The following excerpt is from the book, Communings in the Sanctuary by Robert Richardson
Doubtless, there are many who make a vain profession of the Gospel. Actuated by a transient sympathy, a momentary impulse; driven by fear, or attracted by visionary hopes, they become ostensibly members of the Church of Jesus Christ, yet remain forever ignorant of the “power of godliness,” and strangers to the “faith that overcometh the world.” Like the flying fish that springs from the briny wave, with glittering scales, to sparkle for a moment in the solar rays and sink again from view into its original and proper element, so do these heartless professors, for a brief period, appear in the sunlight of the Gospel, only to return immediately to their natural and appropriate place—the world.
But the course of the true believer is like that of the passenger bird which sets forth to seek a more congenial clime. It pauses not upon its journey, except to gather the simple food which is necessary to subsistence. It stops not to spend the precious hours in bowers of love, but speeds its lofty flight, with wing unwearied, until it has reached the peaceful regions where it can find secure repose.
The Christian religion, in short, proposes nothing less than an entire transformation of the human character. This must be accomplished, or there can be no well-grounded hope of future bliss. It is not by the establishment of mere formal or ceremonial relations with the Deity, or with the Christian Church, that this is to be attained. True relations, indeed, exist only as effects or consequences of a change of heart. And these are not mere abstract relations, but true relationships.
Among men we have often true relationships where we have no family resemblance, as where children are unlike their parents. But, in the spiritual world, we can have no true relationship without likeness. The pure in heart are related to each other because they are alike, and they are related to God and will be admitted to his presence because they resemble him. It is not the space between heaven and hell that separates the righteous from the wicked, but their contrariety of character and their alienation of soul.
How true it is, then, that only by a conformity to the divine character men can become partakers of the salvation of God! How evident it is that only by a renovation of heart men can be prepared for heaven! He who seeks a foreign land will wisely learn its laws and language, and provide himself with its current coin, and secure to himself friends who will receive him there. How sedulously should the Christian, then, labor to render himself thus familiar with heaven, and thus to furnish himself with such sterling attributes of character as are stamped with the image and superscription of Christ! How earnestly he should seek, by fellowship with God here and by keeping his commandments in faith and hope and love, to provide for himself friends who will receive him into the eternal mansions!