By Xinyi, China

In 2012, I became responsible for the work of several churches. I learned that, during church elections, my mom was misled by the evil person Li Fang and attacked and belittled the newly elected church leader, saying he had no work ability, that he didn’t understand the truth and was unsuitable to be a leader, and she did all she could to exalt and praise Li Fang as someone with the truth reality, who could forsake things and work hard, suffer hardships and pay a price, and in the end she voted the evil person Li Fang to be the leader. My mom also attacked and judged the watering deacon as someone without the work of the Holy Spirit and who couldn’t do real work and should resign his position, which caused him to live in negativity and impacted the watering work. My mom didn’t reflect at all on her own evil deeds, and when the church wanted to expel Li Fang, she did all she could to protect Li Fang, seeking justice for her, and even incited and misled brothers and sisters into being on Li Fang’s side. She also said, “No matter how many elections we have, I’ll still vote for Li Fang to be leader.” She disturbed things so much that the election couldn’t proceed normally and this caused church work to be severely impacted. Later, a leader dissected and exposed my mom’s evil deeds but she didn’t recognize her own evil deeds or repent at all. In accordance with her behavior, my mom was to be cleared out. When I learned that she was to be cleared out, I felt very upset. After coming to believe in God, my mom was persecuted and suffered greatly. She was closest to me and struggled a lot to raise me, so I sympathized with her to some extent and didn’t want to face the fact of her being cleared out. I prayed to God and sought from Him many times, and under the enlightenment and guidance of God’s words, I came to have some discernment of her essence as an evil person and signed my name agreeing to her being cleared out of the church.

In May 2018, I was in charge of the church’s cleansing work. I saw in the work arrangements issued by God’s house that those who show true repentance after being cleared out can be considered for rejoining the church. I thought about how over the past few years my mom would occasionally mention her being cleared out of the church, saying that her nature was too arrogant, that she was stubborn, and that her being cleared out showed God’s righteous disposition. One time, I asked her what her understanding was of her evil deeds at that time. She said that it was mainly down to having no discernment and being misled. She’d thought that Li Fang had believed in God for a long time and could forsake things, work hard, and suffer hardships, that she was made for the position of leader, and so had believed her own view to be right and not listened to any dissuasion. But when talking about the details of her evil deeds, she still made excuses and justifications for herself and professed her innocence as though there were justified reasons for what she did. So I brought together her issues and Li Fang’s behavior and fellowshipped with her on the nature and consequences of the disturbances caused to work by protecting evil people, and guided her to reflect on and understand herself. My mom nodded and agreed and said that she had been Satan’s lackey and had been a mouthpiece for Satan, that she had been an evil person. I was very happy to see this. My mom wasn’t totally unaccepting of the truth, and she had some understanding. I also thought, “She’s been eating and drinking God’s words all these years, she’s insisted on making offerings and giving to charity, and she has some discernment of Li Fang. After being cleared out, once while preaching the gospel, she was arrested by the police but never sold the church out and became a Judas. And when I was negative and weak, she comforted and encouraged me. I have been unable to return home for the past few years due to being hunted by the police, and she has been helping me by looking after my child and supporting me in doing my duty.” Thinking these things, I wondered whether my mom was showing signs of repentance. She had been very upset after she got cleared out and hoped for a day when she could be accepted back into the church. Now I just so happened to be in charge of this work, so I had to make “every effort” to get my mom accepted back into the church. Then she would be able to live the church life with brothers and sisters, and when she found out that it was me who got her accepted again, she’d surely be over the moon.

I then wrote letters to the churches I was in charge of, asking the church leaders to investigate whether there were any people who sincerely repented and could be accepted after being expelled. One day, the church leaders sent me four letters of repentance written by evil people who’d been expelled and among them was my mom’s. I was overjoyed. I already knew about the other three people. They’d shown no signs of repentance after being expelled. In comparison, the possibility for my mom to be accepted back into the church was much higher. I thought that according to the church’s principles for readmitting people, the one being readmitted must be assessed by most brothers and sisters, and leaders and workers. It was nowhere near enough to just go by the person’s letter of repentance and the evaluation of church leaders. I immediately wrote letters to the church leaders, asking them to provide evaluations of my mom from people who knew her. But I was afraid that only asking them to provide evaluations of my mom would cause the brothers and sisters to accuse me of favoritism. To avoid arousing suspicion, I asked the leaders to provide evaluations of all four people, and told them the sooner the better. I thought also that my own evaluation would be key so I wrote a detailed account of my mom’s “repentant” actions after she was cleared out, but just wrote a passing remark on the reasons why she was cleared out back then. I was afraid that if I wrote in too much detail, it would affect her being readmitted. Most importantly, I had to highlight her relatively good behavior after she was cleared out, and in this way, the chances of her being accepted back into the church would be higher. I then wrote to my mom, fellowshipping and dissecting her evil actions back then, guiding her to understand the root causes, and reminding her to grasp this opportunity and quickly repent. As I wrote to her, I felt some self-reproach: By secretly putting so much thought into getting my mom accepted back into the church, was I not acting on my feelings? But these were just passing thoughts, and I didn’t seek the truth or reflect on myself. While I was waiting for the letters, I was afraid of any mistakes that would affect my mom being readmitted, so every few days I wrote letters to the church leaders, urgently asking how they were getting on with collecting the evaluations.

One day, the upper-level leader wrote a letter pruning me, “Church leaders have recently focused their work on collecting readmission materials for a few expelled individuals and put all other work aside. These people who’ve shown no signs of repentance are not people who will be readmitted by the church and yet you’ve asked the churches to collect evaluations on them. You are disrupting and disturbing church work.” When I read this, I kept arguing my case in my mind, “Collecting evaluations for people who’ve shown no signs of repentance? Has the leader misunderstood? My mom has shown signs of repentance. How can the leader say none of these people have shown signs of repentance and prune me for disrupting and disturbing church work?” I felt constantly resistant and wouldn’t accept this at all. I was aware that my state was wrong, so I knelt and prayed to God, “Oh God! I can’t accept this pruning from the leader today. I have no discernment of my mom and don’t understand what true repentance is. Please enlighten and guide me to understand this truth.” After praying, I felt a little calmer. Afterward, I read two passages of God’s words: “This ‘evil way’ does not refer to a handful of evil acts, but to the evil source from which people’s behavior springs. ‘Turning away from one’s evil way’ means that those in question will never commit these actions again. In other words, they will never again behave in this evil way; the method, source, motive, intent and principle of their actions have all changed; they will never again use those methods and principles to bring enjoyment and happiness to their hearts. The ‘abandon’ in ‘abandon the violence in one’s hands’ means to lay down or to cast aside, to fully break with the past and to never turn back. When the people of Nineveh abandoned the violence in their hands, this proved and represented their true repentance. God observes people’s outward appearances as well as their hearts. When God observed the true repentance in the hearts of the Ninevites without question and also observed that they had left their evil ways and abandoned the violence in their hands, He changed His heart” (The Word, Vol. 2. On Knowing God. God Himself, the Unique II). “Regardless of how angry God had been with the Ninevites, as soon as they declared a fast and donned sackcloth and ashes, His heart began to soften and He began to change His mind. When He proclaimed to them that He would destroy their city—the moment prior to their confession and repentance for their sins—God was still angry with them. Once they had carried out a series of repentant acts, God’s anger for the people of Nineveh gradually transformed into mercy and tolerance for them. There is nothing contradictory about the coinciding revelation of these two aspects of God’s disposition in the same event. So, how should one understand and know this lack of contradiction? God expressed and revealed each of these two polar-opposite essences before and after the people of Nineveh repented, allowing people to see the realness and the unoffendableness of God’s essence. God used His attitude to tell people the following: It is not that God does not tolerate people, or that He does not want to show mercy to them; rather, it is that they rarely truly repent to God, and it is rare that people truly turn away from their evil ways and abandon the violence in their hands. In other words, when God is angry with man, He hopes that man will be able to truly repent, and indeed He hopes to see man’s true repentance, in which case He will then liberally continue to bestow His mercy and tolerance upon man. This is to say that man’s evil conduct incurs God’s wrath, whereas God’s mercy and tolerance are bestowed upon those who listen to God and truly repent before Him, upon those who can turn away from their evil ways and abandon the violence in their hands. God’s attitude was very clearly revealed in His treatment of the Ninevites: God’s mercy and tolerance are not at all difficult to obtain, and what He requires is one’s true repentance. As long as people turn away from their evil ways and abandon the violence in their hands, God will change His heart and His attitude toward them” (The Word, Vol. 2. On Knowing God. God Himself, the Unique II). Contemplating God’s words, I understood that the Ninevites had aroused God’s wrath by doing all manner of evil deeds, and yet because they were able to leave their evil ways and utterly relinquish their evil acts—they didn’t just speak their confession and repentance, or change their outward behavior, but rather they reflected on and understood their evil deeds, and the intention, source, and purpose of their actions changed—they achieved true repentance, and so they obtained God’s mercy and tolerance. Those evil people and antichrists, however, just exhibit some good behavior on the surface after being expelled, preaching the gospel or doing some good deeds, hoping to make amends for their past misdeeds. Although they admit to having done evil in words, as to what evil deeds they did specifically, what their intentions, aims, and motivations were for doing such things, and what nature controlled them, they never really understand or hate such root problems, and so they can’t truly repent. If a suitable chance comes along, they’ll continue to do evil and resist God, and people like this cannot obtain God’s mercy and tolerance. Compared with my mom’s behavior, she was cleared out by the church for doing much evil and stubbornly refusing to repent, which offended God’s disposition. This was God’s righteousness. But if she could’ve truly understood and repented of her past evil actions, focused on practicing the truth, and guaranteed to not do such evil things again, then perhaps there would’ve been some hope that she’d obtain God’s mercy and tolerance. My mom, however, only admitted in words that she’d been misled by Li Fang and had disrupted and disturbed church life, and admitted that she was an evil person and Satan’s lackey. Yet she had no understanding of how she’d argued on behalf of an evil person or of her evil deeds that had disrupted and disturbed the church election. When her evil deeds were exposed again, she still tried to argue on her own behalf using objective reasons and had no understanding of her own nature essence. This couldn’t be called true repentance. When I saw how upset she was after she’d been cleared out, how she persisted in her faith and attending gatherings, how she didn’t become a Judas when she was arrested, how she was always making offerings and giving to charity, and how she comforted and encouraged me when I felt negative and weak, I thought she was showing signs of repentance and wanted to get her accepted back into the church. I thought of these words of God: “The standard by which humans judge other humans is based on their behavior; those whose conduct is good are righteous, while those whose conduct is abominable are evil. The standard by which God judges humans is based on whether their essence submits to Him or not; one who submits to God is a righteous person, while one who does not is an enemy and an evil person, regardless of whether this person’s behavior is good or bad and regardless of whether their speech is correct or incorrect” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. God and Man Will Enter Into Rest Together). God judges whether someone is good or evil not on whether their external behavior is good or bad, but on their essence, their attitude toward the truth, and whether the intentions and motivations behind their actions are to practice the truth and submit to God. If someone hates the truth in essence, then no matter how good their external behavior is, they’re still a God-resisting evil person. I saw that I was approaching people without principles. I thought that she truly repented just going by her having some good external behaviors, but I didn’t know how to discern her essence and wasn’t looking at her attitude toward the truth, and all I wanted was to get her accepted back into the church, which was totally without principle. My views on things were so absurd! I later reflected on myself: What corrupt disposition was constraining and binding me to act that way? With this question in mind, I continued searching for the answers in God’s words.

During my devotionals, I read some of God’s words: “What are feelings, in essence? They are a kind of corrupt disposition. The manifestations of feelings can be described using several words: favoritism, unprincipled protection of others, maintenance of physical relationships, and partiality; these are what feelings are. What are the likely consequences of people’s having feelings and living by them? Why does God most loathe people’s feelings? Some people are always constrained by their feelings, they cannot put the truth into practice, and though they wish to submit to God, they cannot, so they feel tormented by their feelings. There are many people who understand the truth but cannot put it into practice; this, too, is because they are constrained by feelings” (The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. What Is the Truth Reality?). “God’s house asks you to do the work of cleansing the church, and there is one individual who has always been perfunctory in their duty, always looking for ways to slack off. According to principle, this person should be cleansed away, but you have a good relationship with them. So what kinds of thoughts and intentions will arise in you? How will you practice? (Acting according to my own preferences.) And what produces these preferences? Because this person has been good to you or has done things for you, you have a good impression of them, and so at this time you want to protect them, and to defend them. Is this not the effect of feelings? You feel emotional toward them, and so take the approach of ‘While the higher authorities have policies, the localities have their counter-measures.’ You’re double-dealing. On the one hand, you say to them, ‘You must try a little harder when you do things. Stop being perfunctory, you have to suffer a little hardship; this is our duty.’ On the other, you reply to the Above and say, ‘They have changed for the better, they are more effective now when they perform their duty.’ But what you’re actually thinking in your mind is, ‘This is because I worked on them. If I hadn’t, they’d still be like they were.’ In your mind, you’re always thinking, ‘They have been nice to me, they can’t be cleared out!’ What state is it when such things are in your intention? This is harming the work of the church by protecting personal emotional relationships. Does acting in this way accord with the truth principles? And is there submission to your doing this? (No.) There is no submission; there is resistance in your heart. In the things that happen to you and the work you are supposed to do, your own ideas contain subjective judgments, and here emotional factors are mixed in. You are doing things based on feelings, and yet still believe that you are acting impartially, that you are giving people the chance to repent, and that you are giving them loving assistance; thus you do as you wish, not as God says. Working in this way reduces the quality of the work, reduces effectiveness, and harms the church’s work—which is all the outcome of acting according to feelings. If you do not examine yourself, will you be able to identify the problem here? You never will. You might know that it is wrong to act in this way, that this is a lack of submission, but you think it over and say to yourself, ‘I must help them with love, and after they have been helped and they get better, there will be no need to clear them out. Does God not give people the chance to repent? God loves people, so I must help them with love, and I must do as God asks.’ After thinking these things, you do things your own way. Afterward, your heart feels at ease; you feel that you are practicing the truth. During this process, did you practice according to the truth, or did you act according to your own preferences and intentions? Your actions were wholly according to your own preferences and intentions. Throughout the whole process, you used your so-called kindness and love, feelings, and philosophies for worldly dealings to smooth things over, and you tried to walk the fence. It seemed like you were helping this person with love, but in your heart you were actually constrained by feelings—and, fearing the Above would find out, you tried to win them over with compromise, so that no one was offended and the work got done—which is the same way that the nonbelievers try to walk the fence. In actuality, how does God appraise this situation? He will classify you as one who does not submit to the truth, who often adopts a scrutinizing, analytical attitude toward the truth and God’s requirements. What role does your intention play when you approach the truth and God’s requirements using this method, and when you perform your duties with this attitude? It serves to protect your own interests, your own pride, and your interpersonal relations without any regard for God’s demands, nor having any positive impact on your own duties or the church’s work. Such a person is living entirely by philosophies for worldly dealings. Everything they say and do is to safeguard their own pride, feelings, and interpersonal relations, yet they have no genuine submission toward the truth and God, nor do they make any attempt to declare or own up to these problems. They feel not a shred of self-reproach and remain wholly ignorant as to the nature of the problems. If people lack God-fearing hearts, and if God has no place in their hearts, then they can never act on principle no matter what duties they are performing or what problems they are dealing with. People living within their intentions and selfish desires are incapable of entering the truth reality. For this reason, if they encounter a problem, and they do not examine their intentions and cannot recognize where their intentions are erroneous, but instead they use all kinds of justifications to manufacture lies and excuses for themselves, what happens in the end? They do quite a good job of protecting their own interests, pride, and interpersonal relationships, but they have lost their normal relationship with God” (The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. The Attitude Man Should Have Toward God). As I contemplated God’s words, I felt so hurt and upset. When issues arose, I didn’t seek the truth or act according to principles, but instead favored and shielded my family, upholding my fleshly feelings and personal interests in every respect. This was me acting by my feelings and it was a corrupt disposition—it was totally at odds with God’s intention. I was someone with incredibly strong feelings, always thinking that my mom had endured hardships to raise me and expended so much for me, and because of this blood tie, I always wanted to protect her, and I approached her in a totally unprincipled way. When I saw the church’s work arrangements for readmitting people, my first thought was of my mom. I knew she was an evil person who had been cleared out by the church, but just going by some good behavior she exhibited, I wanted to get her accepted back into the church to please her and make her happy, and to maintain my familial relationship with her. Especially when I wrote her evaluation, I violated the principles of objectivity, fairness, truthfulness, and practicality. Influenced by my feelings, I favored and shielded her, and most of what I wrote was about her good points, making her sound like a positive person who pursued the truth, and even mentioning very little of her past evildoings. I was afraid that she had no genuine understanding of her evil deeds back then, so I specifically wrote to her to remind her and expose every one of her evil deeds so that she would have genuine understanding of herself and quickly repent and strive to be accepted back into the church. When collecting evaluations from those who knew her, I knew that the other three who had been expelled showed no signs of repentance, but I was afraid that if I only collected evaluations about my mom, then brothers and sisters would say I was acting on my feelings, so I covered it up by asking the leaders to provide evaluations of all four people. Every now and then, I’d also make urgent inquiries with the church leaders about their progress in collecting these evaluations thereby disturbing their duties. Wasn’t this me disrupting and disturbing church work? I was acting on my feelings, being calculating and using underhanded means. I could no longer tell right from wrong. I acted totally without principle and wanted to readmit people at my own discretion—I was so selfish, despicable, and lacking in humanity! Even if by using such despicable means I could get my mom accepted again and maintain my emotional relationship with her, I would’ve been offending and resisting God and doing evil! Thinking this, I felt afraid for what I’d done.

I then read two more passages of God’s words and came to some understanding of the nature and consequences of acting by one’s feelings. Almighty God says: “Some people are extremely sentimental. Every day, in all that they say, and in all of the ways they behave toward others, they live by their feelings. They feel affection for this person and that person, and they spend their days engaged in the niceties of affection. In everything they encounter, they live in the realm of feelings. When such a person’s nonbelieving relative dies, they will cry for three days and not allow the body to be buried. They still have feelings for the deceased and their feelings are too acute. You could say that feelings are this person’s fatal flaw. They are constrained by their feelings in all matters, they are incapable of practicing the truth or acting according to principle, and they are often prone to rebel against God. Feelings are their greatest weakness, their fatal flaw, and their feelings are entirely able to bring them to ruin and destroy them. People who are overly sentimental are incapable of putting the truth into practice or submitting to God. They are preoccupied with the flesh and they are foolish and muddleheaded. It is that sort of person’s nature to be very sentimental, and they live by their feelings” (The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. How to Know Man’s Nature). “Who is Satan, who are demons, and who are God’s enemies if not resisters who do not believe in God? Are they not those people who are rebellious against God? Are they not those who claim to have faith, yet who lack truth? Are they not those who merely seek to obtain blessings while being unable to bear witness for God? You still mingle with those demons today and treat them with conscience and love, but in this case are you not extending good intentions toward Satan? Are you not in league with demons? If people have made it to this point and are still unable to distinguish between good and evil, and continue to blindly be loving and merciful without any desire to seek God’s intentions or being able in any way to take God’s intentions as their own, then their endings will be all the more wretched. Anyone who does not believe in the God in the flesh is an enemy of God. If you can bear conscience and love toward an enemy, do you not lack a sense of justice? If you are compatible with those which I detest and with which I disagree, and still bear love or personal feelings toward them, then are you not rebellious? Are you not intentionally resisting God? Does such a person possess truth? If people bear conscience toward enemies, love for demons, and mercy for Satan, then are they not intentionally disrupting God’s work?” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. God and Man Will Enter Into Rest Together). I understood from God’s words that, to maintain family relationships, people whose feelings are too strong will at key moments violate principles and sell out the truth, and do things which resist and betray God, thereby making God detest and hate them. Compared with my state, I was living by the satanic poisons of “Man is not inanimate; how can he be free from feelings?” and “Blood is thicker than water,” regarding family bonds as most important and taking advantage of my duty to find ways to get my mom accepted back into the church. I wasn’t seeking the truth at all. I was just going by my mom saying she repented and some good behavior she exhibited and wanted to get her accepted back into the church. I asked people to write evaluations of her, wanting to provide evidence for her to be readmitted, and I specifically wrote to her exposing her evil deeds so that she would quickly understand, repent, and strive to soon get accepted back into the church. I thought about how, ever since I’d started doing cleansing work, the materials I’d handled for people who’d been cleared out and applicants for readmission were all checked according to principles, but I was dealing with my mom very leniently and never during this time did I seek the truth principles. Especially when I wrote an evaluation for my mom, I intentionally engaged in deceit and deception, saying only good things on her behalf, and gave her fellowship to get her to quickly repent. Even though I felt self-reproach, I still stubbornly acted in violation of principles, wanting to get a dyed-in-the-wool evil person accepted back into the church. I insisted on finding ways to readmit someone God detested and hated into the church based on my feelings—wasn’t this me deliberately going against God and disrupting and disturbing church work? I thought about how people in the nation ruled by the great red dragon bend the law in their favor. When someone becomes an official and holds power, their relatives and friends all benefit along with them, and they can be promoted and put into important positions no matter whether they are good or bad, without regard for law and order. I disregarded the principles of God’s house and had no God-fearing heart at all. I violated principles and stubbornly wanted my mom to be accepted back into the church. Without realizing it, I became a shield for an evil person—I really made God detest and hate me! The church’s principles for accepting people say: Some people do all kinds of evil and recklessly commit misdeeds, causing disturbances to church work, so they are expelled. If, after they are expelled, they truly repent of their evil deeds, and can gain more people, good people, when preaching the gospel, then such people can be considered for acceptance and given a chance if they apply to rejoin the church; if a church reaccepts most people who have been cleared out, then that is at odds with the principles. Because the essence of an evil person is forever that of an evil person, it is not possible for them to truly repent; one must have a God-fearing heart when it comes to the matter of readmitting people into the church, seek the truth and clearly discern the manifestations and essence of each person, and strive to not wrongly accuse a good person and not accept a bad or evil person back. I thought that if I violated principles and accepted my mom back into the church, and she didn’t have any understanding of her evil deeds and didn’t truly repent, then when a suitable chance came, she would surely continue to do evil, provoke, incite, and mislead people, disrupt and disturb church work, and then I’d be a part of this evil and would be playing the part of Satan’s lackey! I saw that my feelings were my vital weakness, an obstacle and stumbling block to me practicing the truth. I’d been blinded by feelings and couldn’t see things in accordance with God’s words. I’d violated principles in my duty to maintain the feelings between my mom and me. All I’d done was resist and betray God, and carrying on that way would’ve been so dangerous! Thankfully, I was pruned, and this put a timely stop to my advancing evil. Otherwise, I’d have accepted my mom back into the church and disturbed church work and the life entry of brothers and sisters, and wouldn’t I then have become an evil person’s accomplice? The consequences would’ve been unthinkable! I was filled with remorse, self-reproach, and indebtedness to God, and I felt so grateful to God for protecting me. I resolved to never again act by my feelings and hurt God’s heart, and I became willing to seek the truth and act according to principle.

Later, I sought again the relevant principles and determined that none of the four people had any genuine understanding of their evil deeds. In their letters of repentance, some of them were still indirectly justifying themselves so that people would wrongly think there had been justifiable reasons for their evil. According to the church’s principles for readmitting people, I determined that none of these four people could be accepted back into the church. I thought of these words of God: “By what principle do God’s words ask that people treat others? Love what God loves, and hate what God hates: This is the principle that should be adhered to. God loves those who pursue the truth and are able to follow His will; these are also the people that we should love. Those who are not able to follow God’s will, who hate and rebel against God—these people are detested by God, and we should detest them, too. This is what God asks of man. If your parents do not believe in God, if they know full well that faith in God is the right path, and that it can lead to salvation, yet remain unreceptive, then there is no doubt that they are people who are averse to and hate the truth, and that they are people who resist and hate God—and God naturally abhors and hates them. Could you abhor such parents? They oppose and revile God—in which case they are surely demons and Satans. Could you hate and curse them? These are all real questions. If your parents prevent you from believing in God, how should you treat them? As is asked by God, you should love what God loves, and hate what God hates. During the Age of Grace, the Lord Jesus said, ‘Who is My mother? And who are My brothers?’ ‘For whoever shall follow the will of My Father which is in heaven, the same is My brother, and sister, and mother.’ These words already existed back in the Age of Grace, and now God’s words are even more clear: ‘Love what God loves, and hate what God hates.’ These words cut straight to the point, yet people are often unable to grasp their true meaning” (The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. Only by Recognizing One’s Own Misguided Views Can One Truly Transform). Contemplating God’s words, I understood that only those who could accept and practice the truth and protect the work of God’s house are true brothers and sisters, and one should help these people with a loving heart. As for those evil people who don’t practice the truth at all and are even averse to the truth, and refuse to repent after doing evil and causing disturbances, one should reject them. Only practicing in this way accords with God’s intention and requirement. I found the principle to deal with my mom—love that which God loves and hate that which God hates. In terms of blood ties, she is my mom, but her nature is one that is averse to and hates the truth, she does not truly understand or repent of her evil deeds. According to the evaluations provided by brothers and sisters, my mom’s views on things are just the same as the nonbelievers’ and she pursues worldly trends, and her essence of a disbeliever and evil person has been revealed. God hates and detests such people, and He does not save evil people, so I must treat my mom according to the truth principles, as only this accords with God’s intention. In the end, in accordance with the church’s principles for accepting people and truths related to discerning good behavior and true repentance, I wrote a letter to the church leaders giving my recommendations for handling these people. The church leaders then replied by letter, saying that through learning and investigating over this period, they saw that my mom just exhibited some good behavior, that she did not truly understand or repent of her evil deeds, and that none of these four people met the principles for being readmitted and could not be accepted back into the church. I felt at ease then and came to appreciate that only by not being constrained by feelings and acting according to principle can one’s heart be truly liberated. It is entirely the result of the guidance of God’s words that I was able to gain such practice.