Source: https://www.bertha-dudde.org/en/proclamation/6974

6974 Faith conditions love....

November 21, 1957: Book 74

If you ask how you can attain faith, this is already a sign that you want to believe and that you are looking for a path which will lead you to the aim. In times of earthly adversity you humans all need support, for then you feel that you are too weak on your own, that your physical strength alone is not enough, and then you would also like to believe that you could entrust yourselves to a higher power, but this faith is usually lacking. For you cannot acquire it through your intellect, you cannot intellectually create evidence for what you want to believe in.... in a power with Whom you are most closely connected, Whose will determines your destiny, Who is a being of supreme perfection and Who draws close to you when you call upon It. But you can cause this supreme being to prove Itself to you, and It will give you the inner conviction of that which cannot be proven intellectually. For this supreme being reveals Himself to the human being in many ways. But It places conditions on it: the acknowledgement of Itself, the creator-spirit, from Whom everything emerged, the serious desire for truth.... and a way of life in love.... These conditions are indispensable for this creative power.... God Himself.... will enter into contact with you and help you to a convinced faith. The rational man will constantly look for proofs and reject everything that cannot be proven.... He never steps out of the world he has intellectually built within himself into another world, and he therefore cannot recognize the latter either, it remains hidden from him. But it can be entered by every person who lives in love.... For through his life of love he already establishes the connection with the eternal love Itself, Which he is unable to deny with conviction, and love Itself then guides him into the truth he desires. But you humans are very far away from the truth because love has grown cold in you. And therefore you are no longer able to believe, everything you are asked to believe seems unreal to you; you only move with your thoughts in the real world, and despite eager intellectual activity you remain empty and poor in spiritual knowledge.... of the knowledge that reveals the ultimate meaning of all things.... yes, you even presume to reject the great revelation of God in Jesus Christ, His incarnation in Jesus, into the realm of legend. You do not give in to the quiet impulses within you to let the heart speak for once instead of the intellect. You try to meet everything with reason, which only the heart can judge.... because your heart is no longer able to do so due to a lack of love. The mission of the man Jesus, apart from the act of salvation, also consisted of living a life of love to people.... because such alone helps to enlighten the spirit, because a life of love is indispensable in order to come close to the truth and to develop all forces in the human being which testify to a divine origin. Love was preached by Jesus, the disciples were instructed to spread the divine teaching of love. And this doctrine of love is the foundation on which the christian religions were also built.... But so little attention is paid to this teaching of love that it is understandable why people's spiritual state is darkened, why faith mostly does not go beyond a formal belief and why divine revelations are repeatedly attacked or rejected as untrustworthy. Love alone is the key to truth, and love cannot be replaced by worldly wisdom, no matter how great, by intellect, no matter how sharp.... for love alone is the irrefutable bond with God, Who unites Himself with the human being in every work of love, Who allows His spirit to overflow onto the human being who, through love, assimilates himself to His original being.... And God can and will reveal Himself to this human being, He will let him gain insight into areas which are inaccessible to the human intellect, He will enlighten his spirit and give him fullest understanding for profoundest wisdoms and for His plan of salvation and its reason....

Amen

Translated by Doris Boekers