Once, in The Summary of Christ’s Preachings and Conversations, I read these words of God: “Why am I always in poor health during this last period? This is also meaningful: to bear some of the sufferings and diseases of mankind. God in flesh suffers some diseases…. He has sacrificed all he has and sacrificed everything for mankind.” While reading the words of God, I thought, “God bears sufferings for the sake of us and has sacrificed his everything for us. Simply according to my conscience, I have to love God.” So, I made this resolution: I will offer up my whole being and complete the work committed by God to repay God’s love. In the following time, I did the work with great drive. But later, when I was assigned to do a work not to my liking, I became so passive that my misunderstandings and complaints emerged at once, and I even wanted to give up my duty. I clearly knew these thoughts were not right, but I simply had no strength inside and had no more zeal to “love God” even if I wanted to.

One day, when eating and drinking the word of God, I read these words: “Man cannot feel God’s loveliness only according to the sense of his conscience. If man loves God simply according to his conscience, he will have no strength. If you only say you will repay God’s grace and repay God’s love, you will have no strength to love God. Loving God according to the sense of the conscience is a negative practice.” “A person who has been made perfect not only has a normal humanity, but the truths he has go beyond his conscience, above the standard of his conscience. He does not only repay God’s love according to his conscience, but even more he knows God and sees that God is lovely and worthy for him to love and God has many lovable attributes and he cannot but love him. A person who has been made perfect loves God for fulfilling his own resolution, and he loves God spontaneously, loving him without seeking any reward, loving him without making any bargain, and loving him only because of knowing him. He is not concerned whether God gives him grace, but is contented with satisfying God. He does not bargain with God, and he does not love God according to his conscience: If you give me something, I will give you love. If you give me nothing, I will give you nothing.” Reading God’s words, I understood why I was cold one minute and hot the next in my love for God: Since I followed God, I have been living only in the sense of my conscience. When I know that, to prepare the future destination for mankind so that mankind will have no more sorrow, groan, tears, or birth, aging, illness, and death, God has endured the sufferings even greater than in the Age of the Grace, I felt that I should repay God’s love at least with my conscience. But when God’s work was against my notions, my strength to “love God” disappeared without a trace, and I even wanted to forsake God. I was in such an unstable state simply because I loved God and repaid God’s love only with my conscience. I loved God only when God gave me grace and when everything was to my liking. My love was filled with demands and bargains with God: Once I could not get what I wanted, I didn’t love God anymore. God’s love is hidden in his work. The more God’s work is contrary to man’s notions, the more profound its significance will be. However, I didn’t try to know God’s nature and discover God’s loveliness from God’s work and word and thus develop a spontaneous love for God. I loved God only with my conscience: If God gives me something, I will repay God; if God gives me nothing, I will not expend anything for God. Such a love of mine is not a genuine love, but a love in one day, a love for making a bargain, and a deceitful love mixed with my own purpose. If I continue such a pursuit, I will never have a genuine love for God.

O God, thank you for your guidance. It has enabled me to understand that loving you only with conscience is not genuinely loving you. From now on, I will no longer be content with repaying your love with my conscience; I will pursue the truth and pursue to know your loveliness so that I can offer up a genuine love to you.

Chen Jing

Heze City, Shandong Province