We now set out. But the young host comes once more to ask Me to spend the evening with him.
But I say, ‘I will return soon. For before I go to Jerusalem for the next feast, I must visit Nazareth, and I will call on you again both on the way there and on the way back.’
The host says, ‘Lord, that will be my greatest blessedness! But if You are determined not to remain here any longer today, then kindly allow me to accompany You once again!’
I say, ‘You are entirely free to do so, for no one is ever to be compelled to anything by Me. Whoever wishes to receive Me, let him receive Me, and whoever wishes to follow Me and My teaching, let him follow. For I and My kingdom are free and therefore also wish to be attained in complete freedom.
Before Me only the freest self-determination counts. Anything above or below that has no value before Me and My Father, who is in Me as I am in Him.
For every compulsion coming from anywhere other than one’s very own heart is foreign; likewise, for every person, not foreign life but only his very own life can have any validity in My eternal order, which thus stands in the utmost freedom.
What use would it be to you, at bottom, if you claimed that a work of art made by another’s hand was the work of your own hands? But if someone then came and asked you to make an identical work for a large payment, you would stand disgraced and have to endure the customer calling you, before all the world, a liar, a deceiver and a boaster in another’s fame.
Likewise the full development of each person’s own life is placed in his very own hands.
Whatever is recognized as foreign in a person at the future great examination of each individual’s life before God’s eyes will be taken from him. Then it will be said, ‘Whoever has, what he has will be left to him, and much more will be added. But whoever does not have what is his own will have what he has taken from him, because it is not his own but only something foreign.’
I tell you that it is not even necessary for you to come along now. But if you must do it purely from within yourself, out of love for Me, then through it you will not only lose nothing, but gain tenfold in everything. For whoever does something out of true love for Me will be repaid tenfold here and one day a hundredfold in My kingdom, even a thousandfold and endlessly!’
The host says, ‘Lord, if that is so, I will most certainly go with You. My own heart urges me to do it, and therefore I will follow my heart most precisely!’
I say, ‘Good, do that, and you will live from your heart, which alone is the right life. For every other life that does not come from the heart is no life, but a death of each person’s own life. For I alone, as a Lord of all life, tell you this!’
At this the host is wholly blessed, immediately takes his little knapsack and some money, and makes himself ready for the journey.
But I say to him, ‘Free yourself of everything, and you will walk much more easily. For thieves attack only those they know are carrying something with them. But if you have nothing, they will be able to take nothing away either.’
The host then gives his money and little knapsack to his wife, and thus follows Me without money or knapsack.