been given to me to do, and I’ve been told the principles and grasped them, I’ll keep doing it single-mindedly. I’ll do all I can to see it done well.’ You must persevere in doing this duty, and not be constrained by any person, event, or thing. This is what it means to uphold your duty with all your heart and mind, and this is the likeness people should have. So, what must people be equipped with in order to uphold their duty with all their heart and mind? They must first have the conscience that created beings ought to have. That is the minimum. Beyond that, they must also be loyal. As a human, to accept God’s commission, one must be loyal. One must be completely loyal to God alone, and cannot be half-hearted, or fail to take responsibility; to act based on one’s own interests or moods is wrong—it is not being loyal. What does being loyal mean? It means that you perform your duties, and are not influenced or constrained by your mood, environment, or other people, events, and things. You must think to yourself, ‘I have accepted this commission from God; He has given it to me. This is what I’m supposed to do, so I will do it the same way I would my own affairs, in whichever way yields good results, with importance laid on satisfying God.’ When you are in this state, not only is your conscience in control, but loyalty is also present within you. If you are satisfied with just getting the task done, do not aspire to be efficient or achieve results, and feel it is enough to simply put all your effort into it, then this is merely fulfilling the standard of people’s conscience, and cannot be counted as loyalty. Being loyal to God is a higher requirement and standard than the standard of conscience. It is not just a matter of putting all your effort into it; you also must put your entire heart into it. In your heart, you must always regard your duty as your job to do, take burdens for this task, suffer reproach if you make the slightest mistake or are in a state where you are slipshod, and you must feel you cannot comport yourself this way because it makes you owe God so much. People who genuinely have a conscience and reason perform their duty as though it is their own job to do, regardless of whether anyone is watching or supervising them. Whether God is happy with them and no matter how God treats them, they always strictly demand themselves to perform their duties well and complete the commission God entrusted to them. This is called loyalty. Is this not a higher standard than the standard of conscience? When acting by the standard of conscience, people are often influenced by external things, or think it is enough to just put all their effort into their duty; the level of purity is not that high. However, when speaking of loyalty and being able to loyally uphold one’s duty, the level of purity is higher. It is not about just exerting effort; it requires you to throw your entire heart, mind and body into your duty. To perform your duty well, you must sometimes endure a little physical hardship. You must pay a price, and devote all your thoughts to performing your duty. No matter what circumstances you face, they do not affect your duty or delay you from performing your duty, and you are able to satisfy God. To do this, you must be able to pay a price. You must abandon your family of the flesh, personal matters, and self-interest. Your vanity, pride, feelings, physical pleasures, and even things like the best years of your youth, your marriage, your future, and your destiny must all be let go of and abandoned, and you must willingly perform your duty well. Then, you will have achieved loyalty, and will have human likeness by living like this” (The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. Part Three). As I pondered God’s words, I felt really ashamed. Previously, I had always thought that I was able to bear suffering and pay a price in the performance of my duty. Now, the environment had revealed me, and I finally saw that the loyalty I showed in the past was all an illusion. It was only because someone was following up on me and monitoring my work, and I was afraid that if I didn’t do my duty well I would be pruned or even dismissed, that I only grudgingly showed a bit of loyalty to protect myself. As soon as nobody was checking or following up on my work, I started to be perfunctory, wily and treacherous. Those who truly have loyalty to their duty treat their duty as their own responsibility, and are able to accept God’s scrutiny as they do their duty. No matter how the surrounding environment changes, or whether there are people monitoring or following up on their work, they can always put their heart and soul into doing the work well. Although the leaders weren’t following up on my work frequently now, this environment was a test for me. I could not continue to be perfunctory. I must accept God’s scrutiny, fulfill my own responsibilities, and genuinely shoulder this work. I thought of how there were some problems in all the teams, and the brothers and sisters were not making clear progress. I had to quickly arrange for everyone to summarize deviations and discuss good paths of practice. In this way, the professional level of my brothers and sisters would be enhanced, and only then would they obtain better results from doing their duties. Later, I came to understand the real difficulties of the team leaders and summarized the problems I saw. I also found some experienced brothers and sisters to participate in the summaries and discuss paths to resolving the problems. Everyone said that summarizing in this way was excellent, and they gained a lot from it. Later, I promptly followed up on and kept abreast of the work of each team. When I found deviations, I turned them around in a timely manner. The results of the work were a bit better than before.

I initially thought that my attitude toward my duty had turned around somewhat, but since my corrupt disposition had extremely deep roots, after a time, I again started living in a perfunctory state. In September 2021, the church arranged for me to be the supervisor of the watering work. At the time, I determined that I would do this duty well, so I worked hard to familiarize myself with and understand the details of the work, and learn the relevant principles. I often went to bed very late. Because I had never been responsible for this work before, there were still some tasks that I couldn’t get a grasp of even after I had familiarized myself with them for a few days. I felt under a lot of pressure. I was worried that if the leader came to find out about the work then I wouldn’t be able to provide any answers. What would she think of me? Would she think that I was not capable of doing this job well? When I thought this, I worked even harder to familiarize myself with the work and to equip myself with principles. When the leader came to find out about the work, she knew that I had only just taken this job on so she just urged me to familiarize myself with the various items of work as quickly as possible, and didn’t rebuke me at all. I felt enormously relieved, like a huge weight had been lifted from my heart. I thought that the leader didn’t have particularly high demands of me, so I didn’t need to be so anxious about familiarizing myself with the work. I had been very tired during that time, and now I could relax a bit. Later, I was no longer anxious to understand the work of each team, and didn’t focus on equipping myself with principles. I just thought that I could gradually learn and study when I was participating in the work and that would do. When I was free, I would listen to hymns, and even found some entertaining secular short videos to relax myself. Later, the leader found out, one after the other, that several of the team leaders I was responsible for were not doing real work, and this was delaying the work of this church. To my surprise, I wasn’t even aware of these problems. The results of the work in that period had not been good, but I hadn’t carefully considered where the problems were arising, and hadn’t sought with other brothers and sisters. This meant that the problems remained unresolved for a long time.

Not long after, I was reassigned because, from start to finish, I had never been up to doing a supervisor’s job. At the time, I felt as if my heart had been hollowed out. I was anxious and uneasy. Although the leader said to me that I had only been dismissed because I was not up to this job, in my heart I knew that over the last few months, I had been perfunctory while doing my duty, and had barely done any real work. I certainly deserved to be dismissed. When I thought this, I felt a kind of indescribable distress in my heart. I read these words of God: “How you regard God’s commissions is extremely important, and this is a very serious matter. If you cannot complete what God has entrusted to people, then you are not fit to live in His presence and you should be punished. It is perfectly natural and justified that humans should complete whatever commissions God entrusts to them. This is man’s supreme responsibility, and is just as important as their very lives. If you do not take God’s commissions seriously, then you are betraying Him in the most grievous way. In this, you are more lamentable than Judas, and should be cursed. People must gain a thorough understanding of how to treat what God entrusts to them and, at the very least, they must comprehend that the commissions He entrusts to humanity are exaltations and special favors from God, and that they are most glorious things. Everything else can be abandoned. Even if a person must sacrifice their own life, they must still fulfill God’s commission” (The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. How to Know Man’s Nature). As I pondered the words of God, I felt that God was exposing me, face-to-face. In particular, when I read that God said “you are not fit to live in His presence and you should be punished,” “you are betraying Him in the most grievous way,” and “you should be cursed,” these words stabbed my heart like a sharp dagger. I felt extremely distressed, and filled with self-reproach. I realized that the church had arranged for me to be a supervisor in order to give me an opportunity to train. It was also my responsibility. I should have shown consideration for God’s intentions, devoted all my strength, and paid any price to do this duty well. However, I treated my duty in a particularly irreverent way. In order to avoid not being able to answer questions when the leader came to find out about the work, and being pruned or dismissed as a result, I put extra care and effort into familiarizing myself with the various items of work. However, later, when I saw that the leader hadn’t asked in much detail, I started to exploit the situation and was wily and treacherous. I wasn’t anxious to familiarize myself with the work; still less did I focus on resolving real problems. When I did my duty, I was sluggish and reluctant, casual and unhurried, and thoroughly indulged in fleshly comforts. I thought of Sister Liu Xin, who was also responsible for watering work. Previously, she had never been responsible for this work either. However, she was always earnest and responsible in the way she treated her duty. She focused on understanding and resolving real problems, and after two months she was able to do some real work. However, I had been doing this duty for three months and was still not familiar with the work. I couldn’t even discover a problem as grave as the team leaders not doing real work and delaying the watering work. This was a grave dereliction of my duties! I had eaten and drunk so many of God’s words, and had received God’s grace as He raised me up to be a supervisor. However, I seized any opportunity to be wily and treacherous and avoid doing real work. This resulted in the work of the church being delayed and obstructed. Previously, I had been wily, treacherous, and perfunctory when I was a supervisor; now I was doing the exact same thing. The more I thought, the more I felt self-reproach and guilt. So I prayed to God, “Dear God, I have not done my duty well and hindered the work of the church. I am filled with regret and do not wish to continue in this way. Dear God, may You lead me to learn a lesson from this failure. I am willing to repent.”

Later, I turned this question over and over in my mind: Why did I always involuntarily fool and deceive God? What disposition was I being controlled by? One time, during my devotionals, I read these words of God: “If you are consistently perfunctory in your duty, what kind of problem is this? This is a problem that involves your humanity. Only people without a conscience or humanity are consistently perfunctory. Do you think that people who are always perfunctory are reliable? (No.) They are so unreliable! Someone who does their duty perfunctorily is an irresponsible person, and someone who is irresponsible in their actions is not an honest person—they are an untrustworthy person. No matter what duty they do, an untrustworthy person is perfunctory, because their character is not up to an acceptable standard, they do not love the truth, and they are certainly not an honest person. Can God entrust anything to untrustworthy people? Absolutely not. Because God scrutinizes the depths of people’s hearts, He absolutely does not make use of deceitful people to do duties; God only blesses the honest, and He only does work on those who are honest and love the truth. Whenever a deceitful person performs a duty, it is an arrangement made by man, and it is man’s mistake. People who like to be perfunctory do not have conscience or reason, their humanity is poor, they are untrustworthy, and they are so unreliable” (The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. Man Is the Greatest Beneficiary of God’s Management Plan). “All people are revealed in performing their duties—just set a person to a duty, and it will not take long before it is revealed whether they are an honest person or a deceitful person, and whether or not they are a lover of the truth. Those who love the truth can perform their duties sincerely and uphold the work of God’s house; those who do not love the truth do not uphold the work of God’s house in the least, and they are irresponsible in performing their duties. This is immediately clear to those who are clear-sighted. No one who performs their duty poorly is a lover of the truth or an honest person; such people will all be revealed and eliminated. To perform their duties well, people must have a sense of responsibility and a sense of burden. This way, the work will definitely be done properly. It is only worrying when someone does not have a sense of burden or responsibility, when they have to be prompted to do everything, when they’re always perfunctory, and they try to shift the blame when problems arise, leading to delays in their resolution. Can the work still be done well then? Can their performance of their duty yield any results? They do not wish to do any of the tasks that are arranged for them, and when they see others who need help with their work, they ignore them. They only do a bit of work when ordered, only when push comes to shove and they have no choice. This is not performing a duty—this is hired labor! A hired laborer works for an employer, doing a day’s work for a day’s pay, an hour’s work for an hour’s pay; they’re waiting to get paid. They’re afraid of doing any work their boss doesn’t see, they’re afraid of not being rewarded for anything they do, they only ever work for appearances’ sake—which means they have no loyalty” (The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. Only an Honest Person Can Live Out True Human Likeness). God’s words moved my heart. I understood that I had constantly been wily and treacherous in the performance of my duty. The root cause of this was that my disposition was simply too deceitful. As I saw it, people who only knew how to get their heads down and work hard, and who didn’t know how to consider themselves, were too naive and too guileless. On the other hand, people who could loaf around in the midst of being busy, who could scheme and trick their way to deceiving others: They were the really smart ones. Therefore, I did my duty in this way. When the leaders monitored and followed up on me closely, I did my duty with intensity. However, as soon as nobody was monitoring me, I would start to indulge in the flesh and not do the work I should have done. I did one thing when people were looking, and another when their backs were turned. I tricked all my brothers and sisters and made them think that I bore a sizable burden. Actually, I was thoroughly indulging in the comforts of the flesh behind their backs, and wasn’t doing very much real work at all. I really was utterly slippery and deceitful! I thought of the people of the world, who pretend that they can bear suffering and are working with all their might in front of the boss, but get wily and treacherous as soon as the boss isn’t there. They use schemes to deceive, and have no conscience and humanity. For them, profit comes first. I treated my duty in this way. I didn’t think about how to do my duty well so I could satisfy God; I constantly considered my own interests. I was wily and treacherous, and did jobs just to look good, deceiving and fooling others. In important jobs, I neglected my duties. As a result, I obstructed and delayed the work of the church. I was not doing my duty. I was being a hired worker, a laborer. Previously, I had thought that being wily and treacherous behind people’s backs was quite clever, but now I finally saw that deceitful people are not clever. They are despicable and foolish. Relying on a deceitful disposition to do my duty could only make me more and more slippery. It could only make me rebel against and resist God more and more, and lose normal humanity. Living like this, I had not a scrap of integrity or dignity. Now, having been dismissed was something that I brought upon myself. If I still didn’t repent, then in the end I would not be able to do any duty well, and would not be able to obtain any truth. I could only be revealed and eliminated by God!

Later, I ate and drank the words of God to seek a path of practice in respect of my problems. I read these words of God: “When people perform their duty, they are, in fact, doing what they ought to do. If you do it before God, if you perform your duty and submit to God with an attitude of honesty and with heart, will this attitude not be far more correct? So how should you apply this attitude to your everyday life? You must make ‘worshiping God with heart and honesty’ your reality. Whenever you want to be slack and just go through the motions, whenever you want to act in a slippery way and be lazy, and whenever you get distracted or would rather be enjoying yourself, you should consider: ‘In behaving like this, am I being untrustworthy? Is this putting my heart into doing my duty? Am I being disloyal by doing this? In doing this, am I failing to live up to the commission God has entrusted to me?’ This is how you should self-reflect. If you come to find out that you are always perfunctory in your duty, that you are disloyal, and that you have hurt God, what should you do? You should say, ‘In the moment I sensed that there was something wrong here, but I didn’t treat it as a problem; I just glossed over it carelessly. I didn’t realize until now that I really had been perfunctory, that I had not lived up to my responsibility. I truly am lacking in conscience and reason!’ You have found the problem and come to know a bit about yourself—so now, you must turn yourself around! Your attitude toward performing your duty was wrong. You were careless with it, as with an extra job, and you did not put your heart into it. If you are perfunctory like this again, you must pray to God and let Him discipline and chasten you. You must have such a will in performing your duty. Only then can you truly repent. You may turn yourself around only when your conscience is clear and your attitude toward performing your duty is transformed” (The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. Only in the Frequent Reading of God’s Words and Contemplation of the Truth Is There a Way Ahead). From God’s words I understood that people should have an honest attitude when doing their duty. Only honest people can be loyal to God and are worthy of trust. Just like Noah, who treated God’s commission with a God-fearing heart and an honest heart. Although he faced many difficulties when building the ark, and was very tired, he never considered his own interests and never calculated his gains and losses. Instead, he thought about how to complete God’s commission as quickly as possible with his entire heart. Even though nobody was monitoring him, he was still able to show consideration for God’s intention and hold fast to his duty for a hundred and twenty years. Noah was a person with genuine humanity. I cannot compare myself with Noah, but from God’s words and Noah’s experience, I understood a path of practice. From then on, I had to do my duty with an honest heart, and regularly examine myself when doing my duty. When I realized that I was being perfunctory, I had to pray to God and consciously rebel against myself. No matter whether anyone was monitoring or following up on my work or not, I always had to accept God’s scrutiny and do my duty well. I also prayed to God, asking Him to chasten and discipline me if I acted in a perfunctory way or cheated again.

Later, I was watering newcomers in the church. Sometimes, the team leader was a bit busy and couldn’t follow up on my work, and I still had the desire to be perfunctory. I thought, “It is tiring watering newcomers. It’s not like every problem can be resolved with a few words and that’s that. I have to pay quite a price. Since the team leader isn’t following up on my work, then she won’t know if I’m a little bit lazy. I’ll just find some time to rest, and it won’t be a big issue if the problems of the newcomers are resolved a few days later.” When I thought this way, I immediately realized that this attitude was incorrect. Even though the team leader was not following up on my work, God scrutinizes everything. I couldn’t be wily and treacherous or cheat anymore. I must treat my duty with an honest heart and devote all my strength to it. So I hurriedly supported and helped the newcomers who could not gather regularly. When a newcomer didn’t reply to my messages, I would try using various means to contact them. By supporting and helping them, slowly and gradually, a lot of newcomers returned to gathering regularly. The results of my duty were much better than before, and I felt truly at ease by practicing in this way. From now on, I am willing to frequently examine myself as I do my duty, and use my heart and an honest attitude to do my duty well. Thank God!