Author: Richard Urban

We need God’s Forgiveness

Leviticus 23

6 The Lord God said to Moses:

27 The tenth day of the seventh month[k] is the Great Day of Forgiveness.[l] It is a solemn day of worship; everyone must go without eating to show sorrow for their sins, and sacrifices must be burned. 28 No one is to work on that day—it is the Great Day of Forgiveness, when sacrifices will be offered to me, so that I will forgive your sins. 29 I will destroy anyone who refuses to go without eating. 30-31 None of my people are ever to do any work on that day—not now or in the future. And I will wipe out those who do! 32 This is a time of complete rest just like the Sabbath, and everyone must go without eating from the evening of the ninth to the evening of the tenth.

Richard:  We all have sin and need to be forgiven.  Also, if we are going through hardships, it’s best to keep a positive attitude of gratitude.  We may be paying indemnity (restoring) ours and our ancestors past sins.

Lamentations 2

Zion, deep in your heart
    you cried out to the Lord.
Now let your tears overflow
    your walls day and night.
Don’t ever lose hope
    or let your tears stop.
19 Get up and pray for help
    all through the night.
Pour out your feelings
    to the Lord,
as you would pour water
    out of a jug.
Beg him to save your people,
who are starving to death
    at every street crossing.

Richard:  We (ourselves and our nation) are in dire straits.  Let us cry out to God for His guidance, mercy and forgiveness.

The Ideal Kingdom of Heaven, Our Hope

Rev. Sun Myung Moon
February 22, 1959

Matthew 3: 1-17

Prayer

When we experience Your heart, urging us on today, we cannot help realizing how weak are our bodies. When we realize, too, that the Shim Jung of Heaven is connected and flowing through us today, we feel deeply grateful. Father, please hold onto us. We want to go the way of the cross, with our minds and bodies becoming the offering, following Your request that we liberate Your hope, Your Shim Jung, and Your situation. Therefore, let us not weaken until the end. Make us go over the hill of death with a Shim Jung filled with a heavenly shock that penetrates the mind. Reinforce our exhaustion by allowing our connection with Heaven to be firm.

Allow us to come to the ideal garden for which we have longed. To do that, we have responsibility. Therefore, let us become countenances of joy offered to You as a gift, by fulfilling all the conditions for being a surviving fruit. Make us into Your original sons and daughters whom You want to love and who can receive Your love. Let us dwell in relationships of eternal love, the life of love, and the glory of love. Let us become people whom You cannot help loving and who cannot help receiving love from You. Please lead us this way. Continue reading “We need God’s Forgiveness”

Jesus Loves the Father

Cheon Seong Gyeong 745

The earth also breathes and moves.
Your cells breathe as well. Do you want
to live eternally on earth or do you want
to live eternally in a place where you
become an invisible entity of love? You
should live eternally in a world where
you become an invisible entity of love.
Even when God wants to reveal Himself,
you cannot see Him with your physical
body. That’s why you need a spirit self.
God is the center of the invisible spir-
it. Therefore, He wants to give human
beings, who are His counterparts, every-
thing from the eternal realm of the ideal
that He created. (111-111, 1981.2.1)

Cheon Seong Gyeong 578

Originally, people were to go to this
world. Yet, because there is no way of
going up in one step, each stage must be
pioneered and passed through, from the
individual to the family, from the fam-
ily to the tribe, and from the tribe to the
race.
In view of God’s providence, those
who died before the Old Testament
Age, which is the age of the providence
for individual salvation, desire to enter
that age and receive its benefits. As such,
going up each stage inevitably requires
indemnity. Crossing over each stage
inevitably requires conditions of indem-
nity, like in the case of Cain and Abel.

The Ideal Kingdom of Heaven, Our Hope

Rev. Sun Myung Moon
February 22, 1959

Matthew 3: 1-17

You must meet the hour when Heaven grants your wish gladly as you say these words: “To receive this love, I have passed through the road of death, the road of difficulties, and the road of pain. I have endeavored even to love Satan, and I have fought to hold onto a dying life, even to become an offering in place of him. I have loved the people of this earth as You, the Father, have. I have poured out my heart upon the people who desired love. Therefore, Father, please love me!”

Jesus, whom you believe in, walked a road of tears for over thirty years. He crossed over the hills of sorrow and death. Then he resurrected and said to God, “Father, I have come. I have understood the Father’s heart of 4,000 years, and I have come to this place as an offering in order to introduce that Shim Jung. Father!” Upon hearing that, God forgot all about His own dignity, deeply lamented, and cried tears of joy. That moment was the moment of finding one’s lost child and the moment a relationship was bound between heaven and earth. Christians do not know that at that moment, God forgot His own dignity, held onto Jesus, and shed tears of sorrow and tears of joy. You also must appear in front of God and say, “I have come the way You desired. I have believed Your words of wanting to meet me and have come to meet You. Therefore, please embrace me in Your bosom of love.” You must receive the blessing as you are embraced by God’s love and as He says to you, raising His hands, “Let us live in the eternal realm of love.” Only in that way can our ideal garden of hope, that is, the establishment of the Kingdom of Heaven, be concluded. The establishment of the Kingdom of Heaven starts from each individual perfecting himself in this way.

Jesus fought for this ideology. Our ancestors sought this ideal. All the people who are walking the way today are going toward this goal. Continue reading “Jesus Loves the Father”

We have a heavenly mission to restore the authority of goodness

Revelation 5

“You are worthy
    to receive the scroll
and open its seals,
    because you were killed.
And with your own blood
    you bought for God
people from every tribe,
    language, nation, and race.
10 You let them become kings
    and serve God as priests,
and they will rule on earth.”

2nd Chronicles 18

7 “We could ask Micaiah son of Imlah,” Ahab said. “But I hate Micaiah. He always has bad news for me.”

“Don’t say that!” Jehoshaphat replied. 8 Then Ahab sent someone to bring Micaiah as soon as possible.

The Ideal Kingdom of Heaven, Our Hope

Rev. Sun Myung Moon
February 22, 1959

Matthew 3: 1-17

As we break apart the road of resentment that remains on earth, we must have a sincere desire to see the ideal world for which Jesus yearns in his heart. Only then can we meet the substance of that ideology.

After the first Israel perished, the second Israel, the Christians of the world, have worked hard to create that nation, race, land and authority, and are waiting for their leader to appear. Reality does not coincide with that ideal. There is no greater sadness than this.

What is a patriot? A patriot feels miserable when he sees the citizens of his nation in pitiful situations. He feels more pain than if his body was being dismembered when he sees his land trampled upon by other nations. He feels it more keenly than the leader of his nation when he sees the leader being treated unfairly and put in a miserable position.

What words are these about being brides who must meet the Prince of Heaven? We have the appearance of disloyalty, ugliness and sin and cannot even face the words. Therefore, we should have humble hearts. When we see the rights of the citizens of Heaven being infringed and Satan trampling this land, we must fight to recover them even if we die. We have a heavenly mission to restore the authority of goodness. Continue reading “We have a heavenly mission to restore the authority of goodness”

We Must Fight to Keep Giving

Cheon Seong Gyeong 927

In this world there are servants of
servants, servants, adopted children
and children by concubines. The world
is muddied. Order must be made. With
what will we find order? It is possible
only through love. Religions that inher-
ited and carried on the traditional way
of love should have become global reli-
gions. Religions that go against the way
of love and those who do not follow this
love will be judged as the representatives
who take responsibility for their age in
history.
What will pass judgment on the
world? It will be the tradition of love, the
tradition of loving heaven and earth, the
tradition of loving the world, the tradi-
tion of loving the nation, the tradition of
loving the people, the tradition of lov-
ing one’s family, the tradition of loving
one’s parents and one’s wife and broth-
ers, and the tradition of loving oneself.
(192-75, 1989.7.2)

Cheon Seong Gyeong 1441

Those who are registered centering
on True Parents will become the ances-
tors of the future. They will become
ancestors of the next world, and based
on the mainstream tribe and everyone
from the collateral family lines, tribes
will be created. That is why you need to
be registered. You cannot be registered
without doing anything for it. You first
need to restore 160 or 180 couples. Those
who have failed to accomplish this will
be eliminated. The era in which you
could assert your position as one of the
36 Couples has already passed. We are
now living in the era of equalization,
and the only issue in this era is who will
be the first to fulfill that responsibility.
(286-247, 1997.8.11)

The Ideal Kingdom of Heaven, Our Hope

Rev. Sun Myung Moon
February 22, 1959

Matthew 3: 1-17

After Jesus passed away, God prepared for 2,000 years for the meeting to come. Jesus has been praying and preparing for 2,000 years from the spiritual world so that we may meet the bride of Heaven in the last days. Jesus has the responsibility of a bridegroom, and people on earth have the responsibility of a bride. Jesus has been fulfilling that responsibility in the spiritual world. We know this through the Bible.

How can the brides on earth meet the bridegroom? They must fulfill their responsibility. When Jesus appears on earth, he appears after having fulfilled his responsibility. Therefore, we should also fulfill our responsibility. As the reward for fulfilling Your responsibility, you will receive a gift from Heaven. Therefore, all the Christians of the world should fulfill their responsibility as the bride.

Jesus said, “You shall witness unto me, unto the uttermost part of the earth.” (Acts 1:8) He said, “For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.” (Matthew 16:25)

We must be people who fight to keep giving, in the course of fulfilling our responsibility. That is the only way we will not be ashamed in the presence of the hearts of those who fought for the earth through historical courses, like Jesus, the bridegroom. They did not eat when they were hungry and never had a day free of anxiety and concern. Each of you must know that you can be qualified to meet Jesus only after fulfilling your responsibilities. Continue reading “We Must Fight to Keep Giving”

You Must Meet Jesus Again at the Second Advent

Ephesians 6

5 Slaves, you must obey your earthly masters. Show them great respect and be as loyal to them as you are to Christ. 6 Try to please them at all times, and not just when you think they are watching. You are slaves of Christ, so with your whole heart you must do what God wants you to do. 7 Gladly serve your masters, as though they were the Lord himself, and not simply people. 8 You know that you will be rewarded for any good things you do, whether you are slaves or free.

Richard:  I think that this speaks to our attitude as we do the duties that God gives us in life (through our conscience, mainly, but also to others such as our parents, or Christ).  We should give obeisance to Christ and be glad to go the way of sacrifice, knowing that we will reach the goal of happiness after the course of hardship.  The problem is, as Rev. Moon stated yesterday “We the followers of Jesus must go the way he went, whether we live or die. The problem is whether you really want to go this way.”

Isaiah 30

29 The Lord’s people will sing as they do when they celebrate a religious festival[e] at night. The Lord is Israel’s mighty rock,[f] and his people will be as happy as they are when they follow the sound of flutes to the mountain where he is worshiped.

The Ideal Kingdom of Heaven, Our Hope

Rev. Sun Myung Moon
February 22, 1959

Matthew 3: 1-17

We must go. We must go over the idea of faith that religious people hold. Furthermore, we must go over the cross of Jesus. Beyond the cross, we must go over Jesus’ heart of resurrection. We must even go over God’s heart and comfort Him. We must advance toward that kind of position.

How can we stop our footsteps from heading toward that longed-for place, the place where God resides, the place where Jesus dwells, the place of the true brotherhood of humankind? Before you lies the road of ideology that we must go, no matter what on earth holds us, stepping over every obstacle. We must even lead the people who have been those obstacles into following that road.

Have you ever thought about God’s hard work in finding us? From the day of the fall, God always sought Adam. God never failed to follow Adam’s descendants. He has been seeking you when you did not know He was doing so. Have you ever sought God? You must know that 6,000 years of sadness and millions of people’s deaths obstructed His path. When we know the hard work of God in seeking us, we should have the same kind of heart as we in turn seek God. Continue reading “You Must Meet Jesus Again at the Second Advent”