Category: 1 John

God is Supremely Selfless and Supremely Public Minded

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1 John 4

7 My dear friends, we must love each other. Love comes from God, and when we love each other, it shows that we have been given new life. We are now God’s children, and we know him. 8 God is love, and anyone who doesn’t love others has never known him. 

2 Kings 5

5 Naaman was the commander of the Syrian army. The Lord had helped him and his troops defeat their enemies, so the king of Syria respected Naaman very much. Naaman was a brave soldier, but he had leprosy.

The Devil and His Activities

4. Human Beings Must Choose between God and the Devil

Teachings of Rev. Sun Myung Moon

God is supremely selfless and supremely public minded; whereas Satan is absolutely self-centered and only out for himself. (88:209, September 18, 1976)
 
God has no capacity to be corrupted—He is eternal, unchanging, and unique. Therefore, regardless of his power, Satan can never bring God under his control, because God is true, and Satan cannot digest a true being.
 
    Then, why does God, who aspires to be lord of all creation, not bring Satan under His control? It is because Satan does not have God’s unchanging nature—quite the opposite. God is unchanging while Satan is always changing to suit himself. God is unique and Satan is not; God is eternal while Satan is temporal. This, in essence, is their dividing line.
    Why, then, are human beings the objects of both God’s desire and Satan’s desire? People stand between God and Satan. They have qualities that can relate to both God’s world and Satan’s world.
    Is someone who changes from moment to moment more on God’s side or Satan’s side? Is someone who is constantly creating divisions and fights in the home more susceptible to God or to Satan? What about the person who is immersed in his daily affairs and does not think about the whole, or the world, or history, or eternity, or any kind of long-term vision? What about a father who neglects his wife and children, who only goes off to the local bar and drinks every night, seeking his own pleasure? Certainly, Satan will claim such people. (124:243-44, February 20, 1983)
We are living in a fallen realm. That is why we need to live a life of faith. Remember this, and always be aware that Satan governs this fallen world. This is not merely a concept; it is reality. (161:218, February 15, 1987)
 
The Bible exhorts us to pray ceaselessly. The Devil can attack us and even work through us twenty-four hours a day. Although God is with us, He stays in a vertical relationship with only the mind as His base; how effectively, then, can He work with us? Satan can come at us from any direction, from 360 degrees; hence we are bound to be overwhelmed. (200:227, February 25, 1990)
 
Evil activity in the spirit world had been increasing gradually ever since the Human Fall. But the situation changed drastically in the 1980s, when hosts of evil spirits descended to the earth and greatly increased their activities there.
    Why did this happen? In former times, when the central figures of the Providence did not know the identity of Satan, the root of sin, or the nature of the Original Sin, Satan felt at ease and could take his time creating his self-centered world. However, when the True Parents came into the world the situation began to change. The True Parents revealed the identity of Satan, the root of sin, and that the Original Sin was fornication. They figured out all Satan’s traits and all his tricks, facts that not even God had revealed to humanity. Then the True Parents began making conditions so that Satan could no longer stand on his feet on the earth. As they achieved victory after victory in the Providence of Restoration, Satan was taken aback; then he began to get nervous. In response, Satan mobilized evil spirits in the spirit world to work with evil spirits in the bodies of people on the earth, by stimulating their resentment and their desire to take revenge on the descendants of the people who had caused them pain.
    In particular, Satan watched closely for opportunities to invade Blessed families. Whenever he found any bad conditions, he put evil spirits into them. He wanted to block them from advancing and turn them from a God-centered life. God expected that Blessed families would make unity of heart with God and True Parents by living with absolute faith, absolute love and absolute obedience. Satan cannot invade such families. But when Blessed families acted in unprincipled ways, they made conditions for Satan to invade them. Most of them expected that the victory of True Parents would protect them; they didn’t look deeply at themselves to check whether they had anything for which Satan could accuse them. They didn’t reflect on whether they still had any fallen nature. Therefore, at least from now on, we must work hard to purify ourselves from evil and sin and be reborn as original, true children. (Heung Jin Moon, Message from the Spirit World, January 1, 2001)
 
 
 
    
 
 

A Shining Past Is a Life of Giving Everything to Others


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1 John 4

4 Dear friends, don’t believe everyone who claims to have the Spirit of God. Test them all to find out if they really do come from God. Many false prophets have already gone out into the world, 2 and you can know which ones come from God. His Spirit says that Jesus Christ had a truly human body. 3 But when someone doesn’t say this about Jesus, you know that person has a spirit that doesn’t come from God and is the enemy of Christ. You knew that this enemy was coming into the world and now is already here.

Ezeliel 12

12 The leader of Jerusalem will lift his own bag to his shoulders at sunset and leave through a hole that the others have dug in the wall of his house. He will cover his face, so he can’t see the land he is leaving. 13 The Lord will spread out a net and trap him as he leaves Jerusalem. He will then be led away to the city of Babylon, but will never see that place,[b] even though he will die there. 14 His own officials and troops will scatter in every direction, and the Lord will track them down and put them to death.

The Judgement

  1. The Life Review

Teachings of Rev. Sun Myung Moon

At the fateful moment of death, all the facts of a person’s past life will pass through his mind as images. No one needs to explain to him what kind of person he is; he will know it by himself. The life he inherited from his ancestors, the circumstances he faced, the situation he leaves behind, and all his past will appear as images in his mind at the last moment of his life.
     A person who left behind a valuable moment during his earthly life will recognize it: “There was truth. I left behind something more precious than my life.” However, another person will admit, “I spent my whole life course from birth to death as merely a passerby.” Reflecting on all his past actions and feeling no desire to remember them, he feels miserable. For the person whose face is filled with joy as he reflects on his past, death is not to be feared; it is a moment of comfort. His past will not die and his reality will not die…
     If a person gave his life while struggling to save his brother, a kinsman or a stranger, at the moment of death that fact will appear as an unforgettable image. But times of self-centered happiness, even moments of basking in the glory and acclaim of many people, will not bring any effect.
     What does it mean to be good, to be persons of truth who can stand on their own
before God? Truth and goodness do not begin from us or end in us. Truth and goodness are established when something begins in us and brings results for others, or begins in others and brings results in us. It is the same with all existences in heaven and earth; they have to establish reciprocal relationships of give and take according to the Principle.
     If one’s past life was entirely a life of giving, there will be no fear on the path of death. A shining past is a life of giving everything to others, sacrificing for others, shedding tears for others, investing life for others, desiring for others, concentrating all one’s vitality and investing it for others…
     For ordinary people facing the vicissitudes of the fallen world, their path of life is sometimes up and sometimes down. They make plans from one year to the next, or maybe plan their future for ten or twenty years, but always centered on themselves. However, when they meet their final destiny, all their records of sacrificing others for their own benefit will bind them. (31:308-10, June 7, 1970)

Your Conscience Is the Agent of God Within You

1 John 3

11 From the beginning you were told that we must love each other. 12 Don’t be like Cain, who belonged to the devil and murdered his own brother. Why did he murder him? He did it because his brother was good, and he was evil. 13 My friends, don’t be surprised if the people of this world hate you. 14 Our love for each other proves that we have gone from death to life. But if you don’t love each other, you are still under the power of death.

Esther 1

1 1-2 King Xerxes[a] of Persia lived in his capital city of Susa[b] and ruled one hundred twenty-seven provinces from India to Ethiopia.[c] 3 During the third year of his rule, Xerxes gave a big dinner for all his officials and officers. The governors and leaders of the provinces were also invited, and even the commanders of the Persian and Median armies came. 4 For one hundred eighty days he showed off his wealth and spent a lot of money to impress his guests with the greatness of his kingdom.

5 King Xerxes soon gave another dinner and invited everyone in the city of Susa, no matter who they were. The eating and drinking lasted seven days in the beautiful palace gardens. 6 The area was decorated with blue and white cotton curtains tied back with purple linen cords that ran through silver rings fastened to marble columns. Couches of gold and silver rested on pavement that had all kinds of designs made from costly bright-colored stones and marble and mother-of-pearl.

World Scripture and the Teachings of
Sun Myung Moon

Chapter 3

Conscience and Inborn Goodness

2. Struggling with One’s Conscience

Teachings of Rev. Sun Myung Moon

As he pursues his life’s course, a person must attend his own deep mind. This is an ironclad rule of Heaven. Heaven will punish a person who fails to follow his original mind’s order. (4:260, August 8, 1958)

A guilty conscience is evidence that you have broken the heavenly law. (17:36, November 6, 1966)

No one can help me be reconciled with my conscience; it is up to me, to each individual. For instance, if I wronged my brother, I would be ashamed to go near him. Even if he doesn’t know that I wronged him, my conscience already knows it. Because I feel pangs of conscience, I keep myself at a distance, feeling all the while that I should go to him and confess. That is how the principle of heaven and earth operates. Due to the Human Fall we were desensitized, but anyone whose sensitivity is keen and sharp already knows it. (400:382, January 11, 2003)

Every human being, throughout his life, has a most precious teacher within himself. Yet we do not treat this teacher well. We mistreat it, trample on it and abuse it. That teacher is the human conscience. Our conscience always gives us helpful words of advice, trying to connect us to true love. Like a parent, our conscience urges us to be good, unselfish people, and guides us to do the Will of God. But within each person there is also a rebel who always goes against the conscience. That rebel is the physical body.
The body tramples and abuses the conscience miserably. Knowing this, how can you continue to side with your body, the enemy of your conscience, as it weakens your character and damages your life?
Your conscience should be your constant internal teacher and parent, leading you to complete unity with the ultimate Parent of humankind, God. Your conscience is the agent of God within you. Do you think you should indulge and go along with your body, the enemy of the conscience? Or should you control and restrain your body and vindicate your conscience? Your body seeks only after carnal desire. It always seeks for comfort, and wants to take advantage of others. To conquer the realm of the body is an awesome responsibility, which every person must undertake. (201:208, April 10, 1990)

God is the great King of wisdom. He did not place the path to perfection in some far off place. Instead, He prepared it in the place that is nearest to us, the place that is most private and safe— your conscience.
Ladies and gentlemen, your conscience is your master. It is your teacher. It stands in the place of your parents. Your conscience is the first to know everything about you. Your conscience knows all your thoughts. It knows before your teacher, your parents or even God knows. Think how much advice your conscience gives you over your lifetime. Day and night, every time you have an evil thought, it scolds you, saying, “Hey you!” It never grows tired as it works constantly to pull you over rivers and mountains. The conscience always stands as the true master, protecting you and trying to help you. Yet, how often have you betrayed your own conscience? What should be done about your body, which has thoroughly mistreated this precious, irreplaceable teacher that the universe bequeathed to you? Do you intend to idle your life away, clinging to your physical body and enslaved by its desires while it continues to brutally trample your conscience? Don’t you realize that your conscience was given to you as the representative of your heavenly Parent, to enable you to inherit His original love? (May 1, 2004)

You say that you are people of good character. You are self-satisfied and believe that there is nothing wrong with your conscience. However, your conscience is asleep…
Let’s wake up our sleeping conscience. Let’s wake up the conscience of the nation that sleeps in ignorance of God’s heart. Let’s wake up the conscience of humanity around the world that sleeps in ignorance of God’s heart. Let’s wake up the conscience of people, who cannot avoid their fated encounter with the Last Days, that they might act in obedience to the Will of God who seeks to embrace heaven and earth and build one united world.
Is the religion we follow today capable of awakening humanity’s sleeping conscience? Do we have a philosophy that possesses such content? When the conscience is awakened, the shock, determination, and resolve that rush in must be so strong that in an instant it can properly rearrange everything in the world. It has no fear of the sword or of death. Who will dare to stand in the way of the power rising up from our conscience? No one can block it. (10:284, November 6, 1960)

The Father Resembles Us

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I John

4 Dear friends, don’t believe everyone who claims to have the Spirit of God. Test them all to find out if they really do come from God. Many false prophets have already gone out into the world, 2 and you can know which ones come from God. His Spirit says that Jesus Christ had a truly human body. 3 But when someone doesn’t say this about Jesus, you know that person has a spirit that doesn’t come from God and is the enemy of Christ. You knew that this enemy was coming into the world and now is already here.

4 Children, you belong to God, and you have defeated these enemies. God’s Spirit[a] is in you and is more powerful than the one that is in the world. 5 These enemies belong to this world, and the world listens to them, because they speak its language. 6 We belong to God, and everyone who knows God will listen to us. But the people who don’t know God won’t listen to us. That is how we can tell the Spirit that speaks the truth from the one that tells lies.

Job 16

16 Job said:

2 I have often heard this,
    and it offers no comfort.
3 So why don’t you keep quiet?
    What’s bothering you?
4 If I were in your place,
it would be easy to criticize
    or to give advice.
5 But I would offer hope
    and comfort instead.

World Scripture and the Teachings of
Sun Myung Moon

Chapter 3

The Purpose of Human Life

The Image of God

1. How Human Beings Resemble God

God made us in His image, like Himself. That means the Father resembles us just as we resemble the Father. So when someone asks you, “What kind of being is God?” you can answer, “He is someone like me.” This answer will hit the mark. (127:233)

God created all creatures to take after His image, and among them He particularly created human beings to represent His character and be co-creators.
Human beings should have the same attributes of feeling and thinking as God does. If God rejoices, human beings should rejoice with Him, and if God grieves, human beings should grieve with Him. Unless people are able to experience the same feelings as God, no matter how much God loves them they cannot attain a state of harmony and oneness with Him.
In sum, God necessarily had to create object partners to share His love. Hence, God created human beings with the capacity to rejoice with God and experience His love. Again, God created human beings with the same value as the Absolute Being, that they might stand as His object partners. (39:9, January 9, 1971)

People are fond of things that resemble them. Whom does the world resemble? In the future, whom should the ideal world resemble? It must resemble God. It says in Genesis 1:27, “God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” Indeed, God created men and women in His image. We like things that resemble us, and we can surmise that God likes us because we resemble Him. God created all creatures in heaven and on earth, and He is pleased when they resemble Him. (26:167, October 25, 1969)

Since we are created to resemble God, we want to make ourselves like Him. God is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent, so what must we be like in order to resemble God? As God is eternal, we also must be eternal. As God is omnipresent, we also must be omnipresent. That is why we want to live anywhere in the world. We want to be omniscient and omnipotent to embrace the entire world at once…
In what respect would God most like us to resemble Him? More than omnipresence, more than omniscience and omnipotence, more than uniqueness, He most wants us to resemble Him in love. The day when we come to resemble Him in love, we can lose everything and still it will follow us wherever we go. A woman can be so ugly as to be not worth a penny, but if she has love a young man as handsome as a stallion will pursue her. (26:167, October 25, 1969)

A true person is one who resembles God. To establish a world abounding in true people, what we need is not a political revolution but a “revolution of character.” A revolution of character is the revolution that transforms us into true human beings who resemble God’s character. It uplifts people’s character to the standard of God’s character. (149:271, November 28, 1986)

God is the most public-minded being, whereas Satan is the most self-centered being, private and selfish to his bone marrow. Thus, God’s formula to restore human beings aims for us to become Godlike. This means that we must sacrifice what is personal and uphold what is public. Each of us must embody the spirit of altruism and service to others.
A selfless and public-minded person will prosper because he or she is the image of God. The selfish, self-centered person will decline because he is the opposite of God, in the image of the betrayer. This is a law of Heaven. (88:209, September 18, 1976)

From the Beginning You Were Told That We Must Love Each Other

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1 John 3

11 From the beginning you were told that we must love each other. 12 Don’t be like Cain, who belonged to the devil and murdered his own brother. Why did he murder him? He did it because his brother was good, and he was evil. 13 My friends, don’t be surprised if the people of this world hate you. 14 Our love for each other proves that we have gone from death to life. But if you don’t love each other, you are still under the power of death.

15 If you hate each other, you are murderers, and we know that murderers do not have eternal life. 16 We know what love is because Jesus gave his life for us. That’s why we must give our lives for each other. 17 If we have all we need and see one of our own people in need, we must have pity on that person, or else we cannot say we love God. 18 Children, you show love for others by truly helping them, and not merely by talking about it.

Matthew 1

Jesus Christ came from the family of King David and also from the family of Abraham. And this is a list of his ancestors. 2-6a  From Abraham to King David, his ancestors were:

Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah and his brothers (Judah’s sons were Perez and Zerah, and their mother was Tamar), Hezron;

Ram, Amminadab, Nahshon, Salmon, Boaz (his mother was Rahab), Obed (his mother was Ruth), Jesse, and King David.

6b-11  From David to the time of the exile in Babylonia, the ancestors of Jesus were:

David, Solomon (his mother had been Uriah’s wife), Rehoboam, Abijah, Asa, Jehoshaphat, Jehoram;

Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, Hezekiah, Manasseh, Amon, Josiah, and Jehoiachin and his brothers.

12-16 From the exile to the birth of Jesus, his ancestors were:

Jehoiachin, Shealtiel, Zerubbabel, Abiud, Eliakim, Azor, Zadok, Achim;

Eliud, Eleazar, Matthan, Jacob, and Joseph, the husband of Mary, the mother of Jesus, who is called the Messiah.

17 There were fourteen generations from Abraham to David. There were also fourteen from David to the exile in Babylonia and fourteen more to the birth of the Messiah.

World Scripture and the Teachings of
Sun Myung Moon

Chapter 2

Truth and Universal Law

The Golden Rule

Teachings of Rev. Sun Myung Moon

Even looking at contemporary morals and social ethics, a certain principle applies. It is the standard that we live for the sake of others and not insist that others live for us. (71:125, April 29, 1974)

What is the path for us to live a true life? As we go on the path, the main thing we should keep in mind is to live for the sake of others. Confucius, Jesus, Muhammad and Buddha all affirm this truth. Living for the sake of others is the universal principle that defines the way we should live our lives—the one law of the true way of life. (133:18, July 1, 1984)

What should you do to others if you want them to serve you? [Serve them.] Should you serve them first, or let them serve you first? [I’ll serve others after they serve me.] That won’t do. Isn’t there a saying that if you want others to serve you, you should first serve them? [Yes.] The basic rule is that you should be the first to serve. What about me? Do I, Father Moon, seek to serve you, or do I seek to have you serve me? I never have the slightest thought of wanting you to serve me. It is not good to be indebted to others. (50:339, November 8, 1971)

What is a life of true love? In a nutshell, it is living for the sake of others. It is living for the sake of another before you wish that the other would do something for you. In living for others, you give and forget that you ever gave. You do not give in hopes of receiving something in return. You give and give to the point where you have no regrets for not having given more. Even as you give, you bow your head in humility. Thus, Jesus said, “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” (January 27, 2004)

According to the universal law, a subject partner should care for its object partner as parents care for their children or teachers for their students. However, people in the fallen world instead try to use others in self-centered ways. That is why they perish. Through their good example, religious people should educate others in Heaven’s principle that we should place the happiness of others before our own happiness. (271:72, August 21, 1995)