We all face all kinds of continuous struggle in our daily life. There are many different kinds of struggles, therefore, we must determine what kind we are going through at any particular time.
Some people struggle to earn money, but some people are more worthy of receiving their salary than other because they do better work. Therefore, those who do inferior work can be criticized.
Then there are those people who work just for themselves and do not receive a salary. In this case, the quality of their work determines whether they will be a success or not. According to the work one does, they are also subject to judgment or criticism.
There are some Americans who better the country and are liked and respected, and there are the citizens that do not contribute to the country in any way. Within every group, this kind of difference can be found.
There are the people who are looked up to and we want to emulate and then there are the people who are not well respected. Only the person himself can criticize himself because he knows himself better than anyone else.
Each person knows where his or her weaknesses lies and he knows how he needs to change. Within an individual, every element knows whether it is being used for something good or something bad. Your own eyes know if you are looking at good things or bad things.
Also, your ears can distinguish between good things and bad.
You may feel inspired when you hear these words because you recognize them as true. Someone else might think that this is too general and is not inspired.
Would you want to be on the good side, exhibiting only good qualities or would you be content to remain on the bad side of everything?
Everyone, naturally, would want to experience the good qualities.
At the national level, some nations are criticized by the other nations because they damage the rest of the world. Each nation can judge and criticize other nations. We see that God must be evaluating the nations of the world according to how they are performing for the total benefit of the world.
God certainly desires goodness.
If there is also an evil god in existence, he would also want something good.
We may think that an evil god would want evil things, but an evil being desires good things. If the evil god was not able to get good things, he would go and plunder good things from others.
The good God just wants to stay with goodness. He wants to have good things all the time and wants to cherish them eternally. But the evil god would try to snatch the good things away from God the first chance he gets.
Isn't this true? This is how the fall began with Lucifer wanting to possess the good Eve for himself taking her and humanity away from God.
In all levels of life there is struggle between good and evil.
Do you think that you are a good person or a bad one?
Truthfully, you said you are only good in a half-hearted way, you must not have much confidence. You are right to answer in that way, because if you completely good, you would not have to struggle or restore yourself back to your original position.
If you are already a completely good person, there would be no struggle with evil.
Where there is something good, both bad and good people want it. What do you think is the best thing in the world?
You might say 'true love', but even before true love exists a person must exist first. If many good people exist, then there would not be so much struggle in the pursuit of true love. It would be found freely flowing everywhere.
The main question is, did human history start from an evil or good foundation?
Is it possible that man was good in nature but gradually became evil after he was born or it was the other way around? Were we created to be evil and then to gradually struggle to be good? Would a perfected, good god create such a contradictory being?
This does not make sense. If people were born to be evil, then we could never have the possibility to to improve ourselves or root it out because it would be forever part of our being.
Is there a possibility that you can become completely good, almost perfected? Then we can say confidently that we were not born in a hopelessly bad condition. We know for a fact we were born relatively good, but not perfected.
Even though one is born with a good nature, if he is surrounded by a bad situation, he will struggle hard to come back to his good state. This is logical.
Therefore, we can conclude that man's original nature was created good, but something happened after he was born. The Principle explains that human beings were created for goodness, but were corrupted and fell into a bad situation.
What is the element that influenced humans to become evil and have to struggle to go toward goodness? Many would say 'self-centeredness'.
What is that exactly? It is placing yourself ahead of God and everybody else.
When this first occurred, people began the path of false self-centered love. We can surely see that self-centeredness and false love put human beings on the wrong path in history.
When mankind fell, it was as if he received injections: one was self-centeredness and the other was false love.
These evil elements began to circulate in the human body. Have you been able to cleanse from this fallen blood? No. In fact, evil renews itself with each new individual.
If you were to get food poisoning, you then a need an antidote. Therefore, because we were poisoned by self-centeredness and false love, we need an antidote to cure it.
What do you think that would be? We easily say 'true love'. But where do you find it?
Let's examine ourselves.
Have you been able to cleanse this evil blood from your system or is it still circulating within you?
You know it is still there and you can feel it easily. Where are you going to eliminate this poison? Do you just do nothing and think that it will go away automatically through time?
This is what many people of faith believe to be true. The belief is that by simply believing in the Messiah and sitting in pews and being nice to people that their fallen blood is somehow cleansed.
Jesus died for our sins, but how do we explain that we are still born into sin and no matter how devout we are, we still bear children with the fallen blood lineage?
There are different stages of awareness. There are some people who don't even know they are doing evil. There are others who know when they are doing bad things and want to become good and struggle to do so.
Those who want to become very, very good must go through tremendous struggles.
To whom does love rightfully belong?
Love itself is a common possession. True love is owned by everyone at the same time, but there should be a master or subject of love. Who would that be?
God is the master of love.
To fulfill the purpose of love, there must be a man and woman who practice and appreciates true love.
The first two people who come into contact with love for the first time would think that they would like to have that. There is nothing bad about that. This is very natural.
People were born to appreciate good things.
What then is the difference between a good person and a bad person?
Both good people and bad want good things.
Everyone was meant to experience love at the proper time. We see that love belongs to everybody. But there is a proper order to achieving everything. First things come first, second things come second and so forth.
The order of love was God was to receive it first, then man and woman were to have it, then it was to pass love to the angels. This is the correct order for true love. Any other order is false love.
Thus it is the orderliness, the right order, that made the difference in love.
When man did not abide by the right order, false love came into being and then the distinction between true love and false love came into existence.
Let's look at a family of brothers and sisters for an example. Each are born in a certain order, one after the other. There is the first child, a second child, a third and so forth. Even if there is only a difference of a year in their ages there still is an order.
If it became necessary, the first-born child could take responsibility for the second-born. The second could do the same for the third and so forth.
Suppose the elder brother said to the younger one, "Do this," and he replies, "OK, but I must do something else first." That would be the proper way for him to reply, rather than to shout, "No, I Won't do it," without giving any ounce of obedience or explanation.
Violating the rules of conduct in regard to order is wrong.
In America, this concept is strange. They may wonder why the elder brother has more authority than the younger one.
But when you observe more closely, even in America, it is natural to give difference to an elder. Let's suppose there are five brothers lined up in order of age. The eldest is first, the next one is second and so forth.
In America, would they line up at random?
What about the parents; would the parents go in line in front of the children? No. The parents would go first and then the children. So, even in America, that would seem logical.
When the parents give direction to the children, they are expected to obey.
Unlike what we see in American homes today, the child shouldn't say that they don't have to listen to their parents.
This is not acceptable.
Even if the parents were to give a wrong direction, the child should say, "But if I do it now, it would create a bad situation. Could you please reconsider?"
Then a good mother or father would think about it and answer, "I guess you are right, so you don't have to do that." Through this mutual respect and understanding, the parent and child can come to resolve any differences properly.
In any situation, parents should not stubbornly cling to their 'authority' and demand the child do what they have to say. If a parent did that, then any child would rightly be forced to rebel against the parent's unreasonableness. Then the parent would have to yield to the children if the children are in the right.
When parents ask their son to do something That he is sure will turn out badly, then he should not be demanded to blindly follow their instructions. He should explain his thoughts to his mother or father so that the correct course of action will bring forth good results.
You may wonder how this relates to human history and mankind's problems and think this may seem too simple of analysis of the problems experienced between children and parents.
This actually describes the basic element of human history from the beginning point of mankind's problems and the solution.
Return for Tomorrow's Post: God's Purpose Not to Satisfy Public Opinion
This post was rewritten from the speech The Victorious Person and the Defeated Person
No comments:
Post a Comment