The Man’s Fellowship:
Life in a democratic country is busy! If you don’t make money, there are taxes you can’t pay, and you have to pay your rent, maintain your car, and pay your electric and water bills, that all takes money, so of course you have to work, don’t you? That presents a problem. It’s as if believing in God presents an extra burden, especially performing your duties. But would you be free of burdens if you didn’t believe in God? You would be just as burdened, if not more so. Some people ask, can there be a burden more tiring? I guarantee there is, because you’ll be suffering. Your days will be a struggle to feed yourself, a fight for survival, and there will be many difficulties and troubles, because the world is unfair and people are wicked, there will be many interruptions and hardships, and nothing will go smoothly. But through your belief in God and your growing understanding of the truth, you will gain wisdom and see paths, you will no longer contaminate yourself with devils, and you will be more sensible toward them, which will spare you much of your suffering, … You spare yourself so much suffering because you believe in God, you eat and drink God’s word, and you pursue the truth, which gives you spiritual comfort, and you enjoy the peace and happiness granted by God. Consider that one day, the great disaster will strike, and you will be calm. The unbelievers will lose their minds in panic and fear for the days ahead, feeling that this is the end of the world. But when the same disaster falls upon us, we believers in God will feel differently than the unbelievers. God is with us, and we have shares in the kingdom of Christ. What great comfort that knowledge affords us! Is this comfort not a happiness of the spirit? This is the truest happiness. We gain it because we, while believing in God, have understood the truth, known God, and become qualified to receive God’s promises. This spiritual happiness, comfort, and yearning is humanity’s most genuine happiness, and it cannot be gained without believing in God! So, when you say, “Believing in God is so busy, I have to make money and take care of my family, and on top of that I have to
believe in God, read God’s word, and live
the church life and go to meetings. It’s so much of a burden!” That’s not wrong, but how many blessings have you gained, and how many disasters and how much suffering have you averted?! … What is true happiness? This is true happiness! Only those who believe in God and pursue the truth find happiness, only they have that peace, that joy, that yearning, that enjoyment, that comfort, only those who gain the truth can experience these pleasures.
from Sermons and Fellowship on Entry Into Life, B8 Volume 130
No one, in all of corrupt mankind now throughout the entire world, can say for sure what happiness is. Only those who have genuinely gained the truth know what happiness is, and what the
true way is. Aren’t all the advantages of the world and of the flesh gone in the blink of an eye? Wealth is gone in the blink of an eye; to have too much becomes a burden and is useless. Aren’t fame and gain empty? Nowadays, some people live for their husbands, some live for their children, and some people live for a house or for a car—is there any meaning to living like this? There is no meaning. Some people ask me: ‘Then do we really want to keep living? What would you have me base my life on?’ Does what you base your life on have anything to do with what I say? Aren’t these two entirely different things? Just because I say you shouldn’t live for those things, it doesn’t mean that I stop you from going to work. Do I say that you cannot make a living? This is entirely different from the problems I talk about. Some people consider problems in an illogical way, always asking questions irrelevantly, and not understanding the meaning of what I say. This kind of person severely lacks the ability to understand. What job you should look for or what job you should do poses no obstacle, as this is so you can survive; we cannot live for the sake of wealth, however. Are these two problems one and the same? The intentions are different here. Some people work a job, and why do they do this? They do it to live. Why do they believe in God? To find a genuine human life. These words are good and real: ‘I need to find a job to live, to survive.’ So the purpose of working a job is to earn a little money to maintain your life. ‘Why do I need to live? How should I live? How should I get to the end of the path of human life? Where are the mysteries of human life to be found? I must seek the truth. Even after eating my meal and feeling full, I must still seek the truth.’ If you lived for the sake of living a better physical life, would someone like that have a human life? What would the difference be between that person and an animal? One aspect of living is to maintain your own life and resolve the problem of survival; another is that you also need to resolve the problem of human life. Man is the spirit of all things, the master of all things, and they must resolve their problem of human life. Exactly what manner of person should man live out? What image should they live out? What path should they walk? Man first needs to understand these questions—they are fundamental. … Why does man live? That is, what exactly is a genuine human life, and how can one live a life of meaning and value? This is the first problem. The nature of this problem is to do with principles, it comes down to God’s will, and if you can solve this problem, you will then know why God wanted to create man, the meaning of human life and how man should live in conformity with God’s will. When you can solve this problem, then the path, the truth and the meaning of human life will all be solved. Those who can solve this problem will, in the end, be praised by God and will be left over, therefore herein lies the significance of God’s work.
from “Only Entering the Reality of the Truth is Genuinely Understanding and Gaining the Truth” in Sermons and Fellowship on Entry Into Life (VIII)
