Tag: perfection

A True Person Loves His Enemies

Galatians 6

7 You cannot fool God, so don’t make a fool of yourself! You will harvest what you plant. 8 If you follow your selfish desires, you will harvest destruction, but if you follow the Spirit, you will harvest eternal life. 9 Don’t get tired of helping others. You will be rewarded when the time is right, if you don’t give up. 10 We should help people whenever we can, especially if they are followers of the Lord.

Proverbs 12

23 Be sensible and don’t tell
    everything you know—
    only fools spread
    foolishness everywhere.

24 Work hard, and you
    will be a leader;
    be lazy, and you
    will end up a slave.

World Scripture and the Teachings of
Sun Myung Moon

Chapter 3

Perfection

3. Perfection Is to Love as God Loves

Teachings of Rev. Sun Myung Moon

Love is the standard for perfect character. Character is perfected through the infinite and absolute love of God. (33:79, August 9, 1970)

To pioneer this path, Jesus emphasized love as never before in history. He taught that we must overcome every difficult situation with patience. He stressed that we must be more faithful to God’s Will than sinners are committed to doing evil. These are the fundamental points of what Christians call the nine fruits of the Spirit. From a life of love arises joy, happiness, and peace. From patience arises mercy and goodness. From a life of faithfulness arises humility and gentleness.
Jesus emphasized the love of heaven, the patience of heaven, and the faithfulness of heaven to remove the evil elements from human beings dwelling in the fallen world. Through this practical philosophy, we can be elevated to the heavenly way of life. Nevertheless, does Christ’s love exist in your hearts today? (2:345, August 4, 1957)

What makes God true?15 God likes both good and bad people on earth. Don’t even condemned criminals cry out, “Oh God, have mercy on me! I love you!” just before their execution? Why would a condemned man pledge to God with a good and sincere heart, hoping for a new start? Why does he yearn to grasp God fully, trust Him, try to be with Him, and share with Him his feelings and difficulties more than he would with his parents or brothers and sisters? It is because God is true.
A true person, then, loves not only those whom he likes, but also the enemies who are trying to kill him. He should be a person whom we can trust fully, with whom we want to share all our problems and through whom we can wish for everything.
Is a person who hates someone a true person or a false person? Definitely, he is a false person. Then, are most people in this world true people or false people? They are false people.
To be a true person, you must be true in all dimensions. If you members love the people who love me and hate the people who hate me, are you good members or bad members? You are bad members.
Therefore, I am teaching you to love those who hate you. If you love them, sooner or later they will come to like you. If you return good three times for every time someone does you wrong, eventually that person will bow his head. Try it yourself and see if I am right or not. Everyone has a conscience. (39:302-04, January 16, 1971)

Is God’s love so deeply rooted in your minds that you cannot pull out no matter how hard you try? Can you say, “I am completely bound by God’s love; I cannot do whatever my body wants to do. Since God’s love is rooted so deeply in my body, I cannot live any way I like. I cannot live without centering on God’s love. When I eat, I eat with God’s love. Whatever I do, both my mind and body are centered on God’s love”? Is it that way for you? (140:24-25, February 1, 1986) ❖

Love Your Enemies and Pray for Those Who Persecute You

Cheon Seong Gyeong 2036

4.2. Home Church is the place
where the providence is finally
settled

The fact I have declared such an event,
is a gigantic leap in providential history.
If you are victorious in Home Church,
what will that make you? When that
time comes, you will be messiahs. You
will become tribal messiahs, and from
there you will be the persons responsible
to face the people and save them.

Cheon Seong Gyeong 1444

People without accomplishments
in love are of no use to God. Everyone
must have some accomplishment to his
or her name. That is why you can enter
the Kingdom of Heaven only when you
have your tribes of 36 couples, 72 cou-
ples and 120 couples. Without them you
cannot be registered. Isn’t that how the
Divine Principle works? Is it, or is it not?
The 36 Couples are proud of the fact that
they are one of the elders, but do you
think you have this position for noth-
ing? It is actually a very fearful position.
You do not know which of these couples
Satan will get hold of and attack. (303-166,
1999.8.17

World Scripture and the Teachings of
Sun Myung Moon

Chapter 3

Perfection

3. Perfection Is to Love as God Loves

You have heard that it was said, “You shall love
your neighbor and hate your enemy.” But I say
to you, Love your enemies and pray for those
who persecute you, so that you may be sons of
your Father who is in heaven; for he makes his
sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends
rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you
love those who love you, what reward have you?
Do not even the tax collectors do the same?
And if you salute only your brethren, what more
are you doing than others? Do not even the
Gentiles do the same? You, therefore, must be
perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
Matthew 5.43-48

God says, “Resemble me; just as I repay good for
evil so do you also repay good for evil.”
Exodus Rabbah 26.2 (Judaism)

Beloved, let us love one another; for love is of
God, and he who loves is born of God and knows
God. He who does not love does not know God;
for God is love… God is love, and he who abides
in love abides in God, and God abides in him.
1 John 4.7-8, 16

That devotee who looks upon friend and foe
with equal regard, who is not buoyed up by praise
nor cast down by blame, alike in heat and cold,
pleasure and pain, free from selfish attachments,
the same in honor and dishonor, quiet, ever full,
in harmony everywhere, firm in faith—such a
one is dear to me.
Bhagavad-Gita 12.18-19 (Hinduism)

The fruits of the Spirit are love, joy, peace,
patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gen-
tleness, self-control; against such there is no law.
Galatians 5.23

Be universal in your love. You will see the uni-
verse to be the picture of your own being. Com-
plete and total perfection will come about only
when we feel that our perfection is not perfec-
tion as long as the rest of humanity remains

imperfect. If we call ourselves children of God,
then others are also children of God. If we do not
share with them what little we have, then what
right have we to call them our brothers? They
may be traveling a few miles behind us, or they
may be fast asleep. But they must reach the Goal
before perfect perfection can dawn on earth.
Sri Chinmoy (Hinduism)

The Highest Priority Is to Know God With Certainty

Watch or listen to the second part of the series on the Richard Urban Show, Why Abstinence Matters:
We Have Become Diseased both Spiritually and Physically.

Acts 17

29 Since we are God’s children, we must not think that he is like an idol made out of gold or silver or stone. He isn’t like anything that humans have thought up and made. 30 In the past, God forgave all this because people did not know what they were doing. But now he says that everyone everywhere must turn to him. 31 He has set a day when he will judge the world’s people with fairness. And he has chosen the man Jesus to do the judging for him. God has given proof of this to all of us by raising Jesus from death.

Ezra 7

13-14 Any of the people of Israel or their priests or Levites in my kingdom may go with you to Jerusalem if they want to. My seven advisors and I agree that you may go to Jerusalem and Judah to find out if[e] the laws of your God are being obeyed. 15 When you go, take the silver and gold that I and my advisors are freely giving to the God of Israel, whose temple is in Jerusalem. 16 Take the silver and gold that you collect from everywhere in Babylonia. Also take the gifts that your own people and priests have so willingly contributed for the temple of your God in Jerusalem.

World Scripture and the Teachings of
Sun Myung Moon

Chapter 3

Perfection

2. Perfection Is Unity with God

Teachings of Rev. Sun Myung Moon

Jesus taught his disciples, “You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Matt. 5.48) According to the Principle of Creation, a person who has realized the purpose of creation does not commit sin, because he is in full harmony with God and possesses a divine nature. With respect to the purpose of creation, such a person is perfect as Heavenly Father is perfect. Jesus gave this teaching to his disciples with the hope that they could be restored as people who had realized the purpose of creation and become citizens of the Kingdom…
What will people be like once they have been restored as those who have realized the purpose of creation and become perfect as Heavenly Father is perfect? Such people are fully attuned to God and experience God’s heart within their innermost self. They possess a divine nature and live their life with God, inseparable from Him. (Exposition of the Divine Principle, Messiah 1.1)

For a person to realize his or her true nature, he or she must have a relationship with God, the cause of everything—life and death, fortune and misfortune. Without a relationship with God, a true pattern cannot be formed within the self. To become true,14 we must be centered upon God. People can realize their true selves only when God has established the foundation to lead them and reign over all aspects of their lives…
God is the origin of everything true. Only in God can we become true. Should God leave us, we cannot remain true. There then comes into existence something untrue—the origin of evil.
People cannot comprehend their true nature by themselves. Fallen people are in no position to judge whether they are true; rather the truth of our being should determine us. Therefore, we should always be obedient to our true self. We should prize it and follow it. (24:315, September 14, 1969)

We can truly say that we know God only when we experience the reality of His existence in our daily life through our five senses. That is, we should know His real being through experience. Then we will naturally be able to sense what God’s will is from moment to moment, and we will be able to act in accordance with His will in every matter. In that state of perfection, even though we sometimes may feel an urge to sin, we cannot do it. Then, God will be able to take on the physical form of human beings who are equipped with the character and qualities of lords of creation. Thus we will enable the incorporeal God to exercise dominion over all things on earth—the corporeal world—as well as over the spirit world. This is why the highest priority and most important element in human life is to know God with certainty… Once we come to know God with certainty, and know not just the concept of the spirit world but also its reality, our life can move forward as smoothly as a car on an expressway. Just as the car reaches its destination safely as long as the driver follows the rules of the road, keeps his hands on the steering wheel and doesn’t fall asleep, so too we only need to live in line with the direction from our conscience, which is given by Heaven. This is where our mind and body become one. This is where the flower of human perfection blooms and bears fruit. (May 1, 2004)

What is a true human being? Playing with God, resting with God, sleeping with God and living with God: whoever wishes to do all these with God is the supreme, true human being. God is looking for such true human beings. By the same token, we human beings are searching for what is true, and for a true world. A world where everyone lives with God is a world of true love and true happiness. (60:284, August 18, 1972) ❖

You Therefore Must Be Perfect, as Your Heavenly Father Is Perfect

Watch or listen to the second part of the series on the Richard Urban Show, Why Abstinence Matters:
We Have Become Diseased both Spiritually and Physically.

Cheon Seong Gyeong 575

You have much to learn of the logic
of true love. When we look at the faces
of the ardent members of the Unification
Church, they look like they are in their
forties, even though they have reached
fifty. Some even look like they’re only in
their thirties. That’s why, the more you
love, the younger you become.
Our earthly outer shell ages, yet the
more we exchange conjugal love, the
more our spirit selves are rejuvenated.
Let me elaborate further: the longer we
live in love, our inner selves, our spir-
it selves, mature to become handsome
men and beautiful women. We are to
discard our outer shell like clothing, but
what would we do if the shell got young-
er and clung on to us? Our outer shells
begin to malfunction and become use-
less, but our inner cores become firm
and are then transformed into beautiful
heirs of the future like autumn chest-
nuts. When fall comes, the once-hard
chestnut ripens while the bur softens
and splits, allowing the chestnut to fall.
It’s the same for us. (164-101, 1987.4.26)

Cheon Seong Gyeong 1248

The large holy wedding conducted by
the Unification Church is not restrict-
ed to our church alone. It is the for-
mula course that all humanity must go
through. You must clearly understand
this. Then, what is the fundamental rea-
son for having to follow this course?
The reason is that our human ancestors
fell. If they had not fallen, there would
be no need for us to receive the Blessing
today. However, because of the Fall we
now have to follow the course of restora-
tion, through which we can return to the
dominion of God. So, we have no choice
but to walk this path. This is the reason
why people today still believe in religion.
This is what has been sought throughout
history. (35-215, 1970.10.19)

Richard: This is the answer to the problem of disease mentioned in my most recent Richard Urban Show We Have Become Diseased both Spiritually and Physically. Find out more here.

World Scripture and the Teachings of
Sun Myung Moon

Chapter 3

Perfection

2. Perfection Is Unity with God

You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heav-
enly Father is perfect.
Matthew 5.48

No one born of God commits sin; for God’s
nature abides in him, and he cannot sin because
he is born of God.
1 John 3.9

Sincerity [Absolute Truth] is the Way of Heaven;
the attainment of Sincerity is the Way of man.
He who possesses Sincerity achieves what is
right without effort, understands without think-
ing, and naturally and easily is centered on the
Way. He is a sage.
Doctrine of the Mean 20.18 (Confucianism)

Yea, come unto Christ, and be perfected in him,
and deny yourselves of all ungodliness; and if you
shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness; and love
God with all your might, mind, and strength,
then is His grace sufficient for you, that by His
grace you may be perfect in Christ; and if by the
grace of God you are perfect in Christ, you can
in no way deny the power of God.
Book of Mormon, Moroni 10.32-33
(Latter-day Saints)

Blessed is the man who trusts in the l ord ,
whose trust is the l ord .
He is like a tree planted by water,
that sends out its roots by the stream,
and does not fear when heat comes,
for its leaves remain green,
and is not anxious in the year of drought,
for it does not cease to bear fruit.
Jeremiah 17.7-8

The Master is a tree of contentment and
forbearance;
Righteousness its flower, enlightenment the fruit.
This tree by joy in God keeps ever fresh and
green;
By practice of meditation is it ripened.
With joy in the Lord is it consumed,
By such as dispense the supreme charity of self-
less action.
Adi Granth, Var Majh, M.1, p. 147 (Sikhism)

By fullness of leadership,
the Wise Lord shall grant powerful communion
Of perfection and Immortality,
of Right, Dominion and Good Thought—
To him who is a sworn friend;
to him by spirit and by actions!
Clear are these to the man of insight,
as to a knowing one by mind.
He upholds good Dominion,
and Right by words and by actions.
He, O Lord of Wisdom,
shall be Thy most helping associate!
Avesta, Yasna 31.21-22 (Zoroastrianism)

Lao Tan said, “I was letting my mind wander in
the beginning of things.”
“What does this mean?” asked Confucius.
Lao Tan said, “It means to attain Perfect
Beauty and wander in Perfect Happiness. He
who attains Perfect Beauty and wanders in
Perfect Happiness may be called the Perfect
Man.”
Chuang Tzu 21 (Taoism)

The Supreme Soul (Paramatman) is free from
birth, old age and death; he is supreme, pure
and devoid of the eight karmas; he possesses
infinite knowledge, intuition, bliss and potency;
he is indivisible, indestructible and inexhaust-
ible. He transcends the senses and is supreme;
he is free from obstructions, merit, demerit and
rebirth; he is eternal, steady and independent.
Kundakunda, Niyamasara 176-77 (Jainism)

Before You Desire to Have Dominion Over The Universe, You Should First Have Dominion Over Yourself

Watch or listen to the second part of the series on the Richard Urban Show, Why Abstinence Matters:
We Have Become Diseased both Spiritually and Physically.

Deuteronomy 5

5 Moses called together the people of Israel and said:

Today I am telling you the laws and teachings that you must follow, so listen carefully. 2 The Lord our God made an agreement with our nation at Mount Sinai.[a] 3 That agreement wasn’t only with[b] our ancestors but with us, who are here today. 4 The Lord himself spoke to you out of the fire, 5 but you were afraid of the fire and refused to go up the mountain. So I spoke with the Lord for you, then I told you that he had said:

6 I am the Lord your God, the one who brought you out of Egypt where you were slaves.

7 Do not worship any god except me.

1 Kings 18

7 As Obadiah was walking along, he met Elijah. Obadiah recognized him, bowed down, and asked, “Elijah, is it really you?”

8 “Yes. Go tell Ahab I’m here.”

9 Obadiah replied:

King Ahab would kill me if I told him that. And I haven’t even done anything wrong. 10 I swear to you in the name of the living Lord your God that the king has looked everywhere for you. He sent people to look in every country, and when they couldn’t find you, he made the leader of each country swear that you were not in that country. 11 Do you really want me to tell him you’re here?

Richard: Elijah was committed to speaking the truth, no matter what.

World Scripture and the Teachings of
Sun Myung Moon

Chapter 3

Perfection

1. Perfection Begins with Unity of Mind and Body

Teachings of Rev. Sun Myung Moon

“Before you desire to have dominion over the universe, you should first have dominion over yourself”: This is the first article in the life of faith. To attain self-perfection you should have dominion over your self. In other words, you should reach the state of self-mastery, controlling your body, with no conflict or opposition between your mind and body. (37:122, December 23, 1970)

The structure of a human being consists of dual aspects: mind and body. The mind relates to the vertical standard, while the body relates to the horizontal standard. Had human beings attained God’s ideal standard at the beginning, always receiving God’s love, then whenever the bell of God’s love would ring in their vertical mind, their bodies on the earth plane would resonate with it and feel everything. Whenever the mind-like spirit self resonated vertically with true love, the body on the horizontal plane would naturally respond.
When you strike an “A” on a tuning fork, it sends waves of a certain frequency through space, and when they match the frequency of another object, that object sends its waves back. This is called resonance. Likewise, there is resonance between the mind and the body at the frequency of love. When love strikes the mind or spirit self, the body responds. Had human beings not fallen, it would have been this way. By what standard would resonance occur? The resonant frequency has to be true love. (177:216, May 20, 1988)

When your mind and body become one, God will be with you. This is a fundamental principle. Why would God be with you at that point? Because that is where love is. Love begins when mind and body become one. For love to flow, subject and object are necessary. Therefore, God is with the person who has established mind-body unity. Then his or her body becomes God’s temple.
What sort of place is God’s temple? It is a place of Sabbath rest. In what can God rest? Love. God’s temple is the place to rest in the love of God.
The highest human aspiration is to abide in the place of love—the world of heart. It is like a fountain: there is no end to love no matter how much pours out. Why does love have no end? Because God dwells there. (91:78, January 30, 1977)

God is like pure gold; there is nothing false about God. What should we do to be united with God? We should not be false people. That means our mind and body should be united, just as God’s [inter nal nature and external form are united]. That is the meaning of Matthew 5:48: “You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (91:321, March 1, 1977)

Each member of the family first needs to perfect his or her individual character. This requires removing the fallen nature, which has been passed down through the generations since the Human Fall. In other words, each person must be victorious in the struggle between the mind and the body. Then the world of harmony will bear fruit in that individual’s perfected character—a state of one heart, one mind and one thought. Fallen nature, which causes jealousy, envy, greed, hatred and all other evils, will never again take root in a person who has achieved that state. (March 23, 2004)

The purpose of religion is to cultivate people of character who live by the laws of the world of the heart and all the principles of the cosmos, and thereby govern the emotions of life. (6:349, May 24, 1959)

Unless you can perfectly love yourself, you cannot perfectly love God. (22:97-98, January 26, 1969)