True Parent's Heart Wants to Give Everything

The bible gives the account of the beginning of creation.   Let's forget the scientific and biblical debate of the beginning and keep it simple. Have you ever wondered why God built the universe and all of creation?

Like an artist, God first made a plan with man as the model for all of creation.  When you look at the physics internally and externally of man you will see the map of all creation.  God as our Parent created all of the universe for the love of man.  Once we realize this fact, then the account in Genesis
takes on a more heartfelt meaning when you see God as a Parent preparing the world for His children.

And God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: the livestock, the creatures that move along the ground, and the wild animals, each according to its kind.” And it was so.  

God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.

Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals,^[a] and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

So God created mankind in his own image,
    in the image of God he created them;
    male and female he created them.

Genesis 1 24-27

If humans are made in God's image, then like God as human parents we want to give everything to our children - all of our heart and possession for our children's love.

This is the parental heart of a parent.  The greatest of all relationships is that between parent and child.

Parents who have given birth to and raised children all understand the desire to receive blessings and feel happiness through their sons and daughters, whom they love dearly. Also, if they have established a correct standard through which they can experience joy, they will want to bequeath this to their offspring for eternity.

Even fallen parents hope that their children will grow up as fine people who can be followed and revered by all nations and praised eternally.

The parental heart seeks to protect children from harm and is concerned about them day and night. The heart of fallen parents can even be like this.

For example, a mother ignores the diaper smells from her baby while nursing her child at her breast. Thus, if fallen parents have such a heart towards their children, how earnest must God's heart have been, longing to love Adam and Eve based on their original hearts?

You should all think about this. When you nurse and nurture your babies, you sing them lullabies and whisper to them, wishing that their lives will be a success. Any parent has such a heart.

No matter how incompetent or lacking parents may be, if one of their children suffers from a disability, the parents' hearts are devastated to the point of breaking.   To God, when He looks down at humanity, he sees disfigured children crippled by sin.

If this situation is then resolved, the relief and joy are overwhelming in proportion to the original pain. If such is the heart of a fallen parent, what must be the heart of God?

If a son commits a crime and is sent to prison, the parents tearfully forgive and reach out to him, instead of saying, "Serves him right!" This is why parental love is extraordinary. Similarly, if a son is sentenced to execution, his mother will be totally grief-stricken and seek any way, even changing the world's legal systems or risking her life, to save her son.

Such is the unchanging and sacrificial nature of the parental heart towards the children.

Do loving parents keep an account of the times they love their children, saying: "We bought you shoes and clothes a few days ago with our hard earned money, which cost us so many dollars and cents?"

When parents love their children, they want to treat them even better than princes and princesses, and still feel sorry that they cannot give more.

Parents have the heart of wanting to give their children something better. This is why we cherish parental love. You should all know this.

No matter how much parents give they feel that it is not enough; they love and yet feel as if there is some love they have not yet given and want to give more; and even after giving, they still feel unsatisfied with what they were able to give their children.

This essence of parental love is that is what connects us to eternal love. This is the original motivation for the beginning point of love.

When it comes to children, parents always want to give the best of what they have to the children.  This is the true definition of a parental hear and this heart is a reflection of the nature of God.

If this is so, what kind of being is God?  God wants to share of  his most precious attributes to those who truly become His children.

The unconditional nature of rue love is that it does not waver, it is eternal, does not change according to circumstances or convenience.  A good friend will stay by his friend's side when the times are good and when they are bad.  A husband of true love will stay with his wife forsaking all others when she is sick and old and all of her beauty has faded away.  A parent whose child has run away will always look out the window every night in hopes of seeing their child return.

 Constancy is the ballast of all lasting and true relationships.

When people practice true love, they are there for one another no matter what the situation even if it turns sour.  God's love is unchanging and is a place of the heart where we want to return time and again for forgiveness, renewal, reassurance, wisdom and fresh determination.

A bumper sticker reads, “If you don’t feel close to God—guess who moved?” We may be sure that He didn't. The “Unmoved Mover” remains constant, the ultimately loving parent.

One parent practiced the elements of true love in her patience to win the hart of her reluctant teenage daughter.  Her rebellious daughter had a "smart mouth" and was very arrogant which harmed and pain the parents.

At the height of crisis, the police called the mother to tell her they had picked up her daughter for reckless driving.  The mother was so upset that she couldn't talk to the daughter for a whole night.

Then, after the mother stepped back, she knew that she had still belief in her daughter's goodness.  She wanted to demonstrate this faith to her daughter.  She wrapped up a little gift and handed it to her daughter with this note:

“This rock is a thousand years old. That’s how long it will take before I give up on you.”

The teenager broke down in tears at this evidence of her mother’s devotion, and the two became closer after that.

You and I should be grateful that God's heart is immensely larger than the human parent's love.  He never gives up on people who have wronged Him - even when they had already given up on themselves.

 People, like the teenage girl, feel worthless, hopeless, despairing, and beyond redemption when they are travelling down the wrong path.  Fortunately, God's love is like a rock.  He is always there, always has hope in us and waits for His child to return.

As Jesus expressed so poignantly, “Ask, and it will be given to you, seek and you will find; knock and the door shall be opened unto you.”

We can visualize that God is a True Parent that is always home and ready to open the door and answer it when His child needs Him.  He always holds steadfast that His children will visit wanting Him to embrace them in a love that never wavers.  God is a True and Ultimate Parent.

Reverend Moon has said:

“What made Jesus sacred was that he trusted and loved people, wanted to live with them and save them more than anything else—even though they betrayed him. He blessed his enemies. There are sixty-six volumes in the Holy Scripture, but when you condense its significant meaning, the teaching of Jesus is . . . unchangeability.”


Return for Tomorrow's Post: Don't Look For Love, Give It

This text was rewritten and is based on the teachings of the Dr. Reverend Sun Myung Moon who wrote the Divine Principle.

Educating for True Love

You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God,punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.


Exodus 20:5,6     

"God created humankind for a reason. Why were we necessary?  God needed to create humankind in order to fulfill His love. It is for the sake of love that human beings are the supreme creations."

Educating for True Love

True love has the highest value.  To give and receive love may be more vital to life than breathing or eating.  Yet true love does not come to us naturally without a lot of effort.  It must be taught, learned and practiced.

As children, we must spend many years dependent on our parents.  As we spend our childhood in immaturity, we learn how to interact with the world and provide for ourselves within it.  We attend school to obtain knowledge about the world.  We go to school, libraries, university and learn the fundamentals about life from our parents.

Yet have you ever thought that there is no formal school that provides education on how to love and to be loved?  

How do we usually learn about love?  Through painful experiences and trial and error.  Because we do not have instructions on how to love, we are lost when it comes to loving one another   Science and the arts progressed through the ages, but our wisdom about love is uneven and the growth of how humanity loves is slow at best.

To love and be loved is one of life's most intimidating challenges.  Humanity should turn away from this ignorance.  We will never have a world of peace without remedying the situation.

How do we learn about love?  What school of thought can touch the depth of how to love someone that is hard to love?  

Jesus taught how to love one another through loving others as we love ourselves.  But why didn't this spread all over the world like wild fire and begin a world of peace?  Was Jesus' painful death just for us to enjoy peace and love in the spirit world?

People need to embrace that learning about love is the most essential aspect of life in order for people to succeed.  Counselors will testify that they help high-powered intellectuals and professional people who have qualifications and accolades, but breakdown because they are at a complete loss when it comes to their important personal relationships of love.

We also witness celebrities, politicians, businessmen with power, wealth and immense talent, but when it comes to their love lives, they fail just as much as the general public.

How is this possible?  Why are we on a worldwide level lost when it comes to love relationships or all levels and how can we begin to fix this situation?

When should begin studying the original way, the true way we are to live our life.  It begins with the understanding of the nature of true love and the nature of human beings who can only feel complete within love.  

Only after we are well versed in the nature and practices of true love will we be able to comprehend the path we are to walk.  A life that actually satisfies all the human desires and fulfills life's highest aspirations.  Other words, we need to study the original idea God had for love and what it was to accomplish in our lives.

Understanding True Love

The most precious philosophy is to live for the sake of others.

—Sun Myung Moon

In order for us to begin to live in love, we need to first understand it.  We may find just by trying to define love, this may seem as a difficult task?

The ancient Greeks divided love into numerous categories and described the various features of each:

"Eros was impassioned romantic attraction; philia was friendship; eunoia stood for general benevolence or good will; physike constituted kindness toward people of one’s own race. Xenike represented kindness to the guest or stranger. Agape love, which the Greeks defined as unselfish affection for others, became the keystone of Christianity and is a recognized feature of all the faiths of the world." 

Agape love is called “compassion” in Buddhism and Hinduism and “human-heartedness” or jen in Confucian thought."

In addition, we find more categories of love within the context of a family.  We have the devotion of parents toward their children and the affection that the children return toward their parents.  Then the relationship of siblings who care about one another in a unique way.  Then the profound love grandparent hold toward their grandchildren. Then the love shared between spouses is a world unto itself.

 All these types of love have their distinctive features.

To get a clearer understanding and grasp the concept of love we need an all-around definition of love that encompasses all the forms of love.  "Live for the sake of others" is the definition the author of the Divine Principle provides.  This is expressed as to live in order to benefit others.

God had created each individual not for their own individual sake, but for the benefit of others and the whole.  We do not see this type of society.  We have grown into a society of individualism and living for myself and the need for others to live just for us.  This is against principle and why the world is turning upside down in these last days.

This definition is clear as it helps to weed out the aspects of love that are not true.  Knowing that we are meant to live for the whole and others, aspects of selfish love that leads to despair rather than joy will be easier to see.  Knowing this is how humanity should live showcases the specific attributes of how true love looks and feels and how far we are from achieving this as a society.

Then, this definition of love raises issues:

What are the qualities of true love?  Where does it originate?  Who are the "others" that are to be loved?  And how about the individual factor into living only for others?

True Love Is Other-Centered

True love begins with the interaction of relationships with others.  Did you know God also requires an "other" to fulfill His love?  He cannot have love all on His own.  He needs an object in which to share His love.  He needs human beings as His love partners to share in the glory of His creation.   This is how He designed the world of creation.  Even God needs a relationship in order to experience love to the fullest.

If God needs love, so does His creation.  Everything in creation was created for the purpose of love.  Every human yearns for love no matter how high in society they have come.  Nature follows the order of love.

"As author Sherwood Anderson said, 'Two oddly sensitive human atoms' find one another, cling together and think, 'Here is this other'."

Love fulfills its purpose only in the presence of another person.  

The Bible emphasizes that when one loves God, it is always coupled with the love of others.  When Jesus showed his love for God, we see the countless accounts of how he treated and visited the sick and the lonely.  We don't hear about Jesus just praying unceasingly to God only, but taking action to love God's people.  

The Old Testament law and the prophets greatest commandments were to love God and to love one's neighbor.

Jesus spoke about forgiveness of others before approaching the altar and that God only forgives those who forgive others.  Jesus told his followers also not to judge others, because the same measuring stick they used to judge others, God would use to judge them as well.

Also, Jesus mentioned the necessity for believers to seek communion not only with God, but with one another when he said that he would be present when two or more gathered together in his name.  Loving others is always coupled with loving God well.

This is confirmed by the words (Hadith) of the prophet Muhammad:

“On the day of judgment God Most High will say, “Son of Adam, I was sick and you did not visit Me.” He will reply, “My Lord, how could I visit Thee when Thou art the Lord of the Universe!” He will say, “Did you not know that My servant so-and so was ill and yet you did not visit him? Did you not know that if you had visited him you soon would have found Me with him?”

Russian thinker Vladimir Solovyov said that love 

“forces us with all our being to acknowledge for another the same absolute central significance which, because of the power of our egoism, we are conscious of only in our selves . . . shifting the very center of our personal lives.”

Reverend Moon calls this shifting of center from self to others a “revolution,” and holds that such a revolution toward true love is necessary for happiness and peace. 

Return for Tomorrow's Post: Children Should Receive Parental Love


Today's text was taken from the Textbook: Educating for True Love, Explaining Sun Myung Moon's Morality, Family and Society.