"No man has been placed on this earth for the sake of eating and high living, but that he shall live according to the ordinance truly revealed to him by God, for the sole and only purpose that God has set for him." (Gr X 16, 4)
"Until man is reached, God's love, wisdom and power alone ensures that the development of the original spirit's life held fast in the material world shall progress from stage to stage to increasing perfection; but in man, who is the key stone of this development of the original spirit's life, this must of necessity be different. Where his material body is concerned, the way things are arranged still depends largely on the love, wisdom and power of God - but not so the development of the soul and its spirit. The spirit is endowed with powers of mind, of intellect, of free thought, a perfectly free will, and the power to act as the soul considers to be good and useful." (Gr IX 102, 3)
"On other bodies in the universe, human beings (living there) are set limits with regard to spiritual as well as natural things, and they can hardly go beyond these. You people on this earth, however, have no more a limit set to the spirit than the Lord himself, and can do whatever you wish. You are able to rise up to the innermost dwelling of God, but therefore also fall to the same depth as Satan' " (Gr II 60, 5)
The indescribably great difference (compared to humans on other bodies in the universe) is that you men on this earth are able to become alike to God." (Gr VI 190, 13) "It is far from one and the same thing if one is the son of the house or merely a servant." (Gr VI 190, 15) "The Kingdom of God can, however, only be won with force and with great sacrifice. Consider this well!" (Gr VIII 16, 3)
"No one can be justified in the sight of God unless before that he has for a rightful period of time ... gone through the fullest trial of freedom of life in his flesh." (Gr VI 190, 3) "The people on this earth have the great destiny of becoming Children of God in their own might; therefore they must also be exercised and educated in all independent activity out of themselves." (Gr VI 111, 19)
"Therefore My teaching is a true gospel, for it tells men and shows them the way, how they can attain to being alike to God." "My teaching however is in itself very short and easy to grasp, for it demands nothing of man but that he believes in a true God and loves him above all as the kind Father and Creator, and loves his fellow man as himself, i.e., does for them everything that he may reasonably expect his fellow man also to do to him." (Gr VII 139, 8; 140, 3)
New Revelation does not deny that life on earth "is most arduous and wearisome", but adds that the people of this earth "must accept having to go through this for a short time, because with this they will also forever garner the triumph of being fully alike unto God, and for that they can surely put up with something, seeing that I Myself am putting up with much of my own free will, out of love for My children, and will still have to put up with the greatest and most bitter of all, for the salvation of My children." (Gr VIII 16, 2) (Jesus said this to his disciples, with the last sentence referring to his passion and death that lay ahead.)
"When I test a man - and truly I do not do this without reason - then I also intend to make something of him, for he is already in My school " (Hi I p. 345, 2) "You, however - hear this and understand - are at My university." (The earth is the university for God's Children.) "I want to make a very great deal of you. Therefore you should not allow yourselves to be surprised by many special trials at this school." (Hi I p. 345, 6) "To achieve this, however, heaven and hell have to dwell under one roof in this world. Without strife there can be no victory. Where the highest can be attained, this also calls for the greatest possible activity to be brought to bear to its fullest extent." (Gr III 178,5)
"Everyone will have to go with Me through the narrow gate of fullest self-denial until he becomes as I am. Everyone will have to cease being something by himself, in order to become all within Me. (Gr IV 1, 5) "But all knowledge, and even the richest experience, will not get you there, but only a living love for God and in equal degree for your fellow man. This is where the great mystery of being reborn lies." (Gr IV 1, 4)
"The main thing is, and remains, the constant striving for complete rebirth of the spirit in the soul." (Gr VII 183, 13)
"External man will in the end have to be completely overcome by inner man, otherwise inner man will die with external man." (Gr III 61, 5)
"God dwelling together, in communion, forever with his children - that is the rebirth of the spirit." (Gr XI 52, 4)
"After Me, many will be able to achieve rebirth of the soul, and therefore also be in a state of great bliss, without attaining to this highest and final step (the rebirth of the spirit)." (Gr XI 52,5) (Only rebirth of the spirit makes it possible to behold God in the highest heaven. See the details given in the next chapter on "Eternal Life in the Next World").