1 Thessalonians 5
7 In the name of the Lord I beg you to read this letter to all his followers.
28 I pray that our Lord Jesus Christ will be kind to you!
Richard: We should have the heart to share God’s Word and the good news of Jesus Christ and His Second Advent.
Proverbs 8
With great understanding,
Wisdom is calling out
2 as she stands at the crossroads
and on every hill.
3 She stands by the city gate
where everyone enters the city,
and she shouts:
4 “I am calling out
to each one of you!
5 Good sense and sound judgment
can be yours.
6 Listen, because what I say
is worthwhile and right.
7 I always speak the truth
and refuse to tell a lie.
8 Every word I speak is honest,
not one is misleading
or deceptive.
Let Us Understand God, Who Wanted to be Proud
Rev. Sun Myung Moon
February 8, 1959
Prayer
Father, the steps we have taken to go before You have been steps of ordeals through the history of contradiction. The saints and sages of the past were not considered normal people in the eyes of the people of their times. We know all too well, through our study of the Bible, that from the standpoints of their times, the saints and sages were stragglers, abnormal people who were ridiculed. This was the case with Noah and Abraham.
Who would have ever praised Abraham, who obeyed God’s command to offer his only son as a sacrifice and tried to strike him with a knife? He was the craziest and most strange person. Although he appeared to be insane, You related with him. The saints and sages were persecuted and ridiculed by the ignorant as they tried to bring pitiful people to the Father. Father, You have called upon us to build an inseparable bond of heart with us. We are truly awe-stricken before this infinite grace.
If we are to become the historic living sacrifices who can recompense Your grace by offering our minds and bodies, please allow us to forget our situations and dignity and shed tears of gratitude. Please allow our hearts to turn to Heaven and swell up with infinite longing. Please allow us to become crazy about the Father’s will to the extent that we cannot even feel our bodies being torn. We have now come to understand the fervent desire of the Father for such a people and such a nation to appear on this earth.
We have learned that You do not want to boast about us before the people of the earth. Rather, you have driven us into our current situation because You want to boast about us in the spirit world. We know very well that it is Your will to boast about us when we are undefeated, even after being torn and stepped on. We know that You have been working Your providence for the day of restoration.
Those of us who are witnessing the conclusion of the providence today must prevail with our lives and feel the fervent heart of the Father and Jesus. Please guide us to become Your sons and daughters who can step over Golgotha as the condition of pride and be living sacrifices in sight of Satan.
We have learned that only by achieving this are we worthy of the Father’s and Jesus’ praise. Yet we do not have anything worthy about which to boast. If we do have anything to brag about, it must be uprooted. We have understood that the character we have nurtured, the knowledge we have attained, and all such things are very distant from the Father. We realize that there is nothing on this earth that we really need.
God, our Father, our Lord and our Creator, wants to brag about the people of the earth. How can we forget You and brag about ourselves? We desire from the depth of our hearts that You allow us not to betray the heavenly laws or disrupt the Principle and order.
If there is some basis for pride, please guide us to offer it to the Father. If there is some condition for sorrow, please allow us to inherit it. Please do not let Satan follow us based on that condition of sorrow. Please allow us to boast to Satan that we are Your true sons and daughters. We earnestly pray that You guide us to become sons and daughters who can bow before the Father by establishing such a standard.
We know that although the Father wants to brag about these people, we have not become a praiseworthy nation nor a worthy bride of Jesus. Therefore, Father, we earnestly wish that You allow us to become Jesus’ bride after overcoming all conditions of bitterness. Allow us to become sons and daughters about whom You can brag before all things of creation and Satan. We offer all these words in the name of the Lord. Amen.