Source: https://www.bertha-dudde.org/en/proclamation/5522

5522 Childhood of God only on earth.... further development in the hereafter....

November 1, 1952: Book 61

The maturing process is always promoted by God, yet in the stage of free will the spiritual can also offer resistance, and then God's will steps back and the human being's will decides. If the human being's development does not progress or even regresses, then the human being's will has resisted God's effort to help him progress, and then the spiritual substance in the human being, the soul, must also bear the consequences.... a state in the beyond which is adapted to the still undeveloped spiritual.... without light and without strength. Resistance to God is always a lack of light and strength, because light and strength emanate from God alone and resistance to God always means a rejection of His flow of strength of love. This state can certainly also be changed in the beyond, but again only by giving up resistance against God, that is, by willingly accepting what is also offered to him in the beyond, but likewise without coercion. But on earth a great grace of God has been disregarded, His loving help has been rejected, and understandably this has consequences which can never be entirely revoked, which is why an improvement of the state of misery can certainly be achieved in the beyond but the same will never be achieved as was possible on earth.... the childship to God.... Furthermore, it is not possible to arbitrarily return to earth again in order to make up for what was missed.... The human being's free will has made a decision on earth, and life in the kingdom of the beyond is in accordance with it. Yet God's great kindness and mercy helps all beings to become blissfully happy, and this bliss is possible in so many degrees that the being's will is always taken into account. In order to attain a higher degree of beatitude a repeated embodiment on earth is not permitted, yet a soul, driven by love and its greater than great will to help, can request a re-embodiment from God in order to carry out a mission on earth which applies to the salvation of earth souls.... This also results in an increased degree of maturity which, however, has to be acquired through an extremely difficult earthly life. Moreover, the soul which now embodies itself on earth is already in a certain degree of light, so that one cannot speak of an ascent development of a still imperfect being which now wants to make up for what it missed through a repeated earthly life. For God also gives the soul the opportunity to ascend in the beyond, yet the conditions for ascent development must be different, because it left the granted allocation of grace, which earthly life as a human being was in itself, unused, because it failed in free will and therefore can only achieve beatitude under more difficult conditions. Countless spheres exist and countless degrees of beatitude.... All souls can become blessed and increase their degree of bliss through their own will. But the highest beatitude of a child of God remains denied to the soul which failed on earth, for it is possible to attain this degree on earth using God's grace in free will.... The childship to God is the crowning of an earthly life which is led entirely according to God's will, in most faithful love for God and neighbour.... childship to God is the heavenly father's gift to His children who made use of earthly life to divest themselves of the last dross, who, through a right life of love during earthly life, become what they were from the beginning.... divine beings full of light and strength....

Amen

Translated by Doris Boekers