Former Church Headquarters
Seoul, Korea
Matthew 6:16-34
Prayer
Please allow us to experience through our minds and hearts the fact that the Father's sorrow for all humankind and the earth still remains, even in this hour. Please allow Your children who are gathered here to realize that the scars of the Father's sorrow have remained in our minds and bodies since God's eviction of the fallen Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden.
The cherished hope of our mind is the ideal garden of the eternal Father. Our bodies long to see the day when we can be proud of ourselves before the Father, victorious in the battles against Satan. Please allow our minds to be honored with Your glory and our bodies to resemble Your image. Let our minds and bodies become the objects of the Father's joy and appear in glory. Beloved Father, I sincerely wish and desire this to be done.
We are to be equipped with the hyung sang of such victorious sons and daughters. Therefore, please guide the sons and daughters who are gathered here and lay prostrate before You to reveal everything before the glory of the Father. Let them reveal themselves before the Sung Sang of the Father. With a sense of awe and reverence, let them be able to reflect upon their inadequacies in the past and let them repent in this hour.
Father, if our hearts truly desire to revere the Father's love and resemble the Father's character, then today the Father's sorrow should be our own. The Father's brokenhearted attitude should be our own. Therefore, beloved Father, please unfold the works to make us become such people.
Father of love! Are there any sons or daughters among us who still do not repent, though they know their minds and bodies are following a path of death and darkness? Father, please reveal Your power. Father, please reveal Your strength. Father, please manifest a work of resurrection, a work of re-creation. By doing so, allow our minds and bodies to run to the bosom of Your infinite love. Beloved Father, I sincerely wish and desire this to be done.
Are there any who have lived away from Your bosom during the past week? Please let them be willing to repent on their own. Is there anyone among us who happens to be against Your will, harboring a wrongful heart? Please guide them to repent before You and rest in Your grace of compassion and love. Beloved Father, I sincerely wish and desire this to be done.
Father, please let us understand that, as time goes by, the days of the last battle are approaching before our eyes. Guide us not to be discouraged on the battleground. Until the time when the final victory is brought, let us be heavenly soldiers who are willing to fight over and over again. Beloved Father, I sincerely wish and desire this to be done.
Even now billions of satans are trying to invade us. Please allow no one among us to betray and desert Your grace of love. Do not let even one life be taken away to the bosom of Satan. Beloved Father, I sincerely wish and desire this to be done.
Father of love, during the past week, we led a life which was so far away from You. Please allow us to be embraced in Your bosom at least during this one hour. Let us become sons and daughters who would not leave on their own, without Your permission. At this hour we know that many of Your lonely children, fatigued from the battles against Satan, are appealing to You. Wherever they are, please be with them with the same grace You give to us. Raise them into the same position of glory.
Father who has been saddened by us, fighting with us, suffering pain because of us until today! We understand that we are left with a new battle to fight, seeking a day of Your hope. Father, please work through us to win that battle by pouring into us limitless strength. Help us to not be inadequate before You.
Father of love, are there any who cannot march forward for the sake of Your will due to personal problems? Please allow us not to have such people with us. Instead, on this day, help us manifest Your glory through our deeds. Let us experience Your heart and resemble Your image. Beloved Father, I sincerely wish and desire this to be done.
I understand that in this hour there will be many altars gathering on behalf of the thirty million people of this nation. Beloved Father, please allow them to attain the foretold will of promise everywhere they gather. By pouring out the sacred spirit over them like water, please unfold the works to enable them to become precious altars who can beat off billions of satans and reveal the glory of the Father.
By doing so, please allow this people to be embraced in Your love. Furthermore, through this people of Korea, allow the countless human beings on earth to be able to receive a day of Your glory. Father, I also sincerely wish and desire that we may build one world rather than two, harmonizing the millions of faithful believers in Heaven with humanity. Through this, You will unfold the miracles to allow a new garden of restoration where humanity praises Your glory and lives experiencing Your love. May this be realized on earth as quickly as possible.
We who lay prostrate here are sons and daughters who stepped forward after sacrificing everything to accomplish the will. Therefore, Father, please allow us not to stop the pace toward the attainment of the will. Please be with us so that we can make our way through any tribulations and difficulties that may come our way.
We know that there are many sons and daughters making appeals to the Father in solitude in this hour and that they are faced with trials and hardship. Father of love, wherever they are, please work through them with indiscriminate grace and embrace them with the same love.
I earnestly pray that the Father will help us to not fall down exhausted in battle until the day of victory, the day when, God willing, we achieve a nation for the Father. Since I entrust the remaining hour to the Father, please have dominion over it entirely. I pray all this in the name of the Lord. Amen.
Today I would like to reflect with you on the topic "Let Us Restore God's Kingdom and His Righteousness."
The Words of Jesus, Who Came to Realize Human Hope
Today the many people living on the earth cannot find the Kingdom of God and His righteousness which God foretold. Consequently, finding the kingdom of God and His righteousness is the hope of all humankind today. It has been the hope of humankind in the past, too, throughout the thousands of years of history. You should understand this.
Why has the hope for God's kingdom and His righteousness remained as our ultimate goal? It is due to the human fall. Due to the fall, God and man, who should have been the center of God's kingdom and His righteousness, came into a state where they could not relate to one another. That is, people came to a state where they did not know about God, the center of His original kingdom and His righteousness. God has been toiling throughout history to educate such ignorant people and, indeed, all of humankind, so they could learn who is their Father. That is the reason finding and restoring God's kingdom and His righteousness remains our hope and goal. Similarly, if the Father exists, who desires to find and restore His kingdom and righteousness on earth, you must comprehend that the will of the Father still remains on earth.
To find and restore God's kingdom and His righteousness, what should you then do? You should first find the Father, who has been working hard throughout history to have a relationship with people and establish His kingdom and His righteousness. If you cannot first find the Father, you cannot find His kingdom and establish His righteousness. Consequently, anyone and everyone living in this world should find the Father, the star of the kingdom, no matter what he or she may have to go through. However, if humans cannot find that Father, the glory of that Father cannot be revealed on this earth. The kingdom and the righteousness of God, for which people long, also cannot be found and built.
Before Jesus' coming, no one appeared who could claim before Heaven and earth, "I am the master of the kingdom." In other words, before Jesus came, no one stepped forward proclaiming confidently that he could represent the righteousness of God's kingdom, that he was following God's righteousness, and that he was the substantial incarnation of that righteousness.
One person, after being born from the hope of Heaven and the lineage of righteousness, proclaimed before hopeless and desolate Heaven and earth: "I am the representative of the Father of the kingdom. I am the substantial incarnation of the righteousness of that kingdom." This was the gospel of gospels, the most joyous of joyful news for humankind on this earth.
Who was that man then who stepped forth making such a proclamation? That very man was the one who was distrusted by the religious leaders. He was the man who was ostracized by the prevailing denomination and evicted from the nation. This was the very same Jesus Christ in whom you believe today. You should clearly understand this.
What did Jesus say when he appeared on this earth? He overturned the history of 4,000 years and asserted, "I am one with God; I am the son of God." He also said, "You will come to know God by believing in me. Only by believing in me will you establish the kingdom." He also stated, "I am the way, the truth and the life." Similarly, Jesus strongly asserted that to attain the comprehensive goal of Heaven, man should believe in him and that man could not help but go through him.
Jesus emerged after making his way through all that was blocking Heaven and earth and said, "By believing in me, you can have a relationship with God." He said this to fallen people who could not possibly have a relationship with God, the center of that kingdom and righteousness. This was the gospel of gospels. You should understand this. You should now inform today's Christians who believe in the gospel of Jesus that the time is near when they should not stand still just gazing at Jesus.
The Essence of God's Kingdom and His Righteousness, and Jesus' Wish The wish of God, who desires to establish His kingdom and His righteousness, cannot be fulfilled apart from humankind and the creation. It must be attained through people. God's wish was to harmonize with the creation through a true man. Thus, God sent Jesus to this earth as the substantial incarnation who represented God and Heaven's lineage before fallen humankind. That is, Jesus was the man who came to this earth to fulfill the historical wish of God for the first time.
For that reason, no human being of those days or these should oppose Jesus. Nor should any existence with life on this earth oppose Jesus. Because humankind living on the earth must prepare the living environment in which they can testify to the glory of His kingdom and His righteousness, they are longing for the day when the will gets fulfilled.
Looking back upon such a fact, we can see that Jesus' death was an infinite sorrow to humankind, indeed, the most heartbreaking event. Accordingly, people could not avoid confronting the environment through a process of historical pain and suffering.
What kind of nation are we then looking for? You should understand the essence of that kingdom and that righteousness. Jesus worked hard on earth to manifest the righteousness of that kingdom. He loved all humankind, and he walked a sacrificial path to save them. Thus, the kingdom that Jesus desired to build was a kingdom filled with a love that gives. It was to be a kingdom overflowing with the life of serving sacrifice. You will clearly understand this once you experience the spirit world.
What kind of being then is the God who has dominion over a kingdom of this kind? He is a being who takes pains to give love, bearing a fretful mind toward all of creation and humankind.
What kind of life does such a God desire? God wishes that all humankind on earth would lead a life lavishing their labor upon the establishment of that kingdom, giving up everything they have, sacrificing and serving.
Today the kingdom man longs for is a kingdom where the essence of love is realized. That is, it is a kingdom where people are anxious to give. In addition, understanding that the essence of love is to be anxious to give love, we should walk the course of a sacrificial and serving life that can correspond to that righteousness.
What then is the sorrow of God? His sorrow is that He could not find an object of love to whom He could give perfect love. That God could not find such a person, who could eternally serve and sacrifice for the sake of his neighbors as God eternally sacrifices for and serves humankind, is God's sorrow.
When Jesus warned people about the Last Days, what did he say? Jesus, who appeared as a substantial incarnation of God, having inherited God's shimjung, talked about God's love. Referring to all humankind on the earth as his friends, Jesus testified to God's love and practiced it himself.
What was embedded in the heart of Jesus, who toiled to demonstrate God's love? It was the question of how he could give more of God's love to humankind. What was his purpose of giving that love to them? The purpose was not to love only those who believed in and followed him; it was to love the Israelites, Judaism, and, further, to love even the Gentiles. Thus, it was to build an ideal garden filled with God's love on this earth. However, no one among the disciples or the crowd of people who believed in and followed Jesus at that time, nor anyone among the Israelites, was able to have an eternal relationship with Jesus' shimjung of love.
Seeking one who resembled the heart of the God who desires to give love, Jesus tried to build the kingdom of God on this earth through the denomination, the race and the nation of Israel. Furthermore, he wanted to build it through the world. That will of Jesus was blocked by his family, by the denomination, by his disciples and by the Israelites.
For that reason, to fulfill the will of God on this earth, Jesus has to come again. The day when the Lord comes again is the day of the Second Coming that Christians wish for today. You should understand this.
Besides that, you should understand that Jesus was not only anxious to love humankind in his heart. He also led a life of actual service. Jesus stepped forth onto the road of sacrifice and service, forgetting everything concerning himself, willing even to be torn apart by Satan and to become a sacrifice if it was for the benefit of all humankind.
Jesus' Bride and Jesus' Enemy
Was there anyone who understood Jesus' shimjung at that time? Was there anyone who, as God's true son or daughter, felt sorry upon seeing Jesus being chased away and rejected by the race? There was not even one person. If there had been even one person like that, he would have carried out an amazing mission of testifying in place of the 4,000-year history. If there had been a man who could represent the sorrowful shimjung of the love of Jesus, he could have fulfilled God's will, attending Jesus from the position of a bride.
However, because there was not one person on earth who could demonstrate the garden of love, the righteousness of the Kingdom of Heaven, God came to be in the sorrowful position where He needs to ask you today to build that kingdom of hope and righteousness. For that reason, you should fulfill the will at all events.
Even if the many Christians spread throughout the world today unite, you should understand that will not necessarily attain the will. The question is whether they can be in a hundred percent accord with God's essential love and whether they can become a bride who can be connected to the loving shimjung of Jesus, who is anxious to give. Jesus is looking for a person who can practice love in his place, who can practice the life of sacrifice and serving that he practiced. You should also keep in mind that not only is Jesus seeking such a person, but God is also seeking him.
As long as God's providence for the universe is not consummated, a certain standard to become such a being should certainly be established on this earth. If you cannot set up one such standard, you will then have nothing to do with the purpose of the sorrowful words of Jesus, who said, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. Then all these things will be added unto you."
What is our sorrow today? What is my sorrow? What is the sorrow of Christianity? What is the sorrow of the world? What is the sorrow of this earth and what is the sorrow of Heaven? Where will the love of God stop? You should understand that the fact that we still have not been able to solve all problems of this kind is the cause of God's lamentation.
When looking at human beings living on this earth today, the answer to the question of whether they have become beings who can solve that kind of problem is no, they have not. For that reason, God is grieving and lamenting even in this hour. Furthermore, you are faced with a historical fate which you should overcome. That is the fate to go through a process of judgment.
While going such a road, God feels sorrow, not because you do not have Heaven's love or righteousness. God feels sad because there is no one with a shimjung to conform to the law of nature and become God's object, a man with the value of eternal existence, transcending humanistic ideology and concepts.
Humankind should be able naturally to feel God's love and naturally live a life with a shimjung of service, which is the essence of that kingdom and that righteousness. However, they are not able to do so. For that reason, you must practice God's love by going through a process of confusion, contradiction and struggle in the course of faith. You must struggle to lead a life of service.
Who then is your enemy? Who is the enemy of the race? Who is the enemy of this world and Heaven and earth? The enemy is not something different. It is this entire universe where billions of invisible satans reside, even if temporarily.
However, such enemies do not offer any problem to you. The problem is you, the individual. The pressing question is the enemy hidden inside your individual self. Who was the enemy of Jesus when he came to this earth to save humankind? His enemy was the group of people who recognized him not as someone with absolute value but as someone with relative value. For that reason, Jesus longed to see one being emerge from among them to whom he could say, "Your heart and my heart are one and the same." If such a person had appeared, even if Jesus had died on the cross, his love and ideology would have been established on earth. However, it did not happen that way. That was the cause of Jesus' anxiety. You should understand this.
What kind of world is it where that kingdom and righteousness have been attained? That is a world of love, where each person enjoys giving to one another. It is a world in which the life of serving and sacrificing for the sake of God shines. You should understand this. Thus, that world is not like this world in which we live today.
The Way to Receive God's Love
What then do you have to do to be able to receive God's true love? As I mentioned before, when you step forth onto the road of sacrifice, the road of service for the sake of others of your own accord, you will then be able to receive God's love for the first time.
Jesus was in a position to lead humankind to that kind of road, yet there was no one among the people on earth then who wished to love others and live for the sake of others. Instead, because everyone wanted others to live for their sake and only wanted to receive love, all the people Jesus related with were objects of sadness to him.
Thus, you should understand the fact that Jesus could not find even one person who could give God's love through sacrifice and service for the fulfillment of God's will. This was the greatest sadness and sorrow of Jesus.
Jesus was heartbroken, relating to the ignorant people who could not see no matter how much he tried to show them, who could not know what something was even if he placed it in their palms. That is why Jesus told them, "Do not worry what to eat, what to drink and what to wear." It is the word that tells you to deny your life and all of your environment.
Jesus did not give this kind of word because he did not know the necessities of human life. It was because he knew that fallen humankind could receive a day of hope only when they tread on such a road. He told them not to worry about what to eat, what to drink and what to wear, but to seek that nation and that righteousness. Since the one who attains that kingdom and that righteousness in advance can have dominion over all things within the realm of natural law, he no longer needs to worry about such things. That is why Jesus said this.
When Jesus came to this earth, he was tempted several times by Satan. First, he was tempted through food, during his forty-day fast. Satan appeared to Jesus and asked him to change a rock into a cake. This would be good news to a starving human being, but Jesus refused. Instead, he expressed that he had not come to eat. On the contrary, he insisted on the importance of God's word and thus established the position that human beings had not lost all conditions in the realm of actual life.
Until that time, humankind had come through a history of struggle centered on material needs. However, with Jesus' winning a victory in the first test of Satan, the history of struggle centered on materials was concluded. You should understand this.
What was the next trial Jesus had to face? Jesus was led to the top of a church temple by Satan. There he was tested by Satan saying, "If you are the son of God, throw yourself down. . . ." (Matthew 4:6)
Jesus had appeared with the religious ideology that could educate the Israelites and Judaism. What did the expression "throw yourself down" signify? It meant that he should abandon the position of being their educator by succumbing before their religious customs and their opinions. However, Jesus did not fall into Satan's test here. Instead, he won a victory.
After that, what kind of test was there? Showing Jesus all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor after taking him to the top of a very high mountain, Satan said, "All these things I will give you if you will fall down and worship me. . . ." (Matthew 4:9) Yet with the universal ideology that was to establish the will of God, the kingdom of God, Jesus rejected Satan's demand.
The Significance of Jesus' Victory over the Three Great Temptations and the Mission of the Faithful Believers
What then does this mean? Jesus possessed the ideology that could build a new Heaven and earth, namely, the Kingdom of Heaven on earth. Therefore, he must set up symbolic conditions while realizing and demonstrating the will to indemnify and restore all historical conditions of faithlessness.
Consequently, for you today who are faced with the Last Days, a struggle centered on material conditions will come about. If all humankind today then gets defeated without winning the victory in such a struggle, this earth will automatically be transformed into a world of darkness. Therefore, you of today should step forth upholding the ideology of Jesus' Kingdom of Heaven, having overcome the materialistic struggle. You must then build God's kingdom on this earth by joining forces with Christians throughout the world.
Jesus had the mission to restore the world by being united with the Jewish denomination, which contained the comprehensive value of ancient Israel. Christians throughout the world today should understand that they too have the mission to build the kingdom of God on this earth by uniting into one, centering on the ideology of democracy, which represents the world. The ideology of Christianity, which constitutes the foundation of the ideology of democracy, should be a part of this.
In the same way that Jesus won the victory by defeating all the temptations of Satan, you should understand that you too have to go through such a process. For that reason, when the Last Days are here, you have to overcome the process of a materialistic struggle. After that you have to overcome a religious struggle. A religion will emerge which will resolve disintegration, contradiction and conflict, and unite these. The trials that Jesus went through symbolize this kind of an age.
In the same manner that Jesus demonstrated himself to be unchanging, even in the face of all kinds of hardship and death, you must resemble the character of Jesus. Christians today, who are in the Last Days, should not attach themselves to the past. They must find and establish the ideology of the holy temple of Jesus on a worldwide level. What is more, because you are on the course that corresponds to the life course of Jesus and his historic mission, you must know that there lies a moment of historic battle before you.
The time should come when Satan, who has been enjoying worldwide glory until now, succumbs and bows down before God's sons and daughters by losing in the final battle. The day Satan is defeated and only God's will is manifest must come as soon as possible. A person must emerge who can fulfill such a mission. If such a person does not appear, Jesus' will that we seek that kingdom and that righteousness can never be realized on earth.
What kind of period are you living in today? You are living in a period when you should accomplish God's will after passing the test of material. We are living in a period where materials surpass not only human beings but also all doctrines and opinions on this earth. Furthermore, materialism is attempting to subjugate even God. This kind of period is the very Last Days. You should understand this.
The Life That Demonstrates the Essence of the Kingdom and His Righteousness
What then should you do, being faced with this period where everyone talks of today being the Last Days? This is the age of the worldwide conclusion. It will be the close of history, science, ethics and religion.
According to the words that Jesus cried out, to seek that kingdom and that righteousness, you should become the people who render unchanging, devoted service to establish God's kingdom and His righteousness on this earth. You should not think of all the things that belong to you. By doing so, you can be proud of yourself and become a person who fulfills the mission of being a representative of God.
That is, by applying the essential ideology of that kingdom to your own life, you should accomplish that one day of hope to formulate the substantial value and to promise an eternal future. If you do not become such people, you will have nothing to do with the will that God had Jesus unfold, sending him after having toiled for 4,000 years since the fall of Adam and Eve. You will have nothing to do with the will of the Triune God that unified Jesus and the Holy Spirit.
From this viewpoint, what should you look for now? You should find the elements of unrighteousness that make it impossible to establish that kingdom and that righteousness; that is, which make it impossible to establish the universal ideology. You should then win the victory after struggling in your own life and become a representative of Jesus, God's son.
If you want to become righteous people of that kingdom, you should not be so foolish as to fight over what to eat or what to wear. You should become people who lead a life of having transcended the problems of what to eat, what to drink and what to wear. What is more, if you were given a little bit of such things, you would rather distribute it to people who are naked and hungry.
Members of the congregation! Do you know what God's heart is like? If there is a piece of bread, it is God's shimjung to make people want to not eat that piece of bread alone, but to have a mind that wishes to distribute it to many others. Although Jesus represented this kind of shimjung, the people at the time of Christ were not like that.
What then are the causes of family discord and family fights? It is because each member of the family thinks the family exists for his or her own sake. If there is something to eat, because the member thinks it is for him or her alone, fights and discord break out. You should heed that this is the very arrow of sin and Satan.
Therefore, today you should solve the problems of what to eat and what to wear. You should break down the mind that only desires your own individual benefit, namely, the condition of disharmony in the family. You should firmly step over such a historical contradiction. Similarly, you should not forget that you are standing in a position to emerge as a true victor before God, transcending all the problems of food, clothing and shelter.
What kind of position then was Jesus in when he exclaimed that we should first seek that kingdom and that righteousness? It would be a lamentable and sad thing if the minds of God and man were different over mere things. That is the reason, in the state where God's mind and Jesus' mind had become one, Jesus wished the minds of men and his own mind to be united. However, because people disbelieved and betrayed him, Jesus could not be united with them. For that reason, he was placed in a position of indescribable sadness and grief.
Suppose you have something to eat. What should you be thinking of while eating it? You should eat it with a heart of love that longs for the essence of God and the essence of the kingdom. You should eat with a heart that you will sacrifice and serve for the sake of others. When you become a person who lives, bearing this kind of heart, even if you happen to acquire a large quantity of treasure at a stroke, you will not do with them as you please.
Thus, you should become the people who eat having the feeling of the Father's heart, who wishes to give. This heart can be revealed even through a small piece of bread. You should eat with concern about God's will being attained on this earth and the many pitiful people who are in difficult situations. When you become a person like this, you will not be subjected to material privation.
The Blessing and the Curse Which Come According to Our Attitude about Material Things
At any rate, you today are not in such a position. You are struggling in a battle centering on materials. By connecting yourselves to God, each of you can say, "Father, is there another son or daughter who can better manifest Your heart through this material, who wishes to give more than I do and can love this material more than I can? I know that this material does not belong to me, but to You. Please let that person use it!" You should also maintain such a humble attitude as this, that you would accept materials on behalf of him or her. When that happens, the original nature hidden in your mind can be revealed, and you can go forth into the realm of eternal hope. You should understand that Jesus talked about the proper attitude in using materials for this reason.
What is it then that you must treat as your enemy? It is the selfishness that thinks materials endowed upon you are only for your benefit. For that reason, if you have a piece of bread, you should be able to represent God's heart, which desires to share it with all humankind. Before you eat something, you should have the mind to willingly offer it to your family, and to the society, the people, the nation and humankind throughout the world. Man can perfect himself through a normal process only if he possesses this kind of mind. However, most people today lead their lives having forgotten this. You should feel heartbroken about this and understand that this is the position of fallen man.
Through what then can an enemy invade? The enemy invades through material conditions. Yet God's blessings also come through materials. You should clearly understand that through materials, God and our enemies can invade us simultaneously. We must become a person who knows how to establish the center of firm faith through materials.
Whatever a thing may be, once a center is established an object will naturally come into being. It is a principle of the universe that if there is a perfect plus, there will naturally occur a perfect minus. You must establish a core of faith, one standard that conforms to the principle. You should clearly understand that because Jesus knew such a principle, he declared we must first seek that kingdom and that righteousness.
What would be the next thing you should know about? The next thing you should know is that fights among family members regarding what to eat will take place. You should understand that because of things to eat, a fight between a mother-in-law and a daughter-in-law, an elder brother and a younger brother, will take place. A fight between relatives and between nations will also take place. To overcome that, Jesus lived in sorrow for the family, the society, the nation and the world, and expressed his heartbroken shimjung of not being able to build that kingdom and that righteousness. For that reason, you today should experience such a heart of Jesus and take after his character.
Next, fights over what to wear will break out in front of you. This means that during your life of faith, you must go over a course of having resolved the problem of what to wear. Therefore, today you should be able to freely resolve such problems, without being restricted by any of Satan's accusations.
Similarly, you should understand that your problem of what to eat and what to wear will become Satan. At the same time, it will be the practice ground of activities through which Satan can act. Therefore, you should know that Satan always has an eye to invading everything you do. You must become the people who do not provide Satan with any condition for invasion. Thus, today you should not live only for yourself. You should live for a greater purpose.
Suppose you belong to a family. If you live for the family, it will be the same as living for your own sake. If you belong to a nation and you live for the sake of that nation, it will also be like living for your own sake. What is more, when you come to live for Heaven, you will be in a position of truly living for yourself. Thus, you should keep in mind that all facts of this kind are being realized and revealed through your own living environment.
Now if you have stepped forward for the sake of God's will, for the sake of experiencing God's shimjung, and for the sake of establishing that kingdom and that righteousness, what should you do? You should become a person with a heart such that if you have something to eat, you distribute it to people in a more difficult environment than you. If you have more things to eat, you should be a person who can give that to the person who presses you.
Thus, you should become a person who can reflect, Am I living a life where I am desperately wishing to give in a practical way? Am I living a life where living for the sake of serving strikes home or am I striving to realize the ideology of that kingdom only after having surmounted the realities of today? When you do that, you will be able to feel the shimjung of Paul who lamented, "O wretched man that I am!" (Romans 7:24)
The Companion of Jesus' Grieving Heart
You should understand that you are entrusted with the mission to establish the value of your entire life with a heart that in reality craves to give. The person who came to this earth as a substantial incarnation of hope to fulfill the mission was none other than Jesus of 2,000 years ago. Yet humankind today does not know that Jesus craved to give so much. You also are leading your lives not knowing that the bread you are eating is stained with God's sorrowful tears, so is the clothing you are wearing. You should clearly understand that this is the very grief of God and the condition for His lamentation.
What kind of man would the man be who has to come again, the Lord? That man also will come to establish God's kingdom, as a hero of the ideology for the sake of giving. Through the eternally unchanging heavenly principles, with a parental heart toward the children, he will come again to give that love to humankind.
For that reason, through that Lord who comes again, you should inherit the sorrowful heart of God, who has been leading the dispensation for 6,000 years until now to restore the lost value of human beings. By doing so, you can move forward to the seat of a companion with the same fretful shimjung as Jesus.
If the believers today cannot move forward to such a seat, even if there are tons of Christians on this earth, Christianity will not grow. Even if there are masses of such people in a nation, that nation will not prosper. Thus, by inheriting God's will that He forewarned, you should experience that heart of Jesus who grieved concerning this earth in the realm of your life.
Even now God wishes to see a person emerge who lives with a heart that is anxious to give. Jesus longs for a person to emerge who can overcome all the power of evil on this earth, which killed him. If such a person appears, he will then truly be a hero of this society and this nation. However, the fact that no such person has yet appeared is the sadness of God and Jesus.
Although there were many prophets and sages who came to this earth to be such a hero, our ancestors throughout history consigned them to the grave, persecuting and ridiculing them. For that reason, it is God's hope to cleanse all such historical wrongdoing by raising one person today.
What should you do now to fulfill such a will and God's hope? First, you should become a person who follows Jesus Christ. He walked the bloody road of the cross with patience for the sake of God's kingdom and His righteousness. Next, you should become a person who follows the road of the many prophets and sages who, having deserted their own glory, toiled during the 6,000-year history to fulfill the will of God.
In the meantime, if instead of walking such a road, you walk a road for the sake of some glory of your own, you will not be able to stand proudly before God or before the many prophets and sages. Furthermore, when you go to the spirit world after death, you will not be able to step forward before the Father, and you will not be able to be embraced in the bosom of the Father's love. The man who has faith only for his own sake, who dies only for the sake of his own salvation, will not be able to stand in pride before the Father when he goes to the other side of the world. You should keep this in mind.
The People Who Seek and Establish That Kingdom and That Righteousness
For that reason, you should become people who deny themselves and live for the sake of that kingdom and that righteousness. No matter what kind of situation with which you are faced, you should win a victory after fighting with that environment, remembering that God has hope in you. Only when you become like that can you, for the first time, call yourselves God's true sons and daughters.
What kind of people can build the kingdom of God? They are the ones who deny themselves and sacrifice themselves with an anxious heart for the sake of Heaven. The people who deny themselves and sacrifice themselves for the sake of the society, the people, the nation and the world are the people who can build the veritable kingdom of God. Furthermore, the person who will sacrifice himself for the sake of Heaven, even at the cost of having to deny the nation and the world, will be the one who can build the Kingdom of Heaven. Furthermore, even when faced with a sorrowful situation, without feeling sad for his own sake, he will feel sorrow for the sake of the society and nation, the world and Heaven. He will then be able to build the kingdom of God.
You thus should not attempt to satisfy your own desires. You should lead a life of faith in which you sacrifice and serve for a greater purpose. By doing so, you should go forward to the heartistic standard of Jesus, who toiled only for the sake of God's will and humankind. You should go forward to the seat of God's true children, who comfort the grieving heart of the toiling God.
For that reason, with a heart that becomes indignant over unrighteousness and with the heart of the love of God, who wishes to give more and more, you should toil to seek and establish God's kingdom and God's righteousness, even going to the ends of the earth. Furthermore, you could comfort the heart of God, who has toiled until now to save all humankind, even in the midst of sadness.
By not being defeated and winning a victory in the war against Satan in that process of seeking and establishing God's kingdom and His righteousness, you should be able to connect the individual, the family, the society, the race, the state and the world into one. Whatever circumstances with which you may be faced, you should prevail in battle against Satan. When you go out to a society, you should win in a fight against Satan in any circumstance of that society. When you go out to a nation, you should become a person who will take the responsibility for the most difficult problems of that nation and win a victory in the battle against Satan.
If a person of this kind appears, although from our viewpoint that person may seem to perish for the time being, you should know that he will prosper in the end. A person of that kind is the master of any family, any workplace, any group and any nation. The person who fulfills the duty of filial piety toward the parents in the family at the risk of his or her own life, the person who fulfills the duty of fidelity as a husband or wife respectively, and fulfills the duty of a loyal subject toward his or her king will become the master of that very family and that kingdom.
Thus, by becoming such a person, you of today should represent the purpose of the 6,000 years of providential history until now. By representing the cosmic ideology that corresponds to today's reality, even if any roads to Golgotha are blocked, you should be able to courageously overcome that, saying, "Father! Thank you." Consequently, by having your commanding presence spring up from the bottom of your mind and transform into a body, when Satan comes to respect and follow you, you will finally be able to step forth as a member of the race who sought and established that kingdom and that righteousness.
