14.

Jesus conveyed to us human beings throughout his entire earthly life the message that God, the Lord of heaven and the universe, loves us as his children. We may call God our father. He has given us an immortal soul.

God loves all people without exception. He wants us to experience salvation not only after our death, but also during our life. However, He does not want the isolated salvation of individuals, but the salvation of all people. This salvation cannot come about under the influence of Satan, but can only grow and blossom when God's kingdom is realised on earth. It is a kingdom of peace and love based on justice and it began to become a reality on earth with the birth of Jesus Christ.

However, because of our freedom, this kingdom cannot come into being by itself, not without our consent and certainly not without our cooperation. In order for us to be able to make our contribution to the Kingdom of God, Jesus told us that the following commandment is the most important guide for our actions: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and most important commandment. Equally important is the second: "You shall love your neighbour as yourself". With these two commandments, Jesus shows us that loving God is the root that enables us to be able to grow the fruits of loving our neighbour. Jesus even commanded us to do good to our enemies.

If all people would begin to live according to this commandment, the Kingdom of God could become a reality on earth. There would then be no more hatred, no more cruelty, no more discord and no more injustice.

15.

God knows that we are not able to establish this kingdom with our own strength. He knows that we are still at the mercy of Satan's influences, as he exploits and abuses the freedom  given to him. Satan has a central interest in ensuring that neither love, nor peace, nor justice can reign on the earth.

We might wish that God would enforce and complete his kingdom of his own accord, it would be nice to be able to live in this kingdom. But God will not do that on his own, because that would be, as already mentioned, an interference in our human freedom, which God respects. We would then no longer be able to freely decide for ourselves for or against God's love.

God wants to and will help us in the establishment of his kingdom on earth, but he wont impose this help on us without being asked. We ourselves must want the establishment of God's kingdom, and we must ask him for his help. It is up to us to do everything that is necessary for the establishment of the Kingdom of God. It is also within our human freedom to hate instead of love, to make trouble instead of working for peace and to establish systems of injustice, of oppression and exploitation on a large and small scale instead of helping justice to prevail.

That is why Jesus taught us in the "Our Father" how to pray and ask: "Our Father who art in heaven ........ thy kingdom come, thy will be done!"

This is the request for help in our work so that God's kingdom can be realised and so that his will may be done in it.

If we do not babble these requests thoughtlessly, but pray and ask from the bottom of our hearts, God will help us directly and tangibly through his Holy Spirit, so that with us and through us love, reconciliation , mercy and peace can grow. Jesus has also promised us that God will hear and fulfil such petitions that we address to him in the name of Jesus. To differentiate: selfish requests are not requests in the name and interest of Jesus and we must not be surprised if God does not respond to selfish requests that have nothing to do with the growth of his kingdom.

Nevertheless, we may turn to God the Father in our everyday needs with requests for help. He is, after all, the merciful God and he wants our lives to flourish under his guidance. Jesus invited us again and again to trustingly turn to our Father in heaven with our requests, even though the heavenly Father already knows what we humans need to live and be happy. However, he has given us clear guidance in this regard. He said quite clearly: "But his kingdom and his righteousness must be your first concern; then everything else will be added to it“.

Yes, the Father knows what we need for our lives. If we sincerely endeavour to do our best to enable the fruits of peace, love and justice to grow in our lives, then God in his love and mercy will also work in our lives. He will then help us to achieve all that we need for a successful life from the perspective of a loving Father. Again, this is also not an intervention of God in our freedom, because we have given God our consent for His work through our prayer and through our willingness to stand up for His kingdom.

16.

Jesus described the love of the Father for us through various images and parables. According to this, God is like a father who will never abandon his child, even if the child has committed grave mistakes and turned away from him. He will always take his child back into his loving arms when he returns to him. God is also like a shepherd who leaves all the other sheep behind and goes after a single lost sheep and searches for it until he finds and rescues it. Yes, God is even like a woman who searches for a lost coin until she finds it. This is an image of how God, in his love, also seeks those people who have no awareness that God exists. The coin does not know who it belongs to. All human beings are created by God and are recipients of God's love. Wherever God will find a point of contact in a person's life, taking into account our freedom, he will try to make it possible for that person to meet him. The omnipotence of our great God, however, comes up against the restrictions set by man as a result of his free will. God, in his omnipotence, must wait for man to turn to him. This is the paradox of God's love and omnipotence.

17.

God is ready at all times to forgive  our sins if we ask him, no matter how great they are.  Jesus told us that there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents and turns to God than over ninety-nine righteous people who do not need to repent.

But God does not only want to give mercy to those who have turned to him directly. He wants us to pass on the mercy we have received from him to other people as well. In the "Our Father", Jesus teaches us that God will forgive our guilt to the same extent that we are willing to forgive those who have wronged us. This is a challenge that God poses to us because he does not want only our isolated happiness, but peace and reconciliation for all humanity.

Jesus is aware that it will not always  be easy for us to walk in the ways of God. That is why he pointed out to us with great seriousness that we should strive to fulfil the will of the Father. In this context, he also warned us urgently against the influence of Satan, who has an interest in human beings not being able to recognise the ways of God, so that we will not be able to walk them either.

18.

Death is not the end forever, but only the end of our earthly life, which will then be judged by Christ. It is not primarily decisive whether we have recognised Christ in our lives, but whether we have done in our lives what God expects of us: to love one another, to be merciful, to seek peace and to strive for justice. Christ will decide, according to the measure of our love and within the framework of God's mercy, whether we may find perfection in God's security or, separated from God, we will have no share in his love. At the end of time - one can equate this with the end of humanity, whenever that may be - we may rise with a transfigured body.

19.

God is the merciful one. He knows our life story and knows into which life situation we were born. For some it was a good start in life, for others a very difficult one. He knows what has shaped our thoughts and actions. He knows our strengths and weaknesses, hopes and aspirations, he also knows our hurts, as well as our failures. He sees all this and has compassion on us. If we have brought guilt upon ourselves and have not walked in the ways of God out of ignorance or human weakness, he still does not let us fall out of his loving hands. If after our death we are not yet able to see him in his loving fullness, we are still given the opportunity to walk a path that allows us to mature and become capable of coming close to this perfect love, free of guilt. We call this path "purgatory".

20.

But God is also the just one. He sees the suffering of people that has been willingly and knowingly caused by other people. He knows those who know about God's commandments but do not care about them in the least, who even mock God and His commandment of love. They do not use their human freedom to make the kingdom of God a reality on earth. Rather, they torpedo God's goals of giving salvation to all humanity in the sense of peace, reconciliation and justice. Rather, in their selfishness and ruthlessness, they sow hatred, injustice and often unspeakable suffering. In their freedom, they have not only turned away from God, but they are also trying to destroy the foundations of God's kingdom on earth.

God, in order not to violate our human freedom, sacrificed his Son. As the righteous One, He will therefore respect with the same consistency the freedom of these people who did not want to walk in the ways of God, but in the ways of Satan. After death, this path leads to remoteness from God; we call this state hell.