I Appeal to You
... through Bertha Dudde  - 04.12.1952 

5547   True Christianity ....

A faithful Christian must also live according to his belief, that is, he must follow Jesus Christ, Who exemplified to people the right kind of life on earth and thus requires faith in His act of Salvation in order to be acknowledged by Him as a Christian. The Christian doctrine must be followed from the heart, for Christ requires love from people, a love which lacks self-interest and has therefore a redeeming effect, a love which is willing to make sacrifices, a love which Jesus demonstrated through His death on the cross. Thus, to be a true Christian means to shape one’s inner nature into love in the belief in Jesus Christ, for the human being is incapable of this change of character without faith in Him. He can indeed believe in Him and yet not live in love .... In that case, however, it is merely a conventional faith, an intellectual faith, which may well give credence to the existence of Jesus, the man, and perhaps even His crucifixion, but which has no idea about the significance of the sacrifice the made by the man Jesus on behalf of fellow human beings. For the understanding of this only comes to him when he practices love, because only then will his spirit give him the right understanding through his heart .... This is why ‘being a Christian’ first means to live a life of love, then the human being will also testify to Jesus Christ as the Redeemer of the world. However, a person lacking unselfish love will never be a Christian, even if he declares himself as such before the world .... For the concept of Christianity is not a question of believing that Jesus existed, the point is that the person lives as Jesus Christ had lived on earth in order to be able to rightfully call himself a Christian. This is why there is no true Christianity in this world anymore, despite churches and doctrines, for the spirit of Christ is missing. People are unredeemed because Jesus Christ can no longer be effective where love does not exist .... And love has completely grown cold among people .... Whether poor or rich, whether high or low, they all lack love, the most important aspect of Christianity ....

People no longer make use of Jesus’ act of Salvation; they stand outside the circle of those who died on behalf of Jesus Christ. They certainly see the cross because they cannot deny Jesus Christ, the man, and His crucifixion, but it has become utterly irrelevant to them, they merely speak words without meaning and strength, because only love reveals the understanding in the first place but love has died away. For such people Jesus Christ died in vain on the cross and yet they call themselves Christians .... Not one of them realises the significance, not one of them makes the effort to be a true Christian, and many people contemptuously look down on those who, in their eyes, are heathens or unbelievers because they are not part of an official church or community .... And all these will one day have a dreadful awakening if they depart from earth in an unredeemed state and are required to give account of their way of live, if their degree of love is so low that it emits no ray of light on entry into the kingdom of the beyond .... Then they will have to look for the Redeemer of humankind first and will hardly find Him, because they will have lacked the right faith in Him and yet, without it they will never be able to become happy .... Oh, if only you humans knew what you are giving away on this earth because of your half-hearted attitude towards the most important things .... if only you knew how bitterly you will regret it one day .... You will never be able to become blissfully happy without love .... You must travel your path on earth as true Christians, you must follow Him, that is, keep His commandments, only then will your faith in Him be a living one, only then will you profess Jesus Christ before the world .... You will stand up for Him and, having been redeemed by Him, also be able to provide your fellow human being with the right explanation as to the fact that and why He has to be acknowledged, as to fact that and why eternal life is not possible without the redemption through Jesus Christ and that only the right way of life in the spirit of Jesus will be valued before God and not the outwardly displayed Christianity which, in truth, is no Christianity at all ....

Amen