Tag: hardships

We Rejoice In Our Sufferings, Knowing that Suffering Produces Endurance

Cheon Seong Gyeong 345

What should True Parents do? They should correct the false lineage that is the root of the satanic world, reverse the false life, and open the true path away from the path of false love. The Bible says that those who wish to die will live, and those who wish to live will die. Why must this kind of paradox appear? It is because you must die to the satanic world. (169-37, 1987.10.4)

Cheon Seong Gyeong 747

When meeting the Messiah, what will happen if you believe in and follow him? If you meet him at the time he perfects the ages of the individual, family, tribe, people and nation, you will also receive the benefits of those ages, ascending to the national level. Yet, for those in the age of the individual to receive the Messiah and thereby ascend to the age of the family, they must pay indemnity on earth, just as spirit people do. Also, because they must go through the course of indemnity to ascend from the age of the family to the age of the tribe, the longer they have stayed in the Unification Church, the more indemnity they have paid. The longer they have been here, the closer they are to me.

The Refining Fire

2. Heaven’s Discipline

My son, do not despise the lord’s discipline or be weary of His reproof,
for the lord reproves him whom He loves,
as a father the son in whom he delights.
    Proverbs 3.11-12
I know, O lord, that the way of man is not in himself,
that it is not in man who walks to direct his steps.
Correct me, O lord, but in just measure;
not in thy anger, lest thou bring me to nothing.
    Jeremiah 10.23-24
 
Do men imagine that they will be left [at ease] because they say, “We believe,” and will not be tested with affliction? Lo! We tested those who were before you. Thus God knows those who are sincere, and knows those who feign.
    Qur’an 29.2-3
 
We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance pro-duces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts.
    Romans 5.3-5
 
Yet the suffering
Involved in my awakening will have a limit;
It is like the suffering of having an incision made
In order to remove and destroy greater pain.
Even doctors eliminate illness
With unpleasant medical treatments,
So in order to overcome manifold sufferings
I should be able to put up with some discomfort.
    Shantideva, Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life
    7.22-24 (Buddhism)
 
Teachings of Rev. Sun Myung Moon
 
All difficulties and trials confront you so that you may correctly experience and understand God’s past days. Therefore, when any difficulty comes upon you, you should rejoice and be thankful. It is the proof of God’s love for you. (Way of God’s Will 3.4)
 
The reason why the Unification Church requires its members to live three years of public life after receiving the Blessing is to enable them to taste true love. The reason why I tour the world and give speeches, braving persecution and opposition, is to train you to make beautiful families of true love surpassing all other families.
    We go the way of God’s Will despite the world’s harsh persecution and oppression because we love our children and want to enable them to live in the beautiful nation of God. In this way, we live for our children and love our children more than the people of the world love their children.
    You must carry on this fight throughout your lives. If you see your husband or wife being persecuted and opposed, you must pledge that you will love your children more than your feeling of distress over your spouse’s plight. You must be trained in this way in the midst of persecution and opposition.
    A wife who has received this ‘love training’ will not fight with her husband. If he crosses her with a cutting remark, she will not respond with machine-gun volleys of scolding words. A husband will not beat his wife or dominate her with his authority. Why not? Having been through love training, each spouse has come to know the other’s precious value. (Blessing and Ideal Family 4.4.8)
 
Make us into people to whom Thou canst entrust Thy Will
by molding us according to Thine internal nature. (2:241, June 9, 1957)
 
 

God’s Gracious Love Can Be Found in the Midst of Hardships

Cheon Seong Gyeong 2188

    If the son advises and teaches his parents to love their country so that they become patriots, and makes them a mother and father whom heaven remembers, is he a filial or unfilial son?
    So, rather than a son who says to his parents, “Mom, Dad, don’t go out! Just rest at home.” he should say, “Mom, Dad, what are you doing? Please, let’s try together to find even one more per-son who can be a patriot, who can work for the unification of North and South Korea, who can work to save North Korea.” Then he makes them shed tears, blood and sweat. Then what would you think if the people in the neighborhood were to praise this achievement?
    Would the parents say, “You scoundrel, you really made your mother and father’s life difficult, so at first we thought you were a bad boy. Yet we became successful and are praised by everyone. My! You really are a filial son.” Do you think the parents would say this, or would they say, “You are an unfilial son”? What do you think? (209-266, 1990.11.30)

Cheon Seong Gyeong 1594

Because everything which arose from the false parents comes under the number nine, the numbers one to nine are loathed by Heaven. You persevered in providential history to clear up Satan’s number, the number nine, through the practice of tithing, in the Old Testament Age.

The Refining Fire

God’s gracious love can be found in the midst of hardships and suffering. The person whose mind is fixed on God takes life’s trials and challenges as a means to purify his or her faith, correct flaws and refine character. could it be that such trials are not accidental, but actually expressions of God’s love to discipline and educate his children? (see also chapter 15: Testing.)
Moreover, God’s word presents us with the challenge to live by it. scripture therefore likens the word of God to a fire, which burns away everything that is false. Father Moon explains that the judgment that many Christians fear is actually an opportunity to purify ourselves in the truth and reach the point where we are one hundred percent united with the word of Christ. thus, the purpose of judgment is to save, not to condemn.

  1. Judgment by Fire

I will put this third into the fire,and refine them as one refines silver,and test them as gold is tested.
    Zechariah 13.9

Just as a great conflagration
Can burn up all things,
So does Buddha’s field of blessings
Burn up all fabrication.
    Garland Sutra 10 (Buddhism)

As the heat of a fire reduces wood to ashes, the fire of knowledge burns to ashes all karma. Nothing in this world purifies like spiritual wisdom.
    Bhagavad-Gita 4.37 (Hinduism)

Just as a fire quickly reduces decayed wood to ashes, so does an aspirant who is totally absorbed in the inner self and completely unattached to all external objects shake to the roots, attenuate, and wither away his karma-body.
    Samantabadhra, Aptamimamsa 24-27 (Jainism)

Make chastity your furnace, patience your smithy,
The Master’s word your anvil, and true knowledge your hammer.
Make awe of God your bellows, and with it kindle the fire of austerity.
And in the crucible of love, melt the nectar Divine.
Only in such a mint, can man be cast into the Word.
    Adi Granth, Japuji 38, M.1, p. 8 (Sikhism)

“From His right hand went forth a fiery law for them” (Deuteronomy 33.2). The words of Torah are compared to fire, for both were given from heaven, both are eternal. If a man draws near the fire, he derives benefit; if he keeps afar, he is frozen, so with the words of the Torah: if a man toils in them, they are life to him; if he separates from him, they kill him.
    Sifre Deuteronomy (Judaism)

For no other foundation can any one lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any one builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw—each man’s work will become manifest; for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work which any man has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.
    1 Corinthians 3.11-15

Is not my word like fire, says the lord, and like a hammer which breaks the rock in pieces?
    Jeremiah 23.29

With fire we test the gold, and with gold We test Our servants.
    Hidden Words of Bahá’u’lláh, Arabic 54 (Baha’i Faith)