Source: https://www.bertha-dudde.org/en/proclamation/8969

8969 Is the will first or grace....

April 26, 1965: Book 94

Let yourselves be satisfied with My favour, because I give it to you abundantly, because you can only become happy through favour. And I want that you are always aware of it, which gift of favour earth life is for you, but which only brings you on the right way when you also evaluate it as such, because likewise you can let it pass you by unused, and you stand there where you stood at the beginning of your embodiment; it has been an idle run for you. And highest and most valuable of My gifts of favour is My word, which you are able to hear at any time when you desire to hear it. But deep in the heart you must desire it, then your spiritual ear is opened, and you hear Me, and you will be happy, because you then enter the original state; your way is no longer far to perfection, where My word sounded to you and you were immeasurably happy. That is why you must always let your will become active, so that you also accept the favours, which are offered to you.... Therefore the will is the first, and whether the favours also go to you unmeasured.... if the will is not prepared to accept and evaluate them, then you draw no benefit from it, and your state does not change; you remain imperfect, as you were at the beginning of your embodiment. Therefore it is wrong to say that I hand out the favours according to My discretion, because the same measure of favours is at your disposal, otherwise I Myself would determine the perfection of My creatures.... This thought is so wrong that I Myself have 'chosen you to become blessed or to be damned'.... when this is determined solely by your free will. Enough information has already been given to you about the freedom of will, so that you can refute every such objection. And yet it is held by those who, on the basis of misunderstood scriptural passages, make such assertions as, "It is God Who works in you the willing and the doing.... according to His good pleasure." This scripture, too, is completely misinterpreted if you thereby believe that I accomplish everything according to My will.... I work well in you because you could do nothing without receiving the power from Me. It was also I Who endowed you with free will, but you must bring this will to fruition yourselves, and I therefore provide you with a measure of grace, which also earns you perfection with certainty if you use it, but for which the will must always first be ready. And that is why you carry a great responsibility, and both the light beings as well as the powers of darkness fight for your will, the one to turn the will towards Me and to make it completely inclined towards good, while the endeavour of the dark powers is to give your will a wrong direction, therefore away from Me, and so prevent you to strive for perfection. But nevertheless you will be able to receive an abundance of grace at any time, because this can cause your will that you use it right, and it always only depends on whether you recognize Me as the source of grace.... then your will will also be ready.... And if therefore My word is offered to you, which is conducted to earth in an unusual way, then every man could recognize it as an unusual favour, because also the intellect only needed to ask itself how it comes about, and it would have to make man think.... But if he still rejects it, then his will is directed against it, and this will is decisive.... Then he does not pass the test of will, and accordingly is also his lot in eternity, if he does not still change there and slowly comes to knowledge....

Amen

Translated by Doris Boekers