The more receptive people are of God’s words, the more enlightened they become and the more they pursue knowledge of God with a hunger and thirst for righteousness. Only those who receive God’s words are able to have deeper and richer experiences; they are the only ones whose lives blossom more and more. Everyone who pursues life must treat this as if it were their job, and should have the feeling that they can’t live without God, that there is no single success without God, and all is emptiness without God. They should have the resolution of doing nothing without the presence of the Holy Spirit, and being unwilling to do anything further if their actions do not bear fruit. They should not act to indulge themselves. Life experiences come through God’s enlightenment and guidance, and they are also the fruition of your subjective efforts. You should have the requirement of not making excuses for yourself in your life experience.
Sometimes your conditions aren’t normal—you lose God’s presence and you can’t feel Him when you pray; it’s normal to feel afraid at such times. You should immediately reach out in seeking or God will become farther from you, and you will not have the Holy Spirit with you for a day or two, or even a month or two, and you’ll be even more without His work. When you encounter this type of situation you become numb to a certain extent; you are once again taken captive by Satan, and will even be capable of doing anything—love and longing for money, deceiving brothers and sisters, watching movies and videos, playing mahjong, even smoking and drinking without being subjected to any discipline. Your heart moves away from God, you secretly try to become independent, and you make your own judgments on His work at will. In some cases it’s so serious that people sin with the opposite sex with no feeling of shame or embarrassment. Such people are abandoned by the Holy Spirit and in fact, have been without the work of the Holy Spirit for a long time. All you can see in them is that they become increasingly corrupt, they outstretch their evil hands farther and farther, and in the end they deny the existence of this way—they become Satan’s captive through their sins. If you discover that you have the presence of the Holy Spirit but not His work, you are already in a very dangerous state. When you cannot feel the presence of the Holy Spirit, you are on the brink of death. If you still fail to repent, you will become Satan’s completely and be one of those who are eliminated. So when you realize that you are in a state where you just have the presence of the Holy Spirit (not committing sins, engaging in debauchery, or obviously resisting God), but you lack the work of the Holy Spirit (you are not moved when you pray, you gain no clear enlightenment and illumination when you eat and drink God’s words, you are lazy about eating and drinking God’s words, always lacking growth in life, having no significant illumination for a long time), at these times you must be more careful. You can no longer indulge yourself or be obstinate. The presence of the Holy Spirit may disappear at any time, so these situations are perilous times. If you encounter this kind of state, you must quickly make rectifications. Firstly, you should pray to repent, beg God for mercy, pray more earnestly; what’s more, you must quiet your heart for eating and drinking God’s words more, and upon this basis, you must pray more. Strengthen your efforts in singing hymns, praying, eating and drinking God’s words, and doing your duty. When you are at your weakest, your heart is most easily occupied by Satan; if so, your heart shall be taken away from in front of God and will be returned to Satan; thereafter, you won’t have the presence of the Holy Spirit, and it will become extremely difficult for you to recover the work of the Holy Spirit. It is better to seek the work of the Holy Spirit while you still have His presence, ask God to enlighten you more, and not allow Him to depart from you. You should pray, sing hymns, perform your function, and eat and drink God’s words so that Satan does not have the opportunity to do its work. By doing so, you will gain the work of the Holy Spirit. If you do not recover this way but just wait, when you lose the presence of the Holy Spirit it will become difficult to recover, unless the Holy Spirit especially moves, illuminates, and enlightens you; even so, your state will not be recoverable within the span of one to two days, or even half a year. This is all because people slack off and are not able to properly go on in experience; therefore, they are abandoned by the Holy Spirit. Even if you have recovered, you won’t be very clear on the present work of God because you are so behind in your life experience, as if it plummeted. Isn’t this a life-threatening thing? But I tell such people: It isn’t too late for you to repent now, but there is one condition, which is that you must work harder and can’t be lazy. If other people pray five times daily, you should pray ten times; if other people eat and drink God’s words for two hours daily, you should spend four to six hours; if other people listen to hymns for two hours, you must at least spend half a day. Frequently quiet yourself before God, and think about God’s love; not until you are moved, your heart has turned to Him, and you no longer dare to depart from Him will there be fruit. Only through these practices can you recover a normal state as in the past.
Some people seek with zest, but cannot enter the right track. This is because they are too careless and do not pay attention to spiritual matters at all. They do not know how to experience God’s words at all, they don’t know what the presence of the Holy Spirit or the work of the Holy Spirit is. These people are enthusiastic but confused; they are not pursuing life. For they do not know the Spirit in the slightest, or know the dynamics of the work of the Holy Spirit, and they are not familiar with their own spiritual state. Isn’t this a kind of confused faith? Such people will not gain anything even if they seek until the very end. The crux of man’s belief in God and having growth in life lies in understanding what work God performs through your experience, seeing how lovable God is, and understanding His will so that you can submit to all of God’s arrangements, have His words wrought into you to become your life, and satisfy God. If you only have a confused kind of faith, you don’t pay attention to spiritual matters or matters concerning changes in life disposition, and you don’t put in efforts toward the truth, will you be able to grasp His will? If you don’t understand God’s requirements, you won’t be able to have experience, and you won’t find a path for practice. The focus in experiencing God’s words is to emphasize the effect that God’s words achieve in you, and to know God through that. If you only read God’s words but don’t know how to experience them, doesn’t it show that you do not have spiritual understanding? Since most people cannot experience God’s words now, they don’t know His work; isn’t this a shortcoming in practice? If that continues, when can rich experience and growth in life be achieved? Wouldn’t it be empty talk? There are many among you who pay attention to doctrines; you have no understanding of spiritual things, but still want God to use you for something great and be blessed by Him. This isn’t realistic at all! Therefore, you should make up for this lack so that you may all enter the right track in your spiritual life, have true experience, and truly enter the reality of God’s words.
from The Word Appears in the Flesh
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