The most important thing in prayer is the attitude of the person who is praying.
The most essential part is your commitment to go forward without any reservation.
If there is anything that is trying to block you from praying, you have to be decided that it will never stop you. Unless you have this kind of commitment to continue, God will not waste His time trying to help you.
God has trusted many people of faith in the past to accomplish His will and He has been disappointed and deceived. He has been looking for proof of what you are made of and how strong your commitment is.
You may tell God that you are completely committed and will do whatever it takes and never quit. But He would just shake His head and say that He will wait for at least three years to see. If God sees that something isn't quite right within you, He will wait before sending His help.
God has to be absolutely sure.
If God was to just freely give out His help and at the end of several years the person is broken into pieces, it would make God foolish.
If I were God I would also wait and see. Suppose you were God; what would you do? You may tell God, "You see I am living as a church member and I will die as one." Then God will notice and look more closely.
No matter how firm your prayer is, without this basic commitment nothing will happen and you will be wasting your time. This is where the decisive attitude is the key.
Do you think I made a commitment to God that I would never change, not for fifty years or the rest of my life? I prayed first for the absolute faith which could say, "Even if not a single person in this world can believe, I will believe and follow in whatever incredible course You give me." Second, I asked for absolute knowledge and wisdom. Third, I asked for absolute love. I prayed for these three things throughout my life, and now in looking back I see that they have been fulfilled, even when I didn't know it was happening.
There is no other power that could go beyond the boundary of race and nation.
With this absolute wisdom, the Divine Principle and the truth about the world was the result of an arduous search.
The attitude of absoluteness is the basis for everything.
Nowadays, some worry that they are getting too old to marry and have children. This kind of attitude shows that your absolute commitment is starting to shake. Instead of shrinking under this challenge, you should have the thought that even if you are not married yet, it does not bother you or change your commitment.
When you are faced with great problems and agony, once these challenges are overcome, your faith will be iron hard.
When you are able to see the obstacles that are blocking you path, you are able to clear the field.
Since God could give me this absolute wisdom, I could search and find the Divine Principle and the truth about the world.
What if along this road, you were very much in love with your husband or wife, but they suddenly die. Will heaven and earth crumble for you?
This could be the very moment that you would curse God for taking your loved one away. But what if instead you were able to thank Him for giving you a situation that will strengthen your faith? Then you faith will become stronger instead of weaker.
God is a parent who loves His children. If He takes a loved one away, it is not because He hates you and wants to see you suffer, but it is for a greater reason. If you are able to accept and digest this situation, and have faith in that purpose, then you are ready for another challenge.
In this movement the most beautiful word to our ears is 'indemnity'.
Through paying indemnity, we can pay for the debt of our sins and our ancestors. Many mistakenly believe that because Jesus died on the cross for our sins that all sins here and in the future have been eradicated through the cross.
This is incorrect.
If that was true, when Jesus died on the cross, every child born thereafter would have been born without sin and without need for redemption. Yet, you and I were born with sin and continue this stained lineage.
Jesus paved a way for each person to come to God to be forgiven of their sins. We still have a mountain of sin we inherit on the individual level, family,/ancestral love and so on that needs to be paid for.
We are living in the Completed Testament age where all the sins of the past are being completely erased through paying indemnity while humanity steps one foot closer to God's ideal world of Heaven on Earth. God is asking you as His champion to pay indemnity because no one can stand such a burden..
Accept indemnity with a thankful heart.
When you compare the time on earth that you are apart from you loved one with the millions of years your descendants will live, your payment of indemnity is small compared to the huge blessing God will give your descendants.
If in fact, the death of your spouse was an accident, and was not a direct intervention of God, but you are still able to have a grateful attitude God will feel that you are an extraordinary child and His blessing will automatically be yours.
Your attitude will decide the amount of blessing.
Are you ready?
If an extraordinary grief or tragedy hits you, are you ready to thank God and ask what is next?
When you understand the law of indemnity, you know that you cannot only accept the pleasant situations and then curse God during the most unpleasant events. With this knowledge about indemnity, there should be nothing that you cannot bear. This is the attitude of those who truly know God.
When you first join the church your eyes are filled with such fervor and hope, but as the years pass on they get a little duller. What about in ten years? It is easy to say that you have the same enthusiasm, but do you really have the confidence?
Prayer is an absolute necessity.
It is important to first make an environment of serious commitment before praying.
If you do not have this basic attitude, no amount of prayer and tears will suffice. Many in the Christian world pray everyday. Do you think that they pray for the Christian churches to decline? Of course they pray for the churches to prosper, but the churches are crumbling anyway.
Prayer is very powerful, thus there is a disconnect between their prayers and God.
We should pray for the big things: the nation, the world and the liberation of God.
This way you are praying for an even bigger cross than your own church.
If you only pray for smaller things than the church, God will not answer because He is not interested in listening to such boring prayers. When you pray for the nation and the world, God takes notice and will want to help.
This way of prayer is training for how to love greater things. If you live this way of life, then God will still back you up even if you do not have time to pray.
In churches today, people pray for their denominations, their Social Security check or their family problems and their pet. God's ears hurt when He hears those prayers and He will plug His ears. It would be the equivalent of a child begging their parents every moment for some candy.
When you only talk about yourself in your prayer, God is thoroughly bored and nothing will happen. But if you pray for His righteousness and His kingdom, He will be caught up in your passion.
In order to fulfill bigger things you need an adventurous mind and be willing to take risks.
When you work for larger goals, you will not have to worry because God will be right behind you. If you work hard to overcome the stonewalls and persecution standing in your way, God will take up your battle for you.
God is able to distinguish who is just and who is unjust.
God would wait and give you a chance to knock down your opponent with your own might before He rushes in to help. This is the same thing a father and mother would do for their children.
If you were to run to your parents first before confronting your enemy, God, like any parent would be ashamed to hear your complaints and will send you back out again.
Create a good problem: be a heavenly troublemaker instead.
I came to America and became a good troublemaker, and that's why America doesn't like me. America has built a prosperous society, but I came to shake this nation and Americans resent my disturbing their peace. But I did not come to destroy America, only to warn this nation that there is danger ahead.
Someone has to warn the people of America and bring them out of disaster. We must prepare ourselves for this big battle. After you go first, then you can ask God to come and help you with any area you lack.
Then God will say, "Go ahead, I am right behind you."
In those circumstances, if you sit down and pray with seriousness, then God will encourage you. When God finally has proof of your commitment, an avalanche will come to you.
I have had the experience of thinking about some problem and not even praying about it, but already God knew my thoughts and went one step ahead of me. When I discovered that my thinking had been fulfilled, He smiled and said, "See what I did?"
You need the basic attitude of sincerity as a foundation of prayer.
If you do not exhibit this basic attitude, then no prayer will work. To create this atmosphere, you should serve one more person, knock on one more door, receive more persecution for restoration.
That would be more valuable than sitting in a dark room for hours praying.
Praying is only needed only after you have exerted all of your energy into a cause and it was still not enough. Then at that time you can ask God to come help. When you can do the mission on your own, then you don't have to ask God for help, and you can tell Him to relax.
The prayer for all seasons is the prayer for God's kingdom and His righteousness.
Does God pray sometimes?
When a parent, without thinking, will whisper to themselves that they wish their son would do this or that. That is God's prayer also. He prays about you and me because we are living in a time of emergency and He is engrossed in His concern.
That is God's prayer.
You do not even have to sit down and pray. You can just murmur as you go. That is prayer. In our case, praying and doing is the way of life and praying and waiting is not life.
If you pray unconsciously throughout your daily life, then you undoubtedly are becoming sons and daughters of prayer.
If you give your last ounce of energy but it is not enough, then ask God for assistance and your prayer will be answered.
If this was not the case, how could we have the ability to subjugate Satan?
Satan has caused unending anguish and heartbreak to God for over six thousand years. If there was no way to finally subjugate Satan, then there would be no end to this hell.
But God has made a way for us to overcome this evil world of darkness.
The power of prayer works wonders. But when you pray, you must be serious and pray with one united hear, not a heart divided.
How serious is it to pick your own spouse?
It is dead serious, but prayer is even more serious than that. At the moment your parents are on your death bed is a serious moment, and the words you speak then are urgent. You will not doze at that time. Your prayer has to be even more serious this moment in picking your spouse.
Prayer is like a covenant between you and God, a promise.
Once you make this contract through prayer you follow through and without a doubt, God will fulfill it.
This is the attitude you should have through prayer.
You should not be disappointed that your prayer is not answered immediately. Some answers come late. As well, as you should not be overjoyed when your prayer is answered quickly. That is not necessarily the best thing either.
The answer to prayer does not come from you, but down from heaven and it takes time to reach you.
You are surrounded by the world where there are many stages to go through horizontally and vertically. There were many foolish people who received answers to their prayers up to a certain point, but who didn't go to the final inch. They gave up when they were not satisfied and betrayed God.
When you pray for the world you may not see things changing immediately around you, but far away the communist world starts to crumble.
Your prayer may be felt in a far-away place. You must think that your prayer might not reach you today or be fulfilled for thousands of years from now.
I pray such prayers. I am not praying just for this world today; I am praying for 1,000 and 2,000 years from now. If that prayer makes a bridge between that time and now, then the Unification Church will continue to flourish even a long time after I am gone from the earth. That kind of prayer is needed.
What if everyone was to pray that kind of prayer?
That kind of eternal prayer would shake the world and the impact would be far reaching. Prayer, sweat and tears would be the root of that prayer, and out of it beautiful flowers will blossom. When Jesus prayed in the garden of Gethsemane, he was deadly serious.
All day long, you should be in prayer mindset, not just one hour, but 24 hours.
What prayer position do you prefer?
The best position is to kneel and bow your head Restrict your body's freedom as though it were bound.
You will feel pain, but overcome it because you must be serious in your prayer. This is necessary for prayer. Then God will know your serious attitude.
If Jesus and other saints did not pray, they would not have been able to carry out the great things that has impacted the world. When you resort to the power of prayer, you can have hope because you never know when the fulfillment will come.
Return for Tomorrow's Post: The Power of Prayer
This post was rewritten and derived from the speech The Importance of Prayer
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