Source: https://www.bertha-dudde.org/en/proclamation/6445

6445 Characteristic of the church of Christ....

January 6, 1956: Book 69

The working of My spirit is the characteristic of My church which I Myself founded on earth.... Time and again I must tell you that you can only recognise My church by that, that you are only members of the church of Christ when the spirit is able to work in you.... when your thinking is enlightened, even if you are not called on to accomplish extraordinary things.... Enlightened thinking demonstrates the strength of My spirit which, however, can only express itself when the preconditions are fulfilled.... when selfless activity of love has established the bond between the spiritual spark within you and its Father-Spirit.... Then you will also be able to have a living faith, for love will have brought the faith in you alive and the spirit within you will brightly and clearly realise which teachings correspond to the truth, thus you will also uphold them with conviction towards your fellow human beings. As long as you still live in error, as long as your faith is merely a conventional faith without life, the spirit will not be active in you yet and neither will you be able to say that you belong to the church of Christ.... the church which I Myself founded on earth. Alone the fact that you humans are unaware of this or, if you are told, do not want to believe it, proves that you don't belong to My church as yet; it proves that you are spiritually unenlightened, and it proves that you don't live a loving way of life, otherwise your thinking would change by itself and enable you to recognise the truth of these Words of Mine....

Let Me earnestly remind you to live a life of unselfish love.... For this is the first condition in order to awaken the spiritual spark in you, so that it will become active.... so that it will grant you realisation of the truth.... But don't adhere to external formalities, don't accept what you are told by unenlightened people, by what they, in turn, accepted from other unenlightened people and subsequently firmly endorse as truth. Acquire the truth for yourselves by asking Me for it.... Don't just be content with the teaching material that is given to you but dwell on it first before you accept it, and appeal to Me for help in order to recognise the truth.... And providing this is your sincere will I shall truly guide your thoughts correctly, because it is My will that you shall attain the truth and I will do everything in order to convey it to you, only your free will to seriously desire the truth is necessary. I cannot approve your lethargy of thinking; I cannot praise you humans for unreservedly believing what you are being told without first forming your own opinion about it. I won't condemn you if you, despite your best intentions, don't think that you can accept something.... even if it is the truth.... But I will condemn you if you accept spiritual knowledge without thinking about it, because spiritual knowledge must become a certainty in you and this is only possible if you mentally look at it from every angle and, in order to then think correctly, ask Me Myself for help.... Such a request is so pleasing to Me that I will truly grant it, but how seldom does an appeal like that rise up to Me.... And therefore it will also be impossible for you to attain a living faith, it will be impossible for My spirit to work in you because you don't grant it the right to express itself. And for this reason you will never be able to claim that you belong to My church which I established on earth, whose characteristic is 'the working of the spirit' in the human being which 'will guide you into truth.... ', which will also make you realise that your life is a waste of time as long as you don't live a life of love and unite yourselves with Me through love....

Amen

Translated by Heidi Hanna