Source: https://www.bertha-dudde.org/en/proclamation/1845

1845 Love for God.... recognizing His word....

March 11, 1941: Book 28

The willingness to serve God presupposes love for Him, for the human being recognizes a being above himself to Whom he feels subject, but to Whom he is also devoted and willing to do anything for this being, thus he feels love for God. Since the human being now offers his service to God of his own free will, this is a conscious turning towards and longing for Him. It is an awareness of his belonging to God, and thus the separation from Him is already overcome, even though the human being has not yet reached the state of perfection which he is able to attain on earth. The love for God, however, has awakened in him and the will to live to please Him.... There are no special characteristics which, purely outwardly, already reveal the bond with God, for everything that works outwardly does not stand up to the many tests which God allows to come upon precisely those earthly children who want to enter His service in order to steel their will. These trials should increase the inner desire for God, the human being should entrust himself to Him in greatest adversity and always see his father in Him, his ending and also his end. And he can only do all this if he is deeply inward, if everything external does not cling to him, if only the longing to be united with God fills him..... therefore, love for God must be inherent in him, it must determine his every action, thought and speech. And an earthly child who is in love, i.e. who carries God in his heart, will not be able to be anything other than lovingly active, and thus the bond of love will become ever more intimate. God Himself assesses the feeling that a person has for Him in his heart and He truly knows best to what extent a person's heart is shaped to receive the divine lord. Man attaches great importance to a visible expression of God.... He always wants to have proof and therefore only believes when there are so many obvious miraculous signs that doubt is impossible. But God does not want people to believe only when He works signs and wonders.... He wants the divine word to be accepted without signs, He wants man to recognize it as the word of God, for man's merit is indisputably higher if he accepts the truth from the heavens without it being proven to him by signs. Man is then also more easily inclined to believe that his love is not yet great enough to be honoured by God with the inner word. The lord looks at the hearts of His own, and whichever He now finds without fault, He will make unspeakably happy by taking up residence in it Himself. For He assured people of this when He walked on earth, that He would come to be united with His own on earth. And His own will also recognize Him when He comes. But first their faith must be so strong that they recognize the lord in the word, for then they will already be intimately united with Him and when He Himself appears their love, which they have already proven to Him before, will be crowned....

Amen

Translated by Doris Boekers