Cheon Seong Gyeong | Daily Inspiration

Everyone on the Path of Faith Will Be Tested

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

Cheon Seong Gyeong 1726

If that is the case, when Adam’s and Eve’s bodies as well as their minds unite, would or would not that which is at the bottom of their bodies unite too? What would that be? Would God unite with them or not? Where would He unite with them? Since He created the organs for love, where would He come to unite with human beings? Where would that place be? It would be the place of love. (194-64, 1989.10.15)

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Would it be all right for this substantial fruit of six thousand years to fall without ripening, like a fruit dropping from its tree? Should the fruit, worrying that the wind might blow, say, “Oh no, it looks like I might fall. If the wind blows a bit more, I am going to fall. Father, don’t shake me, just let me be still.” There may be some people here who are like that. On the other hand, there are members saying, “Even if you take an ax and shake the branches as you please, my branches will never fall until they have been cut.” To which group do you belong? (46-154, 1971.8.13)

World Scripture and the Teachings of Sun Myung Moon

Testing

EVERYONE ON THE PATH OF FAITH WILL BE TESTED. Scripture records that the great people of faith were tested many times. Abraham endured ten trials of faith. Satan tested Job with loss of family and property. Muhammad had to overcome many obstacles as he struggled to proclaim the message to the idolators of Mecca. Jesus was tempted in the wilderness and tested again on the way to the cross. Hindu and Buddhist saints as well faced life-and-death trials, and with absolute faith overcame them.
Overcoming tests gives us strength and toughness of character. Testing also accompanies grace, either before or afterwards, to qualify us to receive the grace and retain it.
Father Moon explains the reason why people of faith encounter testing by referring to the Book of Job’s account of the bargaining between Satan and God. Since human beings fell away from oneness with God, God accedes to Satan, “the Accuser,” the right to test human beings in order to prove whether they are indeed worthy of returning to God’s realm. Satan ruthlessly looks for any hint of selfishness that would disqualify them and give him a claim over them. Only the most faithful and selfless people can pass his tests. Sometimes a test requires us to deal with an inconceivable situation. The famous Qur’anic passage of Moses and al-Khidr, the “Green Man,” presents a trial where Moses must believe in things entirely contrary to common sense; but he cannot. In the Hindu Ramayana, Sita the wife of Rama proves her fidelity by jumping into a blazing pyre, and in a Buddhist sutra a seeker throws himself off a cliff to certain death; both pass the test and are unharmed. And how inconceivable was it to Abraham that God would ask him to sacrifice his son? We include accounts of several of the tests in Father Moon’s life.

Satan Tests People of Faith

Now there was a day when the sons of God18 came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them. The Lord said to Satan, “Whence have you come?” Satan answered the Lord, “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it.” And the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil?” Then Satan answered the Lord, “Does Job fear God for nought? Hast thou not put a hedge about him and his house and all that he has, on every side? Thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. But put forth thy hand now, and touch all that he has, and he will curse thee to thy face.” And the Lord said to Satan, “Behold, all that he has is in your power; only upon himself do not put forth your hand.” So Satan went forth from the presence of the Lord.

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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)

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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

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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)

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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

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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?

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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

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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.

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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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