Gifts of Heaven · Volume 1 · Chapter 135

The Lord’s suffering, fasting, poverty, love. Four questions in

spiritual light. 9th April 1841, from 3:45 until 7:45 pm

Writers: Ans.H. and his four daughters. Regarding the aforementioned items, the Lord graciously testified through His servant as follows:

[1] So when you ask, you ask rightly! For in such questions lies the basis of what is most necessary for every human being.

[2] You have not given a light request in the form of a question, nevertheless the given words are nothing but questions from your heart, the particular answer to which is given to you now. The great answer, however, will be given to you only when you will find it in yourselves to observe it specifically. That is, the special answer is a signpost that shows you how human life should be in spirit and in truth, full of love and living faith, in order to be able to safely reach the inner life of the spirit through this life and finally only through this, to Me. But whoever will come to Me, he will thereby also come to the general answer not only to these questions given by you, but also to those infinite ones which are contained in these four.

[3] For truly, if you have understood in your heart the great mystery of My suffering, all the angels of heaven would attend school with you with reverence and in the highest joy eternally and return enriched with immeasurable wonders every time after school.

[4] If you knew how to justly fast in your hearts, you would never ask for it. For through such fasting, I would have long since become a visible Father to you, where I could then give you more with the slightest breath than otherwise with a thousand words.

[5] If you understood in your hearts what true poverty is, you would already be richer than many princes of heaven. For in true poverty there is a great treasure, which cannot be measured by any earthly yardstick! True poverty is eternally fed with My word – as you also read that the gospel is to be preached to the poor. True poverty is also understood to be like the "hungry" and the "thirsty," who are also fully satisfied by My words.

[6] And finally, if you understand love in your heart, you would truly fulfill the great demand I made of My apostles when I said to them: "Be perfect, as your Father in the heavens is perfect!" Dear children! What do you think this requirement means? See, this requirement means nothing more and nothing less than only the rather great "small thing" that man should perfectly resemble Me in everything! If you can only get the slightest idea of My greatness, power and strength and of all My infinite perfections, then you will certainly also be able to get a small idea of what it means when I say to you that you should also become as perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect. For if "the Son" has made His own joint heirs, so that He may share the great inheritance from the Father in perfect brotherhood, this also means nothing else than that His own should attain to the same righteousness, to the same power and strength of the Spirit of God, which indwells the Son in the Father and the Father in the Son from eternity.

[7] However, before I explain all this to you in more detail, let us return to the specific answer to your four main questions.

[8] As far as My suffering is concerned, I suffered in My body like any other human being, and in the same order as you read in the Gospels. But because the human suffered, I also included another – My divine I – so this suffering was also a double one, namely the outer, bodily, and the inner, divine.

[9] What the outer suffering consisted of, you know – but what the divine suffering consisted of, that is another question. So that you can get an idea of it, think what it means when the infinite God withdrew from His infinite and eternal freedom in this period of suffering and took His dwelling in the heart of the suffering "son"!

[10] Now look, My exterior was pressed to the point of death by the bitter sufferings. The Divinity seated in the heart, however, had to conquer death and hell from the innermost point. Now think of the suffering God-man, who was now placed between two fires: From the outside, death and hell pressed Me with all it's force until My natural life was driven to the innermost point of My heart. From within, however, the Godhead counteracted this pressure with all it's infinite power and strength and only allowed itself to be compressed to a point by love itself.

[11] Now think again: The same power and the same force, which could destroy with a breath all that lives and works in the whole of infinity in any moment, the same power and force, which all eternities and infinities do not grasp, which called the whole infinite creation to become from Itself – oh listen! – The same power and strength in It's fullest totality, has let Itself be constricted so far out of It's infinity – as already said – to one point, which constriction was the greatest voluntary humiliation of the Godhead in Me!

[12] If you are able to understand only somewhat in your heart which suffering struggle I had to endure as Eternal Love, then you will probably also be able to get a small idea of what is to be understood by My suffering.

[13] This suffering lasted until the point when I cried out on the cross: It is finished! Father, into Your hands I commend My spirit! – or in other words: "Behold Father! Your love returns to You!" – and at that moment, all the bonds of death and hell were broken by the infinite power of God. The eternal power stormed out with infinite force. The whole earth trembled, touched by the omnipotence of God. It voluntarily opened it's graves and drove the prisoners out to life.

[14] And the same omnipotence also penetrated beyond all of visible creation and immediately filled infinity again. And all suns in all endless spaces withdrew their light out of overwhelming reverence for the omnipotence of God touching them anew. But that the Godhead did not destroy and annihilate everything in this new exit at that moment, was solely due to Love, which was now completely reunited with Him.

[15] Now behold, little children, this is, as much as you can grasp it, to be understood by "My suffering"! But there are still infinite things hidden in it, in which you will have enough to explore for eternities, and that indeed always greater and more infinite. For what I have told you now, relates to perfection just as a point relates to infinity.

[16] But if you fast, fast in true denial of yourself out of pure love for Me, at everything that the world offers you, you will attain the "bread of heaven" through such righteous fasting.

[17] As a bride on her wedding day takes off all her former clothes, washes her whole body, then puts on her wedding clothes and adorns herself with all kinds of flowers and precious stones, so that she may please the bridegroom when he comes and leads her into his house – in the same way you should take off all your worldly "clothes" through righteous fasting, wash yourselves with living water and then put on clothes of true love, innocence and all humility, and adorn yourselves with all kinds of flowers and precious stones of the works of love!

[18] And when then the great bridegroom will come and meet you so well prepared, then He will also do what was said about the figurative bridegroom. And when you will be in the house of the Bridegroom, He will open a treasury for you and give you the immeasurable treasures of eternal life, which is a consequence of My bitter suffering or redemption.

[19] And what fasting is, that is also poverty. For truly, he who has not become poor in all that is of the "world", will not enter My kingdom until he has given back the last penny to the world. Behold, this is true poverty in spirit and in truth!

[20] But that the voluntary poverty has an infinite advantage over the compulsory one, is so self- evident, that a closer discussion about it would be superfluous in the highest degree. For the forced poverty can only equal the voluntary poverty through the complete surrender to My will and My love.

[21] But now ask yourselves: What is the relationship of a bride with her bridegroom for whom she has no love in her heart? Will she adorn herself in the same way for the hour when she knows that the despised one will come? Will she await that hour with the great longing of her heart? I tell you: Not at all! For she will curse and revile that hour in her heart. She will not wash, but rather smear herself with all kinds of filth, and she will keep on her everyday clothes and sprinkle her head with ashes, thinking that when the conscious bridegroom comes, he will be horrified at her and will desist from his desire.

[22] And truly, when the bridegroom comes and finds his bride like this, I tell you, he will not take her (if he resembles Me), but will willingly leave the loveless one to the one she has pledged her love to.

[23] Now look, since a bride only adorns herself for the right bridegroom if she loves him, it will become clear to you very easily that without love for Me, no fasting and no poverty is conceivable and therefore also no wedding adornment. But there will also be no "leading home" of the bride, which "leading home" is nothing else than the redemption from death to life.

[24] See how your questions behave there! In My suffering is love. Fasting and poverty is the suffering of love. And the suffering of love is the adornment of it. And in the adornment, which is life, is salvation. Thus, love, suffering and salvation are one and the same.

[25] Whoever therefore loves as has been shown to you, has made himself a partaker of salvation, and his portion will be like Mine. Just as the bridegroom shares all his goods with his bride, so it will be in My house. Then you will know what this means: Be perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect.

[26] Amen! So say I, the same Father in Heaven! Amen.