Tag: St. Paul

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.

  1. 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”

St. Paul Did Not Boast About Himself

Cheon Seong Gyeong 2005

Jesus came to establish the home-
land of the True God. The prophets and
patriots of history worked to build this
same homeland. In order to establish
heaven, one perfect man must come.
This man must be recognized by heaven
and earth, begin a family, have children,
and then establish a tribe, a people and a
nation. He must indemnify the relation-
ship between Cain and Abel, engraft
them to himself, and build the home-
land of God’s dominion in this world.
The prophets and patriots of history
desired this result. However, they were
unable to build the longed for Kingdom
of Heaven on earth to which individu-
als, families, tribes, peoples, nations and
the world could be connected. Therefore,
we must abandon the path along which
humankind has been heading and go in
God’s direction. (15-278, 1965.10.30)

Cheon Seong Gyeong 1439

If you consider your family, you have
your own sons and daughters and your
parents, which means there are three
generations in a family. There are hun-
dreds and thousands of families that
can inherit the ideal of the God-centered
family on a similar horizontal level, cen-
tering on your own vertical relationship
with God. Once they are connected, they
can form God’s nation. Without doing
anything else, a nation can come into
existence. The world is not as compli-
cated or as difficult as you might think.
(240-27, 1992.12.11)

Richard:  The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.  Will you be a part of it?

Let Us Understand God, Who Wanted to be Proud

Rev. Sun Myung Moon
February 8, 1959

Genesis 1: 24-31

Those who boast, centering on themselves, for the sake of their joy will set conditions that violate the principles of the universe. The more one can be proud of the goodness and uniqueness of others, the closer they can get to Heaven.

Although all people want to transcend themselves to take pride in their families, churches, nations and the world, there has not been a world, nation, church or family on this earth that they could sincerely respect and be proud. Although we may be faithless, we must still build a relationship of pride with God. We must transcend ourselves to take pride in our families, our society, our nation and the world. Therefore, our minds are always being pulled in that direction.

Now we must reflect upon the heart of Heaven, who was filled with the desire to be proud of us. When we think about God’s tiring providence of 6,000 years, the purpose of which was to seek us, when we think about God, who has come looking for us through a miserable course of history filled with bloody battles, we find that He has never had the conditions upon which He could raise a person and be proud of him in the course of history. When we understand that such is the situation of Heaven, we dare not boast about ourselves or go before Him with some condition. Continue reading “St. Paul Did Not Boast About Himself”