Join us for the STAR Interfaith Leadership Training Conference November 24 to 26 in Harpers Ferry, WV.
This conference details the physical, intellectual, emotional and spiritual benefits of a lifestyle of sexual abstinence before marriage. Your children under age 19 can attend with you for free! What a great opportunity to discuss crucial issues with your children!
Informed choice between a lifestyle of sexual abstinence before marriage and one of non-abstinence is a crucial issue for societal stability and personal happiness.
This conference provides a practical and Biblical framework for understanding the benefits of practicing sexual abstinence before marriage and faithfulness within marriage.
Register or find out more: http://www.urbanlifetraining.org/index.php/281-star-interfaith-leadership-training-conference
Revelation 5
11 As I looked, I heard the voices of a lot of angels around the throne and the voices of the living creatures and of the elders. There were millions and millions of them, 12 and they were saying in a loud voice,
“The Lamb who was killed
is worthy to receive power,
riches, wisdom, strength,
honor, glory, and praise.”
Jeremiah
13 I am the Lord God of Israel, and I made an agreement with your ancestors when I brought them out of Egypt, where they had been slaves. 14 As part of this agreement, you must let a Hebrew slave go free after six years of service.
Your ancestors did not obey me, 15-16 but you decided to obey me and do the right thing by setting your Hebrew slaves completely free. You even went to my temple, and in my name you made an agreement to set them free. But you have abused my name, because you broke your agreement and forced your former slaves back into slavery.
17 You have disobeyed me by not giving your slaves their freedom. So I will give you freedom—the freedom to die in battle or from disease or hunger. I will make you disgusting to all other nations on earth.
Let Us Become Someone Who Can Hold Jesus’ Body and Mourn
Rev. Sun Myung Moon
April 13, 1958
Therefore, we must not see Jesus as the figure of a bygone era. We must seek and attend him as Jesus of the present reality. When Jesus was going around to different villages and being persecuted, he found enemies everywhere he went. His path became more perilous and rough. Among the people God had been grooming for 4,000 years, Jesus could not find even one friend who welcomed him gladly. You have to feel this situation of Jesus in the present.
Although many sects, countless people and priests had waited for the Messiah, when he actually appeared there was no one who welcomed him. How would God have felt observing this situation? If you were living in the age of Jesus 2,000 years ago, how can you guarantee you would not become like the Pharisees and Sadducees? You have to reflect upon yourselves. If the Jesus who came in the past is the Jesus of the present and the future, then only when you can fathom and be connected to the heart of Jesus of the past can you welcome the Jesus of the present and of the future at the time of the new world. However, today we believe that, after coming to the earth, Jesus merely led thirty years of a sad life course and then died on the cross. Yet we have come to the realization that this is not the case. Accordingly, you must now awaken the ignorant people who think that Jesus had to die when he came to the earth. Although we want Jesus of 2,000 years ago to come seeking us, he is not supposed to. On the contrary, we are to rise seeking the Jesus of 2,000 years ago. In other words, you must understand the sad and lonely situation of Jesus 2,000 years ago. There must be no gap between you and the reality that Jesus faced. When you can hold onto Jesus and cry, then the Lord who is to return will never forsake you.
Those people who have an attitude of faith desiring Jesus to come looking for them 2,000 years after his death, although we are the ones who killed him, will never meet the Lord who is to come again. The question is how many Christians are on earth who can climb backwards ten, one hundred, 2,000 years and cling to the tormented Jesus, shedding tears.
Now the time when we cling to the deceased Jesus and shed tears for Heaven has passed. The time has come when we must comfort the living Jesus with tears of joy. However, where is this living Jesus? It is the grave mission of Christians today to find and support this Jesus.
Have you opened your mouths and called out to Jesus in Heaven? No matter how much you call out, you cannot easily build a relationship with him. Nonetheless, because Jesus is the Savior of all people, the Savior who died for us, we must forge an eternal relationship with him. However, when we consider whether we have seen Jesus with our eyes, heard the words of Jesus with our ears or spoken the words of Jesus with our mouths, we can sense that the distance between Jesus and us is still very great.
At this time, when we must penetrate through and overcome the fateful work of holding onto Jesus, this unfortunate pass, what must you do? You must develop the relationship based upon which you can testify to him, as the Jesus of the present reality in your life. If you cannot do that, you have to understand that the toilsome will of God, who has worked strenuously for 6,000 years, will not be related to you. You cannot usher in the day of peace.
Now you must think about Jesus. You have to understand this Jesus, who stepped forward holding onto the Gospel for the sake of pioneering the providential will involving all humankind. This is the Jesus of the 2,000 years of history since his death; this is the historical Jesus who persevered through a course of persecution he could not share with anyone. You must understand the tormented situation of Jesus, who was ostracized by the chosen people.
You are not to view Jesus as some fixed fact of the past, but as one who is living in this era today. You have to keep in mind that only by experiencing and sensing the sorrow of Jesus in your own life can you finally grasp him.