Category: Eight Great Textbooks

What Is the Purpose of Life?

Cheon Seong Gyeong 423

What was this ideal that was sup-
posed to be realized through the ances-
tors of humankind? It was to realize an
ideal family through the union of an ide-
al man and an ideal woman. Then, what
is necessary for the realization of an ide-
al family? It is neither man nor woman
alone. A family, after all, is a unit. It is
represented by the union of a husband
and wife, and the relationship of parents
and children with the love of God at the
center. Therefore, we reach the conclu-
sion that God’s will is the union of a hus-
band and wife, perfecting a family cen-
tered on God’s love. (Blessed Family – 298)

Cheon Seong Gyeong 1567

The Ceremony of the Settlement of
the Eight Stages signifies the restoration
of the right of the eldest son. It was held
after both the vertical historical course
and the horizontal course of indemni-
ty on the levels of the individual, fam-
ily, people, nation and world – in short,
the vertical and horizontal courses of
indemnity in the eight stages – had
been completed. It signifies the comple-
tion of the course of indemnity for all
people of the world. All this comes to
fruition through the Ceremony of the
Settlement of the Eight Stages.

Let Us Follow the Way of Jesus

Sun Myung Moon
April 26, 1959

Matthew 7:1-20

7 Don’t condemn others, and God won’t condemn you. 2 God will be as hard on you as you are on others! He will treat you exactly as you treat them.

3 You can see the speck in your friend’s eye, but you don’t notice the log in your own eye. 4 How can you say, “My friend, let me take the speck out of your eye,” when you don’t see the log in your own eye? 5 You’re nothing but show-offs! First, take the log out of your own eye. Then you can see how to take the speck out of your friend’s eye.

6 Don’t give to dogs what belongs to God. They will only turn and attack you. Don’t throw pearls down in front of pigs. They will trample all over them.

Ask, Search, Knock

7 Ask, and you will receive. Search, and you will find. Knock, and the door will be opened for you. 8 Everyone who asks will receive. Everyone who searches will find. And the door will be opened for everyone who knocks. 9 Would any of you give your hungry child a stone, if the child asked for some bread? 10 Would you give your child a snake if the child asked for a fish? 11 As bad as you are, you still know how to give good gifts to your children. But your heavenly Father is even more ready to give good things to people who ask.

12 Treat others as you want them to treat you. This is what the Law and the Prophets[a] are all about.

The Narrow Gate

13 Go in through the narrow gate. The gate to destruction is wide, and the road that leads there is easy to follow. A lot of people go through that gate. 14 But the gate to life is very narrow. The road that leads there is so hard to follow that only a few people find it.

A Tree and Its Fruit

15 Watch out for false prophets! They dress up like sheep, but inside they are wolves who have come to attack you. 16 You can tell what they are by what they do. No one picks grapes or figs from thornbushes. 17 A good tree produces good fruit, and a bad tree produces bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot produce good fruit. 19 Every tree that produces bad fruit will be chopped down and burned. 20 You can tell who the false prophets are by their deeds.

Prayer

Father, You have endured the long course of history and fought to gain the glory of Heaven! Please allow the day to soon appear in which You alone receive the glory of the providence. We know well that Your original will has been ruthlessly trampled down by a myriad of satans from the time the human beings committed the error. We did not know Your situation. We did not know that You must find someone to serve the will which was to be realized by human beings on the earth because that will was violated.

We know that the history of the providence is one in which You toiled with no one to serve the will. You worked endlessly hard to convey the will, which is burning in Your heart, to humankind. Father! Please allow us to be heavenly sons and daughters who can exert all our effort to possess Your will in our hearts and to follow Your path of glory through the providential will and course of history. Since we know that Your will is to find true sons and daughters, please be with us so that we can build a country, world and universe where we can serve You as true sons and daughters and give You joy. Help us realize that this is the country and will of Your hope. Continue reading “What Is the Purpose of Life?”

Choose Between Life and Death and Behold the Final Glory

Cheon Seong Gyeong 338

What is the summit where the father
and the son can meet? They meet at the
central point where love intersects love,
life intersects life, and ideals intersect
ideals; in this light, love, life and ideals
are in one place. At that point, God is
love, and so am I; God is life, and so am
I; God is the ideal, and so am I. The first
connection and first point of unification
where this can be realized is the point
at which the parent-child relationship
forms; otherwise, these things cannot
be. This is a certainty. (69-78, 1973.10.20)

Richard:  The parent-child relationship between God and man or woman originates at the very point of sexual union between the father and the mother.  At that point of creation, God meets the son.  This endless love then (should) sprout into a life well lived between God the Father and his son or daughter.

Cheon Seong Gyeong 1594

The significance of tomorrow, the
tenth day of the month, is that this num-
ber ten allows us to pass into the year
2000 from the year 1999. Then God can
restore unhindered the physical world
vertically from the individual to the
family, tribe, people, nation and world,
and connect it to the spirit world. This
can happen based on the love of the ide-
al of Adam’s family, the original ideal
of creation, untainted by the Fall. God’s
original will to recover the world of cos-
mic unity could be fulfilled, together
with liberation, at the June 14 ceremony
of the Congratulatory Declaration of the
Cosmic Victory of the Parents of Heav-
en and Earth, greeted with cheers from
the liberated realm of heaven and earth.
This could then form the foundation for
the Declaration of the Realm of Libera-
tion and Unification of the Cosmos by
the Parents of Heaven and Earth, which
has been made today. With this declara-
tion, fortune has turned in favor of the
unification of North and South Korea.

 

When We Should Stay Awake with Heaven

Sun Myung Moon
April 19, 1959

Matthew 25:1-13

As God has done in the past course of history, He will necessarily do in the last days. If there is such a movement, your past faith, ideology or ties should not present a problem. Only then can you live.

If you look in the Bible, Mary’s husband Joseph was called righteous. It was historical nonsense for her to bear a child as a virgin, but when Heaven sent an angel and foretold this to Mary to establish her, she obeyed without hesitation.

What is the uncompromising dedication left behind by the loyal ministers, filial children, and devoted wives in history? You may not have realized that our ancestors dared life-risking adventures, regardless of the opposition of the evil cliques. As there has been no one serving the heavenly will who has not followed this path, and there has been no loyal minister, filial child, or devoted wife who has not walked this road, those who seek to become citizens of the heavenly kingdom, heavenly sons and daughters, should follow this way as a matter of course, choosing between life and death and beholding the final glory.

Have you ever made such a determination and pledge? If not, you are the most despised traitor before the historical providence. Only when you have such a determination can you find your new selves. You should know that the moment you start on this action is the time when you wake up and kick out the six- thousand-year course of history in which you wallowed in sleep. Continue reading “Choose Between Life and Death and Behold the Final Glory”

Recognize the Signpost God Has Established for the Salvation of Humankind

Cheon Seong Gyeong 1059

Parents should set a good example
in their life of faith. In the family, they
should show their children how fer-
vently they practice all aspects of a life
of faith, including prayer life and fam-
ily services. They should help the chil-
dren recognize how important the time
for Pledge is. They should not just hold
Pledge service at that particular time,
but as parents, they should also teach
their children about God’s will. (31-269,
1970.6.4)

Cheon Seong Gyeong 1419

Let us say that the bride follows her
husband to his house on her palanquin.
The moment she steps over the thresh-
old and becomes a part of his clan, any
thoughts centered on herself will no
longer be allowed. If she were to con-
duct herself in a self-centered way, as
she used to in her own house, would that
be tolerated by her new family? This is
the question. Can she ask them to toler-
ate her? Of course she cannot do such
a thing. Since she is in a new place, she
must be cautious about her every move
– the way she looks, listens, and speaks.
Why should she be cautious? She must
think about how she can be of use to her
husband’s clan, and to the new environ-
ment she finds herself in, rather than be
a source of conflict. This is an extremely
difficult thing to do. (142-160, 1986.3.9)

When We Should Stay Awake with Heaven

Sun Myung Moon
April 19, 1959

Matthew 25:1-13

To escape from being swept into the pitfall of fear and death, you should find the heavenly signboard, or the one point based on the three. You should also take risks. You must take risks. You can live only if you make a determination to hold onto something new as you toss aside the flow. Otherwise, who can guarantee that you will not become a sacrifice to judgment along with history? Thus, we should carefully watch the direction we are taking. As we watch, however, we should not do so emotionally. As the end draws near, you should turn to the right direction or look to another side for a certain rescue boat as the fear, insecurity and urgency of death you feel increases. You should have the heart through which to break away from your world view and all emotional ties and look for something else. Otherwise, you can never be awakened.

If there is something in your hearts that you feel is greater than death, you should hold onto it and set out for an adventure, leaving everything behind. At this moment, the connection of death is severed. It is the same when we look at history. Continue reading “Recognize the Signpost God Has Established for the Salvation of Humankind”

Hold onto Heaven Above and Human History Below

Cheon Seong Gyeong 87

If God had been thinking only about
Himself, would He have created heaven
and earth? Creation requires an invest-
ment of energy. An artist’s great hope is
to create a masterpiece. An artist invests
all his effort into making great works of
art. A masterpiece appears only when
the artist gives everything, and feels he
cannot give any more. Creation starts
with investing oneself. Creation is pos-
sible only when energy is poured out.
Without contributing energy, there is
no result. According to the principle
that a perfect object partner appears
only through total investment, God as
the Subject partner completely invested
Himself into making His object partner.
The creation was the beginning of God’s
work through which He determined not
to exist for His own sake, but for the sake
of His object partner. (78-111, 1975.5.6

Cheon Seong Gyeong 1055

Your families should not become
slaves to habit. The family is the starting
point for establishing the four-position
foundation. Here, the unity of the family
is required. The family should conform
to the original standard of God’s desire.
(21-76, 1968.10.20)

When We Should Stay Awake with Heaven

Sun Myung Moon
April 19, 1959

Matthew 25:1-13

We must wake up now. We should open our sleepy eyes. We should reverse our actions. What should we be centered upon in trying to wake? It is not any accomplishment you have made in your life. You cannot escape from history merely with this. Since history hitherto has been a history of fallen persons and a world liable to judgment, it cannot be turned back with any earthly ties or accomplishments, nor can it be turned back with any power that has ruled so far. It cannot be turned back with anything we possess or any conditions of glory. This is the situation in which we exist. Continue reading “Hold onto Heaven Above and Human History Below”

You Must Have the Standard of Shim Jung on Your Own

Cheon Seong Gyeong 331

How shall we describe God’s love?
Imagine a warm spring day with white
clouds floating gently in the sky. The air
shimmers above the ground, insects and
ants scurry about exploring the world.
Beside a flowing stream, catkins blos-
som and frogs sing new songs of spring,
welcoming swarms of bees and butter-
flies. And there you are, enraptured in
the atmosphere, in that twilight state we
experience when drifting peacefully off
to sleep, and yet awake in a happy mood,
rejoicing forever. God’s love has such a
flavor. With your ideal partner given to
you by God, you will feel as if you are
in a flower garden where butterflies and
bees fly around. Are you happy even to
imagine this, or unhappy? These thick-
headed men here will not understand
this very well. (37-29, 1970.12.22)

Cheon Seong Gyeong 51

Does God really exist? Can God be
felt as more real than the pain that makes
you say “ouch” when someone pinches
you, or more real than the experience of
eating when you are hungry? This is the
question. When we know that God truly
exists, all problems will be solved. (89-72,
1976.7.11)

Richard:  Sometimes the truth is simple, but profound.

When We Should Stay Awake with Heaven

Sun Myung Moon
April 19, 1959

Matthew 25:1-13

When I say it is time to wake, I do not mean waking from sleep at night. This word has been given in every age. As there is a world of a certain ideology to be realized in the last days, this word is given in every age to those who seek to find this world.

If you have a desire to advance yourself, to insist on your opinion and rule over the whole, from where did this originate? You are in the midst of sleep. Humankind is asleep today. The individual, the family, the society, country, world, and even spiritual world are in a deep sleep, unable to receive the time of hope. If everyone commonly feels that such a historical relationship should be concluded with something new, then the problem is what is that “something”. Looking back upon history, nations that insisted on traditional customs were swept aside. We should abandon the way of thinking we used to have in antiquated ages. People tend to value historical relics today because they are walking the course of restoration. This means that what has existed in the human world is to be seen as a reflection of God’s heart.

Therefore, we should not rest content with the old antiquated ideology. Rather, we should understand the value of the original ideology through it and receive stimulation, gaining a desire to commit ourselves to this precious ideology. Only such people can restore the ideal that was hidden in God’s Shim Jung from the beginning of the universe. Continue reading “You Must Have the Standard of Shim Jung on Your Own”