How should one practice so as to understand the truth and gain the truth?

How should one practice so as to understand the truth and gain the truth?

Almighty God is Truth.

The answer from Almighty God’s word:

    “… understanding God’s word is not quite so simple. Just because you can give a beautiful explanation of the letter of God’s word does not mean you understand it. No matter how you interpret the letter of God’s word it is still the imagination and way of thinking of man and is useless! How should God’s word be interpreted? How should God’s word be understood? The key to understanding God’s word is to understand His word from within His word. Whenever God speaks He certainly does not speak in mere generalities. Within each sentence there is detailed content which is certain to be revealed further in God’s word, and it may be expressed in a different way. Man cannot comprehend the ways in which God expresses truth. God’s word is very profound and cannot be penetrated with man’s way of thinking. People can discover the complete meaning of every aspect of truth as long as they make an effort, and the remaining details are filled in completely as the Holy Spirit enlightens your understanding of the concrete situations through experience. One part is understanding God’s word through His word, finding the specific content of His word.

Another part is understanding the implications of God’s word through experiencing it and obtaining enlightenment from the Holy Spirit. It is primarily through these two ways that a true understanding of God’s word is achieved. If you interpret through the letter of the word or the imaginations of your own way of thinking, then your understanding is not true even if you can interpret it with the utmost eloquence. If you don’t do it right, you will even take meaning out of context and misunderstand God’s word, and that’s even more troublesome, isn’t it? So, truth is obtained principally through receiving enlightenment from the Holy Spirit as you come to know God’s word. Truth is not obtained from a mere understanding or interpretation of the letter of His word. If His word is interpreted only literally, then what is the point of enlightenment from the Holy Spirit? In that case a certain level of education would work, and the uneducated would be in quite a predicament! God’s work cannot be comprehended by the human brain. A true understanding of God’s word depends mainly on enlightenment from the Holy Spirit; such is the process of obtaining truth.”

from “How to Know Man’s Nature” in Records of Christ’s Talks With Leaders and Workers of the Church

    “God directs His word to all people. If you are willing to read it, He will enlighten you, but if you are not, He will not. God enlightens those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, and those who seek Him. Some say that God did not enlighten them even after they read His word. How were the words read? If you skimmed through briefly and placed no importance on reality, how could God enlighten you? How could one who does not treasure the word of God be perfected by Him? If you do not treasure the word of God, then you will have neither truth nor reality. If you treasure His word, then you will be able to practice truth; it is then that you will have reality. So you must eat and drink of the word of God whatever the situation, whether you are busy or not, whether the circumstances are adverse or not, and whether you are being tried or not. All in all, the word of God is the foundation of man’s existence. None can turn away from His word and must eat of His word as if they are the three meals of the day. Could it be such a simple matter to be perfected and gained by God? Whether or not you understand at present or whether you have insight into the work of God, you must eat and drink more of the word of God. This is entering in a proactive way. After reading the word of God, hasten to put into practice what you can enter into, and set aside for the moment what you cannot. There may be much of the word of God that you cannot understand in the beginning, but after two or three months, perhaps even a year, you will. Why is this? This is because God cannot make man complete in a day or two. Most of the time, when you read His word, you may not understand at the moment. At that point, it may seem like nothing more than text; only through a period of experience are you able to understand. God has spoken much, so you should do your utmost to eat and drink of His word. Without realizing it, you will come to understand and the Holy Spirit will enlighten you. When the Holy Spirit enlightens man, it is often without man’s awareness. He enlightens and guides you when you thirst and seek. The principle by which the Holy Spirit works is centered on the word of God of which you eat and drink.”

from “The Age of Kingdom Is the Age of Word” in The Word Appears in the Flesh

    “Having a style like a Peter of the 90s means that each one of you should practice the word of God, have true entry in your experiences and gain even more and even greater enlightenment in your cooperation with God, bringing even more of His assistance into your life. If you’ve read a lot of God’s word but only understand the meaning of the text and you do not have first-hand knowledge of God’s word through your practical experience, you won’t know God’s word. As far as you are concerned, God’s word is not life, but just lifeless letters. And if you only hold fast to lifeless letters, you cannot grasp the essence of God’s word, nor will you understand His will. Only when you experience His word in your actual experiences will the spiritual meaning of God’s word open itself up to you, and it is only in experience that you can grasp the spiritual meaning of many truths, and only through experience that you can unlock the mysteries of God’s word. If you do not put it into practice, then no matter how clear His word, the only thing you’ve grasped a hold of is empty letters and doctrines, which has become religious regulations to you. Isn’t this what the Pharisees did? If you practice and experience God’s word, it becomes practical to you; if you do not seek to practice it, then God’s word to you is little more than the legend of the third heaven. In fact, the process of believing in God is the process of you experiencing His word as well as being gained by Him, or to put it more clearly, to believe in God is to have the knowledge and understanding of His word and to experience and live out His word; that is the reality of your belief in God. If you believe in God and hope for eternal life without seeking to practice the word of God as something you have within you, then you’re foolish; it’s like going to a feast only to take note of what’s there to eat without actually trying it. Isn’t a person like that foolish?

    The truth that man needs to possess is found in the word of God, a truth that is the most beneficial and helpful to mankind. It is the tonic and sustenance that your body needs, something that helps you restore your normal humanity, a truth that you should be equipped with. The more you practice God’s word, the more quickly your life will blossom; the more you practice God’s word, the clearer the truth becomes. As you grow in stature, you will see things of the spiritual world more clearly, and you will be more powerful to triumph over Satan. Much of the truth that you don’t understand will be made clear when you practice the word of God. Most people are satisfied to merely understand the text of God’s word and focus on equipping themselves with doctrines without experiencing its depth in practice; isn’t that the way of the Pharisees? How can the phrase ‘The word of God is life’ be true for them, then? Only when man practices the word of God can his life truly blossom; it cannot grow simply by reading His word. If it is your belief that to understand God’s word is all that is needed to have life, to have stature, then your understanding is warped. Truly understanding God’s word occurs when you practice truth, and you must understand that ‘only by practicing truth can it ever be understood.’ Today, after reading the word of God, you can merely say that you know God’s word, but you can’t say that you understand it. Some say that the only way to practice truth is to understand it first, but this is only half right and not entirely accurate. Before you have knowledge of a truth, you have not experienced that truth. Feeling that you understand what you hear is not the same thing as truly understanding. To equip yourself with the truth as it is seen in text isn’t the same as understanding the true meaning therein. Just because you have a skin-deep knowledge of the truth doesn’t mean you actually understand it or recognize it; the true meaning of truth comes from having experienced it. This is why I say that only when you experience truth can you understand it, and only when you experience truth can you grasp the hidden parts of it. To experience it in depth is the only way to grasp the connotations of truth, to understand the essence of it.”

from “Practice the Truth Once You Understand It” in The Word Appears in the Flesh

    “To practice the truth and understand the truth, first you have to understand the substances of the difficulties you meet and of the matters happening around you, what problems they are, and which aspects of the truth they involve. You have to seek these. That is, you have to seek the truth through the actual difficulties of yours. And by gradually experiencing like this, you will see God’s hand in each matter happening around you and see what God wants to do and the result He wants to achieve in you. … What do you need to do first in pursuing the truth? First, you need to eat and drink God’s word more, listen to the fellowship more, and seek more. After having eaten and drunk your fill, you will grow fast. When you have stature, you will be able to do some things and withstand some trials and some temptations. Then you will feel that you have truly gained some truths and understood some truths, and also feel that the word God says is really what man needs, is just what man should receive, and is just the unique truth in the world that can give man life.”

from “The Importance and the Way of Pursuing the Truth” in God’s Fellowship and Preaching

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form: the church of Almighty God | Eastern Lightning