I Appeal to You
... through Bertha Dudde  - 27.02.1949 

4574   Assessment of duties according to degree of love ....

You should use all your energy to attain everlasting riches, that is, everything you think and do should be based on helpful neighbourly love, then the salvation of your soul would be assured for eternity. My demand may seem impossible to achieve to you and, yet, I don’t expect too much from you, nothing that cannot be done. However, consider the fact that your daily fulfilment of duty can be understood differently, that you can do your duty without the slightest feeling of love for your neighbour, thus you are of service to him as a matter of duty, but that you can also carry out every action by being inwardly impelled through love and that these actions, although they are also daily duties, are assessed differently by Me and raise your maturity of soul. Love is everything, it values every action. Consequently, a person can be ever so dutiful due to his correct nature, yet without love they will only be actions of the body which I only reward in a worldly sense but which do not gain him spiritual wealth, for this entirely depends on the degree of love with which these duties are being accomplished. Thus you could gain so much more if you used all your energy of life for active neighbourly love, so that everything you do is motivated by the will to help where your help is needed. The actions you have to perform, where your free will is therefore excluded, are merely actions for the world, although they can also incorporate a spiritual character .... hence, duties that are demanded are indeed acts of neighbourly love but are, since they are dutifully performed, valued in a purely worldly sense by Me, because the love of the heart is absent. I pay attention to the heart and won’t be deceived by pious words or expressions, I know how far the heart is involved; but I bless everyone who complies with human demands purely because he is willing to help, who carries out every work of duty with inner joy to help his neighbour and who therefore also turns his duties into a voluntary activity and thereby utilises his energy of life which will result in abundant rewards in eternity. For he truly gathers spiritual possessions on earth and will not enter the spiritual kingdom poverty stricken, but, full of strength, he will also be able to work over there wherever his love impels him, whereas even the most hard-working person on earth will stand at the gate of death without strength and in a poor state because he only worked for the world, because helpful neighbourly love never impelled him to be active on earth but he only ever fulfilled his worldly obligations, admittedly by diligently fulfilling his duty but only because he had to and not voluntarily. This is why the same activity and the same amount of work can lead to entirely different success .... it can be purely remunerated in a worldly sense but also lead to everlasting rewards, and you should aim for the latter, so that your life on earth is not a waste of time, for you will never be able to catch up in the beyond on what you neglected to do on earth ....

Amen