Study the Exposition of the Divine Principle, the New Truth that all mankind must study.
Make a log in at the Daily Inspiration website to study all of the videos and slides presented at the August 27, 2022 workshop.
Cheon Seong Gyeong 2142
Ladies and Gentlemen: what is the most important thing that we need? It is not money, power, or knowledge. More precious than life itself and more important to us than air, it is true love. Why is true love so precious and important? Just as human beings desire to meet God, God also wants to meet true human beings because of love; yet if He wanted to meet one first, whether man or woman, then the other party would complain.
Therefore, God must show His love. The love by which He can see, touch, and share with men and women at the same time is the love with which they love each other. If anything other than love were to be recognized as the most valuable thing in the universe, men and women would fight each other to try to claim it for themselves. Once we realize that love is the highest value, however, we can strive to live for and become one with each other, sharing the happiness of possessing love together. Not only does everybody want love, but also it is the only thing that can equally satisfy all human desires; this is also what makes God’s providence of salvation possible.
Originally, love belongs to God. Yet even He cannot possess love all by Himself. Love requires a partner. A man by himself or a woman by herself cannot fulfill love. Thus, women and men exist for the sake of each other’s love. Even ugly men and women desire a love partner, wanting to be the partners of the highest love.
Cheon Seong Gyeong 1532
Pledge number six begins with “Our family pledges … centering on true love.” You know what true love is, don’t you? You must bear it in mind all the time. The phrase “embodying God and True Parents” signifies that Blessed Families are the delegates of God and the True Parents. Your family represents God and True Parents, and as such, moves heavenly fortune and conveys God’s blessing to your community. “Our family… pledges to become a family that conveys Heaven’s blessing to our community….” Blessed families should not just try to receive blessings for themselves and live affluently. They have to become part of the royal family and help to restore all people in the world to become citizens of God’s Kingdom.
FAMILY
THE BASIC FORM OF LIFE
Friendship
THE LESSONS LEARNED IN RELATING TO SIBLINGS find immediate application in making and keeping friends. Friendship is the natural extension of sibling love. Strong friendships are built on an emotional connection of empathy and shared experiences, but friendship also has an ethical component: The good friend is honest, faithful and true, and always seeks to benefit his friends, while the bad friend uses his friends for his own benefit. The scriptures admonish people to choose their friends carefully, lest they be misled or find themselves abandoned in times of adversity.
- True Friends and False Friends
Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
John 15.13
And the believers, men and women, are protecting friends one of another; they enjoin the right and forbid the wrong, and they establish worship and pay the poor-due, and they obey God and His messenger.
Qur’an 9.71
The gentleman by his culture collects friends about him, and through these friends promotes goodness.
Analects 12.24 (Confucianism)
I am distressed for you, my brother Jonathan;
very pleasant have you been to me;
your love to me was wonderful,
passing the love of women.
2 Samuel 1:26
The dog says, “If you fall down, and I fall down, the play will be enjoyable.”
Nupe Proverb (African Traditional Religions)
It is because one antelope will blow the dust from the other’s eye that two antelopes walk together.
Akan Proverb (African Traditional Religions)
Fellowship with Men:
Men bound in fellowship first weep and lament,
But afterward they laugh.
The Master said,
“Life leads the thoughtful man on a path of many windings.
Now the course is checked, now it runs straight again.
Here winged thoughts may pour freely forth in words,
There the heavy burden of knowledge must be shut away in silence.
But when two people are at one in their inmost hearts,
They shatter even the strength of iron or of bronze.
And when two people understand each other in their inmost hearts,
Their words are sweet and strong, like the fragrance of orchids.”
I Ching, Great Commentary 1.8.6 (Confucianism)
There are three sorts of friend that are profitable, and three sorts that are harmful. Friendship with the upright, with the true-to-death, and with those who have heard much is profitable. Friendship with the obsequious, friendship with those who are good at accommodating their principles, friendship with those who are clever at talk is harmful.
Analects 16.4 (Confucianism)
The friend who always seeks his benefit,
The friend whose words are other than his deeds,
The friend who flatters just to make you pleased,
The friend who keeps you company in wrong,
These four the wise regard as enemies:
Shun them from afar as paths of danger.
The friend who is a helper all the time,
The friend in happiness and sorrow both,
The friend who gives advice that’s always good,
The friend who has full sympathy with you,
These four the wise see as good-hearted friends
And with devotion cherish such as these
As does a mother cherish her own child.
Digha Nikaya 3.187, Sigalovada Sutta (Buddhism)
Only few people act in our interest in our absence,
When we are not around.
But in our presence, every Dick and Harry, slaves and freeborn,
Display their love for us.
Yoruba Verse (African Traditional Religions)