By Li Jingxin, China

I often travel to other places to capture photo and video materials which are used in the production of the church’s videos. When I first started, I was able to carefully select these materials based on principles, but later on, the amount of materials increased. Sometimes I would shoot all day, and by the time I got home, I’d be exhausted, and when I saw that there were so many materials to sort through, I’d not feel very willing to do it. Because selecting materials requires assessing them according to principles, and also considering the value of each one, and in particular, with photos you have to review each shot one by one, I didn’t want to spend so much time and energy on it, since I felt it was too tiring. So later, when sorting through materials, I just skimmed through them. As long as the background wasn’t too cluttered and it looked fine, I would say it was good enough. When I was unsure about certain materials, I just handed them off to the supervisor. This way, I didn’t have to assess them by principles or put in too much effort. I remember one time, after finishing the shoot, I just quickly skimmed through the materials and filtered out the better ones, and then handed them off to the supervisor. The supervisor reviewed them and said that a third of my submissions were not up to standard. Either the frame was messy, it was out of focus, or the composition was poor, and he also said it took almost twice as long to review my submissions than other people’s. Hearing this, I felt ashamed and guilty. But I didn’t have much knowledge of my issues, and when shooting materials that needed to be of a higher standard, I couldn’t help but still be perfunctory. Shooting these kinds of materials requires precise control over the angles, and constant adjustments to the shooting direction. I thought that this was all too mentally exhausting, and that as long as it looked roughly right, it was fine. Because I wasn’t earnest in my work, some of the materials weren’t in line with the principles and couldn’t be used, and some shots were even out of focus. Work that could’ve been done in one go needed to be redone. Not long after, I was sternly pruned. The supervisor addressed my recent behavior in my duty, and he pruned me for doing my duty as I wanted and in a perfunctory way. The materials I shot always needed to be reworked, wasting a lot of manpower and resources. He said I was disrupting and disturbing the photography work and urged me to reflect deeply on my attitude toward my duty. After the supervisor left, I felt very upset and guilty. So I came before God and prayed to Him. I asked God to guide me to know myself and resolve this perfunctory state in my duty.

Later, I sought God’s words specifically related to my issue. I read these words of God: “If you do not put your heart into your duty, nor seek the truth principles, if you are muddled or confused, just doing things in the easiest way you can, then what sort of mentality is this? It is one of doing things in a perfunctory manner. If you are not loyal to your duty, if you have no sense of responsibility toward it, or any sense of mission, will you be able to perform your duty properly? Will you be able to perform your duty to an acceptable standard? And if you are unable to perform your duty to an acceptable standard, will you be able to enter the truth reality? Absolutely not. If, every time you perform your duty, you aren’t diligent, you don’t want to make any effort, and just muddle your way through, as thoughtless as if you were playing some game, is this not trouble? What can you gain from performing your duty in this way? Ultimately, people will see that when you perform your duty, you have no sense of responsibility, are perfunctory, and are merely going through the motions—in which case, you are in danger of being eliminated. God is scrutinizing throughout the entire process as you perform your duty, and what will God say? (This person is not worthy of His commission or His trust.) God will say that you are not trustworthy, and that you should be eliminated. And so, no matter what duty you perform, whether it is an important or an ordinary one, if you do not put your heart into the work you have been entrusted with or live up to your responsibility, and if you do not see it as God’s commission, or take it on as your own duty and obligation, always doing things in a perfunctory manner, then this is going to be a problem. ‘Not trustworthy’—these two words will define how you go about your duty. What they mean is that your performance of your duty is not up to standard, and you have been eliminated, and God says that your character is not up to par. If a matter is entrusted to you, yet this is the attitude you take toward it and this is how you handle it, then will you be commissioned with any further duties in the future? Can you be entrusted with anything important? Absolutely not, unless you demonstrate true repentance. Deep down, however, God will always harbor some distrust and dissatisfaction toward you. This will be a problem, will it not? You might lose any opportunity to perform your duty, and you may not be saved” (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). God’s words exposed my state exactly. I only put half-hearted effort into doing my duty, I never put my heart into doing things, and I acted perfunctorily and irresponsibly. People like this have poor character, aren’t trustworthy and can’t be relied upon. Today, I am fortunate to have received God’s gospel of the last days and to do my duty in the church. This is God greatly uplifting me. But in my duty, I’d cut corners and did things in a half-hearted way. I never wanted to pay a price or act according to principles. When selecting materials, I just went through the motions, and when uncertain, I didn’t seek principles to carefully evaluate them, and instead, I’d just hand them directly to the supervisor. This caused the supervisor to spend a lot of time and effort reviewing and filtering the materials I shot and pointing out the issues with these materials. This burdened him unnecessarily. When faced with the supervisor’s questioning, I just felt a bit guilty, but afterward, I didn’t reflect on myself. When shooting materials that needed to meet higher standards, I continued to take shortcuts, and not follow the principles required by God’s house. Each time, I aimed for just “good enough.” This led to many materials being out of line with principles. This not only added to work that the supervisor needed to vet but also required me to redo the work, and some urgently needed materials had their progress delayed due to reworks. I wasn’t really doing my duty at all, I was committing evil and creating disruptions and disturbances. The church had entrusted me with this task, but I was cutting corners and being perfunctory. I didn’t consider the effectiveness of the work at all. I realized I didn’t have a God-fearing heart whatsoever, and that I wasn’t someone worthy of trust or reliance.

Later, when I read God’s fellowship on Noah’s attitude toward God’s commission, I gained some more understanding of myself. God says: “Noah had heard but a few messages, and at that time God had not expressed many words, and so there is no question that Noah did not understand many truths. He did not comprehend modern science or modern knowledge. He was an exceedingly ordinary man, an unremarkable member of the human race. Yet in one respect, he was unlike anyone else: He knew to obey God’s words, he knew how to follow and abide by God’s words, he knew what man’s station was, and he was able to truly believe and submit to God’s words—nothing more. These few simple tenets were sufficient to allow Noah to accomplish all that God had entrusted to him, and he persevered in this for not just a few months, nor several years, nor several decades, but for over a century. Isn’t this number astonishing? Who could have done this but Noah? (No one.) And why not? Some people say it is due to not understanding the truth—but that is not in accordance with fact. How many truths did Noah understand? Why was Noah capable of all this? The believers of today have read many of God’s words, they understand some truth—so why is it that they are incapable of this? Others say it is because of people’s corrupt dispositions—but did Noah not have a corrupt disposition? Why was Noah able to achieve this, but the people of today are not? (Because the people of today do not believe God’s words, they neither treat nor abide by them as the truth.) And why are they unable to treat God’s words as the truth? Why are they incapable of abiding by God’s words? (They do not have a God-fearing heart.) So when people have no understanding of the truth, and have not heard many truths, how does a God-fearing heart arise in them? (They must have humanity and conscience.) That’s right. In people’s humanity, two most precious things of all must be present: The first is conscience, and the second is reason of normal humanity. The possession of conscience and reason of normal humanity is the minimum standard for being a person; it is the minimum, most basic standard for measuring a person. But this is absent from the people of today, and so no matter how many truths they hear and understand, possessing a God-fearing heart is beyond them. So what is the essential difference between people today and Noah? (They have no humanity.) And what is the essence of this lack of humanity? (They are beasts and demons.) ‘Beasts and demons’ doesn’t sound very nice, but this is in line with the facts; a more polite way to put it would be that they have no humanity. People without humanity and reason are not humans, they are beneath even beasts. That Noah was able to complete God’s commission was because when Noah heard God’s words, he was able to firmly keep them in his heart; for him, God’s commission was a lifelong undertaking, his faith was unwavering, his will unaltered for a hundred years. It was because he had a God-fearing heart, he was a real person, and he had the utmost reason that God entrusted the building of the ark to him. People with as much humanity and reason as Noah are very rare, it would be very hard to find another” (The Word, Vol. 4. Exposing Antichrists. Excursus Two: How Noah and Abraham Obeyed God’s Words and Submitted to Him (Part One)). Noah carried out God’s commission without cutting corners and without sparing any effort, remaining steadfast in his efforts for 120 years, and in the end, he built the ark and fulfilled God’s commission. Noah had conscience and reason. He was someone with humanity. But then I thought about myself. When selecting materials, I just skimmed through them, going through the motions. I wasn’t thinking about how to do my duty well, that is, by checking where the materials didn’t align with principles, or finding out where I was lacking and needed to improve, or by thinking about how to fulfill my responsibilities. Instead, I saw my duty as a burden and pushed the more complex tasks onto the supervisor. I, meanwhile, found ways to take it easy. In what way did I have any humanity? I did my duty by putting in the least effort possible, without considering at all the requirements of God’s house or what impact my behavior would have on the work. This attitude that I harbored toward my work was worse than that of a nonbeliever working for their boss. I thought about how much watering and nourishment I’ve enjoyed from God’s words, and about how God has given us everything we need to survive, but that I’d still failed to fulfill my responsibility as a created being. All I’d brought to the church’s work were disruptions and disturbances. I felt deep regret in my heart and prayed to God, willing to change my perfunctory attitude and do my duty properly. Afterward, I became more conscious of avoiding common issues in my duty. I also became more careful when selecting materials.

A while later, the supervisor arranged for me to shoot a video. I was very happy when I first received the assignment, and I thought to myself, “This time I need to prepare properly and produce a good piece of work.” But I was still a bit lacking in terms of my skills, and I needed to spend time researching and studying. At first, I was able to proactively study and train, but after a few days, the video I’d shot still wasn’t ideal, and I needed to spend more time and effort studying and researching. I started to feel that this was all too troublesome, so, I just made a few minor adjustments to the original work, and called it “good enough.” After finishing it, I showed it to my partnered brother. He noticed that the video wasn’t smooth and had some transition issues, and he suggested that I reshoot these sections. I thought it would be too troublesome, so I said to him, “The deadline for this video is really tight, let’s just submit it as it is. This is the best I can do with my skills anyway.” Seeing that I was insistent on the matter, the brother didn’t press the matter further. Later, the supervisor told me, “You’re being perfunctory in your duty, you have a scummy attitude, and your work is really sloppy. You’re no longer needed for this task!” Although it was just a brief comment, it felt like a knife piercing my heart. I felt like the label of being perfunctory was still firmly attached to me. I didn’t understand—I had been consciously trying to address my perfunctory attitude, so why hadn’t there been any change and why was I still being perfunctory in my duty? I prayed to God, and asked Him to guide me so that I could understand the root of the problem. Later, I read a passage of God’s words and finally gained some clarity on my issues. God says: “It is something within a corrupt disposition to handle things so flippantly and irresponsibly: It is scumminess people often refer to. In all matters they do, they do it to the point of ‘that’s about right’ and ‘close enough’; it is an attitude of ‘maybe,’ ‘possibly,’ and ‘four-out-of-five’; they do things perfunctorily, are satisfied to do the minimum, and are satisfied with bluffing their way through; they see no point in taking things seriously or being meticulous, and they see less point in seeking the truth principles. Is this not something within a corrupt disposition? Is it a manifestation of normal humanity? It is not. To call it arrogance is right, and to call it dissolute is also entirely apt—but to capture it perfectly, the only word that will do is ‘scummy.’ Most people have scumminess within them, just to different degrees. In all matters, they wish to do things in a perfunctory and slipshod manner, and there is a whiff of deceit in everything they do. They cheat others when they can, cut corners when they are able, save time when they can. They think to themselves, ‘So long as I avoid being revealed, and cause no problems, and am not called to account, then I can muddle through this. I don’t have to do a very good job, that’s too much trouble!’ Such people learn nothing to mastery, and they do not apply themselves or suffer and pay a price in their studies. They want only to scratch the surface of a subject and then call themselves proficient at it, believing they have learned all there is to know, and then rely on this to muddle their way through. Is this not an attitude people have toward other people, events, and things? Is it a good attitude? It is not. Simply put, it is to ‘muddle through.’ Such scumminess exists in all of corrupt mankind. People with scumminess in their humanity take the view and attitude of ‘muddling through’ on anything they do. Are such people able to do their duty properly? No. Are they able to do things with principle? Even more unlikely” (The Word, Vol. 4. Exposing Antichrists. Item Eight: They Would Have Others Submit Only to Them, Not the Truth or God (Part Two)). It turns out that the reason why, in my duty, I often didn’t take things seriously or follow principles, and did things half-heartedly, aiming for just “good enough” or “about right,” was that my scumminess was too severe. When I think back, I realize I was always being perfunctory in my duty, cutting corners wherever I could. I had no principles in the way I did things. I never wanted to put in the effort to think things through or pursue the best results, thinking that so long as I didn’t cause any major issues or get dismissed, things were fine. I was just getting by in God’s house, loafing around. For example, when I was capturing materials, if I’d put in more effort and pondered the principles more, I could have done a good job, but instead, I was content with just “passable” or “good enough.” I even used my lack of understanding of principles as an excuse to push material I didn’t know how to evaluate onto the supervisor. When the supervisor asked me to film a video, I clearly knew there were problems with the video, and my partnered brother suggested a reshoot, but I still didn’t want to put in the extra effort or pay a price, and thought what I’d put together was good enough. I just wanted to go through the motions and be done with it. I realized that my scumminess was really severe, and that I was always trying to cut corners in my duty. This resulted in materials that were not up to standard and delayed the progress of the work. Doing my duty with such scumminess really was harming both others and myself!

Afterward, I read more of God’s words: “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). “On the surface, some people do not seem to have any serious problems throughout the time they perform their duties. They do nothing overtly evil; they do not cause disruptions or disturbances, or walk the path of antichrists. In performing their duties, they do not have any major mistakes or problems of principle come up, yet, without realizing it, in a few short years they are revealed as not accepting the truth at all, as being one of the disbelievers. Why is this so? Others cannot see an issue, but God scrutinizes these people’s innermost hearts, and He sees the problem. They have always been perfunctory and unrepentant in the performance of their duties. As time goes on, they are naturally revealed. What does it mean to remain unrepentant? It means that though they have performed their duties throughout, they have always had the wrong attitude toward them, an attitude of perfunctoriness, a casual attitude, and they are never conscientious, much less are they giving all their hearts to their duties. They may put in a little effort, but they are just going through the motions. They are not giving their all to their duties, and their transgressions are without end. In God’s eyes, they have never repented; they have always been perfunctory, and there has never been any change in them—that is, they do not relinquish the evil in their hands and repent to Him. God does not see in them an attitude of repentance, and He does not see a reversal in their attitude. They are persistent in regarding their duties and God’s commissions with such an attitude and such a method. Throughout, there is no change in this stubborn, intransigent disposition, and, what is more, they have never felt indebted to God, have never felt that their perfunctoriness is a transgression, an evildoing. In their hearts, there is no indebtedness, no guilt, no self-reproach, and much less is there self-accusation. And, as much time passes, God sees that this kind of person is beyond remedy. No matter what God says, and no matter how many sermons they hear or how much of the truth they understand, their heart is not moved and their attitude is not altered or turned around. God sees this and says: ‘There is no hope for this person. Nothing I say touches their heart, and nothing I say turns them around. There is no means of changing them. This person is unfit to perform their duty, and they are unfit to labor in My house.’ Why does God say this? It is because when they perform their duty and do work they are consistently perfunctory. No matter how much they are pruned, and no matter how much forbearance and patience are extended to them, it has no effect and cannot make them truly repent or change. It cannot make them do their duty well, it cannot allow them to embark on the path of pursuing the truth. So this person is beyond remedy. When God determines that a person is beyond remedy, will He still keep a tight hold on this person? He will not. God will let them go” (The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. Part Three). After reading God’s words, I understood that as a created being, it is perfectly natural and justified for us to accept God’s commission and fulfill our duty as created beings, and we should wholeheartedly and diligently fulfill this. If we treat our duty with a careless or flippant attitude, then that is betraying God and deserves punishment. Although I was doing my duty in the church, I wasn’t truly committed to doing it well. I was always being perfunctory, choosing the quickest and easiest way to do things. Even when I knew there were problems, I ignored them and pretended not to notice. This ultimately caused disruptions and disturbances to the work, and I was not even laboring in a way that is up to standard. The supervisor pruned me and reminded me to properly do my duty, but I remained stubborn, acting out of my corrupt disposition. My heart was truly intransigent! I always treated my duty with a flippant and irresponsible attitude. If I didn’t make amends, I’d surely end up being eliminated by God. I thought about how my partnered brother was very diligent in his duty and carefully pondered the principles. He always repeatedly checked his materials, ensuring there were no issues before submitting them. As a result, his duty yielded good results, with very few mistakes or deviations. But when I did my duty, I constantly needed to redo things, and issues kept coming up. I saw that I wasn’t trustworthy and that I lacked integrity and dignity.

Later, I found a path by which to do my duty well in God’s words. I read that God’s word says: “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” (The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. Life Entry Begins With the Performance of Duty). “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). Through God’s words, I realized that our duties should be done before God, and that an honest attitude is needed to do it well. When we feel the urge to cut corners or be perfunctory, we should reflect on whether we have been diligent and responsible in our duties and whether our actions are worthy of God’s trust. By reflecting on ourselves more, we can reduce our perfunctory actions. This will also reduce the losses caused to the work. In short, we should fully utilize our abilities without sparing any effort. This is how we can do our duties well.

In May 2024, I was supervising some technical work. Since I was new to this duty, I lacked some technical skills, and when it came to the problems reported by brothers and sisters, I only had a rough understanding of what was going on, and wasn’t clear on the details. This required me to troubleshoot and find the causes of issues one by one. Sometimes, when there were many issues, I would feel tempted to be perfunctory again, but I was able to consciously rebel against those impulses. I remember once, a sister’s piece of equipment malfunctioned, and she asked me why this had happened. I wasn’t very familiar with this piece of equipment, so it would take time and effort to actually troubleshoot and figure out the issue, and I thought of just giving a rough response based on what I understood. But after writing the response, I felt uneasy because I realized I was perfunctory again. I remembered how my previous perfunctory approach to my duty had caused losses to the work, and I knew that if I continued to be perfunctory, it wouldn’t solve the actual problem, and eventually, it would cause a lot of back and forth, and affect the sister’s use of the equipment, delaying the work. I needed to do my best to thoroughly clarify the issue before replying to the sister. Afterward, I went through the troubleshooting process and found the cause of the issue. By practicing this way, I felt at ease. Later, when faced with issues I couldn’t handle, I sought advice from the brothers and sisters, and only responded after confirming the solution. After practicing like this for a while, my attitude toward my duty changed, and I made significant progress in my technical skills. Although my understanding of my corrupt disposition is not profound now, I am willing to rely on God to resolve my scumminess and do my duty up to standard.