Source: https://www.bertha-dudde.org/en/proclamation/8608

8608 Acquiring virtues....

September 6, 1963: Book 90

You ought to practise patience and make an effort of cultivating a life of peacefulness and gentleness in mercy and righteousness and humility, in which case you will also always live a life of love, for love alone will shape you such that you will acquire all these virtues, that you will endeavour to treat your neighbour with love and therefore live according to My will. And precisely that which I expect of you will be lacking in you as long as you are still controlled by My adversary. And you can also recognise to whom you belong if you seriously scrutinise yourselves as to what you still need to become perfect. For you possessed these virtues in your perfect state when you still belonged to Me and were blissfully happy.... By turning away from Me you changed yourselves into the opposite, all the bad characteristics awakened in you when you accepted My adversary's nature who lacked all love.... You shall reach perfection again in earthly life and therefore must also cast off all negative attributes and adopt your fundamental nature again; you must live a life of love which will awaken all virtues in you so that you will become divine living creations again. Yet this will always require an inner battle until you discard your initial nature, for time and again you will be provoked by My adversary into impatience, contentiousness and a quick-tempered nature, time and again he will want to harden your hearts, to obscure your sense of justice and prompt you to become arrogant, for he does not want you to become perfect but keep hold of you as beings like himself whom he can dominate. Yet you will have to wage this battle, for every ascent requires force towards the one who keeps you constrained. And you can become victorious if you hand yourselves over to Me in Jesus, if you appeal to Me to help you become again what you were in the beginning.

You must always consciously work on yourselves, you must recognise when you have failed and relapsed into your old mistakes, and you must repeatedly request strength from Me for the transformation of your nature. Then I will recognise that your will is sincere and I will truly help you in reaching your goal. Most of all you must discard all arrogance, overcome all faults, because then you will also recognise them as faults once the arrogance has given way.... And as soon as you live with love this love will also encourage you to change your nature, then you won't be able to help yourselves but think righteously, to let mercy prevail, to also quietly and patiently endure your fellow human beings' failings and you will try to gently influence your neighbour if you want to help him accomplish his change of nature like yourselves.... As soon as all divine qualities break through in you again due to love you will also safely reach your goal of unification with Me, which can only take place with a similar being as Myself, because this is based on My law of eternal order.... Time and again you should exercise self-criticism as to how much control the adversary still has over you and influences you. And you should always resist him when he wants to tempt you into reverting into faults which you endeavour to discard. One thought of Me and he must let go of you and can no longer oppress you.... It is just that you have to muster the serious will of accomplishing this transformation of your soul, for you will be approached by temptations every day, often motivated by your neighbour who is impelled by the adversary to agitate you so that you fall back into you old mistakes. And time and again you will have to prove yourselves, yet as soon as you prevail, as soon as you consciously work at improving yourselves, a glorious reward will also beckon you, for earthly life does not last long but the spiritual kingdom will grant you a blissful life and you will be able to work in light and strength and freedom with Me again, for your nature will have become like My own again which will also signifies an eternal unity, for you then will have become as perfect even as your Father in heaven is perfect....

Amen

Translated by Heidi Hanna