Heaven in Spirit World Emerges from Heaven on Earth

Historically, people called by God were over fifty or sixty years old, worn out and one step away from death.

God used such people at that time, but knew He would work with the younger generation in the future.  Therefore, God was concerned about how to develop His providence through the young people.

Buddha was able to proclaim that he was his own lord throughout heaven and earth.  A person who becomes a complete object partner of God after disciplining himself to achieve oneness of mind and body, he can become his own lord.

“Once, I felt that I was grasping the world tightly in my hand, and it seemed to melt. When you reach this level, miracles can happen automatically. The curing of diseases comes as a natural result of religious life.”

Most people today go about their lives just waking up and eating and going about a daily routine and think they are fine in God’s eyes.

However, unless they are acknowledged as a partner to God and become owners of heaven, they are not fine in front of God.

Satan remains in the place where a person has not established an absolute faith.

Many religions say that heaven will be established by the their church and their founder’s teachings.  This is a fantasy.

Christianity is divided into hundreds of different denominations.  They call other churches heretical or satanic, but they do not do so from the authorization of God.

If churches judge other churches for their own benefit, then their motivation is not pure.
If our church does this, it will also decline.

Even the spirit world has been divided by walls. 

Buddhists and Confucians are separated by walls.

The barriers are overcome by a higher standard from God’s heart.  All the walls from the lowest to the higher realms must be broken down in reverse order.

The walls that separate ancestors and people from many thousand of years ago must be broken down.

All the walls on the earth must be eliminated and a true path connected to liberate hell must be paved.  Otherwise, the gates of heaven cannot be opened.

Members must be a better person than Buddha, than Confucius and even better than Jesus.

Before, religion had a purpose to only save the individual. Our purpose is family salvation.  This is the difference between Unificationism and other religions.

For salvation we are saving the family. When we go to heaven we are not going alone. 

No one can enter heaven alone.

Only after the ideal of a true couple is realized can heaven come about.  Therefore, in order to go to heaven, fallen human beings must go through  restoration and resurrection.


To give the Marriage Blessing to you is to open wide the gates of heaven.


“Through the Blessing, I am opening the closed gates of heaven for you.”

Jesus taught that the Kingdom of heaven was in our hearts.  But Jesus was miserable when he could not proclaim that that heaven was in our families.

When you have a family, you can sing with happiness that we can live in this way.

Yet Jesus who was God’s pure Son could not even dream of having a family necessary for heaven.

Jesus trodden a sacrificial path for three years in order to awaken to the fact that heaven within our hearts.  But then he was crucified.  Now, there is no heaven on earth.

The tracks of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth and those in the Kingdom of Heaven in the spirit world are the same.

In order for a train to pass the border of one country into the next, the tracks must match so the train continues running.

Likewise, the tracks on earth and in heaven should be connected.

The path of true love connects the rails from earth so the family can be the embodiment of love and go directly to heaven nonstop.

Therefore, the individual path should connect to the family’s path going in the same direction.

We are destined to go to the spirit world whether we like it or not. 

We are each like wanderers that move closer to that destination.

The biggest issue is whether you lived a life for others while on earth for just for yourself.  If you live more for others, you go to heaven, if you lived more for yourself, you go to hell.

This basic formula may be argued given your present situation, but when you die, you will know that this is the truth.

People went to different levels in the spirit world. They went to the position that correlates to the degree they have practiced filial piety according to the way of love.  How much they pledged their loyalty to their nation and fulfilled the way of a saint in the world.

People should take the path of righteousness while on earth. The path for the individual, family, tribe, nation and world or God should be one and the same path.
What is that path?

It is the path of original love.

Which world do you think you will go to in the end?  Are you going to heaven or hell?

On the way there are you the kind of person that says, “Father, please help me!” or a person who says, “Welcome, True Father!”?  That is a matter of life and death.

After marriage, you made a pledge to live happily.

“When I say live you should live well, it means that you should become an unchanging couple. In order to become like that, you should go to the ever-changing world and receive training together.

“You should keep your promises even if you go to a world where people are divided, north and south or in all four directions. You should maintain such a well-trained position.”

Children born of true parents as Adam and Eve should have become by following God’s Word, are true children not false, sinful children.

From such children, a true family, a true tribe, nation and world is created.

People in this world will live a heavenly way of life with God.  This is the only way that this earth becomes the Kingdom of Heaven on earth.

You should not think you are entitled to go to heaven. 

You should focus on building heaven on earth as Jesus came to do.

Also, you must become a heavenly person and become united with Heavenly Father to the point that Father’s heart is your heart.

You should be a representative of God’s heart, the Lord’s heart and the heart of your ancestors.  Through this, the historical problems will be solved.

If a person is on their death bed and they tell God, “God, even though I could not live according to Your will until this moment, I tried to go to heaven in my mind.  Please regard me as making the proper indemnity conditions!”

Since God is a fair God, He will reward the person according to his actions, placing him in a position of wanting to go to heaven.  That position can be just below paradise.

Even people in hell are trying to go to heaven.

You  alone are responsible for deciding the actions you commit while you are on earth. And make any recompense for any wrongdoings.

If this door is closed, no one else can open it again for eternity, only you can be responsible for it.
If the door is opened, no one except you can close it again.

If what is bound on earth is bound in heaven, then it should be released while you are on earth. What does this mean?  For instance, if you did a wrongful act and did not compensate or ask for forgiveness for it while on earth, then you will ever be bound to that sin when you go to spirit world.

You will be bound to it.

Therefore, when you go witnessing now, you should witness to your family members and relatives.

If you can claim that you love the billions of people on earth more than your own mother and father who gave birth to you, then you are able to love in an unified position within the realm of God’s love.
Then you will stand in a position not be related to the satanic world.

An original person is someone who is not related to Satan, establishes a family based on the love of the ideal couple and goes directly to heaven after his life on earth.  A world of families such as this would be called the Kingdom of Heaven on earth where people live the ideals of the heavenly kingdom.

Therefore, the fact that Peter was given the keys to the gates of heaven means that heaven is first to be established on earth.  Everyone should know this clearly.


Photos courtesy: freedigitalphotos.net

Return for Tomorrow’s Post: Jesus Wasn’t  to be God’s Only True Son

This post was rewritten and derived from the religious book Cheon Seong Gyeong, Book Six, Chapter two, Section 2.

Heaven is a World of Pure Love

Heaven is the world of living for the sake of God

“If I say that heaven is empty, people will think I am demented. But Jesus could not enter heaven. You cannot go there alone. Our original ancestors should have grown through adolescence, established the ideal of love in which God dwelt, become parents and bequeathed the seeds of true love.

“Then the first place they would have entered would have been heaven. But up until now, there have been no parents embodying God's love, who were able to leave the seeds of true love.”

Adam and Eve did not leave such a glorious foundation to have such descendants.  Thus, heaven is empty.
“I have been going this way, enduring persecution for forty years, because I too am greedy to grasp the line of love that leads to the global heaven.

"This was so I could grasp the line of love beyond the individual, family, tribe, people, nation and world. Then, with this in my grasp where will I go?

“After finding the love line of the world, we must go back to our hometown because we have received many blessings and succeeded in life. Shouldn't we go to our hometown and save the unfortunate people there?”


The way to heaven is opened by loving your brothers as God does. You are trying to follow me, but while keeping such a heart you should strive to reach out and bring your brothers with you.

We can conclude that the one who teaches the highest, quickest and best way to go to heaven is neither God nor me, but your brothers.

People of faith scream out about going to heaven, but can people just automatically go to heaven without encountering it first on earth?

In order to enter heaven on earth, you have to go through the law of love.

A family that has many children can restore many sins and the greater the additional cross of loving God’s Kingdom.

A family has many children because they have many responsibilities for the sake of the kingdom.  Children will be born in this family who can inherit good fortune in the generation to come.
What kind of person can enter heaven?

The person who can enter heaven is the one who is one with God’s mind.  They should center on God to the point when God works on His will that person should be in harmony with God’s mind for eternity.

This harmony should not last for just ten years, but eternally align to the eternal God.

How can we find unity with God and be like God?  In order to be His son, you should not appear to be a sad person.  Heaven is established from removing the satanic lifestyle and denying everything that is related to his will and thinking.  Futhermore, we should eliminate him.

To enter heaven, a person must not sin, must receive God's love directly.

A person who can unite completely with God and eliminates Satan, does not need a savior because they will be directly linked to God.

Only when a person such as this goes to heaven can a peaceful world be established.

The future descendants will unite this world and all heaven.  God, the first one, and these descendants are connected by the family.  Not the nation or individual.

When you go to heaven, no one will recognize you because you are an American and you will not be rejected for being from a poor nation. Only the family that can exhibit a true family will be acknowledged. This is the formula.

The warehouse where the fruits of such true families are stored is heaven.

You must practice a life of attendance before attending God.

Those who wholeheartedly attend God while on earth go to heaven.  This is our destiny to follow the course that advances toward the world of heavenly purpose.

You cannot enter heaven without being joined in heart. 

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Heaven is the original nation, the which can have dominion over the whole of humanity.

This nation had the original godly nature, not the fallen nature of today.  

Only people who have a deep bond of heart can posses such a nation.  Christianity deals with heart.  God is creating a foundation where we share our heart beyond our personal circumstances and live for others.

What kind of place is heaven?

Is heaven for those who just want to seek blessings?  No, it is for those who prepared themselves attending God with their whole heart while on earth.  They leave their life of attendance as their legacy and continue to push forward even if they were to die in the process.

It is where you can take pride in what you prepared during your life on earth, and where you take pride in your life of attendance?

We should think seriously about the importance of how we should live from now on in this life of attendance.
Dr. Lee Sang-hun talks about the reality of the spirit world.  He saw heaven and said it is bright wherever you go.

Heaven is where God's light of love shines into all  corners of the universe, and all creation within its bosom. 

If we are liberated from Satan’s hold and let go of all their resentments, we should shout out for liberation!
To enter heaven, you must be united with God and the Messiah of the Second Coming’s true love.

Now that the True Parents have emerged and restored the fallen act of the first parents on earth, those related to children who are born from God’s lineage can go to heaven.

Up until this era, no one has been able to live such a life and go to spirit world.  Therefore, heaven is empty.

Even one who goes to church service for a hundred years, but they have a self-centered mind, they can never enter heaven or salvation.  A person who centers everything on him or herself has no value.

What kind of person is a true person?

Only the one who invests all of themselves including is own life for the sake of other people can live continuously in the realm of God’s love.

The great people of history and saints lived in this way.   This is the way we were all meant to live.


Return for Tomorrow’s Post: People Serve Each Other in Heaven

This post was rewritten and derived from the religious book Cheon Seong Gyeong, Book Six, Chapter two, Section 2.

Why Moral Sexuality is Golden

Sexuality of course is more than just the act of sex.

Sex includes everything that a person possess in mind and body that is male or female.

It is the “aspect of our being that lies behind, produces and is given expression by our physical sexual characteristics and reproductive capacity,” in the words of Christian ethicist Stephen J. Grenz.

He describes that masculinity or femininity is “not operative in one restricted area of life but is rather at the core and center of our total life response,” as the Catholic Church has put it.  In other words, sex is not just a simple act of a few moments of enjoyment.

Because sexuality encompasses a person’s whole being, then any sexual relation with another will include all the dimensions of a whole person, good or bad.

Each of us has a material body, thoughts, feelings, a conscience, connection to higher meaning, family, community and so forth.

This is the same with sexuality.

Sex involves the physical and psychological aspects, social, cultural, interpersonal factors, too and moral dimension and spiritual implications as well.

Sexual union is a person-to-person encounter and the dimension of morals deals with the whole-person realities.  This explains why it is much more than just a private matter between partners.

This traditional view of sex is why, “a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh,” Genesis declares 2.24

The term ‘cleaves’ represents the bonding process of two people in a marriage.  This word determines that there is more than just a oneness of flesh as a result of a sexual union, but a better translation is closer to ‘one person’.



Sexuality Reflects the Dimensions of the Whole Person

Sexuality reflects the heart’s impulses.

Because male has no meaning apart from female, and vice versa, sexuality also means incompleteness.

In a sense, sexual instinct is a counterpart to the spiritual heart impulse.

Ethicist Lewis B. Smedes describes sexuality as the “human impulse towards intimate communion.”

Even though contemporary beliefs lend toward the individual being self sufficient and our defensive reaction isolate themselves from painful encounters, sex impels us towards a close connection with another person.

Not only the sexual urge and act, but even our organs give testimony to the principle of living for another.

In this sense, our genital organs symbolizes the desire of the heart for oneness with the spouse.
 

This is at the core of what Pope John Paul II called the “nuptial meaning of the body,” that is, its capacity for union and communion through selfless giving.

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach observes that sex is “simply the only human activity that physically necessitates another human being.”

The sexual organs are the only body part that cannot fulfill its fullest function without their counterpart in a member of the opposite sex.  Otherwise they are almost useless.

This is true also for the spiritual heart.  It cannot find fulfillment without the beloved either.  Indeed, the heart and the sexual parts are connected.  One moves the other.

There is a mysterious link of reinforcement between the communion of lovers’ hearts and union of their genitals.

A man must yield his body to the woman in order for her to experience the true meaning of her physical sexuality and vice versa.

This primal, inescapable need draws the two sexes to bridge the divide between the two and strengthens and concedes their weakness for one another.

Therefore, the sexual urge gives an innate push of both masculinity and feminity to become one towards a greater love and completeness.


Three Responsibilities of Sexual Love

These inherent responsibilities translate into the most basic and universal of sexual codes: An individual’s sexual expression is reserved solely for his or her spouse.

The first responsibility of those who want to delve into sexual love is to be true to one’s conscience.

The good mind which directs our heart’s desire to find joy through love.  When you are responsible toward your good conscience this represents living by morals, honoring the sacredness of one’s heart and body and the power of sexuality to merge all of these aspects with another‘s.

To be responsible is to respect the gifts of love, life and lineage.

Also, sexuality has the potential to enhance or through its misuse compromise these gifts.

In addition, when you respect the guidance of your conscience, the responsibility to your parents, grandparents, tribe and past ancestors are included.

One aspect is upholding the family honor.

“I’ve gone a little farther than I intended to sometimes,” Cal, 21, admits. “But my fiancée and I have basically held the line at just holding hands. Partly it would be against what I believe in that lovemaking is for marriage.

"But partly I’d be ashamed in front of my parents. My father’s first and only woman was my mother and he was pure and inexperienced when he married my Mom. It was the same with my grandparents. Dad once told me he had been really tempted one time during his marriage, but one reason he didn’t give in was because he did not want to set that kind of example for me. Times are a lot different than they were for my father, but I still feel I want to uphold my family’s principles.”


Conscience Child Sexual Love Spouse

Another aspect is to make sure that one’s sexuality is a force of blessing for the community and nation and not become an opposite force.

Clearly there is a public dimension to the private sexual act. 

Even though we have become a society of people that believe that whatever someone does in their spare time is their own business, private matters can become public problems.

When you think of cases of couples who conceive children who partly become the responsibility of community.

This includes the legal devastation to the families who are torn apart through one of the parents, or spouse having sex outside the marriage.

Raymond J. Lawrence, an ethicist, stated, “what happens in any bedroom is always potentially the business of the whole human family.”

Furthermore, to be responsible to live up to one’s own conscience involves one to achieve full maturity of their heart and character.

This also means for a person of sufficient mind and body unity to be worthy to partake in the privilege of sexual love and to fulfill the other two responsibilities.

If we compromise our chastity in any way, then we must heed the guidance of our conscience, make amends and rededicate our live to God’s original standard.



Responsibility to the Present or Future Spouse


This second responsibility of sexual love recognizes the obligations that come with a lasting marriage.

The potential for conjugal love is destroyed if shared with anyone besides the spouse. 

For a couple to have a lasting marriage, this means they must have a commitment to cherish and care for the other and dedicate their heart and sexual expression only to their partner alone.

Through this commitment, this preserves trust, which is the bedrock of love, by allowing the couple to be faithful to each other.

Single people are not excluded from this responsibility.  They must be mindful of their future husband or wife and practice fidelity before they meet them.

In today’s society of free sex, this does not come naturally and sometimes have to be fought for against the worldly view of sex for recreation.

“I imagine it’s my future wife,” explains a high school student about an empty picture frame near his bed. “I’ve had it there since I was 13, and I sometimes write letters to her when I get lonely. When my friends tell stories of fooling around with their girlfriends and I start to feel left out, I think about my future wife and how I want to save the excitement for her.”


Responsibility to Existing or Potential Children



When a couple enters into a sexual union, the commitment to any fruits this love may bare implies the third responsibility.

The parents have the responsibility to lovingly nurture this new being’s material and spiritual needs whom they chosen to create.

When parents are neglectful or abusive to their children, they do them and society a grave disservice.

A loving marriage is the most secure foundation for the nurturing of a child. 

Children need the attention of both their parents.

All children naturally long for their parents to love each other and be together.  This is not only for their physical or emotional needs, but to affirm their identity and value as an individual.

Marriage is an anchor for their lineage as children want to know that they are born of enduring love.

Such parents pass on a sound legacy and a healthy tradition for their descendants to inherit, imitate and build upon.

“As a father of four,” says author Daniel Gray, “I am reaping the dividends [of
investments made] years earlier when I heard and put into practice the message of abstinence before marriage,” a key dividend being his
moral authority in guiding his children.

All children deserve to be proud of the quality of love that conceived and raised them.

These three responsibilities of sexual love encompass the deep dimensions of sexuality: The first to conscience, the second to love and the third to life and lineage.

To fulfill these three responsibilities, one must practice commitment and lifelong monogamy and purity before marriage.

This is reflected in the words of one young adult, a male virgin, who gave these common sense conditions for beginning a sexual relationship: “a willingness to spend a lifetime with my partner and/or the children we create.”

This standard allows the power of love to bind individuals, families and ultimately a society together in strength and safeguard their futures.


Return for Tomorrow’s Post: The Five Myths About Sex


This post was rewritten and derived from the religious textbook, “Educating for True Love” written by a team of writers explaining the philosophy of Reverend Sun Myung Moon on Love and Marriage.

Most Successful Marriages Center on God

Marriage is a major and indispensable step toward knowing God. 

Marriage is holy because it partakes and mirrors God’s true nature and the creative process.

Marriage is an ordained blessing and an eternal covenant with God.  Therefore, it should be treated as a sacred institution.  Marriage should be undertaken with seriousness, binding vows and promises.

Divorce, infidelity, sex without the commitment of marriage are frowned upon and profanes the sacred grounds of holy marriage.

Marriage propels people into a whole new realm of spiritual/physical being—the spouse’s realm of heart. 

In the realm of heart within marriage, a couple can transcend toward resembling the heart of God and love more than in any other relationship before.

To try to live in the spouse’s realm of heart without God’s blessing and laws is risky and the relationship will be fraught with difficulties.

Such relationships of love without God bring incredible pain upon each other in the relationship.  This is evidenced by the high divorce rate in developed countries.

Marriages do best centered upon God, connected to the very Source of love. 

Without the foundation of God, these relationships erode easily.

God’s love empowers couples with His true love which men and women need to get through all the difficulties of life together.

If women and men do not tap into this Source of love, they come up short to give and forgive, serve and stay steadfast and faithful to one another throughout the years.

Loving as God Loves

Marriage calls a couple to love just as God loves His children and mature the growth of our heart.

Traditional marriage vows echo the unconditional aspirations of marital love:


“To have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part.”


A couple who can love the other day in and day out when conditions are good or bad, and in all aspects of the other’s being, this love resembles the unconditional love of God.

Psychologist Lori Gordon describes conjugal love as “to feel that you can trust another person with your whole being, your laughter, your tears, your rage, your joy . . . . Its essence lies in total certainty that your partner is . . . open to you in body, heart and mind—and knowing that you are accepted and loved for what you really are, and knowing that you don’t have to pretend.”

Loving a spouse in good times and bad stretches a person’s character and capacity to love. 

One husband in a long-term marriage puts it:


“You’ve seen each other in every possible light, the very ugliest and worst and the most evil as well as the most divine and compassionate.”
We can say that marriage is a metaphor for God’s relationship to humanity.

Marriage means to “be open to the call of another without qualification.” It calls for love that is ”the steady gaze on another that does not withdraw simply because they fail to please . . . .”

This mimics the heart of God toward saving humankind.

God likens His relations with His people to the marriage of Hosea.

St. Paul said that Christ relates to the church as a husband to his wife.  The history of salvation in Christianity is to be a marriage - the Marriage of the Lamb.

Loving as God loves is crucial in the close quarters of marriage.

Marriage unleashes strong emotional and psychological forces.

Because such high emotions are experienced in marriage, the spouse may seem like one’s worst enemy.

One’s deepest needs may feel left unfulfilled by the very one whom he or she had high hopes.  Therefore, each should forgive one another 70 times 7 and be faithful when it seems impossible to go on.

When a couple going through difficulty can act lovingly when love is nowhere to be found, be kind and merciful to evoke kindness and mercy - all of these traits school a person in the qualities of divine love.

This is an example of how God love us vulnerable, flawed human beings.

God is always seeking to restore us with His love and set our feet on solid ground.  He continues to encourage us forward toward the realization that we have full potential as His children.


True Love Is Built, Not Born

This love is a far cry from the romantic love experienced in the Western world.

Western society sees love as a force that is out of one’s control and outside of oneself.  They see it as a mysterious, grand and is illogical.  It is seen as an overpowering visitation upon two people by forces outside of themselves.


Marriage Encompasses All Family Relationships


Other cultures maintain that love is not born, but built and depends on the sacrifice, commitment and faithfulness of the couple involved.

Marital love, in these views, has a strong moral component.

It is believed that if a husband and wife maintain their moral and religious beliefs that they will naturally grow together in love.

The Jewish and Hindu faiths are strong on this point.

They advocate that love is built in an arranged marriage through the husband and wife’s virtues.

Modern marital therapists such as Stephen Wolin recommend that society take a second look at arranged marriages.  Wolin believes that the process of building love into a marriage is needed in order to improve people’s chances at marital satisfaction.

His research shows that in resilient marriages, a strong spiritual element is always presence in successful marriages.

Sometimes, a couple may play the role of the following to his or her spouse at any given time:

Wife
Mother
Elder Sister
Younger Sister
Daughter
Husband
Father
Elder Brother
Younger Brother
Son


The Bible describes the perfect wife in Proverbs as a woman of virtue.

Such a perfect wife is trustworthy, benevolent, diligent, prudent and charitable.  She will be kind, well spoken and is beloved by both her children and husband.

A husband’s good stature is due to his wife’s good offices.  She becomes the reward and treasure of her man.

It is the fear of the Lord that keeps good marriages intact in fear that they will stray from His paths.

Buddhist scriptures also describe the good wife of virtue as her husbands “mother, a sister, a companion and a servant” (Anguttara Nikayaiv.91)

The Hindu author Ved Mehta points out, it is also the husband’s duty to earn his wife’s respect through his sacrifice and good character.

Virtues of character attract God and His love to a marriage.

“A noble man and woman are necessary for the sake of making a noble couple. We need a noble couple in order to achieve God’s noble love.”

Reverend Sun Myung Moon




Psychological research backs up the view that having virtue or good character is the bedrock of happy marriages.

A marital expert, Judith Wallerstein, agrees about virtue in happy marriages:

“For everyone, happiness in marriage meant feeling respected and cherished . . . Based on integrity. A partner was admired and loved for his or her honesty, compassion, generosity of spirit, decency, loyalty to the family, and fairness . . . . The value these couples place on the partner’s moral qualities . . . helps explain why many divorcing people speak so vehemently of losing respect for their former partners.”


Another highly respected marital theorist and therapist, Blaine Fowers, has said, “As I
have observed many different couples, I have become convinced that strong marriages are built on the virtues or character strengths of the spouses. In other words, the best way to have a good marriage is to be a good person.”

People who have failed in marriage were asked on a relationship website what they would have done to make their marriage better.  People named improved traits of character:

“I would not have been unfaithful,” said one. “I would be more patient, loving and forgiving,” said another. Yet another said,  “I would make more effort to be affectionate, supportive, loving, cheerful, and a better friend.”

Godly persons make good marriages

Ephesians shows that the love in a Christian marriage is described in terms of virtue of character is likened to the love of Christ for the church (5.25)

This love is a giving love, it is sacrificial that resembles the love of Jesus.

Author Michael G. Lawler characterizes Christian marital love: “It is a love that seeks to give way to the other whenever possible.”

Lawler continues to say that in Christian marriages, both are bound as servants to one another just as Christ served the people.

He says, “Marital love exists only inchoately on the wedding day . . . marital love, as mutual giving way, as mutual service, as mutual fidelity . . . is not a given in a Christian marriage but a task to be undertaken.”

Because traditional Christian values leads to successful marriages, theologian Stanley Hauerwas warns that Christians must not yield to the popular cultural non-moralistic notion that emotions and feelings are the measure of a marriage.

“What the church cares about,” he says, is not love per se, but “whether you are a person capable of sustaining the kind of fidelity that makes love, even in marriage, a possibility.”

Hauerwas underlines that the early church did not have an illusion about ‘love’ creating or legitimizing marriages.

They assumed that those entering marriage would develop the character strengths or virtues necessary for a loving marriage through following the traditions of the church faithfully.

Hauerwas notes the ongoing nature of virtue development: “I do not pretend that any of us ever have a character sufficient for marriage when we enter a marriage, but I am contending that at least some beginning has to have been made if we are to have the ability to grow into the kind of person capable of being called to undertake . . . the vocation of marriage.”

Psychologist Erik Erikson agrees with this religious view defining marital intimacy as, “ “the capacity to commit oneself to . . . partnership and to develop the ethical strength to abide by such commitments even though they may call for significant sacrifices and compromises.”

The Mormon faith and the Unificiation Church both recommend members to have a mission service prior to engagement or marriage.

There are three reasons: by serving others, sacrificing selfish means for other’s sakes, giving up entertainment and comforts and dedicate to the commandment to love God

Through this time period, the youth develop such a strong good character or virtues that will stand them in good stead when they embark into marriage which is spiritually demanding.

Theravada Buddhists in Thailand require a six month period of monastic life prior to marriage as well. This time for missions and service helps the young people make a good start at developing good virtues that are necessary to succeed in married life.


Return for Tomorrow's Post: Qualities of True Love in Marriage

This post was rewritten and derived from the religious textbook, "Educating for True Love" written by a team of writers to explain Reverend Sun Myung Moon's philosophy on love and marriage.

A Loving Family Expands to Loving World

The ideal family alone can serve as the building block of the Kingdom of God.

—Sun Myung Moon

What if every human was raised in a godly, ideal home? 

Where brothers and sisters respected each other, mother and father were devoted to another and were the examples of true love? Abuse, fighting and separation did not exist?

We can easily see that this would mature into the Kingdom of Heaven. Such people raised in a family would understand how to love others in the world based on the teachings of exemplary love within their own family.

When they encountered younger people their sisters and brother's age they would treat them just the same. When they encountered the elderly who are their grandparents' age, they would treat them just like their own flesh and blood.

The family is the primary means through which most people learn about love.

Unfortunately, this is also how evil entered the world.

Through the first family of Adam and Eve, thousands of generations later followed in their footsteps. What if Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel were to have followed in God's ways? 

What kind of society would we be born into in this day and age?

In order to cultivate true love over a lifetime, we need to establish loving relationships and family. The family packs a double punch in a life of love more than any other relationship.

The way one was raised in their family trains him or her in love as a child and sibling. This leads them to their own personal growth and maturity. 

Then, each individual based on their upbringing, takes what they learn to cultivate love in a new family with a spouse and children.

All of these experiences come full circle to educate a person in true love.

Many religions and moral traditions equate a loving relationship in the family as a template for a person's relationship with God.

In the Talmud, for instance, it is written, “When a man honors his father and mother, God says, ‘I regard it as though I had dwelt among them and they had honored me” Kiddushin, 30b

Jesus was the first to encourage his followers to think and relate with God as their father.

Confucius said, “Surely proper behavior toward parents and elder brothers is the trunk of goodness,” Analects 1.2 and “Filial piety is the root of all virtue” Classic of Filial Piety

Hinduism, Shinto, Buddhism, Islam and the traditional Native American and African faiths also echoes this sentiment.

Family life may be seen as a vocation for growing closer to God and allowing Him/Her to manifest and dwell in true love.

A Buddhist master stated that the family is demanding of members responsibilities as any monastery.

From this viewpoint, the family can be a vehicle of holiness and an instrument of salvation.

People within a community of faith refer to one another as 'brothers and sisters' or 'brethren.' Priests lead the members of the Catholic Church and they call him 'Father', and the title of the head of the Catholic Church is the “Holy Father.” 

Such communities are led by nuns who are called 'Sister' and sometimes 'Mother'.

The importance of the family in raising good human beings is corroborated by the findings of social scientists.

Family enhances human and moral development in numerous and positive ways.

Social scientists and policymakers uphold the family as the crucial factor in the physical as well as the mental, emotional, and moral well-being of the children. Therefore, the family is the backbone of social order.

Unfortunately, the status of the family in society in our times have come into question.

Even though times have changed, the fundamental patterns of father, mother and children are still in place showing that the members of the family has basic need for its structure.

Couples live together and raise their children even if they are from previous relationships. Even though there are are the non traditional relationships of same-sex couples, there is still a masculine and feminine role in each relationship. 

Many still want to have their union recognized through a traditional marriage and even adopt children.

Those who do not have a family form surrogate and substitute families. Gangs are joined by youngsters in order to get the same strength and protection they get from the feeling of a family from their 'home boys'.

A convicted criminal leader of the L.A. Crips notorious gang had said in an interview that he turned toward the streets because he did not have a proper family upbringing. 

The same with homeless children, or teenagers of the street, they also form 'families' and band together.

Still, none of these substitutes for the missing qualities in their own homes can fulfill the same benefits as a basic family structure of a father, mother with their biological children.

As far back as our knowledge takes us, anthropologist Margaret Mead affirmed about the centrality of the traditional family, human beings have always lived in families. There is no period where this was not so.

Even though modern society has made proposals for change and there have been actual experiments to dissolve the family or displace the traditional roles, human society still reaffirms their dependence on the family as the basic unit of human living. This is a family with a father, mother and children.

Return for Tomorrow's Post:

This post was rewritten and derived from the religious textbook “Educating for True Love” written by a team of writers to explain the philosophy of Reverend Sun Myung Moon.

How to Strengthen the Power of the Mind

When the sinful body is led by the godly mind, true love comes into being.

The essence of strengthening the mind is to toughen your moral will. What if everyone in the world lived by God's moral code. We would immediately see peace in the world. All conflicts would be resolved through God's point of view.

We must start with the basics. To strengthen the mind, it must be built up daily like a muscle through daily habits.

Through the small choices to do the right thing everyday, despite any fear, distress or fatigue, we can make our godly mind stronger than our flesh. Therefore, to strengthen this mind, we need challenges which allows us to encounter adversity and develop inner strength and will.

Here are five ways to harvest these skills:

1. Determining and realizing your goals

The most basic way to strengthen your will is to make a determination to God and yourself and achieve your goals.

For example, this could be talking to a relative that you know is distressed over a situation instead of enjoying a book. Or choosing a career that serves humanity such as social work.

To challenge yourself more, you can set goals that rely only on your spiritual power, deep prayers, studying the truth, and your acts of true love.

“Twelve years ago when I first came to Mountainview High,” recalls a physics teacher in a rural school

in the American Midwest, “I swore that I would bring the white and Native American students and faculty together in a tangible way. I prayed about it every day, stuck my neck out more than a few times, got misunderstood a lot and once almost lost my job. But now in the faculty there are cross-cultural friendships developing and this year the president of the student council is a Native American boy.”

To make promises to God and fulfill them is significant to reverse humanity's betrayal of the Creator.

This is the most powerful way to get divine support, also through building your self-respect and faith in yourself.

Heaven and other people notice the one who can always be counted on to fulfill their promises and carry out their responsibilities.

2. True Love as a Motivator

To have motivation will give you the power to go beyond any discomfort when it depends upon meaningful purposes that make the sacrifices you encounter worthwhile.

The strongest motivator is true love.

Love is the key to unification of mind and body.

Reverend Sun Myung Moon

This kind of love is familiar to parents.

A father son team was the first team ever to finish the Ironman Triathlon World Championship in 1999. Dick Hoyt, was 62 and still raced every Boston Marathon for over 20 years while pushing his paralyzed adult son, Rick in his wheelchair.

His son excitedly declared that, “It was as if I wasn't even handicapped!” This was enough motivation for his father to challenge his every physical limitation and give his son such an awesome experience year after year.

The power of love is behind the heroic sacrifices of religious and national lore.

Many of the first Pilgrim settlers to North America starved to death instead of eating their grain that was later to be planted. They endured such hardships out of love for the next generation and the hope to build a community that could worship freely unlike their previous community.

Christians recount how St. Peter faced a painful execution upside-down on the cross gratefully out of love for God and his Savior Jesus Christ.

Whether if such acts are done on legendary proportions or just a small act of unselfishness found daily, true love is the strongest means to subdue your fallen body.

3. Acting on Faith

We can mobilize a tremendous power of self-control when we can sustain a great vision of the future despite any obstacles we face right now.

Debi Faris is a woman who is familiar with heeding the call of her heart and conscience in faith. As a wife and mother of three teenagers, she heard this call when she heard news of an abandoned baby found dead. She arranged to give the child a proper burial, and soon, one child led to three.

Her middle-class family committed to ultimately $27, 000 in expenses despite other pressing expenses her family had. She recalls, “I remember praying, “i don't think I can do this, God. I don't think I have the courage.

“I stayed quiet for a while until I sensed that what we were doing was right. It was an act of love, and at that moment I made a commitment to offer it to any child who needed it.”

She has since raised funds and organized volunteers to found a cemetery for abandoned babies called, “Garden of Angels. She fights for legislation to help prevent further tragedies.

Such people who believe in their own gifts or that truth and goodness will ultimately win, those who cultivate the power of faith and hope and demonstrate “sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not curently see” (Hebrew 11.1) have a priceless advantage that enables them to harvest their strongest resources to unite mind and body.

4. Service

Serving others physically such as massaging an elderly person's back, preparing food for homeless shelters, picking up bags of trash for the community, these practices are especially helpful for training our moral will through demonstrating humility.

A man and his comrades of a service club recalls how they were ready to do whatever work was necessary for his community without any fanfare.

“The staff at the rehab center were surprised to see middle-aged men willing to just set up the party, serve the boys soda and food and take down and mop up afterwards. And it didn’t do this CEO big shot any harm either to do grunt work for a bunch of not-too-grateful teenagers. I think I learned a few things.”

5. Connection with God

Ultimately all of these methods used to strengthen the moral fiber support the greatest remedy for the mind and sinful body to unite: only through the connection to the divine Source.

The first necessary step is to center your mind on God.

Then your body will automatically become one with your mind.

Through prayer, worship, study of God's words, supporting the spiritual community, acting on faith, fulfilling goals, being humble and offering service, all of these time-honored ways accesses the Heavenly Parent and tremendous resources of strength.

“Live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature,” promises St.

Paul (Galatians 5.16).

The stronger the bond with God, the more readily your mind can conquer the fallen body.

Corrie Ten Boom was a watchmaker who was sent to Hitler's concentration camp because he rescued many Jews. After the war, he gave lectures about God's love and forgiveness and healing of wonds caused by the war. After one of her lectures, a former S.S. guard of her concentration camp waited at the back of the room

She instantly flashed back to the time she and her sister were forced to walk naked in front of the male guards on the way to the showers. They were ill, cold, hungry, elderly and in deep pain. They were also mocked sexually by the guards.

She remembered at that moment, her sister's pained face as she had to bear the humiliation in front of the very guard who attended her lecture.

Unfortunately, her sister died at the concentration camp. This former guard now came up to Corrie and acknowledged God's forgiveness of his past and he now asked for hers. He held out his hands to her.

She remembers, “I tried to smile. I struggled to raise my hand. I could not. I felt nothing. Not the slightest spark of warmth or charity.”

Yet her strong religious beliefs told her she must forgive him. She breathed a silent prayer to give her the strength to do the right thing. She resolutely took his hand in to her own matching her deds to her highest ideals and loftiest words.

Then, “As I took his hand the most incredible thing happened. From my shoulder along my arm and through my hand a current seemed to pass from me to him, while into my heart sprang a love for this stranger that almost overwhelmed me.”

She then cried out to this soldier that he was her brother and assured him her forgiveness. Through her willingness to act upon the beliefs she always lectured upon, she unleashed a flow of true love which liberated both persecutor and persecuted.

To love another at the most difficult time requires the capability of the mind to assert itself over the demands of the satanic body.

Such efforts reduce the unnecessary pull of the flesh and at the same time enhances our moral and spiritual strength. Thus, the mind and body can unite centered on God's ideals.

Then, the heart is also liberated to give of itself freely and unselfishly, and reap the rich rewards therof.

Such a world of experiences would be the Kingdom of Heaven on earth.



Return for Tomorrow's Post: Seven Principles for Loving Relationships



This post was rewritten and derived from the Religious Textbook Educating for True Love, written by a team of writers to explain Reverend Sun Myung Moon's philosophy.

Children Represent Their Parents' Love

Children are the incarnation of their parents' love.

Reverend Sun Myung Moon



Children are the substantial evidence of their parents' union of love.

A baby seems to have the reflection of God.  The more you see one's baby, the more mysterious the baby seems.  Mysterious.  This is love.

Parents miss their parents because parents are the home of love.  Parents miss their children because they are the home of perfect love.

All of creation of things, we see in the plant and animal world are composed of relative relationships.  They are made of both male and female elements that look different.

There are male and female aspects in all trees, and in each and every flower.
The relative relationship of male and female exists in the world of mammals, birds, animals and in human beings.

Why does such a relative relationship exist?

This is so they can receive and give true love.  We need a partner because in order for harmony, principles, give-and-take action etc and all of creation to survive and exist, a relative relationship should take place.  No one throughout history has thought of this simple fact.
A seed needs to exist, especially a good seed.

We can say that one needs a good seed and a good fiancée. 

How do you leave behind a good seed?

If you ask any man, they will say, “I want to be a good fiancee.”  This is because they want to leave a better seed.  The conclusion is that one needs a good partner.

Do you agree? You probably never thought of that fact until now.

After looking from this point-of-view, what was God's ultimate purpose for creating Adam and Eve?  Would you answer, “To make them love each other and make them a couple,” or is your answer, “In order to leave a good seed.”

Why do you love someone or something?  It is for happiness.

Children are the result of love.

Children are the resultant beings to continue to exist.

Why do you think you need a fiancee?  You may be right if you think it is because of love, but what is a higher level than this?

It is children.  Parents cannot help but love their children because they are the result of their love for their fiancee.

People on the whole most likely want something that is connected to them to be the best.  They want their family, nation and world to be the best one.

What is the proper way of thinking?  It is the way of thinking in the other person's shoes.

When we think from this point-of-view, what is the best in a family?

The best in the family is not the most money, knowledge or power, but the parents.

Next, is your lovely husband and wife, and finally your children.

The reason why parents, husband and wife, and children are good is because love is involved in each part.

Parental love is essential to children, the complete oneness of love between husband and wife is essential as brotherly love and children's filial heart toward their parents.

You feel a different extent of feeling according to the depth of the relationship.  IT is only natural that some brethren feel more intimate and love based on the historical close relationship that binds them.

Mothers and fathers love their children dearly because the children originate from them.

Therefore, if their parent's character was taken out of their children, there would be nothing left of their own characters left.




Without his or her parents' characters, a child will become a being who has neither
nature nor relationships.






We are born to testify to love.

If you were born to just shop or eat, how sad that existence is.  If you were just born to study in school, what a headache that would be.

However, if you say, “I was born to love,” you will surely move everybody.
Repeatedly, the question is asked, why were you born.

Love is the motive for your birth. 

You were born by the motive of love as the result of love.

Man and woman are to be born and to be loved by his mother and father.  Even birds or animals love their young because they were born as testifiers to love.

All of them originated from love.

To deny your own cause and effect is the same as denying heaven and earth.

Man is namely destined to follow the way of love so that man can't help but loving his own sons and daughters. This is why parents live for the sake of the other.

Children are happy if they live, filled with their parents' love.  It is a good thing when your mother and father live, being in ecstasy of love.

Western children say they do not need their parents.  This means that they have lost their family which is the main foundation and nest of love.

Parents love their children at the sacrifice of their own life.  This is because children show up in the family on behalf of heaven and earth.  This is why God wishes to go to live in the family together with His sons and daughters.

Moral principles teach people to love their parents, husband and wife and their children, but why?
After man went in the wrong direction with the first parents' mistake, we lost the Master who is in charge of love.

When God speaks of love, He is speaking of endless true love.  He says that love will remain forever.  This love is God's love.

You should know the purpose why you miss someone or love someone is not because of yourself, but because of God.

Look at the one who loves other people based on himself alone.  Then see where he goes after he dies.

Return for Tomorrow's Post: What is the True Way of Life?

This speech is rewritten and derived from “Raising Children in God's Will”

Do Not Treat People Lightly

We have reached a point in society where relationships have gone from neighbors being like family to having relationships with people only on an external bases.

You and I should not treat people lightly.


That is why until 1970, whenever someone who was hungry passed by the headquarters, I let them have a meal before they went on their way. It is our duty as human beings to give food to the hungry. Even when you are getting a meal for free, it would be right to share it with others.


If there was someone who had a bountiful supply of rice and struck a hungry person who was passing by and asked for something to eat, that household would not last long.

There were times when I saw a person who was so pitiable that I wanted to help by offering him everything I had. If you are generous with wanting to give and to help someone, God will praise you. It is good to be generous for the greater good rather than your own well-being, and for improving people's lives in the future, even though life is miserable at present.



Giving a lot of free food should not be the only thing you give.

You should also invest public-mindedness at the same time.

This kind of thinking will bring blessings. Who can dislike a person who gives free food and displays a public mind at the same time which can embrace everyone?

You should not ignore people.

Just like a worm that wiggles if you squeeze it, a person who dies with resentment and bitter feelings toward another, the person who is the cause of that resentment will not last long.

When you deal with people, you must do it in a satisfactory way. During this course of restoration, this path is not mandatory. It has to be exciting.

You must stay up all night without realizing how late it is while living in this way. This way you will discover the value of heaven only when you get to the point where you can say, "The place where I am right now is heaven on earth." Isn't this true? Even with trees, unless they are completely bonded, they don't engraft.

I try to warmly treat those who come, even if we were to starve. If they have reached a certain level of spirituality, say to the degree of one hundred, we will be struck and judged if we treat them any less. In those situations, you should treat such people two, three, five, even ten times greater than their level. You will not go to ruin by doing so.


God will be deeply impressed by a person who is able to live this way by saying, "This fellow is better than heaven!"

A dog chooses the best of houses to relieve himself. The owner will lose his blessing if he chases the dog away.

I am not saying we should not fight or argue. If both sides are going to benefit, then we should fight. We should not fight it one side would perish. We fight to educate and bring them to our side, not to make enemies.

Give with a parental heart, do not give centering on your own ambitions and wishes.

Since True Father has been doing this way, you must follow and do likewise. When you show love to people, do not be stingy.

Do not remember all that you have invested. Give even more. When you have something good to eat, you should wish to give it to someone even if you cannot eat it yourself.

A leader that hides out and eats alone is a leader who is going to decline immediately. Think about the members because you cannot eat it alone.

You should become this type of person.

Become leaders who nurture this type of parental heart. You should give to others, you should have no hesitation in giving out even half of your food.

If you give leftovers, people will feel disgusted and spit it out. If you are hesitant or picky in your giving, then people will judge you even after they are indebted to you.

Therefore, you should give together with God and with a parental heart.

Social relationships

Today, people live externally so much that we do not pay attention to each other enough. Regardless of age or sex, people are saying that dealing with people is annoying. If you view people as a nuisance, then you can never walk this heavenly path.

I believe that the life of religious people should be one where they become united with God, stand as the representatives of God's love before creation and this world, and expand and connect the horizontal relationships to the whole environment, based on a standard of love.


This original standard of love should be connected and established in your lives.

To do this, establish your relationships with other people with the heart of God.

You can view how people meet the same as all the balls colliding on the pool table. Isn't it similar to that?

Don't you feel drawn to people but then you are pushed away from them again. When you kick a soccer ball, don't you feel good if it goes up and down and changes direction in every way? This is the same in human relationships.

Our level of investment of how we use our five senses in love and life determine our value.

We ask ourselves when we look upon our life whether we have led a social life with great vitality and a heart of deepest love toward everyone we encounter. You should know that if you do not stand in this position, you are in a state of suspension or ready to retreat.

For God's providence to restore the world back to the original ideal, God needs more than Korea, but he needs all of the people of the world. Because of this, God is deeply concerned about people. This has been his goal throughout His providence.

As a group of people, we have gathered together for this task. We must stand in the position as God and have the same degree of concern and heart toward people as He has.

You should not be greedy when relating to others.

As people who strive for goodness and walk in the right direction, we shouldn't think that other people caught in the realm of evil has nothing to do with us.

We should have the determination to sacrifice for their sins, suffer for them pray for them throughout the night with tears.

Such a person who views his fallen brothers and sisters in this way will surely become their central figure.

A good person knows how to love children, young people and the elderly. If humans are in the position of stewards in relation to nature, people should love spring, summer, autumn and winter.

You should love and respect the elderly more than you do the young people. It is important to meet the youth, but you should show love especially to the elderly and have sympathy for those who cannot work and are weak and need care. We do not see this trend in society today.



When I look at youth today, I see that they avoid dealing with the elderly, but they should not do so. They should love the elderly and also the young. We should love people. We have to love people, and our yearning for them should be greater than that of anyone else's. We are gathered together centering on God's will rather than human will. Therefore, we will surely remain as the fruit of love throughout the entire world.


When you gaze at the forest of trees that cover a hill side, it is hard to distinguish a pine tree from another type of tree. However, when winter, and autumn come around, this is revealed.

When you see a green tree on the hillside during the winter, it brings hope within you.

This is symbolic of the new relationship that is established.

The first commandment is to love the Lord your God with all of your heart, mind and soul. The second commandment is to love your neighbor as you do yourself.

Your neighbor does not specifically refer to the people that live in your neighborhood, but neighbor means all the brothers and sisters of humankind.

Arrogance is your enemy.

Arrogance and stubbornness are characteristics of Satan.

Instead of being arrogant and stubborn it is best to be modest and harmonious. Today's television and reality shows promote the lifestyle of the satanic behaviors and glorifies them to be the standard to which we swhould strive.

You should be a person who creates harmony and friendship and harmonizes with everyone.

Everything begins to flow from there. Something great cannot arise if people or things do not unite.

This is what happens when there is no harmony.

Jealousy and envy are the other natures of Satan. But for us, arrogance and stubbornness are not traits that are forgiven by people.

Return for Tomorrow's Post: What Makes One a Messiah? This post was rewritten and derived from the textbook, Cheon Seong Gyeong, Book Seven Section 10 and Book Ten, Chapter one, section 3