I Appeal to You
... through Bertha Dudde  - 11.01.1951 

5039   Love of the world - Satan’s followers .... Love of God - Overcoming matter ....

Only a person desiring to reach God lives a spiritual life, whereas a follower of Satan lives a purely worldly life on this earth, even if he seems to be a representative of God. Overcoming the world also means overcoming Satan, who is lord of the material world insofar as that the still immature spiritual substance bound in matter belongs to him, even though his power over it was removed from him. It is certainly still part of him because it shares his spirit yet it is inaccessible to his influence while it is bound in its form. Nevertheless it is his means in order to draw people .... the souls which have to make a decision between God and him .... over to himself. For the human being, who starts off spiritually immature, desires that which the world presents to his eyes. Yet he should rise above it .... Then he will belong to the Father of eternity but Whose kingdom is a spiritual one. Therefore, anyone who loves the world and its pleasures, who strives for material goods and only lives for their acquisition, belongs to God’s adversary and also gives him authority over himself. But anyone who strives for God is no longer attracted to the world, he has surmounted the world, otherwise the desire for God would not have awakened in him. Consequently, turning away from the world is also a sign of a voluntarily aspired affiliation with God.

Satan uses the world to entice and therefore has a means of attraction which most people fall prey to because they love the world. Love of the world and love of God are not possible at the same time, and love of the world and neighbourly love will also rarely be found together as the latter would indicate a lessening of the former, and thereby you recognise the followers of God and the followers of God’s adversary .... And as long as a person still pays attention to worldly possessions and still yearns for them he will be unable to find inner peace, the peace of soul. For peace of soul comes from God, and God is only with someone who turns his back to the world. The human being is certainly placed into the world and has to fulfil his earthly task, and that will also force him to keep in touch with the world. Yet it concerns the desire of the heart, it concerns the innermost attitude towards the world’s treasures which will completely lose their appeal if a person is imbued with the need to strive for the spiritual kingdom and its treasures. In that case he will indeed continue to exist in the world yet only to fulfil the duties which earthly life imposes on him. The world, however, will no longer attract him, and that is the sign that he has overcome the world and with it its lord, that he has detached himself from God’s adversary so as to be able to establish contact with God. No-one can serve two masters, and his desire clearly demonstrates to which lord a person is of service .... The earthly world and the spiritual kingdom are so far apart from each other that what a human heart desires is easily distinguished. And Satan can never dominate a person who, through his will, has already been taken possession of by God ....

Amen