Source: https://www.bertha-dudde.org/en/proclamation/7456

7456 Voluntarily fulfilling commandments out of love....

November 15, 1959: Book 78

Only what you do voluntarily, what love impels you to do, will be a blessing for you. Therefore you will not need a commandment, for love cannot be commanded, and what is practiced as compulsion or duty cannot be judged before God. Thus love is always the decisive factor as to whether and how a work is carried out.... so that even a commandment of duty can be fulfilled out of love, not because it was commanded. How many people are under the pressure of humanly issued commandments.... whose fulfilment is therefore again determined by the measure of love, whether it is a blessing for the soul or not. People who do not need a commandment, who do what is compulsorily demanded of them out of their own accord and in free love for God, are not subject to these commandments but are above them, and only the degree of love in which a so-called 'commandment' is fulfilled is ever valued. This is why many people will become blessed through their good faith and their love for God, because love alone is decisive for their will to act. But this should not irritate fellow human beings who lack love, for they will never ever become blessed through the fulfilment of the commandments, they remain worthless before God and do not earn the soul any spiritual progress, they are done completely in vain. But people indulge in a deception which they will bitterly regret one day, for with a little thought they could have come to the mental conclusion themselves to perform worthless ceremonies which were without meaning and purpose for the soul. A heart willing to love will do everything under the impetus of love, and everything will therefore be a blessing for it. And therefore love alone is the standard for its thinking, speaking and acting, love alone creates the connection with God, love alone arouses His pleasure, and love alone reshapes the soul into its original being again, for the purpose of which it dwells on earth. And therefore everything shall be looked at with the eyes of love, and you will have a clear guideline for what God requires of people and when you humans move in right thinking. For where love is everything must be right, because love is God Himself, thus a person who is willing and active in love can always speak of God's presence and in the presence of God life.... a person's will, thinking and actions.... must truly be just. For where God is there is also life.... where God is there is no death, and where God is the human being can go his earthly path with peace of mind, it will lead to the right aim: to complete union with the one Who Himself is love from eternity....

Amen

Translated by Doris Boekers