By Zhang Di, China

At the end of November 2023, I cooperated with two sisters to oversee the watering work in several churches. Every time we summarized the deviations and problems in our work, I felt a lot of pressure. My work capabilities weren’t very good, I tended to notice problems slowly, and I wasn’t as quick-witted and I didn’t have as good a caliber as the two sisters I was cooperating with. For instance, sometimes newcomers didn’t gather regularly, the waterers would mention some objective reasons, only pointing out the problems of the newcomers, and they wouldn’t reflect on whether they had any deviations in their duties. Since I lacked discernment, I would just go along with what the waterers said and fixate on the newcomers. However, my partnered sisters were able to analyze the details of the problems the waterers mentioned, identifying the root of the problems. This led to more effective problem-solving. Whenever I compared myself to the sisters, I felt inadequate, and although the sisters didn’t say anything, I felt embarrassed. I constantly worried, “What will they think of me? Will they say that I haven’t made much progress even after training for a while? Will they think I’m lacking in caliber?” I felt very repressed every time we summarized our work, and I’d be very unwilling to face these situations.

One day in January 2024, we gathered to summarize our work. I thought to myself, “I can’t be the first to fellowship this time. I’ll wait for the sisters to put forward their summaries, and then I’ll speak last. After they’ve summarized most of the points, if there are common issues, I’ll just give a brief summary at the end. That way, they won’t see me as I really am.” So when Sister An Ran asked who would give their summary first, I remained silent. After that, An Ran started giving a summary of each church and each problem in detail. The more detailed her summaries became, the more anxious I felt, thinking, “After An Ran gives such a thorough summary, won’t my simple fellowship make me look inadequate? Will they say I lack insight and have poor caliber?” I couldn’t focus on the problems An Ran was summarizing because I felt so restless. After a while, An Ran finished talking, and Yang Xi carried on after her. Although Yang Xi’s summary wasn’t as thorough as An Ran’s, she was able to point out some key issues in the watering work. At this point, I was really anxious, and I felt as if time was passing quickly. Before long, Yang Xi also finished, and she said, “The issues present in these churches are quite similar.” An Ran echoed, saying, “True.” Hearing the sisters say this, I seized an opportunity, thinking, “Since they all say the issues are similar, does that mean I don’t need to give a summary? This way, I can avoid embarrassing myself with simple fellowship.” I quickly took the opportunity to say, “My summary is about the same issues as yours.” Looking at the clock, I saw it was already past midnight, and that everyone seemed a bit tired. So I thought, “Now that everyone is sleepy, even if they notice my summary is simple, they might think it’s just because I wasn’t clear-headed. This way, I can just muddle through.” So I said, “It’s too late now, and my head is a bit fuzzy. My summary is similar to yours, so I’ll just say it roughly.” But unexpectedly, An Ran said, “Summarizing now won’t achieve good results, let’s do this tomorrow morning.” But then I thought, “Tomorrow morning, when everyone is more energetic, they’ll hear my simple summary for what it is right away. What will they think of me then? It’s better for me to summarize now, so even if my summary is simple, they might not notice. This way, I can save face a little.” I quickly said, “Let’s finish the summary tonight, we have other work tomorrow morning.” The sisters said nothing in response, looking sleepy as they continued to listen to my summary. After speaking, I finally felt a sense of relief.

Later, during a gathering, I shared this experience while discussing my state. While speaking, I realized that I’d tied myself up in knots so badly just over summarizing work! My partnered sisters also pointed this out to me, saying, “Look at how tangled up your thoughts became by overthinking so much! Do you know why you couldn’t identify problems? It’s simply because you were focused on protecting your image, and your mind wasn’t on the proper task.” What the sisters said was true indeed. Recently, the effectiveness of our work had been poor, and I hadn’t been thinking about how to clearly summarize the problems and deviations and achieve effective solutions, nor have I been considering how my partnered sisters discovered and summarized problems and learning from them. Instead, I was focusing all my thoughts on how to protect my image and status. At this point, I recalled an experiential testimony article I’d read a few days before, which quoted a passage of God’s words that dissected a state very similar to mine. I quickly found it to read. Almighty God says: “The humanity of antichrists is dishonest, which means they are not truthful in the least. Everything they say and do is adulterated and contains their own intentions and goals, and hidden in it all are their unmentionable and unspeakable tricks and schemes. So the words and actions of antichrists are too contaminated and too full of falsity. No matter how much they speak, it’s impossible to know which of their words are true, which are false, which are right, and which are wrong. This is because they are dishonest, and their minds are extremely complicated, full of treacherous schemes and rife with tricks. None of what they say is straightforward. They do not say one is one, two is two, yes is yes, and no is no. Instead, in all matters, they beat around the bush and think things through several times in their minds, working out the consequences, weighing the merits and drawbacks from every angle. Then, they alter what they want to say using language so that everything they say sounds quite unwieldy. Honest people never understand what they say and are easily deceived and tricked by them, and whoever speaks and communicates with such people finds the experience tiring and laborious. They never say one is one and two is two, they never say what they are thinking, and they never describe things as they are. Everything they say is unfathomable, and the goals and intentions of their actions are very complicated. If the truth gets out—if other people see through them, and catch on to them—they quickly concoct another lie to get around it” (The Word, Vol. 4. Exposing Antichrists. Excursus Four: Summarizing the Character of Antichrists and Their Disposition Essence (Part One)). God has exposed a certain type of people with the disposition of an antichrist. They lack any element of honesty in their words and actions, they always act with personal intentions and purpose, and their thoughts are all tangled in knots. Even a simple matter becomes complicated with them. Their disposition is very deceitful. I was exactly the kind of person God exposed. While summarizing work, because I didn’t identify many problems, I worried that the simplicity of my fellowship would make the other sisters look down on me, so my mind began to whir with plans and schemes, thinking that I could wait until the sisters had finished their fellowship and then provide a general fellowship at the end. When I saw that the sisters had identified deviations and key issues in the work, to avoid them discovering that my understanding of the issue was simple and embarrassing myself, even though there were issues I hadn’t noticed, I still went along with the sisters’ remarks, claiming my summary was the same as theirs. I even chose to summarize when everyone was sleepy in an attempt to make them think that the simplicity of my summary wasn’t my fault, but rather due to the late hour and my unclear mind. When An Ran suggested summarizing the next day to get better results, I was afraid that if I let this opportunity slip by, I wouldn’t be able to bluff my way through, so I insisted on summarizing that night, claiming a postponement would delay the next day’s work. I realized that my thoughts, words, and actions lacked any trace of honesty, and that my mind had become twisted up in knots. In reality, no matter how many problems I could have identified, I should have spoken honestly, and if there were issues I hadn’t identified, I could look for my own deviations and make up for them afterward. But I overcomplicated this matter. I felt the need to weigh up every word I was going to say long before I said it, and all my thoughts revolved around how to save face. My mind was filled with treacherous schemes, and I was so deceitful!

Later, through eating and drinking God’s words, I gained some understanding of why I was being deceitful and the nature and consequences of being deceitful. Almighty God says: “What do you say—isn’t life exhausting for deceitful people? They spend all their time telling lies, then telling more lies to cover them up, and engaging in trickery. They bring this exhaustion upon themselves. They know that living like this is exhausting—so why would they still want to be deceitful, and not wish to be honest? Have you ever thought about this question? This is a consequence of people being fooled by their satanic natures; it stops them from ridding themselves of this kind of life, this kind of disposition. People are willing to accept being fooled like this and to live in this; they do not want to practice the truth and walk the path of light. You think that living like this is exhausting and that acting this way is unnecessary—but deceitful people think it absolutely necessary. They think that to not do so would cause them humiliation, that it would harm their image, their reputation, and their interests, too, and that they would lose too much. They treasure these things, they treasure their own image, their own reputation and status. This is the true face of people who do not love the truth. In short, when people are unwilling to be honest or practice the truth, it is because they do not love the truth. In their hearts, they treasure things like reputation and status, they like to follow worldly trends, and live under the power of Satan. This is a problem of their nature. There are people, now, who have believed in God for years, who have heard many sermons, and know what believing in God is all about. But they still do not practice the truth, and have not changed one bit—why is this? It’s because they do not love the truth. Even if they do understand a little of the truth, they are still not able to practice it. For such people, no matter how many years they believe in God, it will be for naught. Can people who do not love the truth be saved? It is absolutely impossible. Not loving the truth is a problem with one’s heart, with one’s nature. It cannot be resolved. Whether or not one can be saved in their faith mainly depends on whether or not they love the truth. Only those who love the truth can accept the truth; only they can undergo hardship and pay a price for the sake of the truth, and only they can pray to God and rely on Him. Only they can seek the truth and reflect and know themselves through their experiences, have the courage to rebel against the flesh, and achieve the practice of the truth and submission to God. Only those who love the truth can pursue it in this way, walk the path of salvation, and gain God’s approval. There is no path other than this one. It is very hard for those who do not love the truth to accept it. This is because, by their natures, they are averse to the truth and hate it. If they wanted to stop resisting God or to not do evil, it would be very difficult for them to do so, because they are of Satan and they have already become devils and enemies of God. God saves mankind, He does not save devils or Satan. Some people ask questions like: ‘I really do understand the truth. I just can’t put it into practice. What should I do?’ This is someone who does not love the truth. If someone does not love the truth, then they cannot put it into practice even if they understand it, because at heart, they are unwilling to do so and they do not like the truth. Such a person is beyond salvation. Some people say: ‘It seems to me that you lose out on a lot by being an honest person, so I don’t want to be one. Deceitful people never lose out—they even profit from taking advantage of others. So, I would rather be a deceitful person. I’m not willing to let others know my private business, to let them grasp me or understand me. My fate should be in my own hands.’ By all means, then—try that and see. See what sort of outcome you wind up with; see who goes to hell and who gets punished in the end” (The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. The Most Fundamental Practice of Being an Honest Person). After reading God’s words, I realized that deceitful people inherently don’t love the truth and are unwilling to practice being honest. They spend their days calculating and deceiving to protect their image and status, and thus they live a life that is tiring and painful. This is all caused by the torment and trickery of their satanic nature. Summarizing work to identify problems and deviations was meant to improve the watering work going forward, but I was always worried that the simplicity of my summary would make the sisters look down on me, so I calculated and plotted constantly. Clearly I hadn’t identified any problems, yet I didn’t dare to speak the truth openly. The sisters I was cooperating with suggested that for a summary to yield results, we should summarize when we have ample energy. I knew that the sister’s suggestion would benefit the work, yet I still resorted to trickery to save face. I was so deceitful! On the surface, I seemed to be scheming against other people, but in essence, I was trying to deceive God. Just as my partnered sisters said, during the work summary, I wasn’t focused on the proper task at hand, nor was I using the summary to identify problems and deviations to improve the work going forward. Instead, I was only thinking about my personal image and status, meticulously scheming to cover up my shortcomings. Not only was the way I was living exhausting, but I also couldn’t gain God’s enlightenment or guidance. In fact, I wasn’t just being deceitful and deceptive during this particular summary session. Even during our regular discussions, I often acted deceitfully to avoid exposing my shortcomings. For issues I hadn’t identified, I would just echo what the sisters said or find some dignified sounding reason to excuse myself. I thought about how God has expressed so many truths, guiding us to pursue the truth, be honest, and live out normal human likenesses, but I was constantly going against God’s requirements and living according to my satanic disposition. On the surface, I put up a firm disguise so that my partnered sisters wouldn’t see my shortcomings, and I could maintain a momentary sense of image and status. But God scrutinizes everything. The deceitful disposition I was revealing, along with my despicable intention to protect my interests, had made God detest and abhor me. I remembered what the Lord Jesus said: “Truly I say to you, Except you be converted, and become as little children, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:3). God’s disposition is righteous and holy, and He approves of those who are simple and honest. If I continued to live by my deceitful disposition, and kept trying to deceive people and God without practicing being honest, I would end up being abandoned and eliminated by God.

Later, I found a path of practice and entry through God’s words. Almighty God says: “That God asks for people to be honest proves that He truly loathes and dislikes deceitful people. God’s dislike of deceitful people is a dislike of their way of doing things, their dispositions, their intents and their methods of trickery; God dislikes all of these things. If deceitful people are able to accept the truth, admit to their deceitful dispositions, and are willing to accept God’s salvation, then they too have a hope of being saved—for God treats all people equally, as does the truth. And so, if we wish to become people who please God, the first thing we must do is change our principles of comportment. No longer can we live according to satanic philosophies, no longer can we get by on lies and trickery. We must cast off all our lies and become honest people. Then God’s view of us will change. Previously, people always relied on lies, pretense, and trickery while living among others, and they took satanic philosophies as the basis of their existence, as their lives, and as their foundation in their self-conduct. This was something that God loathed. Among nonbelievers, if you speak frankly, tell the truth, and are an honest person, then you will be slandered, judged, and forsaken. So you follow worldly trends and live by satanic philosophies; you become more and more skilled at lying, and more and more deceitful. You also learn to use insidious means to achieve your goals and protect yourself. You become more and more prosperous in Satan’s world, and as a result, you fall deeper and deeper into sin until you cannot extricate yourself. In God’s house, things are precisely the opposite. The more you lie and play deceitful games, the more God’s chosen people will become sick of you and forsake you. If you refuse to repent and still cling to satanic philosophies and logic, if you use ploys and elaborate schemes to disguise and package yourself, then you are very likely to be revealed and eliminated. This is because God loathes deceitful people. Only honest people can prosper in God’s house, and deceitful people will eventually be forsaken and eliminated. All of this is preordained by God. Only honest people can have a share in the kingdom of heaven. If you do not try to be an honest person, and if you don’t experience and practice in the direction of pursuing the truth, if you don’t expose your own ugliness, and if you don’t lay yourself bare, then you will never be able to receive the Holy Spirit’s work and gain God’s approval” (The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. The Most Fundamental Practice of Being an Honest Person). After reading God’s words, I realized that God requires us to practice the truth and be honest people. We must be able to accept God’s scrutiny when situations arise, we need to change from the root of our intentions when speaking and acting, and we shouldn’t deceive others or God to protect our own fleshly interests, image, or status. Instead, we should practice the truth and train to be honest people. When we speak and act, we must be straightforward and honest, without any concealment or hypocrisy. Only such people can gain God’s approval. Moving forward, I had to practice being an honest person, I could no longer disguise or cover up my shortcomings, I had to say as much as I knew, and when my shortcomings and deficiencies came to be exposed, I had to summarize my deviations and learn from others’ strengths. Later, when it was time to share opinions while summarizing work with the sisters, I felt less constrained. I would say when I didn’t understand things and open up and seek help from the sisters. The sisters didn’t look down on me, and instead, they guided and helped me. With their help, I gained a clearer understanding of the root of some issues, and I also began to find some paths for summarizing work and solving problems.

Later, I sought how I should practice and enter in regarding this problem: I always thought my caliber was inferior to my partnered sisters, and in particular, when summarizing issues, I couldn’t identify problems like the sisters could, thereby always making me feel constrained when cooperating with them. I read a passage of God’s words: “The next line of the song says, ‘Though my caliber is low, I have an honest heart.’ These words sound very real, and speak of a requirement God makes of people. What requirement? That if people are lacking in caliber, it is not the end of the world, but they must possess an honest heart, and if they do, they will be able to receive God’s approval. No matter your situation or background, you must be an honest person, speak honestly, act honestly, be able to perform your duty with all your heart and mind, be loyal to your duty, not look to cut corners, not be a slippery or deceitful person, not lie or deceive, and not talk in circles. You must act according to the truth and be someone who pursues the truth. Many people think they are of poor caliber, and that they never fulfill their duty well or up to standard. They give their very best in what they do, but they can never grasp the principles, and still cannot produce very good results. Ultimately, all they can do is complain that they are too poor in caliber, and they become negative. So, is there no way forward when a person is of poor caliber? Being of poor caliber is not a fatal disease, and God never said He does not save people who are of poor caliber. As God said before, He is grieved by those who are honest but ignorant. What does it mean to be ignorant? Ignorance in many cases comes from being of poor caliber. When people are of poor caliber they have a shallow understanding of the truth. It is not specific or practical enough, and is often limited to a surface-level or literal understanding—it is limited to doctrine and regulations. That is why they cannot make sense of many problems, and can never grasp the principles while performing their duty, or do their duty well. Does God not want people of poor caliber then? (He does.) What path and direction does God point people toward? (That of being an honest person.) Can you be an honest person just by saying so? (No, you must have the manifestations of an honest person.) What are the manifestations of an honest person? Firstly, having no doubts about God’s words. That is one of the manifestations of an honest person. Apart from this, the most important manifestation is seeking and practicing the truth in all matters—this is most crucial. You say that you are honest, but you always push God’s words to the back of your mind and just do whatever you want. Is that the manifestation of an honest person? You say, ‘Although my caliber is poor, I have an honest heart.’ And yet when a duty falls to you, you are afraid of suffering and bearing responsibility if you do not do it well, so you make excuses to shirk your duty or suggest that someone else do it. Is this the manifestation of an honest person? Clearly, it is not. How, then, should an honest person behave? They should submit to God’s arrangements, be loyal to the duty they are supposed to perform, and strive to satisfy God’s intentions. This manifests itself in several ways: One is accepting your duty with an honest heart, not considering your fleshly interests, not being half-hearted about it, and not plotting for your own benefit. Those are manifestations of honesty. Another is putting all your heart and strength into performing your duty well, doing things properly, and putting your heart and love into your duty to satisfy God. These are the manifestations an honest person should have while performing their duty” (The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. Part Three). God’s words were like a warm current that comforted my heart and they showed me a path of practice. God says that having poor caliber isn’t the main issue, and that God mainly looks at whether a person has an honest heart in their duty, and whether they can do their duty with loyalty and cooperate to the best of their abilities. Even if we encounter something we don’t understand or know how to do, we should pray more to God and seek His guidance, focus on seeking the truth principles in all things, and fellowship with the brothers and sisters we are cooperating with. Once we gain understanding, we should practice according to the truth principles and not protect our personal interests, image, or status, and instead, we should do our best to cooperate where we can. This is the honest human likeness that God hopes we can live out, and it is also the path of practice that God has shown us to do our duties well. In fact, the sisters I was cooperating with could find detailed problems and deviations not just because they had better caliber, but also because they put in the effort and really thought things through. My caliber was average, and during work summaries, my heart wasn’t settled, and I was always thinking about how to protect my reputation and status instead of focusing on the work. Besides, my attitude toward my duty was also incorrect, and I found thinking through problems exhausting, so I didn’t want to put in the effort. As a result, I was only able to find very few problems, and I couldn’t even make the most of the capabilities I did have. In reality, the sisters I was cooperating with knew my caliber well, but they had never looked down on me because of my poor caliber. Instead, they often encouraged me to view my shortcomings correctly and exhibit my strengths more. When they noticed problems with me, they patiently guided and helped me, and they taught me how to look at things based on God’s words and the truth. Through their patient help, I found some paths in my work. God arranged for me to cooperate with these sisters in my duty, so I had to cooperate harmoniously with a grateful heart to fulfill our duties together and satisfy God. I couldn’t be constrained by my poor caliber anymore and I had to set my intentions right and make use of my strengths.

When I practiced and entered according to God’s words, I could settle my mind and think carefully when summarizing work or discussing issues. Sometimes I took the initiative to express my opinions, saying what I knew. Although doing this revealed many of my shortcomings, and I felt a little embarrassed, I could now face this matter properly. Practicing being an honest person made me happy and gave me a sense of liberation and freedom. Thanks be to God!