Source: https://www.bertha-dudde.org/en/proclamation/5919

5919 Voluntary deeds of love.... fulfillment of the law....

March 31, 1954: Book 64

Only that which you do voluntarily in order to live pleasingly for Me is of value to your soul. What the laws prescribe to you is not valued by Me as a deed carried out of your own free will, for neither threats of punishment nor promises of reward shall induce you to fulfil My commandments.... Only the love within you shall determine you, and this cannot be forced by law. Hence you can do the same deeds and yet they need not have the same value.... But I know the degree of love which determines your actions, and the deed will be valued according to it. And thus it will now also be understandable to you that your perfection, the maturing of your souls, solely depends on the extent to which you develop love within yourselves, for your way of life shall allow you to mature, thus it has to be guided by love; everything you do has to be an activity of love.... The path of love is the only path to perfection, and you determine your earthly way of life yourselves through your will. Hence you cannot create spiritual advantages for yourselves by fulfilling humanly decreed commandments which were added to My commandments of love.... Yes, you cannot dutifully fulfil these commandments of love of Mine either.... For love cannot be commanded, it has free will within itself.... Only through these obligatory actions can you awaken love in yourselves, and only then will your works be pleasing in My sight. For this reason I also admonish you to always and constantly work with love, so that you should not carelessly believe that you have done enough through pure works, which can indeed also be helpful but lack the right love.... You must shape yourselves into beings which are filled with love, then you will also understand why everything else is worthless where love was uninvolved.... The soul can only mature through works of love, because maturity of the soul precisely means love and because your only task on earth is to return to the love from which you once emerged, because this return is only possible in love.... because I, as the eternal love Myself, can only unite with you when you have become love again.... when you have deified yourselves again through love....

Amen

Translated by Doris Boekers