Matthew 22:34-40
Former Headquarters Church
Seoul, Korea
Today I will speak briefly upon the topic of "Let Us Possess the Everlasting Love of the Father." No person or created thing can maintain existence separated from this world in which they exist through relationships. Thus, you should know that in this world of relationships, nothing can exist apart from motivation and purpose.
Several Attempts to Explain the World of Relationships
Since we cannot exist apart from the world of relationships, we should clearly know that in our maintenance of life and our struggle in our life courses, everything moves within the world of relationships. We know that science has been trying to explain this world of relationships through experiments. Philosophy has tried to explain it through logic. History has tried to explain it through facts.
How has religion been trying to elucidate this world? Until now, religion has sought to discover the motivation and purpose of the Absolute Being. Thus, it cannot be denied that though your individual selves are extremely small, you are seeking an ideal of enormous value. Also, you can never deny that your original mind desires a greater course of life, a greater ideal and greater love and affection. This tells us that we have the common standard of relationship.
We should then re-examine ourselves, searching for a greater life although we already have a life, for a greater ideal, although we already have an ideal, and for a realm of greater affection than we feel daily through our shimjung. How did it come about that we demand a greater life, greater hope and a realm of greater affection?
It is undeniable that the earth, on which this higher demand occurs, is itself engrossed in relationships. It is also undeniable that there is a certain greater being of life that is the source of our life. There is a certain greater being of ideal that is the source of our ideal. There is a certain being of affection greater than our own affection. When will I see the day when my energy of life extends forth and pierces all things of the universe? The desire of my ideal is to dominate all things according to heavenly law, but when can I be a being of hope who can do this? When can I regain the power of shimjung that can melt even God? You should reflect upon these issues again today.
The force of my being will exist tomorrow; that is, it will exist eternally. It is the same with the force of my ideal and shimjung. There is surely a being who makes that possible. Someone determined the motivation and purpose centering on relationships. We should be beings of eternal value who fulfill this motivation and purpose centering on relationships. If you are aware of becoming such, your force of life, your ideal and shimjung should make an inseparable relationship with the ideal, shimjung and life of the Absolute Being. If there is someone who has no such relationship, although he may appear to have the value of life, he has no value in this world of relationships. Humankind does not understand this.
The Common Problem of God and Man
What must finally be explained to everyone through science, philosophy, history and religion? It is the common problem of history, the current age and the future. This is also a problem for God. You should know that the cosmic value of your life and whether you can be proud of it depends upon whether you can establish the standard in your life of an inseparable relationship with God in which you move with God and halt with God.
What is the common problem of history, the current age and the future? Since all of humankind, past, present and future, commonly possesses the desires for life, the ideal and love (shimjung) a truth or ideology or person must appear who will enable us to feel all these simultaneously in the daily process of our lives. History and religion are all thoroughly mobilized to address this problem.
Do you have the force of life by which you can live and the automatic force by which you can move toward the whole world of existence? There should be a source that brings connection and the stimulation of hope to the world of relationships. Do you have such a source? You should also ask yourself whether the power of life springs forth from within the relationships you have with such a source.
You should bring the ideal of the entire universe to your shimjung and the whole ideal of creation to your hearts. You should have the shimjung, feeling and intuition which say that since Heaven is moving in such and such a way, no existing being or thing can be neglected. If you do not have this, you should rethink the hopes you are pursuing today.
You long for the love that deeply touches your heart. It is not humanistic love, pursued by man. It is heavenly love, desired by the original mind. You are longing for the kind of love that can sing for eternity and penetrate and move the eternal ideal and life. Thus, the whole of your thinking and movements should express the shimjung of love. You will, thus, be the greatest victor of life if you can make the connection with such a realm of love, which embraces the environment and universe in which you live and can even embrace God.
As for theistic believers, though they acknowledge that God is the absolute and omnipotent Creator, why has their love for God and for absolute goodness become weaker than the love of secular people? This is why God sighs today. God's sorrow is that while God's love is greater than human parental love for a child, He cannot love humanity this much. How does God relate to humankind? Through love. We want to receive God's love within the realm of our life and forget everything through the shock of His love. If we connect with the power of love that can melt all the grief in our heart, we can never betray Heaven. We would have no need to teach goodness then.
The Reason Man Has Not Made a Relationship with Absolute Love and Goodness and the Result Thereof
Why could God not make man have a relationship with absolute love and goodness? I have struggled a lot with this question myself. Was God like this from the beginning? No. God is a being such that, without the fall, we could feel Him even before we thought about His existence. We could feel His existence inside us as the substance of hope even before we had wishes. He would appear even before we longed for Him. However, the fall means that humankind has not reached such an emotional, ideological and living standard. Everything was lost through the fall. You should know that this is the sorrow of humankind.
Now we are wandering about, searching for truth, life, the ideal and God's love. With our ultimate power of life, the ideal and the standard of shimjung, we cannot help loving God and cannot help thinking that God is the center of the whole ideal and the cosmos. If you carry such feelings and make the connection within your life with the source of such a stimulus, God's eternal life will become your eternal life. You will move and halt as God moves and halts. You should know that this is the hope of the Creator of humanity.
Throughout history, humankind tried to control the world through the powers within their possession. There once was an age in which they tried to move everything through the power of life, but this age has passed now. What kind of age is today? Now we are coming into an age in which the philosophy which inherits the ideal of Jesus controls the world. What kind of age will then come after this? It will be the age in which the unifying central person appears before humankind, the one who can connect to the love of the Absolute Being beyond the power of life and ideology.
History so far has been limited to merely introducing hopes and ideals. Thus, it has not been able to find the heavenly kingdom of love in which new creations, resurrection, hope and the power of love can arise through the individual shimjung of human beings. What is the final standard of hope to which humankind aspires? It is the loving view of history, life and the cosmos. That is why Christianity expresses this in one word and says that the center of the scriptures is Jesus. The center of Jesus is love, and the center of love is the bride and groom. You should know that this is the most valuable good news for suffering humankind. When this shimjung fills the world to the full, and the root of the hereditary sin is revealed through your blood and flesh, then humankind can truly and fundamentally hope for peace.
You have forgotten that the love of the parents for the children, the love of the husband for the wife, and the love of children for the parents are connected through the ideal and motivation of those relationships, though they are not yet ideal. Moreover, you did not know that the greater principles of the love of parents, the couple and children are originally connected to humankind. Thus, Christianity called the unity of God and humanity a marriage. The kind of love religious people seek is not simply the ordinary love of parents for children. It is the love that can move a greater and higher life and harmonize with a greater ideal. Thus, the day should soon come on the earth in which we can see the power of life, hope and love that can transcend time and embrace everything. You should know that, at that time, we will see the world where evil is absorbed into goodness and follows goodness.
Jesus Is the Substance of God's Life, Hope and Ideal
When we ponder God, who exists as an Absolute Being in the world of relationship, and cannot deny the reality of His existence, we should feel that God has the same movements of life, ideals and affection as ours. This is because we have all of His attributes, since we were born of Him. Thus, we should know that our form reflects God's.
Though God should appear to us as the subject of life, hope and love, He does not. This is the cause of humanity s sighing and sorrow today. To remove this, God maintains an inseparable relationship with humanity. To resolve human suffering, God has sent a substantial incarnation as the master of ideals, justice and life. This is Jesus.
Though God is invisible, there must be an intuitive cosmology and world of principle that can be felt directly. Through what can God's absolute realm of life be felt? It cannot be felt through science nor philosophy. This is not something that can be felt through any field of human knowledge. Since God has the responsibility to clarify this with man, however, He has been explaining the motivation and purpose of the Absolute Being by establishing religions and cultivating the foundation of the human mind centering on relationships. Yet this motivation and purpose cannot be explained by logic. You cannot explain power through logic. One can only partially explain an ideal through logic. Love cannot be completely explained in this way. One cannot establish a view about life. One tries to form a view on life, history and religion in vain through logic alone. Nor can logic provide a view on love.
Since we cannot have a view, we cannot have a relational stance from which to explain everything nor can we establish the condition of explanation that can provide the relational stance. Thus, a certain viewpoint is required that precedes every view and explains everything. We talk about intuition today. Intuition cannot be understood by the world of the five senses. Through what does intuition move and come to be felt? It does not come through perceptions and feelings that come through our five senses, from outside ourselves. It comes through perceptions and feelings that come through the mind. That intuitive perception can instantly elucidate the motivation and purpose, transcending time, and feel the presence of a certain substantial being. God's presence can be explained in this way. Thus, today we can solve those problems centering on our minds. That is, we can grasp them only through supernatural and lawful intuition or feeling.
The problem is the tie and relationship between God and humankind. This tie and relationship are in the process of pursuing a certain purpose with a certain motivation. This process is concerned with history, the current age and the future. You should know this. We experience and learn all such feelings through religion. However, the religion which is worthy of our faith should be able to arouse in us a stimulation of power that is like the attributes of God's life, ideal and love. We should find such a religion today. With regard to the tendency of relationship, such a religion surely exists. Another problem is how we can experience it and learn.
The Greatest and Foremost Commandment
Today you exert enormous efforts through religion, seeking the infinite world of being. Why do you fail to find it? Why are you unable to recognize the world? From the standpoint of relationship, it is because the motivation and purpose deviate and you cannot make a relationship with the resulting value. All entities, individual, family, national, country and world, have their own wishes and purposes in their own situations. When the purpose of an entity differs from the heavenly purpose, it can hardly feel the eternal world of being. Heaven helps humankind feel this world through religion, not through intellectual conditions. This world is felt through ultimate emotional issues by holding up the standard of love.
Thus, God comes to us only with love, and we can meet God only with love. You must first know that God has been trying infinitely to reach out to us, giving hope to those without hope, giving life to those without life, and giving love to those who cannot be loved. You should know that God thinks of us before we think of Him. He existed before we existed and moves for us before we move. You should feel in your hearts that a Being exists who is greater than the value of our existence, ideal and affection, and He moves before we do.
How does God find humankind with the condition of love? As in the passage we read, God allowed us a commandment: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment." (Matthew 22:37-38) You should remember that God kept this commandment before humankind did. Thus, you should clearly know that this is the first commandment a fallen person must keep.
When listening to the word, if you think that the word originates from you, it is a serious misunderstanding. You should feel that to bring this word to humankind, God, who is the subject of human life, ideals and love, has gone through a historical course of exerting all His mind and will for the sake of humankind. In other words, before humankind kept the commandment, God loved humankind with all His heart and character. God could establish it as a commandment because God kept it Himself. Thus, in our search for God's ideal of life, before we love God, He approaches us with great love, ideals and life to find us, to love us, to save our lives, and to establish us as beings of the ideal. You should remember that God has been reaching out to us, upholding the first commandment. God toiled for 4,000 years trying to present His will to humankind, but it was not fulfilled because of human ignorance. Thus, Jesus was the one who appeared to substantially perfect the word and establish the way of the commandment.
Jesus Exerted All His Heart and Will for God
Before Jesus told others to invest their hearts, he first invested his heart for God. Before he told them to exert their wills, he did it first. Before he told them to love God with their utmost effort, he practiced it first. Thus, he became the substantial incarnation of the commandment. Jesus, who appeared on the earth with God's mission for humankind, witnessed to God's great power of life through words. When they went unheeded, he used miracles to witness. He introduced the ideal of the world and the cosmos to a nation who wished for their own happiness. The Israelite nation understood God's ideal as being individually and nation-centered. Jesus showed God's love to them through examples. He demonstrated a love which embraced the gentiles beyond the limits of the nation so that they could actually see and hear it.
Who received the stimulation of life from Jesus? Those who overcame death received it. Who felt the great power of hope? The same ones. Who felt the great power of love? Again, it was those who overcame death. They should have believed in Jesus when he was alive. They should have received the power of life to overcome death and attained the power of love. Only after they let Jesus die and saw his resurrection did they realize that he was their substantial ideal of life, ideals and love. Thus, they boldly went over the hill of death without fear.
What then is your position now, you who believe in Jesus as an object of hope? We should not be like the disciples, who did not recognize Jesus even when he appeared as the original incarnation of the ideal, love and life. If you become like them, you will commit the historical crime again and become the object of God's sorrow. God has worked for 2,000 years since Jesus. Thus, in place of Jesus, who comes as the hope of believers, you should be able to dedicate your power of life for the sake of the past, present and future and to sacrifice your life for God. Where are the people who have such determination? This is the big question. You say you have faith, but the question is what standard of faith you have.
After meeting the returning Jesus, receiving the infinite stimulation of life, seeing the ideal world of creation, and feeling the infinite power of love, we have realized that the footsteps of Jesus were not for his own sake. Rather than complaining against his enemies, he produced the fire of love to melt them. When he received persecution from his enemies because of their excessive desires, he embraced them with greater love and exploded with the shimjung of a greater ideal and life. The whole world then came whirling into his bosom. If there is life, an ideal and love in God, what should we do centering on them? We should become original substances of love and life who can unify all the people of the world, whether on the brink of death or in the realm of life. You should know this.
Thus, the fact that Jesus came and we can follow him is a word of blessing or gospel for humanity. Knowing this, you should not think centered on yourself. You should, first, feel the fact that God totally invested His heart, will and character for us. You should also feel the fact that there has been a substantial person who thoroughly exerted his heart, will and character for us. That was Jesus. The footsteps Jesus left were loving humankind with all his heart, will and character. The question is if you have the shimjung which can experience this directly without explanation. You should know clearly that the existence or absence of such a shimjung determines God's decision whether He can make a relationship with you.
The Day of the Messiah and the Age of God's Love
The world of shimjung transcends time. Thus far, no one has been able to revolutionize the parents' loving heart for their children. Its essence has remained unchanged throughout the vicissitudes of the ages. This happens in the world of love. When a beloved child is leaving the parents, no one, not even a powerful authority, can block the movement of the world of love. The movement of the world of love can transcend the hurdles of a giant mountain and the entire cosmos. Thus, to have an experience of shimjung, we should connect with the standard of the heart. Only in the world of shimjung can we establish the condition by which we can receive Jesus, who came to save us 2,000 years ago. Thus, in calling upon God, we should go beyond the situation and see the shimjung behind it. A parent's love for a child transcends life. Love itself is the complete answer and complete motivation.
The day when we receive the Messiah as the subject of life, the ideal, love and the center of humanity is the day when God, the universe and humankind will all rejoice. It is the day when humankind finds the lost God, God finds the lost human and the earth. On the day of the Messiah, three conditions will be simultaneously restored. The real world will be created in which everything moves and halts through one heart. It is the day of hope for God, humankind and all things. What, then, is the standard of hope? It is the love that represents all.
Now the time is approaching in which I, standing at the end of the 6,000 years, must establish myself and possess God's love, life and ideal. When is God's age of life, beyond the age of the life of Jesus and the Holy Spirit? When is God's age of the ideal, beyond the age of the ideal of Jesus and the Holy Spirit? When is God's age of love, beyond the age of the love of Jesus and the Holy Spirit? This is the question. Thus Paul says, "For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8:38-39) Jesus, too, came for the love of God.
Believers today think that love in Jesus is the ultimate, but it is not. God's love is linked based on the love of Jesus. One can know the love of True Parents only when one comes through that process of love. You should know this clearly. The fallen parents on earth, namely, our physical parents, are not True Parents. We all have parents of the fallen lineage. No matter how polished one's appearance is, he belongs to the tribe of the fallen lineage. Therefore, people do not know that the original love of True Parents before the fall is the last fruit of love God has prepared for fallen humankind. Jesus departed without introducing this love. After feeling this love, one needs a certain principle. The principle is that children come after the parents. They grow up, become husband and wife, and become parents in turn.
What is the ideal of Christianity today? What is the ideal of husband and wife? It is to find and establish the love of True Parents. Only when we grow up in a blood relationship with the love of True Parents can we become true husband and wife and have true children.
God's Course to Restore the Children of the Direct Lineage
If God has a grudge about the earth, it is that there are no true parents, true couples or true children. This is why Heaven is sighing. Thus, Paul said that fallen people would be saved as adopted sons. No matter how excellent one is, he is only an adopted son. What then is God's sorrow? It is the fact that His real children became adopted children. Thus, history has been a bitter process of restoring the direct children. Only one who knows God's woeful shimjung of history can serve God closely. The parents who produce and raise children can feel God's shimjung through loving their children. Thus, the ones who feel the true love of husband and wife must be able to feel God's original love through this. It is the same with the children's love for the parents.
When such a standard appears on the earth, we need an ideal of goodness. Though we are original bodies of goodness, we only have a relative view of life around that center. Only within the loving shimjung of the True Parents can we become the center of value, life, the ideal and love. We can then stand as the subject of all. You should know this clearly.
God tries to create this with fallen humans, but they all have different situations. These situations are not simple. They are historical situations. You know that with these situations, history has been filled with bloody strife and tragedy. What is this situation? In order for God to take you back, He gets hit by Satan as hard as your value. God takes back the world after being struck as much as the value of the world. He pays for what He regains. This has been God's strategy and situation.
To stand a person in the place of life, God made him first go through death. If there was a dying person, God went through valleys of death to save him. With hope amid infinite frustration, He went over innumerable hills of sorrow and suffering. We should be able to feel that God came through 6,000 years of tearful history to introduce the ideal of love I desire. He fully invests His heart, will and character today to make a tie with my individual being. When you can feel such a heart, you can resonate with the situation and shimjung of historical saints like Noah.
Though we are a distance from the life of Abraham, the world of shimjung transcends distance. I can make connections through my shimjung. It is the same with the ages of Moses and Jesus. Therefore, you should make a connection with the shimjung of God today through Jesus and the Holy Spirit, who worked for 2,000 years. Thus, when one establishes the returning point of shimjung, Jesus can install him as his bride. You should remember the fact that Jesus said to such people, "You are not servants but my brothers and sisters." When you know this, you will feel that when you are sad, God has experienced sadness before you. When I was angry and oppressed, the Father was angry and oppressed first. When I was frustrated, the Father was frustrated before me.
To Stand as God's Direct Children
From this standpoint, we should be true sons and daughters and say to the sorrowful Father with the proper attitude of children, "Father, please be happy and not sad with me." When I get mistreated, it should be for the sake of the Father. We should have the shimjung of true children, which seeks to console the Father, who is saddened on behalf of our mind and body. If you have such a shimjung, even when you are on the path of the cross, you cannot dare to say, "Father! The pain of death is severe. Please help me avoid this path of grief."
Although it looks as if Jesus prayed to avoid the pain of death or was surrounded by fear, this was not true. When Jesus experienced God's shimjung, who had suffered for 4,000 years to find Jesus, his own death was not a problem. Jesus prayed, "My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt," (Matthew 26:39) for God's and humanity's sake, not for his own. You should know that God's will can be realized with such a shimjung.
Members of the Unification Church, do not cry over your own situation! Despite our various situations, we should be able to cry only with the Father's shimjung. Be filial sons and daughters who can console the Father with tears, since He cried for us first. Just as Jesus received the grace of resurrection by saying, "Not what I want but what You want," we should go over this hill too. You should go over the realm of resurrection with a living body. Only when you can love all people in the substantial world for the True Father, and they serve you for the Father will we see the conclusion of the ideal with which God created the world, a conclusion of the providence for humankind. We will then see the conclusion of our hope and of the providence for my love and life. Only when such a world is realized can we understand God's shimjung, He who suffered and went through mistreatment, anger and sorrow, all to find "me." We can also understand the Father's love, which cried for us in our distress. We can know His joyful, loving shimjung.
However, the love with which God sought to complete His ideal on earth with Jesus and rejoice in has not appeared yet. Though countless people in history came forward holding onto the hand of love to appease God's sorrow, the scene has not appeared in the human world in which the Father and the children can hold hands, sing, dance and share love together having established the original garden of flowers. How can we understand the sorrowful shimjung of the Father? We have to be in a similar place. You should clearly keep in mind that only those who feel God's joyful and sorrowful shimjung can occupy the everlasting love of God and stand as the direct children of God rather than as adopted children.
