A believer in God must have a normal spiritual living. This is the basis for him to experience God’s word and enter into reality. Can the practices you keep now such as your praying, drawing near to God, singing hymns, praising, meditating, and pondering God’s word measure up to a normal spiritual living? You all are not very clear about it. A normal spiritual living does not only mean to keep such practices as praying, singing hymns, living the church life, and eating and drinking God’s word, but means to live in a fresh and lively spiritual living. What matters is not how you practice them but what results you achieve. Most people think that to have a normal spiritual living means to pray, sing hymns, eat and drink God’s word, and ponder God’s word. They do not care whether they achieve some results or gain some true knowledge. They just pay attention to keeping those practices outwardly but pay no attention to achieving results. They are ones who live in religious rituals, not ones who live in the church, much less ones who live in the kingdom. Such people are only observing regulations when they pray, sing hymns, or eat and drink God’s word. They are doing them reluctantly and because others do them, but not willingly or from the bottom of their heart. No matter how many prayers they make or how many hymns they sing, they have not achieved any result, because they are only practicing religious regulations and rituals, not God’s word. They only pay attention to how to practice them and observe God’s words as regulations. Such people are not practicing God’s word. They are practicing them for satisfying their flesh and for others to see. All such religious rituals and regulations are from man, not from God. God does not keep regulations or keep the law but does new things and practical works every day. Consider the people in the Three-Self sect. They merely keep such practices as doing morning watch every day, making evening prayer, giving thanks for their meals, and giving thanks in everything. No matter how much they practice them or how long they keep them, they do not have the working of the Holy Spirit. If people live by regulations and put their heart into mere practices, the Holy Spirit will have no way to work on them, because their hearts are occupied by regulations and by their notions. So there is no chance for God to work on them, and they can only live under the bondage of the law all along. Such people will never receive God’s commendation.

A normal spiritual living is a life of living before God. When you pray, you can quiet your heart before God, and through praying you seek the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, know the word of God, and understand the intention of God. Through eating and drinking God’s word, you can become clearer about what God is doing now and understand it better, and you can find new ways to practice and will not stick to old things. All that you practice is for the purpose that you can grow in life. For example, when you pray, you do not pray for saying a few pleasant words to God or for having a good cry before God to show your indebtedness, but for exercising to use your spirit, for quieting your heart before God, and for exercising to seek guidance in everything, so that your heart can be attracted by fresh light every day and you will not be passive or lazy and can enter the right track of practicing God’s word. Now most people only pay attention to mere practices, and they do not keep them for pursuing the truth so that they can grow in life. This is the error they make. And some people can receive the new light, but they practice it in their old ways. They try to understand God’s word of today by associating it with their former religious notions. What they understand are still doctrines mixed with religious notions. They do not try to understand the light of today in simplicity. So they practice it with mixture, and they are practicing the new things in their old ways. No matter how well they practice, it is hypocritical. God leads people to do new things every day and requires them to see new things and gain new knowledge every day and not to be old-fashioned or conventional. If you have not changed any of your practices after you have believed in God for years but you are still being zealous and busy outwardly and never come before God with a quiet heart to enjoy his word, then you will gain nothing. After you accept God’s new work, if you do not make a new plan, practice in new ways, or pursue newer knowledge, but stick to the former old things and can only receive some new light and yet practice it in your old ways, you are only in this stream nominally, but actually you are a religious Pharisee outside the stream of the Holy Spirit.