I

How much suffering a person can endure or how much of a price they pay for their belief in God is not a sign of salvation or of entering into the truth reality, nor is it a sign that they have life. Then, what is a sign of having life and the truth reality? It’s whether a person can practice the truth and handle matters according to principles; specifically, it’s whether a person views people and things, comports themselves and acts with the truth principles, whether they can act according to the truth principles.

II

If, in your performance of duties, you can subdue your body, endure suffering, and pay the price in everything you do, but unfortunately you are unable to achieve the most crucial point, that is, you cannot uphold the truth principles; if no matter what you do, you always consider your own interests, always seek a way out for yourself, always want to preserve yourself; and if you never uphold the truth principles, and God’s words to you are mere doctrine, then you do not have life.

III

One who doesn’t enter into the truth reality or obtain life in their faith is the most pitiful kind of person, and this is the most lamentable thing. I don’t ask that you are able to practice according to the truth principles in everything, but at the very least, in the performance of your significant duties and in important matters in your daily life involving principles, you should be able to act according to the truth principles. You must at the very least achieve this standard in order to see the hope of salvation in yourself.

from The Word, Vol. 6. On the Pursuit of the Truth. How to Pursue the Truth (20)