By Li Zhen, China

In April 2022, the leaders arranged for me to do cleansing work in the church. I had never done this work before and didn’t grasp the principles for discerning different types of people, so I worried, “Can I do this? What if I mistakenly cleanse someone who shouldn’t be cleansed? Wouldn’t I be committing a great evil? This would be a serious transgression!” But then I thought that I couldn’t shirk my duty. I wasn’t the only one doing this duty; there were other sisters cooperating as well. If I didn’t understand something, I could learn from them, so I accepted this duty. Later, I learned that Sister Song Ping had been doing this duty for several years, and that she had a good grasp of the principles for discerning different types of people. I became very reliant on her, thinking, “I haven’t grasped the principles yet and don’t know how to do this work, so I’ll just follow Song Ping and let her lead me.” Later, I put effort into equipping myself with the principles for discerning different types of people, and actively participated in the work, hoping to quickly grasp the principles and shoulder the work. I realized that cleansing work was different from other work, as even a slight mistake would be serious and would lead to me being held accountable, so I thought it best to be careful and cautious. When organizing cleansing materials, if I encountered something a bit complex or with disputes regarding its characterization, I quickly asked Song Ping, and only after she reviewed it did I feel comfortable handling it. In my work, I also relied on Song Ping. I did whatever she said to do, and I avoided taking the initiative whenever I could. We cooperated like this for a year.

In May 2023, the leaders wrote saying they planned to assign Song Ping to supervise other work. Upon hearing this news, I thought, “Song Ping is being transferred; I’ve been in this role the longest in the team, so I’ll have to take the lead in shouldering the work.” Thinking this, I couldn’t help but feel worried, “Although I’ve grasped some principles for discerning people over this year of training, when faced with complex problems, I still don’t know how to handle them, and I need Song Ping’s help to review them. Moreover, all this time, whether it was summarizing work deviations or cultivating people, these tasks have primarily been Song Ping’s responsibility, and when there have been issues at work, the leaders would also consult Song Ping. If Song Ping leaves, what should I do if I can’t shoulder these responsibilities? This involves cleansing work in multiple churches; what if problems or deviations arise in the work, disrupting and disturbing the church’s cleansing work? If that happened then I’d be directly responsible and have to bear the consequences. Cleansing work is different from other work. If I fail to see through a problem and leave antichrists and evil people in the church, then I would be shielding them, and I would share in their evil. If I mistakenly expel someone who shouldn’t be, causing a miscarriage of justice, then I would be doing evil in this as well. Either case would be a serious transgression, and if the house of God holds me accountable, at the very least, I might be dismissed, and if the consequences are severe, I could even be expelled.” Thinking of all this made my heart feel very heavy, and the pressure was immense. But I couldn’t stop Song Ping from leaving. As the days passed, with Song Ping about to leave, I grew increasingly anxious, and I couldn’t calm my heart in my duty. Realizing that my state wasn’t right, I prayed to God, asking God to guide me to know my problems.

After praying, I read a passage of God’s words: “Some people are afraid of taking responsibility while performing their duty. If the church gives them a job to do, they will first consider whether the job requires them to take responsibility, and if it does, they will not accept the job. Their conditions for performing a duty are, first, that it must be a slack job; second, that it is not busy or tiring; and third, that no matter what they do, they do not take any responsibility. This is the only kind of duty they take on. What sort of a person is this? Is this not a slippery, deceitful person? They do not want to shoulder even the smallest amount of responsibility. They even fear that leaves will break their skull when they fall from trees. What duty can a person like this perform? What use could they have in the house of God? The work of the house of God has to do with the work of battling Satan, as well as spreading the kingdom gospel. What duty does not entail responsibilities? Would you say that being a leader carries responsibility? Are their responsibilities not all the greater, and must they not take responsibility all the more? Regardless of whether you spread the gospel, testify, make videos, and so on—no matter what work you do—so long as it pertains to the truth principles, it carries with it responsibilities. If the performance of your duty is unprincipled, it will affect the work of God’s house, and if you are afraid of taking responsibility, then you cannot perform any duty. Is someone who fears taking responsibility in performing their duty cowardly, or is there a problem with their disposition? You must be able to tell the difference. The fact is that this is not an issue of cowardice. If that person were after wealth, or they were doing something in their own interest, how could they be so brave? They would take on any risk. But when they do things for the church, for God’s house, they take on no risk at all. Such people are selfish and vile, the most treacherous of all. Anyone who does not take responsibility in performing a duty is not the least bit sincere to God, to say nothing of their loyalty. What sort of person dares to take responsibility? What sort of person has the courage to bear a heavy burden? Someone who takes the lead and goes bravely forth at the most crucial moment in the work of God’s house, who is not afraid to bear a heavy responsibility and endure great hardship when they see the work that is most important and crucial. That is someone loyal to God, a good soldier of Christ. Is it the case that everyone who fears taking responsibility in their duty does so because they do not understand the truth? No; it is a problem in their humanity. They have no sense of justice or responsibility, they are selfish and vile people, not true-hearted believers in God, and they do not accept the truth in the least. For this reason, they cannot be saved” (The Word, Vol. 4. Exposing Antichrists. Item Eight: They Would Have Others Submit Only to Them, Not the Truth or God (Part One)). What God exposed was my true state. When I learned that Song Ping would be transferred and that I’d need to shoulder the work, my first thought wasn’t to rely on God to shoulder this work, but rather to consider whether God’s house would hold me accountable and deal with me, and whether I would still have the chance of salvation, if there were deviations or problems in the future work. I didn’t consider at all how to handle future work. As a selfish and despicable person who only considered my own interests when something happened, how could I do my duty well? I remember that at first, I was afraid of making mistakes and taking responsibility when assigned this duty, and even though I later accepted this duty, I was still afraid of taking responsibility, and I was unwilling to take the initiative and shoulder a burden in my duty and relied on Song Ping for everything. When encountering materials that were difficult to discern and characterize, and when there were some tasks that needed to be carried out, I let Song Ping take the lead and make the final decisions, and I was content to be an underling. This way, if any deviations or problems arose, I wouldn’t have to bear the main responsibility or suffer and pay a price, and I’d get the best of both worlds. Living with this cunning, selfish, and despicable corrupt disposition, I trained in this duty for a year without any significant progress, and even by this point, I couldn’t work independently. Wasn’t I harming myself? Now that Song Ping was being transferred and I needed to shoulder the work independently, this was a God-given opportunity for me to train, but I didn’t understand God’s intention or know to be grateful. I constantly considered my interests, feeling anxious and worried. Wasn’t I just tormenting myself? The truth is, every task in God’s house involves the truth principles, and doing any duty requires adherence to the truth principles and a sense of responsibility. God’s work is about to conclude, and various types of people in the church are being revealed one by one. God has been fellowshipping the truths regarding discernment to help us discern all types of people that belong to Satan, so that we can cleanse away from the church the various devils and Satans that disrupt and disturb God’s work, providing God’s chosen people with a good environment to pursue the truth. Now that I was doing the cleansing work, I had the responsibility and obligation to lead my brothers and sisters in seeking truth and growing in discernment, to cleanse away from the church those who did evil and disrupted and disturbed the church work. If I was afraid of taking responsibility and failed to fulfill my function, wouldn’t I just be useless? How could such a person be saved by God? Thinking of these things, I realized I could no longer live in this incorrect state, otherwise it would affect my ability to do my duties in the future.

Later, I read some of God’s words: “Man’s performance of his duty is, in actuality, the accomplishment of all that is inherent within man, which is to say, that which is possible for man. It is then that his duty is fulfilled. The defects of man during his service are gradually reduced through progressive experience and the process of his undergoing judgment; they do not hinder or affect man’s duty. Those who cease to serve or yield and fall back for fear that there may be drawbacks to their service are the most cowardly of all. If people cannot express what they ought to express during service or achieve what is inherently possible for them, and instead go through the motions, they have lost the function that a created being should have. Such people are what are known as ‘mediocrities’; they are useless refuse. How can such people properly be called created beings? Are they not corrupt beings that shine on the outside but are rotten within? … There is no correlation between the duty of man and whether he receives blessings or suffers misfortune. Duty is what man ought to fulfill; it is his heaven-sent vocation, and should not depend on recompense, conditions, or reasons. Only then is he doing his duty. Receiving blessings refers to when someone is made perfect and enjoys God’s blessings after experiencing judgment. Suffering misfortune refers to when someone’s disposition does not change after they have experienced chastisement and judgment; they do not experience being made perfect but are punished. But regardless of whether they receive blessings or suffer misfortune, created beings should fulfill their duty, doing what they ought to do, and doing what they are able to do; this is the least that a person, a person who pursues God, should do. You should not do your duty only to receive blessings, and you should not refuse to act for fear of suffering misfortune. Let Me tell you this one thing: Man’s performance of his duty is what he ought to do, and if he is incapable of performing his duty, then this is his rebelliousness” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. The Difference Between the Ministry of God Incarnate and the Duty of Man). God’s words are very clear: Doing one’s duty has nothing to do with receiving blessings or suffering misfortune. Being able to do one’s duty before the Creator is the heaven-sent vocation and responsibility of a created being, and shouldn’t involve any conditions or rewards. God’s requirements of people aren’t high. He only asks us to devote our heart and effort and accomplish what we are capable of. As for any deviations, shortcomings, or loopholes that may arise in the course of our duties, this is quite normal. Without truth, we can’t see things clearly, and we are filled with corrupt dispositions, often acting according to Satan’s disposition, so it is inevitable to have deviations and mistakes in our duties. But as long as we pursue the truth, and continually seek the truth principles in the course of our duties to resolve our corrupt dispositions, we can gradually reduce deviations and transgressions, and our performance in our duties will become better and better. God’s house never seizes on minor mistakes or transgressions to deal with people, but rather provides maximum opportunities for repentance. Only those who consistently do evil and deliberately disrupt and disturb the church’s work are to be cleansed away from the church and eliminated. In truth, I had the most profound experience in this area of church cleansing work. I thought about the antichrists and evil people expelled by God’s house; none were eliminated for not understanding the truth principles or for minor deviations or problems that occurred while doing their duties. Instead, they were expelled because they consistently did evil, intentionally violated principles for personal gain, reputation, or status, severely disrupted and destroyed God’s work, refused to accept the truth, and remained unrepentant. This was determined by God’s righteous and holy essence. I had seen so many facts but I still didn’t know God’s righteous disposition, imagining God’s house to be like the world of nonbelievers, thinking that responsibility for any minor issue would fall on my shoulders and lead to my being revealed and eliminated. Wasn’t this blasphemy against God?

After this, I thought things over and sought, “Why do I always consider my own interests and fear taking responsibility in my duties? What kind of satanic disposition is controlling me?” In my seeking, I read more of God’s words: “Until people have experienced God’s work and understood the truth, it is Satan’s nature that takes charge and dominates them from within. What, specifically, does that nature entail? For example, why are you selfish? Why do you protect your own position? Why do you have such strong feelings? Why do you enjoy those unrighteous things? Why do you like those evils? What is the basis for your fondness for such things? Where do these things come from? Why are you so happy to accept them? By now, you have all come to understand that the main reason behind all these things is that Satan’s poison is within man. So what is Satan’s poison? How can it be expressed? For example, if you ask, ‘How should people live? What should people live for?’ people will answer, ‘Every man for himself and the devil take the hindmost.’ This single phrase expresses the very root of the problem. Satan’s philosophy and logic have become people’s lives. No matter what people pursue, they do so for themselves—and so they live only for themselves. ‘Every man for himself and the devil take the hindmost’—this is the life philosophy of man, and it also represents human nature. These words have already become the nature of corrupt mankind and they are the true portrait of corrupt mankind’s satanic nature. This satanic nature has already become the basis for corrupt mankind’s existence. For several thousand years, corrupt mankind has lived by this venom of Satan, right up to the present day” (The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. How to Walk the Path of Peter). In considering God’s words, I realized that satanic poisons like “Every man for himself and the devil take the hindmost,” and “The bird that sticks its neck out is the one that gets shot” had become deeply rooted in my heart. I lived by these satanic poisons, and my nature was extremely selfish, despicable, slippery, and deceitful. I always considered my own interests first, did only what would benefit me, and I wouldn’t do anything that wouldn’t benefit me or that might make me bear responsibility. Just like when I first took on the cleansing work, I was afraid of causing deviations and bearing responsibility because I didn’t grasp the principles, so I refused to take on a burden, willingly following behind Song Ping as an underling, thinking that if any problems or deviations arose, I wouldn’t be the one to bear the main responsibility. Now that Song Ping was going to be reassigned, I had to take the initiative and shoulder this burden since I’d been in this role for such a long time, but I was afraid that I’d be held accountable for any deviations in the work, so I was unwilling to take on the burden, and wallowed in a mix of repressive emotions. I lived by these satanic poisons, constantly trying to play tricks on God. On the surface, I seemed clever, constantly safeguarding my own interests, but in reality, I was being truly stupid, because I’d lost many opportunities to gain the truth, and my life entry had suffered greatly. Thinking about it, wasn’t my faith in God and following Him today for the hope of gaining the truth and being saved by God? Yet in my duties, I lived by my selfish, despicable, slippery, and deceitful satanic nature, never seeking or practicing the truth, and I wasn’t of one mind and heart with God. How could I possibly gain the truth and be saved by God in this way? From then on, I could no longer live by these satanic poisons. I had to seek the truth, seek God’s intentions, and do my duties according to His requirements.

Later, I read a passage of God’s words: “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. If you do not carry out what you know and understand, and if you only put in 50 or 60 percent of your effort, then you are not putting all your heart and strength into it. Rather, you are sly and slacking off. Are people who perform their duties in this way honest? Absolutely not. God has no use for such slippery and deceitful people; they must be eliminated. God only uses honest people to perform duties. Even loyal laborers must be honest. People who are perennially perfunctory and sly and looking for ways to slack off are all deceitful, and are all demons. None of them truly believe in God, and they shall all be eliminated” (The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. Part Three). After reading God’s words, I understood His requirements. God hopes that we can treat Him and our duties with an honest heart, doing all that we can do without considering personal interests or scheming for ourselves. In this way, God will be satisfied. I thought about how I wasn’t the only one doing this duty, as there were also new sisters and leaders cooperating with me, and if I discussed matters more with them and sought principles without insisting on my own way, I could also avoid problems and deviations. Realizing this, I no longer had any concerns and became willing to shoulder the work and fulfill my responsibilities. After Song Ping left, I took the initiative to cultivate the new sisters, and when organizing materials, I discussed unclear issues with the sisters, which allowed me to see things more accurately and avoid some deviations and problems. Soon after, the upper leaders sent a letter requesting an investigation into whether there were any false leaders or antichrists in the church, asking us to write letters to each church to implement this work. I felt a bit nervous, worried that if I didn’t express things clearly in the letter and didn’t fellowship the principles clearly, led the brothers and sisters astray, and caused disruptions and disturbances in the church work, I would surely be held accountable. Would they dismiss me then? At this moment, I realized I was thinking about my own interests again, so I prayed to God, wishing to rebel against myself and not live by my corrupt disposition. Then, I communicated with the new sisters, noting down the various aspects of work that needed to be implemented, and then I started writing the letter. After finishing it, we revised and perfected it based on the leaders’ suggestions, and then we sent it out. During this period, I continuously followed up on the situation of the church’s implementation of this work, and promptly communicated with the brothers and sisters as soon as I discovered any problems or deviations, ultimately identifying some false leaders who didn’t do real work and some who consistently did evil and disrupted and disturbed the church work, and we made adjustments and dealt with them.

After going through this, I realized how good the environment God arranged was. Without this environment, I wouldn’t have known my issues at all, and I would still be living by my selfish and despicable satanic disposition, being content to be just an underling, and not making any real progress. My attitude toward my duties has now changed somewhat, and this is all the result of God’s words!