NEUOFFENBARUNG← Gifts of Heaven · Volume 1 · Contents
Further questions in spiritual light
13th March 1841, from 4 1/4 o'clock in the afternoon to 1/4 8 o'clock in the evening.
Marie H. asked, with the request for information through the servant Jakob Lorber: "How is it possible that the poor slaves and deportees can bear their terrible fate? Wilhelmine H.: ,,Does our four deceased brothers and sisters remember us?" Pauline H.: "How should we pray the Lord's Prayer so that it may bear fruit?" Julie H.: "What is the meaning of the manger in which You, oh Lord, were laid as a babe?" Paul H.: "How should a student spend the hours of rest pleasing to God?" Writer: named five siblings. The Lord answered through His servant J.L. as follows:
[1] Dear children! I have indeed heard your questions – but think that someone can ask in two ways and that this twofold question corresponds to the twofold life. For a question can be directed to the natural exterior or to the spiritual interior, as it also arises either from the one or the other.
[2] Now judge for yourselves on what ground and soil your questions have grown. Think whether they have come to you through a light, inquisitive presumption, or whether they have arisen in the truly sorrowful need of your heart. For behold, there is an infinite difference between the one and the other way of asking.
[3] Whoever asks out of light, half-needed curiosity, his question is like that of a blind man who busily asks about the different colors of a picture. But if his patient friend tells him all the colors exactly, what do you think, will the blind man be able to form any idea of the harmony of the colors and all their shades and highlights?
[4] Dear children, I do not want to show you where your questions have grown. Your own understanding of My faithful answer will show you very clearly the birthplace of your questions.
[5] As far as the first two questions are concerned, it is of little importance whether you know or not how the "slaves" possibly endure their maltreatment and why it is allowed by Me that they are exposed to such maltreatment – and whether furthermore your "deceased brothers and sisters" remember you well. But it all depends on that you remember Me well in your hearts at every opportunity.
[6] For whoever has faithfully turned his heart full of love to Me, I will certainly also remember much more. But if I remember someone in My mercy, how can he still ask what those do who live in Me! Or do you think that your brothers and sisters live dead in Me? Do you think that what has passed into the life of all life is capable of death?
[7] But the dead are incapable of memory. But who lives and lives in Me, he will surely also receive a memory from My wisdom flowing through him, which would shame yours countless times.
[8] As for the Lord's Prayer, it is the same with this prayer as with the question of how to pray it so that it bears fruit. For whoever does not pray it in spirit and wisdom, it is of as much use to him as the explanation of colors is to the well-known blind man.
[9] How can the blind say: "Our Father", since he has never made the effort to know the Father in his heart by love and by living faith, and to approach Him in spirit and in truth?
[10] How can he say: "You who are in heaven", who knows neither the Father and even less heaven !? How can he say: "Hallowed be your name!", who does not know My love, even less My
living word and therefore also impossibly the Life of life and the Holiness of all salvation and all new creation out of Me, which alone is My ineffable name!
[11] How can he say: Your kingdom come!", who is attached with all his senses like a parasitic plant to the tree that is supposed to bear fruit, i.e. to this world! How can he say: "Thy will be done", who has never taken the trouble to recognize My will and against every commandment, no matter how easy, either cherishes a great lukewarmness in his heart or often already in his youth the barest disobedience and in all things concerning the eternal life, carries the greatest carelessness in himself?
[12] How can he say: "Give us the bread of life", who has no idea in his heart of the bread that is being asked for, but has an even greater eagerness to eat in his stomach, which is the main heart of those who pray fruitlessly !?
[13] How can he ask for "forgiveness of his sins" whose heart is still full of impurity, since there is nothing in it but anger, envy, arrogance, envy, insolence and many other vices of the kind? Listen, for the fruitful attainment of the forgiveness of sins, more is required than to be without an enemy through favorable circumstances. For he who has no enemy, how can he ask: "Forgive me my sins as I forgive my enemies’". I do not mean that you should make enemies in order to have something to forgive, but I do mean that your heart should be elevated above any offense, however it may be. Otherwise, instead of forgiveness, you will ask for judgment and damnation.
[14] Furthermore, how can he say: "Do not lead us into temptation", who at first does not know Me and prays into the air in this way, and who, if I also, unwittingly spare him any temptation, but himself, like a man possessed, running from danger to danger, from abyss to abyss, from death to death !?
[15] Behold, how is such a request after all! Is it not like a fool who asks a great benefactor for support, but when he has received it, he throws it partly into the fire, partly into dirty water, partly into stinking puddles of sewage and partly into garbage and graves full of dead man's mud? Think what use such a fool's gift is!
[16] How can he finally say: "Deliver us from evil" who, with all diligence, throws himself into all evils!?
[17] If you want to pray this prayer fruitfully, then you must pray it in spirit and in truth and think carefully about what is required to reap the true fruit of this prayer. Otherwise, the opposite of the great blessing will come from this prayer for you as for everyone else.
[18] As for the last two questions, the "manger" question is a childish one, but not one to which you can be given a useful answer, much less one that you can understand, since the inner meaning must first be discovered in order to grasp a mystery too profound even for archangels.
[19] Therefore, make an effort to turn your "hours of rest" into hours consecrated to Me in quiet peace and seclusion of your mind – so you can experience early how exceedingly good and full of love I, your Father, am. And truly, in one minute I would like to give you more than all the world in a thousand years.
[20] But if your hours of rest serve you for something else, then you will also experience just as surely how strange, inscrutable and inexorable I tend to remain to those who prefer the filth of the world and all deception of Satan, above Me.
[21] Finally, think hard about Who these words to you are coming from! Make yourselves known to Me at an early stage! Make the "judge" your "friend" and the eternal great "God" your "Father" – so you will see Me happily and without fear when I will thunder My judgments over this earth!
[22] For to the world I will come as an adamant judge, but truly to My children I will come as the most loving, best, holy Father!
[23] Therefore, seek the Father, and you will live forever in the bosom of My love. Amen!
[24] This is what He says, Whom you should seek and recognize above all – as Father. Amen!