Here is an analogy:
Apples are harvested in autumn, but farmers will throw away away the rotten apples. There is no other place for it to go.
Those people who end up in hell are human trash in God's sight.
We might see an apple with bad skin, but actually be very good on the inside while the apple that looks good on the surface may be rotten inside and worthless.
Human beings belong in the second category; they look beautiful on the outside, but on the inside filled with the rotten effects of sin.
Even though there may be damage on the surface of the apple, if the seeds are still intact, then it still has value.
A fallen person who is corrupted on the inside cannot easily be saved.
However, human beings are in the opposite circumstance. We are intact on the outside, but rotten on the inside, our blood tainted with sin. The Fall caused human beings to be rotten to the core.
In the process of the creation, God sowed the seed of goodness, but before He coul gather the fruit of his labor Satan invaded this pure seed with his evil seed and harvested his evil fruit.
For this reason, God must sow the seed of goodness once again.
In order to do this, God need certain tools.
Religions of the world have served as this tool for God. The good religions centered upon sacrificial love and duty have taught throughout history God's way of life.
Thus, Christianity may be considered the most advanced religion because it teaches this concept of sacrificial love and duty in the supreme form.
There are many teachings that have developed throughout the ages.
One is that if someone mistreats you, you repay them an eye for an eye, tooth for tooh, and a death for a death.
However, the most revolutionary teaching is to love your enemy and to pray for those who persecute you. Needless to say that this teaching came from Jesus Christ.
Do you think that this was Jesus' own proclamation, or was he teaching according another's will, denying his own ego? Above Jesus was God.
Jesus' teaching was God's teaching; therefore when he emotionally acted toward a situation, they were not his own.
Jesus' proclamations were God's, and God can be trusted 100 percent.
Ultimately speaking, we can conclude that in this universe there is only one being you can fully trust: God.
God's characteristics were manifested through Jesus.
Jesus said that even though he was the Son of man, he came to serve, not to be served.
Jesus taught that the greatest love in the universe was to give one's life for one's enemy.
The Bible's teaching are contrary to the fallen world of society. God's standard is exactly opposite of the way of this self-centered world.
The Bible teaches about total sacrifices, unselfish giving, those who lose his life for God's sake will gain it and those who keeps his life will lose it. (Matt. 10:39)
But the reality is that we live in an evil society. It would seem foolish to live such a sacrificial life in such a selfish realm.
But once you understand God's principle and His suffering heart, you soon discover that there is no greater wisdom than this.
The teachings of Jesus Christ was able to hit the very core of the fundamental truth of the universe.
The more you give the more you receive.
God rewards His children total giving with total love, and total sacrifice with total life.
When one gives, this creates room for God's love to enter. The more room that is created, then the greater the vacuum that is created through your giving and the faster you will be filled by the flow of God's love.
In order to be treated well, first you must treat others well. You reaps as you sow like seeds in a garden. When you sow an evil seed, then you will reap evil. Sow goodness to reap goodness.
You should be concerned with how to give and how to give well. You must trust God with the return for He will take care of it.
When one approaches the end of life, he or she must ask how well did they love God. Jesus already raised this question when he demanded the people they they love him more than they love their own spouse or children or anyone else.
Love is of all different qualities.
Before you are qualified to say, “I love you” to someone, what qualifications should you meet first?
Jesus' standard of loving someone went beyond everything in that person's life: loved ones and precious belongings...everything. Do you love with that high standard of love to go beyond everything in a person's life?
Each person claims his or her own environment, family, country and world. But in order to have the standard to love Jesus, one must abandon all of that. This is the clear-cut standard of love which the Bible records.
You may think about this standard and pray with that attitude, but the ultimate test is how you live your life.
Here is a scenario:
There is one good man and one bad man. Let's say that one man has ten friends. Day in and day out this man unselfishly serves those ten friend.
People will not be able to help but love him. He will become those ten people's best friends. Then his influence will spread to the relatives and friends of those first ten people he had a huge impact on.
Therefore, by the man unselfishly giving, he thus becomes prosperous. He will be the center of harmony and unity. This is because he lives God's principle.
Unselfishness brings prosperity.
Here is a good man.
But on the other hand, the other man told his ten friends to bring things to him and to serve him. If he was to speak this way to his friends three times, then everyone would end their relationship with him and he would be soon left alone.
This is even true on a societal level.
This is universal truth: A self-centered doctrine, philosophy, and way of life will eventually lead you down the tragic road of self-destruction.
On the contrary, when you can live a life in service to others, you will find prosperity.
It may seem that giving of yourself to other will lead to ruin, but it will not.
If such a life does not bring prosperity, it is only because you did not give to the very end but gave up just as victory would come.
If in the middle you become skeptical, change your hear or take pity of your situation and shrink back from God's law of total giving then good results never materializes.
Total giving is the way of prosperity because it is the way of God.
If one sacrifices himself for another, then he or she becomes a hero to others.
If one family sacrifices for the well-being of another family, then that family becomes a heroic family among other families.
If a peoples and nation sacrifices themselves for the benefit of other countries, then they become champions of nations.
A man who gives his life for his parents is a pious son. A patriot is a man who gives his life for his nation, and a man who gives his life for all humankind is a saint. This is the universal standard.
It is not God's way for the individual to go in one direction, the family in another direction, while the nation and world each go in their own direction.
The true way of life begins with the individual and goes all the way to the universal level.
Each person, and those in spirit world, must go through several stages and a test to pass at each level before one can advance to the next level.
Who gives this test?
God does not give this test but Satan and his satanic world which we live that tests you.
Just as in a court of law, Satan stands in the position of a prosecutor while God is in the position of judge and you are the defendant. Jesus Christ is your advocate. Satan accuses all of God's children before Him.
There is a court of judgment on every level of your advancement.
Did you know that God, the universal sovereign, has His own court?
There is no one, even the Messiah, who can escape from defending themselves against Satan's accusations.
Those in the Christian faith preach about loving one's enemies, but Jesus also preached to love your neighbor.
Who is a Christian's neighbor? It would certainly be another Christian or others of other types of faith. But do we see people of faith practicing this very law?
Do Catholics love Mormons? Do Jehovah Witnesses love Methodists. There are even many different denominations within the Christian faith itself, dividing the very body of Christ and arguing points of the Bible among themselves.
Anyone, no matter what faith, that practices the principle of loving one's enemy is closer to God and is the orthodox Christian.
“It is my belief Love can unite. If Christians practice love then we can unite with Christians and the Christians can unite all the religions of the world.”
Are those of us in the Unification Church heretics or not? When you tell Christians in the world about your faith they will call you heretics for numerous reasons., but the important this is you should inherit the true tradition and spirit of Christianity.
When we inherit that doctrine and make it a way of our life, then we are the most orthodox.
Even though Christians themselves violated many of God's laws, they still judge others calling them heretics, anti-christs and being possessed by demons.
Many Christians proclaim that we are heretical and false, but are they qualified to pass judgment? Do you think God gave them that authority to pass such judgement?
If Christians are only concerned about their own salvation and church, then they should be judged by those who are able to live beyond the circumference of their own denomination. They would be people who totally dedicate themselves for the sake of God.
Jesus Christ proclaimed this very truth to the Jewish people who outwardly seemed to have more qualifications than Jesus.
God intended originally for the nation of Israel to be the prepared instrument for the Messiah and his mission in the world. God prepared the people for 4, 000 years and blessed them for this very purpose.
But the people of Israel were not thinking on this level. They were looking for a Messiah who was like a military leader who would restore King David's political power just for the nation's, the Jews' glory. How wrong they were.
Jesus came to be the fulfillment heaven on earth, God's truth on earth. He did not come based on his own selfish desire and purpose or even his nation's. He came to achieve salvation for the whole world. The Bible states that God so loved the world that he gave His only begotten Son. It did not say he so loved a religion, a nation or a people, but He loved the whole world. God brought Jesus to save the world. How easily this word is overlooked.
When we look from our own small point-of-view, we may think that God is only interested in just one family or nation.
Many faiths focus on the individual and their spiritual growth and salvation. We have not understood clearly that when we struggle to build a nation on God's truth, our families and we ourselves are included in that scope.
When we set our eyes on broader things, then these smaller areas are already saved and included.
Most individuals that prays and leads a godly life works for their own salvation. At the most they worry about the salvation of their entire family. But are used to doing this much, but not going beyond that level of devotion.
Despite its 2,000 year history, Christianity is declining in influence. This is the reason for their decline.
If Christianity as a whole continues to decline, then the family and individual will also be lost within that realm.
Many Christian's believe that the Second Coming is about their own family, that Jesus comes to save just individuals and leave the rest of the world in dismay.
People of faith should realize that when the Lord comes again, he will establish a nation of God's choice. On that foundation he will be able to do his work of saving the world.
If someone was to ask you, what would you want to be saved when Jesus returns, you should not say yourself, but at least you should say a nation.
If a whole nation is saved, then you and your family would be included there.
Some people in Jesus' time that God sent Jesus to take revenge on their enemies and they would become the leading nation of the world where other nation would bow to their knees in front of them.
If we were to think from God's point-of-view, would He want to save the whole world, save only one nation, or just a few individuals?
We clearly know the answer. If God is like a Father, who would stay up all night worried about His children that were suffering, then He would want to save every last one of them.
Jesus' had a sacrificial spirit, the basis of God's providence to sacrifice for others,
When we look in history, we see that Christianity received a lot of persecution, but the more persecution it received and endured without attacking back, the more it prospered. This is principle.
Just by Jesus' spirit alone, he made a great impact in the world. Jesus did not do this alone, but by God's providence and by the cooperation and will of God Himself. This is important: a nation that sacrifices all things for the whole world and all of humankind.
That nation will sprout a system that will be the foundation for the ideal world to develop in the future.
This principle explains how a small, young country as America could prosper beyond others in only a few hundred years.
But as the country becomes more selfish, it too will decline.
We do not see such a Godly nation on the earth at this moment.
There are many people of faith that are seeking only their own salvation, their own personal spot in heaven. We know that this is contrary to God's truth and His ideal.
We must be giving, loving, sacrificial and live for others' sake.
As people of faith, we are in the position to liberate God's grievous part due to the fall. As inheritors of the fall we should take up this responsibility.
His happiness has been placed in bondage due to human mistake which caused the Fall in the beginning.
People of faith have not known this fact and have been crying out for their own liberation from pain and for Him to help them with trivial matter.
They do not have any understanding that we need to liberate God instead. The Unification Church was created on earth with the purpose of fulfilling that mission: to liberate God's aching heart.
The question is how do we relieve God's heart? We do so by restoring ourselves to our original Godly position from the individual level all the way to the world level.
God does not want the world or Christianity as is.
God wants the world and Christianity and His people to liberate His heart of sorrow. When they know the fact that His heart is bound in sorrow they should want to do so naturally.
But how many Christians have known this fact and thought of restoring His heart?
Has there been a nation where a people thought of liberating God's grieving heart.
We each must work for the way of life which is ideal. We should think, “I exist for my family, my family exists for the society, our society exists for our nation and our nation for the world.”
Then we can think that the world exists for God, and God exists for you and me and all of humankind.
We can see harmony, unity and the eternal process of increasing prosperity in this grand circle of give and take.
Since this circuit of all existence will fulfill the circuit of creation, abundant and profound joy will result.
Within this circuit is the Kingdom of Heaven.
Instead, in our world, we witness selfishness everywhere which ruins everything.
Selfishness in the family causes disharmony.
This then erupts into bitterness and strife.
We live in a world where everyone wants to be served instead of serving others. Wives instruct their husbands to serve them and husbands want to be served by their wives.
Parents expect their children to serve them and children also take their parents for granted. This is the situation demonstrated in our families, societies and nations.
When human beings love each other, talk, they cling to each other never wanting to be separated from each other.
But when there is disharmony and you quarrel, you don't want to be around that person and feel they are your opponent. When he goes that way, you want to go this way. You never want to eat whatever your opponent makes.
God did not make disharmony a part of His ideal world.
Unfortunately, disharmony was created due to the Fall.
Return for Tomorrow's Post:
This post was rewritten and derived from the text, God's Warning to the World - messaged from prison Jesus' Standard of Goodness.
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