BD.3697
February 25, 1946

CANON LAW, LOVE OF NEIGHBOR, AND GOD'S COMMANDMENTS

You shall not through ordinances or teachings initiated by man raise the degree of your soul-ripeness; for I assess man solely on his will to live the way that pleases Me, and to therefore keep the Commandments which I gave him in wise recognition of their effectiveness. If man's ordinances therefore conform to My Commandment of love, and hence aim at spurning man towards love, so that abiding by them signifies the practice of unselfish love of fellow man, then they also meet with My approval. For then the working of My spirit becomes evident in those men who enacted such statutes.

Every other law has no worth before Me, and I place no store by its fulfilment, because the life-force streaming to you is to be used exclusively for love-action, in order to attain to soul-maturity on earth. Your goal is to become perfect; but how are you to become perfect without love? - How can you expect graces to flow your way through the keeping of ordinances whose non-fulfilment is no offence against love?

It is the love of neighbour that proves to Me love towards me, your God and Father from eternity. He who does not love his neighbour has no proper love for Me either, which would prompt him towards deeds of love for neighbour. If therefore you pretend to, out of love for Me submit yourselves to regulations demanding performance of various external motions, then I do not recognise such love, since these are mere formalities you keep up, to secure for yourselves rewards promised by men.

This is no love-action, through which alone you can substantiate to Me your love from the heart, through which alone you can gain beatitude. All external formalities, everything recognisable on the surface has not Myself but human will as its author.

To Me only unselfish love of fellow man is well-pleasing, although this also requires external deeds. That with which you pretend to please Me I do not demand of you, wherever same is not based on My commandments of love. I want only the fulfilment of these Commandments together with sincere prayer demonstrating a will devoted to Me.

Only then can you gain possession of grace and power, for there are no ways to grace other than prayer and unselfish love.

Then however this flows to you without measure. Your entire life should be an interior one, without any pomposity; you nevertheless are called upon to witness of Me openly, you are to confess My teaching, which you must strive to follow; you are to openly stand up for your faith in Me, My name and My salvation works before the world: hence speak to fellow men, so that they too recognise your mind and what you strive for, and that this is not for the terrestrial world but the kingdom of the spirit. You are to prove yourselves as My adherents, as My proper children, in that your style of living corresponds to the demands I made on you, and still do time and again, through My Word which is conveyed from above to those who as mediators proclaim My will to you.

And if you want to fulfil My will, then your action has to be a constant acting from love, by which I shall once assess you in eternity, and not for external gestures and transactions that bring you no benefit for your soul, but rather permit man to become careless towards keeping the only true commandment - to be active from unselfish love.

AMEN