Richard Urban | Daily Inspiration

Do You Know the True Meaning of Easter?

Stacey and I wish you a very happy and blessed Easter!

April 17, 1957
Rev. Sun Myung Moon

Now there was a man named Joseph from the Jewish town of Arimathea. He was a member of the council, a good and righteous man, who had not consented to their purpose and deed, and he was looking for the kingdom of God. This man went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then he took it down and wrapped it in a linen shroud, and laid him in a rock-hewn tomb, where no one had ever yet been laid. It was the day of Preparation, and the Sabbath was beginning. The women who had come with him from Galilee followed, and saw the tomb, and how his body was laid; then they returned, and prepared spices and ointments. On the Sabbath they rested according to the commandment.
Luke 23:50-56

God had been looking for Easter Day, the Jewish people and creation from the Fall of Man to the coming of Jesus; and we know that there have been a few people blessed with resurrection since Jesus.

God has been seeking for substantial resurrection during the 4,000 years since the degeneration of Adam and Eve. But as ill luck would have it, his cherished desire for substantial resurrection was nullified by Jesus Crucifixion due to the Jewish ignorance, consequently He has been looking for the day of substantial resurrection until today.

Few knew that Jesus’ desire was not for his own sake but for the fulfillment of the desire of God. Jesus sought for the day when the whole creation has the glory of resurrection.

God, You Can Say to Me ‘I Do Not Know You’

The recordings of the Peaceful Families; Peaceful World workshop are now available:
You can view the recordings for free at https://www.visionroot.org/workshop-recordings/
Day 1: Abstinence-centered curriculum training,
Day 2: Unification Principle Study
Day 3: Strengthening Families and Communities Forum.

Interview with Andrea Elliot, Candidate for the Jefferson County WV Board of Education-May 10, 2022

Cheon Seong Gyeong 1908

The enterprise for the future will be the leisure industry. The age of technological industry is an age where people do not work, due to automated technology. Such a time will come. Even now, it is that way. A machine works once the person pushes a button. There will come a time when only three or four machines can produce, day and night, all the products in a factory where thousands of people used to work. Then what kind of industries will grow? It would be such things as the entertainment and fashion industries, both of which fall under the broader category of the industry of leisure. (191-73, 1989.6.24)

Cheon Seong Gyeong 1240

The Blessing opens the gates of the Kingdom of Heaven. The Kingdom of Heaven is a place where only families with children enter. (12-266, 1963.5.25)

Arguing with God

Teachings of Rev. Sun Myung Moon

When Moses faced the truth that the Israelites had fallen away, he did not immediately chastise them; instead, he appealed to God, blaming himself and his inadequacy. He went again up Mount Sinai and fasted for 40 days. He prayed, “Father, why can’t these people enter the Promised Land even when they see it before their eyes? Who is responsible for that? It is my responsibility.” He appealed to God to take him as an offering and turn aside from destroying his people. (1:144, July 1, 1956)

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Far Be It From You to Slay the Righteous With the Wicked

Cheon Seong Gyeong 2104

In your family you are told, “Be a child of filial piety!” What does this mean? It means to practice true love. Then, what does it mean to say, “Be an heir” or “Be a patriot”? It is saying that we should inherit the nation. What does it mean to say, “Be a saint?” It means that we should love the world; if we do, we will inherit the world. We will be the owner of the world. If we say, “Be a holy son and daughter” and “Be God’s son”… what does that mean? It is saying that we should participate in God’s love and receive the right to inherit the entire universe. Based on the traditional way to inherit all these things, God has been preparing the foundation to develop this logical stage in the fallen world of humanity. From this we can draw the conclusion that the purpose of religion or the path of spiritual attainment is possible. On what basis? On the basis of love. (142-337, 1986.3.14)

Cheon Seong Gyeong 782

In general, people throughout history, when focusing on the eternal nature of life, have tended to think not only in terms of ten or a hundred years, but of thousands, tens of thousands, or hundreds of billions of years. Yet when a person dies, it’s the same as when an animal dies; what use are the remains? Nowadays, even people who do not believe in God say, “Ah, I have to leave behind an honorable legacy,” but what use is it to leave that behind?
Even if one became a patriot for America and was honored with a monument, that monument would be destroyed totally if America perished. Only the American people would know of you. It would not mean much to leave your name behind. Even if you accomplished that, as the ages of history rise and fall, a good name can be treated like a bad one. All rulers will die in less than a hundred years, and nations perish within several hundred or a few thousand years. What would you do if there were someone who would neither die nor perish for eternity? If there were such a person, you would want to bring your name and your legacy to him and leave it all behind with him. Have you ever thought about that? (103-16, 1979.1.28)

Arguing with God

SINCE WE CAN EXPERIENCE GOD AS A REAL PERSON, who loves and cares for human beings as His children, it is not enough to respond only with simple devotion and blind faith. Having questions we cannot answer, struggling by ourselves and making no headway, we stop and demand that God give us the answer. With our feet firmly planted we take a stand, questioning the way things are and arguing that they can be better. The prophets and sages who disputed with God were neither doubters nor atheists, nor were they complainers of little faith. Rather, they dared to stand up and confront God, motivated by a burning desire for deeper insight into Gods’ truth and the experience of His Presence.
Abraham argued with God; he challenged God to be merciful on the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. Moses pleaded with God; he took the blame upon himself for the Israelites’ apostasy when they made the golden calf. Muhammad argued with God to reduce the number of obligatory prayers from fifty down to five. Job argued with God because conventional wisdom said that his suffering must be the just punishment for his sins, yet he knew himself to be innocent. The Talmudic sages argued with God to uphold the value of human free will.
In all these encounters, the prophets and sages of old showed the way to relate to God while upholding their personal integrity. They argued based upon righteousness and deeply held beliefs. They stood before God with a clean conscience and took their life in their hands to challenge the conventional doctrines, because they knew that God transcended the limited human teachings about Him.

The Lord said, “Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great and their sin is very grave, I will go down to see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry which has come to me; and if not, I will know.” So the men turned from there, and went toward Sodom; but Abraham still stood before the Lord. Then Abraham drew near, and said, “Will you indeed destroy the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city; will you still destroy the place and not spare it for the fifty righteous who are in it? Far be it from you to do such a thing, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked! Far be that from you! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?”
Genesis 19.20-25

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God Did not Create Denominations or Religious Sects

Cheon Seong Gyeong 2169

And next, who can become the people, the citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven? That is the congregation, the followers. Then who are the rulers? You are. You are the representatives of the village head, the representatives of the tribal head, the representatives of the county head and the representatives of the provincial governor. People, have you become the subjects, the centers? When someone comes along with a bomb from the satanic world, you have to be the first to jump forward. Do you understand? Do you feel like you can do that?

Cheon Seong Gyeong 1544

If you focus on spirituality in religion, you will reject materialism. In attaching importance to its spiritual civilization, the Orient rejected materialism. That materialism was embraced by the West. Many nations in the West, including the United States, have managed to achieve a high standard of living because they secured all the natural resources of the East as their own and used them to develop and advance Western Civilization. However, they have reached their limit. The spiritual civilization of the Orient has also reached its limit. The Orient has gradually come to pursue Western material civilization, while the West has come to pursue Oriental spiritual civilization. Consequently, we have reached the time when these two civilizations are engaged in a mutual cultural exchange. (Blessed Family II – 381)

Heresy

Teachings of Rev. Sun Myung Moon

Enemies will certainly appear on the path you travel. Enemies will appear challenging your faith and your finances. Furthermore, some members of our Unification Church will become each other’s enemies. Satan will seize the moment when you make a small mistake and drive you to the path of Cain.
How should you lead your life to defeat these enemies and not stand in the position of Cain? Do not live for your own comfort, but live a life of sacrifice for the sake of the whole. (3:212, November 1, 1957)

Some people, after they learned the Divine Principle taught in the Unification Church, use it to advance their own interests. Such people are swindlers and thieves. They use the Principle that I brought to build a comfortable domain for themselves inside the realm of Unificationism. They steal the Word, the Divine Principle, although it does not belong to them but belongs to Heaven. Pretending as if it was their own teaching, they use it for their own purposes. They create devious groups, which use guile to snatch up followers whom they swindle [with a counterfeit of the truth]. Their bodies are like the skeletons in the valley of dry bones. They appear to be alive, but their spirits are dead. (June 21, 2001)

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Beware of False Prophets in Sheep’s Clothing

Cheon Seong Gyeong 2256

You must not only be filial toward your parents, but you also need your spouse. Thus, you must form a four-position foundation. This is the absolute Principle. When we understand this, we need to ask what has happened today to the individual, family, and national four-position foundations. The expansion of the family four-position foundation creates the nation, the expansion of the national four-position foundation creates the world, and the expansion of the global four-position foundations is the cosmos. The family is the base.

Cheon Seong Gyeong 706

Between teachers and students, there are rules for teachers to observe and rules for students to observe. Likewise, in the Unification Church, there are rules that I should observe, and rules that you should observe. Therefore you who hear the Word are subject to judgment by the Word. If you hear it wrongly, you will be judged.
Then, what activities should we undertake next? We are to realize substance. That being the case, if we fail to undertake activities that substantiate the Word, there will be a judgment of substance. There is judgment by the Word, judgment of substance, and judgment of heart. We must undergo the three great processes of judgment.
First, the word of the Principle will judge you and after that, you will be subjected to the judgment of substance. Who will judge? Those who substantiated the word by working hard in fundraising and witnessing, and who followed all the rules, they will judge you. Those who worked hard will judge you; that is judgment. If you do not follow the Word, even Satan will judge you and others will accuse you. I will judge Unification Church members; the Unification Church leaders will judge them, and those who followed the will of the Unification Church will judge them.

Heresy

THE MOST INSIDIOUS CAUSE OF DEVIATION from the religious path is the lure of false teaching, or heresy. The scriptures of every major religion warn against it. “Heresy” means opinion, and the wisdom of God’s revelation to the founding saint of the religion is not something to be altered or revised on the basis of someone else’s opinion.
It is true that every genuine religion at its birth was branded a heresy by the leaders of the orthodox establishment. Yet in addition, heretical offshoots of these new religions usually sprang up within a generation of the Founder’s passing, or even in the Founder’s lifetime. Yet by the Will of God, the mainstream religions became established while the heresies that beset them did not. Nowhere do we find that a heresy ever defeated a major religion’s line of orthodox development. Despite their theological attraction, there must be good reasons why heresies were branded as such.
A number of the passages gathered here attack false prophets and heretics for having base motives: they are hypocrites using religion for worldly gain (although orthodox teachers could have the same flaw). Some attribute these false teachings to the work of demons and evil spirits. Others point to their rotten fruits: licentious living, greed, and the sowing of dissension. On the other hand, some heresies deceive through advocating a standard of conduct even more austere or a faith even more extreme than what is called for in the correct path—Devadatta being a prime example. Still other passages attack heretics for fomenting schism and breaking down the unity of the faith.

Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits.
Matthew 7.15-16

God’s Messenger is reported as saying, “In the last times men will come forth who will fraudulently use religion for worldly ends and wear sheepskins in public to display meekness. Their tongues will be sweeter than sugar, but their hearts will be the hearts of wolves. God will say, ‘Are they trying to deceive Me, or are they acting presumptuously towards Me? I swear by Myself that I shall send trial upon those people which will leave the intelligent men among them confounded.’”
Hadith of Tirmidhi (Islam)

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