Source: https://www.bertha-dudde.org/en/proclamation/6978

6978 Grave importance of life on earth....

November 28, 1957: Book 74

No human being is fully aware of the significance of earthly life, and no human being knows what he can acquire in this earthly life. The knowledge of it can certainly be conveyed to him, he can also accept it as true and let it take effect on him, but he can never grasp the great spiritual correlations, nor can he foresee the effect of a correctly lived earthly change, because he does not know the radiant strength he once had towards his God and creator and that his final aim is the same bliss again in full possession of light and strength.... As a human being he is too limited in his thinking and could never grasp what was in the beginning and what is to be achieved again. But again and again God tries to expand this still limited thinking, and the human being himself can also do so if he breaks the shackles of his soul, if he begins to dissolve the dense shells around it, which can happen through a life of love, because the latter is already a slow reshaping to the former nature.... thus can also remove all limitations. But as long as the human being lives on earth he will not be able to exceed certain limits, for a person's love is rarely so overwhelming that it is also able to remove the soul's last cover already on earth. But once it enters the kingdom of the beyond after the death of the body, then its state can already be very full of light, and then it will also recognize the correlations, and it will know what unheard-of grace earthly life means for every human being.... But this recognition cannot be given to it by God, it must have acquired it itself, which happens through a life of love. And therefore people also don't know about the significance of a life of love.... They don't know about it until they lead it themselves, but then their thinking is no longer limited either, it reaches far into God's plan of creation and salvation, and the soul comes ever closer to God as its father of eternity. Many a soul will feel bitter remorse when it has to realize in the kingdom of the beyond how little it has valued its earthly life, what state it could have reached and how far it has fallen behind due to its own fault. For every soul's attention is drawn to this, every soul is stimulated in earthly life to work with love, and in various ways it is also given knowledge to which it can adjust itself. But a person may never be influenced by force, and therefore God will not make him unfree in his thinking either. But he could exceed the limits set for him in his earthly form himself. And precisely this is what the soul will have to realize one day, that it would also have been possible for it to acquire light and strength in earthly life.... it will have to realize that only its own will prevented it from being lovingly active, but that it would have been possible to be lovingly active.... For every person has the opportunity to do so, every person is addressed by his fellow human being's adversity.... but every human being also has free will. And thus this free will is both the impetus for activity in love as well as the reason for refraining from good works. And therefore the human being has to answer for his will or also: The will determines his further fate in eternity. And for the testing of this will the human being was given earthly life, which can bring him unbelievably glorious things but can also put him into an agonizing state.... If only the awareness of responsibility can be awakened in people, if only the significance of earthly life can be presented to them so that they seriously think about it, then the possibility is already given that they will think about themselves and their shortcomings, and the work on their souls can begin, i.e., the human being can endeavour to live in accordance with God's will.... and this also always means practicing love towards his neighbour.... And the blessing of such an activity of love will not fail to materialize, for the human being will start to think differently, he will be able to explain to himself many things which were previously incomprehensible to him, he will increasingly direct his thoughts into the spiritual kingdom, cover after cover will fall from his soul.... But only love is able to bring about this change in his nature, only love is his soul's only remedy which, however, works safely and puts the soul into a state that it can now leave earthly life permeable to light.... that it now recognizes itself as God's creature which once left Him but may return to Him again....

Amen

Translated by Doris Boekers