VisionRoot Success Formula Workshops: Peaceful Families; Peaceful World
Peace Kingdom Center, Harpers Ferry WV and Online
March 18th to March 20th, 2022
Registration Deadline March 15th
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Listen to the Richard Urban Show #103: Peaceful Families Make a Peaceful World; Join the Workshop on March 18th to March 20, 2022
Watch the Internet Show
WHOSE CHILDREN ARE THEY? is the groundbreaking and powerfully persuasive documentary featuring brave teachers, empowered parents, and front-line experts who pull back the curtain about what is truly happening in our public schools today.
See it in a theatre near you on March 14th.
Cheon Seong Gyeong 486
True happiness can be found in a place where you laugh, sing, and whisper together with your spouse, both of you intoxicated with love. I would say that the one who listens to the whispered words from his beloved is a happy person. It is because having words of love whispered in your ear can give you feelings of happiness, as if you were dreaming. (Blessed Family – 366)
Cheon Seong Gyeong 1350
Just as the Israelites set out from Egypt for Canaan, the 430 Couples signify that we too have set out to restore the world, which is our Canaan. Whereas they set out in the 430th year of their captivity in Egypt, we have settled on the number 43, representing 4,300 years. We are moving forward from this point. In doing so, we are not working individually but in family units. We must move forward with our families. You should understand this. The unit is no longer the individual; it is the family. Thus, you should not abandon your families and move forward alone. Furthermore, the central person in the position of Moses should not abandon the Israelites. He must lead them all out of Egypt into Canaan. If one of them happens to be in prison, he should help that person to get out so he can come with the others.
Fatih
IN THIS WORLD AFFLICTED WITH SIN, most people are not in touch with their true selves. God cannot easily be felt or experienced. Truth cannot easily be understood or practiced. Relying on ourselves, we wander aimlessly in a sea of vain desires and false conceptions. Human beings need a star to guide them through the darkness, a map by which to navigate in uncharted waters. This is faith.
Faith begins with belief in the tenets of religion and effort to orient our life in accord with God’s commandments. A religion’s creed may be only a few words, yet those few words can rightly guide us into a relationship with God.
As we go deeper, we realize that our faith itself is a gift of God. It is the way God provides out of His love to reconnect with fallen human beings, who are in no condition to save themselves. Here is St. Paul’s distinction between faith and works. A similar doctrine was taught by Shinran, the Japanese Buddhist saint who placed his faith in the ‘Power of Another.’ This is pure faith, uncontaminated by self-seeking. There are no grounds for pride, even in one’s ability to have faith. Father Moon affirms that as all people are contaminated by sin and stem from a sinful lineage, no one can possibly pay off the debt of sin by his own efforts. Hence the only proper basis for a relationship with God is to rely on God’s gracious love for us, His children.
Faith matures into a mutual relationship with God, characterized by trust and faithfulness (Heb., emunah). As we strive to live the way that God would have us live, we can overcome adversity knowing that God is faithful to us. Yet as we relate to God as our Subject of faith, we can ask whether God can equally count on our faithfulness to Him. People are so double-minded, vacillating between faithfulness and faithlessness from one day to the next. To become the sort of person whom God can trust to remain faithful through any adversity requires absolute integrity and self-mastery (see Chapter 12). God searches out such people, to whom He assigns great missions.
Father Moon calls us to “absolute faith.” This is the unshakable faith that remains firm despite the vicissitudes of life. It is not compromised by the believer’s personal preferences. Opposition, tragedy and loss can shake a person of weak faith. The pleas of family and loved ones cannot turn back absolute faith. Like Peter, who denied his lord, in a crisis the person of weak faith runs away or even loses faith altogether. But with absolute faith we can move mountains, overcome any adversity, and even triumph over death.
- Belief—the Starting-point of Faith
For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.
John 3.16
Faith… is to believe in Allah, His angels, His books, His messengers, and the Last Day, and to believe in divine destiny, both the good and the evil thereof.
Forty Hadith of an-Nawawi 2 (Islam)
Trembling with fear, [the jailer] fell down before Paul and Silas, and brought them out and said, “Men, what must I do to be saved?” And they said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.”
Acts 16.29-31
O mankind, I am the Messenger of God to you all, of Him to whom belongs the sovereignty of the heavens and the earth. There is no God but He. He gives life, and He makes to die. So believe in God, and His messenger, the Prophet who can neither read nor write, who believes in God and in His words, and follow him that haply you may be led aright.
Qur’an 7.158
He who does not understand the will of Heaven cannot be regarded as a gentleman.
Analects 20.3.1 (Confucianism)
He [Abraham] believed the Lord, and he reckoned it to him as righteousness.
Genesis 15.6
Who therefore shrinks from the religion of Abraham, except he be foolish-minded? Indeed, We chose him in the present world, and in the world to come he shall be among the righteous. When his Lord said to him, “Surrender,” he said, “I have surrendered myself to the Lord of all Being.” And Abraham charged his sons with this and Jacob likewise, “My sons, God has chosen for you the religion; see that you die not save in surrender.” Why, were you witnesses when death came to Jacob? When he said to his sons, “What will you serve after me?” They said, “We will serve your God and the God of your fathers Abraham, Ishmael and Isaac, One God; to Him we surrender.” That is a nation that has passed away; there awaits them that they have earned, and there awaits you what you have earned; you shall not be questioned concerning the things they did.
And they say, “Be Jews or Christians and you shall be guided.” Say, “Nay, rather the creed of Abraham, a man of pure faith; he was no idolater.” Say you, “We believe in God, and in that which has been sent down on us and sent down on Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac and Jacob, and the Tribes, and that which was given to Moses and Jesus and the Prophets; of their Lord; we make no division between any of them, and to Him we surrender.”
Qur’an 2.130-36
By faith you shall be free and go beyond the world of death.
Sutta Nipata 1146 (Buddhism)
Faith is composed of the heart’s intention.
Light comes through faith.
Through faith men come to prayer,
Faith in the morning, faith at noon and at the setting of the sun.
O Faith, give us faith!
Rig Veda 10.151.4-5 (Hinduism)
There are four kinds of faith. The first is the faith in the Ultimate Source. Because of this faith a man comes to meditate with joy on the principle of Suchness. The second is the faith in the numberless excellent qualities of the Buddhas. Because of this faith a man comes to meditate on them always, to draw near to them in fellowship, to honor them, and to respect them, developing his capacity for goodness and seeking after the all-embracing knowledge. The third is the faith in the great benefits of the Dharma. Because of this faith a man comes constantly to remember and practice the various disciplines leading to enlightenment. The fourth is faith in the Sangha, whose members are able to devote themselves to the practice of benefiting both themselves and others. Because of this faith a man comes to approach the assembly of Bodhisattvas constantly and with joy to seek instruction from them in the correct practice.
Awakening of Faith in Mahayana (Buddhism)
Inexpressible is the state of faith;
Whoever attempts to describe it shall in the
end regret his rashness.
This state pen and paper cannot record,
Nor cogitation penetrate its secret.
The great, immaculate Name of God
May only be realized by one
Whose mind is firmly fixed in faith.
Through faith the mind and intellect find
concentration;
And to the seeker are revealed all the stages of enlightenment.
Through faith one will not receive blows in the
Hereafter,
Nor be subjected to death’s terror.
The great, immaculate Name of God
May only be realized by one
Whose mind is firmly fixed in faith.
Through faith man meets no obstacle on the Path,
And shall proceed to his abode with God with
his honor universally proclaimed.
One with faith shall not stray into sects and byways,
But be fixed in true religion.
The great, immaculate Name of God
May only be realized by one
Whose mind is firmly fixed in faith.
Adi Granth, Japuji 12-14, M.1, p. 3 (Sikhism)