Source: https://www.bertha-dudde.org/en/proclamation/0342

0342 Flee the pleasures of the world....

March 21, 1938: Book 8

Without any danger you can leave yourself to us in all spiritual questions.... we know where it is necessary, and if your soul is still anxious, this is out of the deep desire to prove yourself worthy of the love and care of the Lord.... For never fear for the loss of an unpleasant possession. And so the Lord wants to revive you today in spirit....

Flee all the joys of the world.... This is His loving admonition.... but not to take away anything that gives you joy, but only so that you are not incapable of absorbing spiritual teachings.... You cannot do both at the same time, because the senses of man so gladly turn to worldly pleasures, and these then leave no room for something that cannot be grasped by hand, but can only be absorbed with a spirit detached from the world.

In such diversity, these two terms will touch the human heart.... man with his earthly body will always have a desire for earthly joy.... but the more difficult it will be for the spirit to stay in his inner being.... Man directs all his desires towards worldly pleasures.... And the concession of the divine being.... seems far away and unreal to him as long as he has not yet understood that this can only happen as soon as a contact is established between the heavenly Father and the earthly child, caused by his own will to get in contact with the Creator.

This will arises or has it's origin in the soul of man, not in any organ of the human body. If this soul is now ready to submit to the Lord, the heavenly Father awakens that holy feeling in you to strive for the union with the highest Being, and as all will of man soon becomes action, so the union has also already taken place as soon as the human will has striven for this, and with the union a new life begins for man.... a life, which - beside the earthly life and completely for itself - forms the human spirit and lets it mature to ever higher perfection.

Existence on earth as it is, can indeed also occupy man sufficiently so that the fulfilment of all earthly needs is secured through it, but spiritual creation usually bears it's fruits only after completion of this earthly existence.... Where the human heart is imbued with the will to approach the divine Father-Spirit.... to be nourished by the love and wisdom of the Saviour, there the child of God will soon grow up with such a rich inner life that from now on, his greater concern will be to enjoy the spiritual joys.... It will no longer long for the world and it's joys, but all the activities of the world will appear stale to it, and desirable to it will be only that which spiritually refreshes and delights. And to offer you this, to give you true joys, the Lord warns you of the joys of the world....

Amen.

Translated by Alida Pretorius