Tag: God’s nature

God Drives Away Flies for a Cow that Has No Tail

Watch or Listen to the podcast of the Richard Urban Show from May 7, 2020: Moral Posturing Does Not Improve Our Health: https://www.visionroot.org/2020/05/08/is-governor-justice-moral-posturing/ .

Acts 20

20 When the uproar had ended, Paul sent for the disciples and, after encouraging them, said goodbye and set out for Macedonia. 2 He traveled through that area, speaking many words of encouragement to the people, and finally arrived in Greece, 3 where he stayed three months.

Johah 2

2 1 [a]From inside the fish Jonah prayed to the Lord his God. 2 He said:

“In my distress I called to the Lord,
    and he answered me.
From deep in the realm of the dead I called for help,
    and you listened to my cry.
3 You hurled me into the depths,
    into the very heart of the seas,
    and the currents swirled about me;
all your waves and breakers
    swept over me.
4 I said, ‘I have been banished
    from your sight;
yet I will look again
    toward your holy temple.’
5 The engulfing waters threatened me,[b]
    the deep surrounded me;
    seaweed was wrapped around my head.
6 To the roots of the mountains I sank down;
    the earth beneath barred me in forever.
But you, Lord my God,
    brought my life up from the pit.

World Scripture and the Teachings of
Sun Myung Moon

Part 1
God and Creation

Chapter 1
God

Divine Love and Compassion

2. Divine Mercy

God is All-gentle to His servants, providing for whomsoever He will.
Qur’an 42.19

God is the best to take care of man, and He is the Most Merciful of those who show mercy!
Qur’an 12.64

If we are faithless, he remains faithful—for he cannot deny himself.

2 Timothy 2.13

No one is more patient over injury which he hears than God.
Hadith of Bukhari and Muslim (Islam)

God drives away flies for a cow that has no tail.
Yoruba Proverb (African Traditional Religions)

God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted
beyond your strength, but with the temptation
will also provide the way of escape, that you may
be able to endure it.
1 Corinthians 10.13

God charges no soul save to its capacity;
standing to its account is what it has earned,
and against its account what it has deserved.
Our Lord! Take us not to task if we forget, or
make mistake.
Our Lord! Charge us not with a load as that
which You laid upon those before us.
Our Lord! Burden us not beyond what we have
the strength to bear. Pardon us, forgive us, and have mercy on us.
Qur’an 2.286

Teachings of Rev. Sun Myung Moon

What is God? God is the existence that absolutely lives for others. (175:158, March 16, 1988)

No matter what happens in the human world, God is patient because He is who He is. He sees tragic and heart-breaking things, yet He remains calm and composed, never losing His dignity. If God were to open His mouth and express His suffering, He could pour out tragic stories for millions of years, weeping all the while. Would God weep out of self-pity? No, God weeps only for humankind, His
children. (124:60, January 23, 1983)

What kind of being is God? Does He say, “I am God Almighty! I created you to serve Me, to love Me and sacrifice everything for Me”? Such a being cannot be God.
In fact, God has set the tradition of humbly serving and loving the world. His tradition is that of changing diapers and cleaning up the baby’s feces, and washing the dirt off a sick and infirm old man. That tradition should form the core of our education. (116:90-91, December 20, 1981)

God, the Creator of the universe, still remembers the wonderful process by which His creation unfolded, how each creature arose and what He did to further their development. He invested such great love for His creation; love was the motivation, and love the goal. Even though humankind fell, God just cannot put aside His abiding love for human beings; to do so would be against His Principle and His standard of love. Therefore, when He sees fallen people living
in misery, He does not condemn. Rather, He is merciful to them. (115:320-21, November 29, 1981)

God Needs Object Partners

Watch or Listen to the podcast of the Richard Urban Show from May 7, 2020: Moral Posturing Does Not Improve Our Health: https://www.visionroot.org/2020/05/08/is-governor-justice-moral-posturing/ .

Cheon Seong Gyeong 2138

We were originally to grow up so that
men and women would meet each oth-
er to become kings and queens, and, as
heavenly princes and princesses, inherit
everything in God’s Kingdom. For this,
we must start at the bottom of hell and
work our way up through the eight-stage
indemnity process until God’s Kingdom
is established, which is possible only
through the Blessing of the True Par-
ents, who come as the Messiah.
Therefore, blessed couples should
become ‘plus’ couples who take the ini-
tiative in serving the world. To be com-
pletely reborn, we should practice abso-
lute faith, absolute love, and absolute
obedience centering on God. I have per-
sonally practiced this throughout my
life.
When creating the universe, God did
so with absolute faith. He went on to cre-
ate us to be the absolute partners of His
love. Absolute obedience means invest-
ing ourselves completely to the extent of
total self-denial. Furthermore, we for-
get about the investment we made and
reinvest; such a process continues until
reaching the zero point without any con-
cept of self. If our love were rejected, we
would continue to love even more; even
if we have already invested, we should
continue to invest everything that we
have, until we can make our enemy sur-
render voluntarily. God walked such a
path, and the Parents of heaven and earth
have also walked such a path. The person
who invests love continuously without
expecting a direct return becomes a cen-
tral being, the one who inherits every-
thing, and the child of greatest piety. In
a family with ten members including the
grandparents, the one most exemplify-
ing altruism will be its center. The same
principle applies with respect to patriots
in the nation. The more we invest with-
out expecting a direct return, the higher
we can rise as loyal citizens, saints, and
God’s holy sons and daughters.

Richard: What did God have faith in? Himself? Hardly. He has faith in us, created as His images, that we will (eventually, and hopefully sooner than later) fulfill His original ideal of creation. Doing Home Church work definitely involves having obedience (to your conscience) and pushing your own self/ego down. And what is real love. Giving and investing without expecting a direct return.

Cheong Seong Gyeong 1617

Between you and me, who is supe-
rior? In what respect? Why would one
be superior to another when all of us
are of the same mind? The only differ-
ence between us is to what extent we
put into action what our mind tells us
to do; otherwise we are no different at
all. Our minds are all the same. The
basis of the person and of the mind
is the same; the only difference lies
in the degree to which we follow the
instructions of our minds, how much
we convert our thoughts into action,
and how much we cultivate our envi-
ronment. (222-303, 1991.11.6)

Richard: Again, Home Church is all about cultivating your environment: https://inspiration.visionroot.org/2020/01/21/only-through-home-church-can-you-return-home/ .

World Scripture and the Teachings of
Sun Myung Moon

Part 1
God and Creation

Chapter 1
God

Divine Love and Compassion

1. Love: The Essence of God

Teachings of Rev. Sun Myung Moon

God knows everything. Omniscient and omnipotent, He is the Supreme King of knowledge and power. Omnipresent, He exists everywhere. What does God need? Diamonds? He can make them any time. Gold or jewels? No. What God needs is love. Dwelling all by Himself, would God say, “I have love and it’s great” and laugh? No, there is something that God needs. God is a personal God; then He should have a mouth, shouldn’t He? He also should have anose, eyes, ears, hands and feet, a mind—and a heart. Surely, God must have them, because He isa personal God. (142:30)

God is the Original Being of love, and out of love He created human beings. A solitary being cannot love. Therefore, there is one thing that even God absolutely needs: a partner whom He can love. He can only love in a relationship with a counterpart. God, the Original Being of love and heart, created the universe with love as His motivation. In doing so, He created human beings in His image as His substantial object partners, as it is recorded in Genesis 1:27, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” God is our eternal, formless and internal Parent, and [he created] Adam and Eve to be perfected as our visible and external parents. (135:10-11, August 20, 1985)

If what God needs is love, then He needs object partners with whom He can relate and share love. What sort of beings could these be? Animals? God would love beings that resemble Him. If God’s partners are indeed human beings, then we are led to the conclusion that God has a human-like personality. God, who is in complete harmony within Himself, must also have attributes that can harmonize one hundred percent with the innate faculties of the human mind and body. Hence, God must have intellect, emotion and will. (162:271, April 17, 1987)\

Love cannot be completed without a partner. Even God absolutely needs a counterpart in order to attain the most precious love; that is why He created. God seeks out a partner, so that He can experience absolute love through relating with another. In this sense, God exists for human beings and human beings exist for God. True love begins when we live for the sake of another. What is the origin of human beings? God’s love. We were born for love. Love is the origin. Life is not the most precious thing. Our life derived from God’s idea of love; therefore, love precedes life. Love is the root of life. We are born from love, grow up in love, and meet a partner for love—that should be our life. If God is the first generation, then human beings are the second generation. God always loves us, His sons and daughters, but do we experience God’s love? Human beings need to experience that love if we are to become God’s perfect partners. (143:310, March 21, 1986) 

God Exists for Love

Watch or Listen to the podcast of the Richard Urban Show from May 7, 2020: Moral Posturing Does Not Improve Our Health: https://www.visionroot.org/2020/05/08/is-governor-justice-moral-posturing/ .

Luke 2

3 Suddenly many other angels came down from heaven and joined in praising God. They said:

14 “Praise God in heaven!
Peace on earth to everyone
    who pleases God.”

Jeremiah 50

37 Then your chariot horses
and the foreigners in your army
    will refuse to go into battle,
and the enemy will carry away
    everything you treasure.
38 Your rivers and canals
    will dry up.

All of this will happen,
because your land
    is full of idols,
and they have made fools
    of you.

Richard: We see in the reading above that those who honor God will prosper and those who oppose God and worship “idols” (money, power, godless ideologies, etc) will perish.

World Scripture and the Teachings of
Sun Myung Moon

Part 1
God and Creation

Chapter 1
God

Divine Love and Compassion

1. Love: The Essence of God

Teachings of Rev. Sun Myung Moon

God is the Lord of love. He exists to spread love throughout the universe and make it eternal.
(298:304, January 17, 1999)

God is the Womb of love. He is the Source of love’s emotion, out of which emanates parental love, children’s love, sibling love, love of kin and love of country. These different kinds of love are like branches and leaves growing from the main trunk. They are like waves that eventually turn into ripples. The further away from the Source, the fainter the emotion becomes.
(50:267, November 8, 1971)


How does it feel to experience the realm of God’s love? It is like walking through a garden on a warm spring day. You see all different kinds of flowers and become intoxicated with all their fragrances. Lying on the grass, you feel something indescribable as you look up at the sky and see the towering cumulus clouds shaped like clumps of cotton. You feel your cells dancing, breathing. God’s love is the wellspring of power and happiness for all beings; it endows each one with the
energy of life. God’s love is the absolute requirement for faith. It is the necessary element for joy, pleasure, peace, and everything else human life desires. Moreover, God’s love is the principle of the spirit world.
(24:325, September 14, 1969)


What is God’s heart? It refers to God’s perfect foundation for love. All of God’s creations welled up from His heart, as did all His ideals for them. Thus, God’s heart is the perfect foundation for everything. God’s heart also springs forth into the perfect completion of everything. There can be no perfection or completion apart from God’s heart. (82:292, February 1, 1976)

God is the Subject of heart. For this reason, God can feel limitless sorrow as well as limitless joy. Just because He is God doesn’t mean that He possesses only joy and positive emotions. When God is sad, His heart of sorrow is deeper and wider than any person can ever comprehend. (11:89, February 12, 1961)

God exists for love and lives for love. God does not live for Himself, but for love. Likewise, all things are born from love. Thus, in the world of love, there cannot be a concept that we should live for ourselves. (303:287, September 9, 1999)

He Who Abides in Love Abides in God

Watch or Listen to the podcast of the Richard Urban Show from May 7, 2020: Moral Posturing Does Not Improve Our Health: https://www.visionroot.org/2020/05/08/is-governor-justice-moral-posturing/ .

Cheon Seong Gyeong 487

Many people oppose Rev. Moon, the
man who goes to America to educate and
train American young people, even stay-
ing up all night and sometimes dancing,
singing, and having fun with them? I do
this in order to expand the realm of sup-
port that is connected to me.
Because the expansion of the uni-
versal realm of support starts with me,
I push forward without fear, even if I am
opposed and have to go to prison.
No matter how much you sing joy-
fully and say this and that, do you like to
live alone? When one partner of a mar-
ried couple dies, the other grieves and
weeps. Do you think a person can pre-
pare his own path? Why do we say that
a person is miserable if he is without a
spouse? It is because he cannot experi-
ence the occasion in which heaven and
earth can rejoice.
He has deviated from the regulation
of the law of heaven and earth. Clearly,
only through universal law does the for-
tune of heaven and earth turn, and are
the requirements of happiness and its
motivation determined.

Cheon Seong Gyeong 1310

After the blessing of the internation-
al holy grounds, I performed the Bless-
ing of the 430 Couples. This number
corresponds to the 430 years of captiv-
ity of the Israelites in Egypt, and also
the 4,300 years of Korean history. This
Blessing signifies the beginning of a
new history. Moreover, the 430 Couples
also represent all families in the world.
Afterwards, while I was carrying out my
second world tour, I blessed 43 couples
in the United States, Europe and Japan.
I could then connect those 43 couples to
the 430 Couples on the world level. By
doing this, I was able to connect the vic-
torious foundation I had established in
Korea to the world, including the West-
ern world.
By accomplishing all this, all the
families in the world, not just the mem-
bers of the Unification Church, could
now stand in a position to receive heav-
enly fortune right then and there. That is
why the gates of heaven are now open to
all families on earth. (52-131, 1971.12.26)

Richard: Wow! This is great news. The gates of heaven are open to all families on earth, not just Unification Movement families. See this presentation about the Holy Marriage Blessing: https://www.visionroot.org/resources/blessing-of-marriage-ceremony/ .

World Scripture and the Teachings of
Sun Myung Moon

Part 1
God and Creation

Chapter 1
God

Divine Love and Compassion

Of all God’s attributes, love is the most attractive and compelling. Most people who believe in God do so because of the mysterious moments when they felt His love, comfort and grace. It moved their hearts to faith, even amidst the mind’s doubts. Because of the Creator’s love, the creation is a benevolent place that upholds and protects life. Indeed, the good creation is an expression of that love. Love is the essence of God; it is even more than that. As Father Moon teaches, love is the very motivation behind God’s creation; it is the “why” of God. Love is also the reason God has pursued the history of salvation through many tortuous paths. Love teaches God to be patient and forgiving with us ignorant creatures who long ago lost our way and became inured to the gracious melodies of the Spirit. Despite our deafness and blindness, God never ceases to embrace us and lead us forward.

1. Love: The Essence of God

God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.
1 John 4.16

My mercy embraces all things.
Qur’an 7.156

To love is to know me, My innermost nature, The truth that I am.
Bhagavad-Gita 18.55 (Hinduism)

The Great Compassionate Heart is the essence of Buddhahood.
Gandavyuha Sutra (Buddhism)

Lord! You are the uninvoked savior, motiveless compassionate being, a well-wisher even when unprayed, a friend even when unrelated.
Vitaragastava 13.1 (Jainism)

Bright but hidden, the Self dwells in the heart. Everything that moves, breathes, opens, and closes lives in the Self. He is the source of love and may be known through love but not through thought. He is the goal of life. Attain this goal!
Mundaka Upanishad 2.2.1 (Hinduism)

Love is the firstborn, loftier than the gods, the Fathers and men. You, O Love, are the eldest of all, altogether mighty. To you we pay homage! Greater than the breadth of earth and heaven, or of waters and Fire, You, O Love, are the eldest of all, altogether mighty. To you we pay homage!… In many a form of goodness, O Love, you show your face. Grant that these forms may penetrate within our hearts. Send elsewhere all malice!
Atharva Veda 9.2.19-20, 25 (Hinduism)

O good man! Compassion acts as parent to all beings. The parent is compassion. Know that compassion is the Tathagata. O good man! Compassion is the Buddha Nature of all beings. Such a Buddha Nature is long overshadowed by illusion. That is why beings cannot see. The Buddha Nature is Compassion. Compassion is the Tathagata.
Mahaparinirvana Sutra 259 (Buddhism)

The Bull of Dharma is born of compassion;26 Content of mind holds creation together. Whoever understands this is enlightened; How great is the load under which this Bull stands!
Japuji 16, M.1, p. 3 (Sikhism)

O Son of Man! Veiled in My immemorial being and in the ancient eternity of My essence, I knew My love for thee; therefore I created thee, have engraved on thee Mine image, and revealed to thee My beauty.
Hidden Words of Bahá’u’lláh, Arabic 3 (Baha’i Faith)

The Great Tao Flows Everywhere

Watch or listen to the Richard Urban Show from April 30, 2020: What Has Happened to Our God-given Freedoms? https://www.visionroot.org/2020/05/01/nsa-surveils-all-americans-and-lies-about-it/

Cheon Seong Gyeong 2236

The conscience is God’s agent with-
in the human mind. It is not self-cen-
tered but exists for the sake of God’s
righteousness. It constantly seeks the
direction of goodness. The body rebels
against this. It only seeks comfort. It is
selfish and instinctively follows carnal
desires. The conscience chastises the
body, and tries to make it conform to
the mind. Here is where bitter conflict
and struggle always takes place within
oneself. No one, though, can conquer
the body without welcoming God in.
Only through the power of God’s true
love and truth can the mind as subject
partner take command of the body as
its object partner and realize the ideal
of oneness with God. This is the perfect
human being that religions speak of.
(219-118, 1991.8.28)

Cheon Seong Gyeong 963

If your grandparents, mother and
father, couple, and children, become one
based on true love, and inherit God’s
true love that lives for others, then even
God would be absolutely obedient to
that. In the world that strives to live for
others – a world that moves according
to the love that submits to the tradition
of living for others – the basis for peace
would surely emerge even if it resisted
being formed. (210-354, 1990.12.27)

World Scripture and the Teachings of
Sun Myung Moon

Part 1
God and Creation

Chapter 1
God
God’s Goodness

2. God’s Goodness Manifest in the Creation

God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. Genesis 1.31

He has created the seven heavens in harmony. You cannot see a fault in the Beneficent One’s creation; look again, can you see any flaws? Look again and yet again, and your sight will grow dim and weak [without finding any.] Qur’an 67.3-4

This world is a garden, The Lord its gardener, Cherishing all, none neglected.
Adi Granth, Majh Ashtpadi, M.3, p. 118 (Sikhism)

Abundant is the year, with much millet and much rice; And we have our high granaries, With myriads, and hundreds of thousands, and millions of measures; For spirits and sweet spirits, To present our ancestors, male and female, And to supply all our ceremonies. The blessings sent down on us are of every kind.
Book of Songs, Ode 279 (Confucianism)

It is He who sends down to you out of heaven water of which you may drink, and by which grow trees, for you to pasture your herds, and thereby He brings forth for you crops, and olives, and palms, and vines, and all manner of fruit. Surely in that is a sign for a people who reflect. And He subjected for you the night and day, and the sun and moon; and the stars are subjected by His command. Surely in that are signs for a people who understand. And He has multiplied for you in the earth things of diverse hues. Surely in that is a sign for a people who remember. It is He who subjected for you the sea, that you may eat of it fresh flesh, and bring forth out of it ornaments for you to wear; and you may see the ships cleaving through it; that you may seek of His bounty, and so haply you will be thankful… If you count God’s blessing, you can never number it; surely God is All-forgiving, All-compassionate. Qur’an 16.10-18

The great Tao flows everywhere; It can go left; it can go right. The myriad things owe their existence to it, And it does not reject them. When its work is accomplished, It does not take possession. It clothes and feeds all, But does not pose as their master. Ever without ambition, It may be called Small. All things return to it as their home, And yet it does not pose as their master, Therefore it may be called Great. Because it would never claim greatness, Therefore its greatness is fully realized.
Tao Te Ching 34 (Taoism)

Let me tell you then why the Creator made this world of generation. He was good, and the good can never have any jealousy of anything. And being free from jealousy, he desired that all things should be as like himself as they could be. This is in the truest sense the origin of creation and of the world, as we shall do well in believing on the testimony of wise men: God desired that all things should be good and nothing bad, so far as this was attainable. Wherefore also finding the whole visible sphere not at rest, but moving in an irregular and disorderly fashion, out of disorder he brought order, considering that this was in every way better than the other. Now the deeds of the best could never be or have been other than the fairest; and the Creator, reflecting on the things which are by nature visible, found that no unintelligent creatures taken as a whole were fairer than the intelligent taken as a whole; and that intelligence could not be present in anything that was devoid of soul. For which reason, when he was framing the universe, he put intelligence in soul, and soul in body, that he might be the creator of a work which was by nature fairest and best. Wherefore, using the language of probability, we may say that the world became a living creature truly endowed with soul and intelligence by the providence of God.
Plato, Timaeus (Hellenism)

The primary cause of the pure unity of Enlightenment and Nirvana that has existed from beginningless time is the principle of integrating compassion, the indrawing, unifying principle of purity, harmony, likeness, rhythm, permanency, and peace. By the indrawing of this Principle within the brightness of your own nature, its unifying spirit can be discovered and developed and realized under all varieties of conditions.
Surangama Sutra (Buddhism)