World Scripture-2 | Daily Inspiration

I Am Jesus, whom You are Persecuting

Cheon Seong Gyeong 1661

Ideally, Adam and Eve as a loving couple giving birth to a child would be the same as standing in God’s position as the Parent, wherein His invisible Self, that is His internal nature and external form, united and lovingly created His children. The first Creator, the invisible God, created Adam and Eve as the visible second creators, and by their giving birth to children from the position of substantial second gods, they are elevated to the position of parents. Through these young children’s growth, God’s past history is displayed substantially, which also includes Adam and Eve’s infancy, siblinghood, matrimony and parenthood. Thus, parents desire to love and be close to their children because they are their second selves. (258- 240, 1994.3.20)

Cheon Seong Gyeong 1081

When women put on clothes, what do you put on first? Do you put on your upper garments or lower garments first? It is a principle for woman to put on clothes beginning with the lower garment. It is a principle to dress beginning with the lower garment. Although it is okay for men to occasionally put on their jackets first, that is also the case for men. It is the principled way. You have to know all those things and put your lifestyle in order. You have to know that the Principle is also a philosophy of life. (131-283, 1984.5.3)

Chapter 17

Obedience and Sacrifice

Call and Mission

When Saint Paul was struck by spiritual lightning on the road to Damascus, he experienced the demanding presence of God deep in his soul. This was not simply a conversion to the new Christian faith. More than that, Paul received a mission to preach Christ to the Gentiles. That sense of mission burned in his heart and motivated him to strive for the rest of his life to plant churches throughout the Greco-Roman world. Thenceforth he devoted himself as a “living sacrifice” in obedience to God’s call.
Throughout history, God has commissioned saints and righteous people like Paul to be His instruments. God needs people of faith who will take up various missions and fulfill them in His name. The prophets of Israel, the disciples of Jesus, the Companions of Muhammad and countless believers ever since have answered the call to mission. Obedient to their calling, their lives have been challenging and difficult. Yet because they cherished that divine purpose in their hearts and felt a strong sense of responsibility to fulfill it, they persevered.

God’s Call and Our Sense of Mission

Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.”
Genesis 12.1 Continue reading “I Am Jesus, whom You are Persecuting”

Christian Churches Should Take Down their Signboards and Crosses

Cheon Seong Gyeong 1908

In today’s satanic world, the sexual organs have ruined everything. Free sex, homosexuality and drugs are reigning supreme. Drugs make you lose your senses. They make you like animals, not human beings. They make you think nothing but animalistic thoughts. The Kingdom of Heaven, on the other hand, is diametrically opposite to this. It follows the concept, not of free sex, but of absolute, eternal, unchanging and unique love. They connect to the Kingdom of Heaven instantaneously. When such a foundation is laid on earth, it will become God’s Kingdom on earth. This is the undeniable logical conclusion. You should exercise great care toward the foundation of love. (278-271, 1996.5.26)

Cheon Seong Gyeong 1189

Cain represents Satan’s side. It is the position of the elder brother. Abel represents God’s side. This is the battle. Originally, God would have loved the firstborn son, and then the younger son. Due to the Fall, the first son, Cain, stands on Satan’s side. He belongs to Satan’s side. In order to save him, God designated Abel. God designates Abel to restore the right of the firstborn son. This cannot be achieved by force; you have to inspire people by love. You have to achieve restoration by melting them with love. If you cannot stand in the position of having loved them, if you cannot win their heart through offering your love, then you will not be in a position to truly love your own son or daughter. As viewed from God’s ideal of creation, the firstborn son was originally to be loved first rather than the second child. (140-38, 1986.2.1)

Beyond Ritual

2. With the Changing of the Age, Old Rituals Are Replaced by Purer Forms of Devotion

Teachings of Rev. Sun Myung Moon

If people commit sin, they must cleanse themselves of sin with a degree of intensity equal to the sin. To wash off the stains of sin, people must put in their personal effort and offer of their possessions. In particular, people need to make an offering in order to pay indemnity. People of every age have made such offerings, even though they did not clearly understand their function as objects by which to make indemnity conditions. Based on their level of understanding, primitive people sacrificed animals and even human beings as offerings. That was why they did these horrible things. All the earth’s creatures should be embraced in God’s love and live harmoniously together with God, yet because of the Fall they had to shed blood. They had to shed blood! Because false love, false life and false lineage came into this world, the things of creation had to shed blood. (374:21, April 4, 2002)

Obey My Voice, and I Will Be Your God

Cheon Seong Gyeong 2102

Previously, I said that we were to go over the watershed, didn’t I? On my seventieth birthday, outside spiritualists came dancing and said, “Now Rev. Moon has crossed the thirty-eighth parallel.” They are saying that I have crossed the threshold. Now the world of happiness is coming. This is how we should overcome the 1990s. After having passed over this, the Unification Church will be able to make swift and unbridled progress. Now, on this, my seventieth birthday, we must indemnify seven thousand years and the number seven, and must pass into the age of the number eight. Number eight is the number of liberation and making a new start, is it not? This is why America has declared the collapse of communism and so forth. Everything is completed. This is quite curious. This happened on the seventh and eighth after we had finished our event. (199-96, 1990.2.15)

Cheon Seong Gyeong 1278

What is the difference between the second generation children of Blessed Families and young members who are candidates for the Blessing? When those candidates want to receive the Blessing, they need the holy wine ceremony and other ceremonies as well. It is very complicated. However, in the case of the second generation, there is no need for the holy wine ceremony. Their roots are different. Your roots are lodged in the fallen world, but theirs are not.
Everyone looks similar from the outside, but their histories and backgrounds are all different. The beginnings were different and so the process of growing up was different. The current situations they are in are different and their future destinations are different. Even though the final destination (spirit world) is the same, the final place they are going to there is different. It cannot be the same because those of the second generation are in the position of blessed children. (144-281, 1986.4.26)

Beyond Ritual

2. With the Changing of the Age, Old Rituals Are Replaced by Purer Forms of Devotion

Once, as Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai was coming forth from Jerusalem, Rabbi Joshua followed after him and beheld the Temple in ruins. “Woe unto us,” Rabbi Joshua cried, “that this, the place where the iniquities of Israel were atoned for, is laid waste!”
“My son,” Rabbi Yohanan said to him, “be not grieved. We have another atonement as effective as this. And what is it? It is acts of loving-kindness, as it is said, ‘For I desire mercy and not sacrifice’ [Hosea 6.6].”
Talmud, Abot de Rabbi Nathan 6 (Judaism) Continue reading “Obey My Voice, and I Will Be Your God”

Many Want to Avoid the Thorny Path that Lies Along the Way

Cheon Seong Gyeong 2156

Today I would like to gratefully take this opportunity and talk about a fundamental solution to the problem of the unification of the Korean peninsula – the unification that is our nation’s most cherished desire as well as the last matter of the Cold War that awaits settlement. I would like to entitle this talk “The Course of Life for the Princes and Princesses of God.”

Cheon Seong Gyeong 1383

What will happen once we have conducted this ceremony? Families in the world today are breaking down, and resolving this issue remains a problem. With the world struggling to solve this problem of family breakdown, the Unification Church will bring together 360,000 young couples to form new families to live in an ideal manner, and this will lead all disordered families in the world to automatically take great interest in them. This will become a global issue.
Once I bless these 360,000 couples and rumors spread worldwide that it was the best thing that happened to the world, and as a result 36,000 couples from each nation were brought to participate in the Blessing, how many couples would that add up to? There are some countries that want to send 50,000 couples. Think about it. (269-300, 1995.5.1).5.1)

Beyond Ritual

WHEN RITUAL IS OVERLY RELIED UPON, it may imbue an aura of sanctity not matched by deeds or wisdom. Ritual is no substitute for authentic piety, love of one’s neighbor and personal realization of God. Nearly every religion has its own internal critique of ritualism. Even when the founder of one religion is apparently criticizing the ritualism of another religion, the passage was originally a prophetic word to his own people.
Father Moon concurs in these critiques, and adds two more: First, ritual can create a barrier between different denominations and faiths, which runs contrary to the will of God for religious unity. In this time of coming together, the barriers of ritual should be transcended. Second, acts of pious devotion to God and Jesus do not often grant the inner knowledge to know their heart and will. For example, many Christians revere the cross as the sign of salvation, when for Jesus it was the accursed instrument of his death and the source of millennia of grief and frustration that he could not have lived to complete his mission to build God’s Kingdom on earth.
Chief among the religious rituals in ancient times was animal sacrifice, yet, with a few exceptions, animal sacrifice is rare in religion today. Religions have come to regard acts of devotion, study, and charity the essence of the ancient ritual sacrifices that are required by scripture but no longer practiced. Thus, the Talmud regards charity to one’s neighbor as the equivalent of sacrificing a lamb as a sin offering. In a similar vein, the Buddha criticizes animal sacrifice as creating evil karma by killing life, and instead teaches a spiritual meaning of sacrifice as fulfilled in honoring parents, caring for family, and giving charity to monks.

Better than Ritual Is a Loving Heart and Righteous Deeds

With what shall I come before the Lord?
and bow myself before God on high?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
with calves a year old?
Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of
rams,
with ten thousands of rivers of oil?
Shall I give my first-born for my transgression,
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?
He has showed you, O man, what is good;
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?
Micah 6.6-8

Even three times a day to offer
Three hundred cooking pots of food
Does not match a portion of the merit
Acquired in one instant of love.
Nagarjuna, Precious Garland 283 (Buddhism) Continue reading “Many Want to Avoid the Thorny Path that Lies Along the Way”

Christ at the Second Advent Comes as the True Father

Cheon Seong Gyeong 2280

Then who is Christ at the Second Advent? As the True Father and True Mother were lost in Eden, he is the one to come upon the earth as the True Father. He will become as one with God in heart, lineage and flesh, establish the position of True Mother, and form a family centered on this oneness. The Messiah’s family will be the first to live with and serve God. The Messiah solidifies the position of the perfected Adam. The Kingdom of Heaven will be established only after the perfected Adam and Eve marry, live on earth serving God, have sons and daughters centered upon Him, bring forth His clan and live on earth together with them, and then, finally, move on into the heavenly world together with God. (282-51, 1997.3.10)

Cheon Seong Gyeong 1126

If God had not established the portion of responsibility for fallen human beings, we would have thought that restoration was to take place automatically and that the words “restoration through indemnity” would not have appeared. Indemnity must be paid. Why does indemnity have to be paid? It is because humankind has a portion of responsibility. The first human ancestors destroyed this, the very thing that they should have perfected; as a result, the whole of humanity still has to fulfill its given responsibility. To do so, everyone gains dominion over everything in the satanic world, stands in a position to dominate Satan, and reaches the position where they can receive the love of God with dignity. When that happens, Satan will be cut off. (143-77, 1986.3.16)

Ritual

You shall not eat any abominable thing. These are the animals you may eat: the ox, the sheep, the goat, the hart, the gazelle, the roebuck, the wild goat, the ibex, the antelope, and the mountain sheep. Every animal that parts the hoof and chews the cud, among the animals, you may eat. Yet of those that chew the cud or have the hoof cloven you shall not eat these: the camel, the hare, the rock badger, because they chew the cud but do not part the hoof, are unclean to you. And the swine, because it parts the hoof but does not chew the cud, is unclean for you. Their flesh you shall not eat, and their carcasses you shall not touch.
Of all that are in the waters you may eat these: whatever has fins and scales you may eat. And whatever does not have fins and scales you shall not eat; it is unclean for you.
You shall not eat anything that dies of itself; you may give it to the alien who is within your towns, that he may eat it, or you may sell it to a foreigner; for you are a people holy to the Lord your God…
You shall not boil a kid in its mother’s milk.
Deuteronomy 14.3-21 Continue reading “Christ at the Second Advent Comes as the True Father”