Authors
1. When you come early for church service, the extra time is an offering to God. Its value is beyond compare and cannot be purchased even with ten thousand pieces of gold. Therefore, if you come late to the service, it is as if you are stealing that time from God.
You should be on time for the service. It will enable you to indemnify what you have failed to do. That way you can still stand before God. Then you can come closer to Heaven with a better heart than you had the day before.
(036-125, 1970.11.22)
2. Please do not say, “I am going to church because of so-and-so.” People who say, “I am going to church for my beloved sons and daughters” or “for my beloved husband or wife” will not be able to sustain their faith.
They should rather go to church for God's sake. Why then do you go to church? It should be because of God. You should go to church to make God your own and to find God's love and make it your own. (8-162, 1959.12.06)
The Sabbath and Ahn Shi Il
3. When you go to church to worship God, you need to wear holy robes. I am not talking about outward clothes but about the holy robes of the heart. If your heart overflows from within when you hear the sermon and sing the hymns, Heaven will work through you.
When the fallen ancestors were expelled from the Garden of Eden, they shed tears of sorrow. In contrast, when you encounter God, you should be able to shed tears of joy with a smile on your face. Nevertheless, people cannot shed tears of joy upon meeting God unless they have first shed tears of sorrow.
I am telling you, do not lose God. Do not lose sight of God, whom you've seen with your own eyes. Do not lose God, whom you've heard with your ears. Do not lose God, whom you've touched.
Most especially, do not lose the God who came into your heart. As long as you do not lose Him, no one can interfere with your connection to God. No person, no matter how great and powerful, can separate you from God once He has entered your heart. Therefore, you must attend to God, who penetrates the heart so intensely. (9-296, 1960.06.12)
4. God has led history to save you. So you should thirst for God's grace and learn to inherit it. You did not join the Unification Church based on your merits; you joined based on the sincere devotion that God, your ancestors, and the church offered on your behalf.
The Unification Church has been working very hard to find each one of you. This huge debt must therefore be repaid. (018-095, 1967.05.24)
5. What is the purpose of keeping the Sabbath holy? It is ultimately to bring salvation to humankind and to establish the nation that God desires. Christians keep the Sabbath holy to sanctify themselves and to strengthen the church's purpose of saving human beings.
The reason we observe the Sabbath is to advance the path to salvation. But more importantly, it is to save all humankind and seek God's providential nation and world. This is God's ultimate desire. (69-240, 1973.12.30)
6. Human beings must like what God likes. God designated the seventh day as the Sabbath day and declared it a day of rest, which we also observe. Yet although six thousand years of history have passed, God Himself has not been able to rest. He has not been able to take pride in His own Sabbath.
Even Jesus, despite emphasizing the importance of the Word of the Gospel, which includes the Sabbath, could not enjoy even one day of glorious victory.
All he could do was cling to history and battle through the providence for the past two thousand years. Therefore, he has not had a day when he could express his pride before God, a day when he could take his rest with all humankind.
Since God and Jesus have never been in the position to rest, we cannot rest either. Therefore, before the Sabbath comes, we are bound to confront wars, experience pain, and face death. Only after we overcome these hardships with resolute determination will we be able to taste the day of the Sabbath. (5-025, 1958.11.09)
7. When you come to the church, you must bring all your family members with you – your parents, wife, and children. You should also bring along your older brother, older sister, and everyone else.
How many bloody tears have you shed to witness your parents, your cousins, your in-laws, and other more distant relatives? Have you ever desperately struggled and prayed all night long with all of your devotion, offering yourself as a sacrifice, to guide even one person to God? This is the question. You must become the center of your environment to move forward. (41-090, 1971.02.13)
8. Now the Sabbath day (Ahn Shik Il) has passed, and the Day of Complete Settlement and Attendance (Ahn Shi Il) has come. However, even on the Sabbath day, God did not want to rest. He came to re-create human beings, and there was still so much more indemnity that needed to be paid.
Since we are saved through attendance rather than through the Sabbath day, Ahn Shik Il, we call it Ahn Shi Il. Because we are saved through attendance, if we simply use Ahn Shi Il, Unification Church members everywhere will understand its meaning.
Thus by keeping the eighth day, we embark upon a wonderful era. By observing the eighth day as Ahn Shi Il, we are blessed to pass through the gate that opens to the ideal heaven and earth and enter the world of attendance. That will bring a safe settlement to the Blessing, and a new beginning. (445-288, 2004.04.19)
Devotions and prayers during church service
9. When you gather on Sunday and offer bows, you are not restricted to the place where I am. The many Unification Church members working on this earth in different nations face the headquarters where I am, offering all their devotion and praying with tears.
They do it even when the people of the world chase them and drive them into a corner. We should praise those who offer such sincere prayers by saying, “Amen!” Members at the headquarters have a responsibility not only to serve and honor God but also to represent the hearts of those members around the world.
Hence before Sunday service, you should prepare yourself for three days with the heart of anticipation. You should desperately pray for the happiness and well-being of all people and resolve to connect them to the authority of resurrection and life that can revive them.
With such a mind, you should enter the church door and attend the service with heartfelt emotion, choked with tears for God. (020-284, 1968.07.07)
10. When you are offering devotion, you must not come late to the service. If you do, you should be so ashamed that you cannot hold your head high and should feel that you are the sinner of all sinners. You must pledge to be on time for the service and offer even greater devotion than others. How can you call out, “Oh, God!” when you do not even come on time?
You should not offer your devotion to be seen by others. Let it be an offering of devotion that you come to church on foot rather than by car. Instead of just praying after you arrive, you should pray even more earnestly before you come. This is how you can offer devotion that no one else sees.
The more you distance yourself from your surroundings and from the desires that secular people pursue, the more your devotion will accumulate.
(42-235, 1971.03.14)
11. You must honor the words you speak when you come before God. How can someone who does not keep his or her promise be given grace? Such people will give up along the way. God does not randomly visit just anyone but relates only to those who earnestly yearn for Him. At the very least you should be on time for the service. (11-134, 1961.03.26)
12. Some of you are parents and some of you are children. Regardless, when coming before God, being punctual is more important than anything else. Again, I underscore that you must be on time. If you are unable to observe the appointed time for worship, you are bound to miss out.
God wants a sanctified environment and an utmost pure heart. If you fail to be punctual and then sit in the back, then even though you sing praises, God does not want such praise from you. (11-132, 1961.03.26)
13. When you enter a sanctified, holy place, you should first pray for God's sake. It is the time when you are to meet the Lord, so first you should pray for God. Next, you should pray for Jesus.
Only by praying for God will you come to understand the heart of God, the heart that He experienced throughout history. Only by praying for Jesus will you come to understand the heart of Jesus, the heart that he experienced throughout history. Then you should pray for the multitude of Christians who fought for the Will.
Following the footsteps of the innumerable saints and sages since the Fall of Adam and Eve, you should pray to God, “Please allow me to become an offering to liberate them from their bitter sorrow.” Then you should pray to the saints and sages, “Please cooperate with me.
I know you have bitter sorrow due to the work you left unfinished on this earth, but I am living to fulfill it.” Thereafter, you can pray for your beloved children and then pray for yourself. That is the way of the heavenly law.
(007-328, 1959.10.18)
14. Whenever I pray, I pray with a heart that exclaims, “Father! You have always been guiding me!” I pray, feeling responsible that today I must save even one more life for God. I pray as one standing at a crossroads, where I can either bring a life to the Father or be manipulated by Satan.
When I preach, unlike other preachers in the world, I do not pick the topic of the sermon and prepare it in advance. I just try to say what the Father wants me to say, according to what He needs at the time.
If I feel I have not met that standard, I pray and pray, investing my whole being and praying desperately with tears. I pray worrying about the path that each of you must go. (11-131, 1961.03.26)
15. You must offer devotion from the position of conviction, declaring, “I have absolute faith!” You must stand in the position of having absolute faith in God and the Will. Only when you stand in that position will God cooperate with you. When you pray, you must have no doubts that your prayer will be answered.
You should be able to pray, “Father! I am the only one who remains. Without me, this nation will be ruined, and this world will be ruined. O Father! I am the only one who remains at this crucial point, despite Your toiling for six thousand years. I am the only one who is close to fulfilling Your Will.
My position is that crucial. Although I am not yet fully prepared, still You have given me the order. Therefore, I will prepare myself with the conditions and foundations that will enable me to follow that order on behalf of my people. Is it not for Your providence of restoration?” (31-290, 1970.06.04)
16. When you pray, you should first pray for your nation, then for the world, for the angels for your ancestors in the spirit world, and then for the liberation of God. Without knowing what you should do and how the fortune of this world is changing, do not just pray, “O Lord, please send me to the kingdom of heaven.”
That is not what you should do. Today, for you to liberate Jesus from his pain and suffering, history must testify to you: “You deserve our sympathy'' Your ancestors must testify to you: “Among our descendants, you alone stand tall.
You saved all history' and then go even further: “You accomplished the missions of a son and a parent, of a loyal subject and a filial child, by taking responsibility for your people at this time.” (14-065, 1964.05.03)
17. You should pray, “If I cannot become the son or daughter You want me to be, I will walk the path of a servant to save Your sons and daughters. I will lay rocks and boards to build a bridge or place stepping stones, so Your children can cross over.” If you pray like that, God will support you.
The prayer, “Take care of my sons and daughters,” is not a prayer God can support. You must first bless the saints of the world and then pray for yourself, in that order. Otherwise, no matter how many times you pray, your prayers will have no effect. You must know how to pray.
Those whose faith is for their benefit will abandon God after they receive blessings because their goal is to receive blessings. Once they do and things are going well, they will fall away. (127-027, 1983.05.01)
18. As you receive grace and experience the spirit world, you will naturally know what to include in your prayers. Then, if you study the contents of your prayers and compile statistics of their results, you will notice that the method and content of your prayers are improving, and becoming more public.
Fallen human beings would fall flat on their backs if they tried to pray for world-level issues at the beginning stage of their prayer life. They first pray for the salvation of those who are closest to them – their beloved parents, sons and daughters, and spouses.
However, as time passes and their prayers develop, the content of their prayers changes. What do people who know about God's Will pray for? They do not pray for their families; they pray for the world.
Furthermore, they know where they are, what kind of situation they are in, and where God wants them to be, and they are determined to pioneer through paying indemnity at the position where God wants them to be. Such people are wise.
(016-303, 1966.07.31)
19. When you pray, pray for the specific people or the particular matter that is on your mind. Do not just pray in general; you need to keep those people or that matter in mind. Then you establish a relationship of subject and object partners, and the law of giving and receiving begins to unfold.
A subject partner and an object partner give and receive, and by praying diligently and offering full devotion, you create a place where that reciprocal action can take place. Furthermore, you should pray with a sincere heart that reaches beyond the thousands of years of human history.
It is sacred and marvelous to call out to God, offering devotion with a heart beyond the thousands of years of history and in total oneness with Him inside and out. When you do, you will become substantially one with God. Then the single word “Father” that you call out will carry the greatest beauty within it.
(025-128, 1969.09.30)
20. People whose prayers are the same today as they were yesterday are not leading a life of faith. Even though you see the same thing every day, you should notice something different about it.
Then you can enter the mysterious world of faith. Once you enter the incredible world of faith, you can discover a new world. Although you do the same thing, praying every day because you have come to like it and find it enriching, you will grow in your faith as you continue doing it. (066-109, 1973.04.15)
Pledge service and the Family Pledge
21. When we share rice cakes in the presence of True Parents, this act of sharing means that we become one with God in spirit. That is, we become one body with Him.
Eating rice cakes together means influencing the parents to become one, the family to become one, relatives to become one, the world to become one, and those whose minds and bodies are divided to become one. Unification Church members should offer pledge service every week. The day to offer pledge service is holy, and on a holy day, we partake of holy food.
The reason we share this precious holy food is to alleviate the bitter sorrow of God, who did not have a chance to experience that in Adam's family, due to the Fall. Pledge service is conducted in this format, with the heart of offering congratulations and best wishes to God and True Parents, to relieve God's pain. (280-289, 1997.02.13)
22. Unification Church members are expanding the pledge service from the level of Adam's family to the levels of tribe, people, nation, and world. By expanding it so, it becomes a ritual to support the world to become one by attending to God.
Therefore, all week long you should eagerly await the time to eat the holy food as if it were all you wished for. Offering and sharing the holy food is a time to attend to God; it is a time when you can relate directly to God.
Therefore, blessed families throughout the world should honor this time and keep it as a tradition. (280-290, 1997.02.13)
23. I established pledge service, and, amazingly, all of you can have pledge service with me every day. By showing that True Parents honor this ceremony, I want blessed families to respect this ceremony and pass it on as a tradition to their sons and daughters.
You must teach your children that pledge service is a crucial time for the family. Through this ceremony, we can create bonds of heart, connecting the children with their parents face to face in the family and also connecting them vertically with the True Parents.
Altogether these relationships form the four-position foundation and link three generations as one. This is the time when the four-position foundation and the three generations can become one. You must teach this to your children.
(280-290, 1997.02.13)
24. All of you should do pledge service with your family every Sunday. It is the ceremony in which blessed families make their declaration. Satan cannot invade such families. That is why we recite My Pledge.
We are to be proud of the one sovereignty, proud of the one people, proud of the one land, proud of the one language and culture centered on God, proud of becoming the child of the One True Parent, proud of the family who is to inherit one tradition and proud of being a laborer who is working to establish the one world of the heart.
By this proclamation, you announce that you have no relation to Satan's world. It is a proclamation ceremony that lets you resolve the mistakes you committed, or responsibilities you did not fulfill, during the week. (210-282, 1990.12.25)
25. How beautiful it is to see a mother and father holding their child's hands and sitting together in prayer! We must set the tradition in our families of offering bows in the morning to greet God and True Parents. Offering three bows signifies that we go to meet True Parents, who then bring us to meet God.
(119-306, 1982.09.13)
26. Even if you are alone, when you offer a bow to God and True Parents, do not think that you are doing it by yourself. When a man comes to offer a bow, he should think he does it with his wife standing beside him.
Likewise, when a woman comes to offer a bow, she should think she is doing it together with her husband. If the man and the woman think this way, it shows they are united. It signifies that blessed members should become totally one. (242-128, 1993.01.01)
27. All families should display True Parents' pictures. The family should bow before it together, forming a four-position foundation. Three generations ought to bow. The four-position foundation involves three generations.
Three generations should offer a bow grandfather and grandmother, mother and father and children. After establishing a four-position foundation, when you bow in the name of True Parents you are outside the domain of the Fall.
In this situation, because God has direct dominion over you, you have established a realm of liberation. Hence, all the good spirits in the spirit world can come to earth and protect you, just as the archangel was meant to protect Adam's family. We have entered such an age. (211-350, 1991.01.01)
28. When you bow during pledge service on Sunday, to whom are you bowing? You are bowing to me, your Teacher, and your family. You bow to serve and attend the Heavenly Parent and True Parents as the King and Queen.
You bow to inherit the kingship from them. You are busy and occupied with many things, yet what could be more important than that? Children should bow to their parents, and parents should bow to each other. Your parents must teach filial piety to your children. In this movement, the lives we lead should be models to others. (297-119, 1998.11.19)
29. When you offer a bow, you who are on earth are not the only ones offering it. Because we focus on the spiritual realm, the heavenly kingdom, and God, it is certain that blessed families and the angelic world become completely one and bow together.
Furthermore, if you are sincere and earnest in heart for your beloved ones, then your mothers and fathers, even your friends who have gone to the spirit world, can be brought down to join you.
You can bring down more than 72 generations and as many as 120 generations. You have not yet been able to establish a national-level foundation, but once you do, all this will be possible. (298-059, 1999.01.01)
30. The Family Pledge never existed in history. Now that the Family Pledge has appeared, families under Satan's dominion living on the earthly plane will have no place to go in the future.
The appearance of the Family Pledge signifies that I met the standard of having indemnified four thousand years of history through the forty years that have passed since the victorious foundation made during the Second World War was lost. On this forty-year foundation, the kingdom of heaven can now begin on earth.
The recurring phrase in the Family Pledge is, “Our family…by centering on true love.” You recite this phrase repeatedly throughout the Family Pledge. “True love” here refers to God's love. It means that we are connected to true life and true lineage by the true love of God and True Parents. (266-143, 1994.12.22)
31. Previously we recited My Pledge, but from now on, we will recite the Family Pledge. In history, there was never any such thing as the Family Pledge. This is a wonderful fact.
Now that the forty-year course of restoration through indemnity has been brought to an end, the time has come when the world can move centered on me, Rev. Moon. This is why the Family Pledge has emerged.
The worldwide unified Christian cultural sphere established after the Second World War was destroyed, but now centered on me, it has been restored, although conditionally, based on my victorious worldwide foundation.
(263-110, 1994.08.21)
32. The term “Family Pledge” has appeared for the first time in history. The Family Pledge was established because the family was lost by a man and a woman.
Therefore, God and humankind must establish a model family that can be welcomed based on the original standard of the family that has nothing to do with the Fall.
Unless we do, we cannot build the heavenly kingdom on earth and in heaven, which is composed of families that God can rejoice with and dwell with on earth and in heaven. Hence, it was inevitable that this pledge would be established.
(274-115, 1995.10.29)
33. The objective of the Family Pledge is to create the backbone of the family. What are we trying to do through the Family Pledge? We are trying to attend to the Heavenly Parent, who is like the backbone of the family.
If we find His true love and love Him, God will come and visit our family. We should bring our minds and bodies into oneness and become couples whose minds and bodies are united. Then God will come and visit us.
If our mind and body are fighting, God will never come to us, not ever. True love cannot exist under such circumstances. (386-177, 2002.07.17)
The mindset of a church leader
34. A witnessing leader or pastor is like the high priest of his or her region. A church leader prays for the people, even losing sleep. As the high priest makes offerings to save the people, the church leader must toil and offer full devotion. To find the necessary answers, the church leader must become one with God.
He or she does so by becoming a sacrificial offering. Church members are not the sacrificial offerings; the pastor is. From now on, your leadership should be comprehensive, not just intellectual. Members are the flesh and pastors are the bones. The flesh should cover the bones well so they will not be exposed.
(9-080, 1960.04.12)
35. After working hard for a public purpose, I fall asleep without realizing how tired I am. Then in the morning, I wake up refreshed. From this experience, I realized, “Ah, this is the principled way to live a life for Heaven!”
If I were to think, “I slept only three and a half hours last night when I should have slept at least six hours,” my entire body would feel as if it weighed a thousand or even ten thousand pounds and would feel pains all over. That is why I tell you not to have such thoughts. (044-161, 1971.05.06)
36. When I stand before a devoted person, I am at a loss for words. As the leader of the Unification Church, when I am considering which of two people is better, I do not consider which of them is better-looking, but rather which has a better inner orientation.
I examine whether their mind is public or personal. If you walk the path of public life embracing this principle, you will never perish. Therefore, be mindful of how you manage things, how you treat people, and how you attend Heaven.
(31-261, 1970.06.04)
37. When you take your first step in the morning, you should consider whether it is for a public purpose. When you go to bed after finishing your daily work, you should reflect on whether the day was spent on a public purpose or a personal one.
Furthermore, at the end of the year, you should look back at your past year, or at your entire life up to that point, and reflect on whether you led a public life or lived just for yourself.
It is based on this criterion that life and death are weighed on the scale of judgment. Keep this principle in mind, so that at each step on your journey you will exercise good judgment and keep to the public path. (039-076, 1971.01.09)
38. Once you take up a responsibility, the next thing is to fight and struggle. You must persevere in that struggle even to the death, saying, “I am willing to give up my life.”
In your lifetime, you should lay the foundation to bring at least three people who oppose you to natural submission, and in this battle, you may not use any means or methods that are not acceptable to God. Furthermore, in the service of God's Wil, you should not lead the life of a taker. Rather, you stand in the position to give.
(14-013, 1964.04.19)
39. When you become a leader, you have to stand truly in the position of a doctor who tries to cure a patient's illness. If an ill person's spiritual situation begins to deteriorate, you have to try to cure the person's heart, shedding tears day or night, oblivious to time.
That is a spiritual leader. How many nights have you stayed up trying to save lives? How busy have you been trying to save lives? When you go to the spirit world, such deeds will become the objects of commendation. The barometer of character will reflect them. (69-165, 1973.10.31)
40. Even if a member falls away, you must never be discouraged. A very interesting phenomenon occurs when a member falls away; someone else who resembles that person joins the church. He or she has a similar personality, similar speed, ch and even a similar way of walking.
From every angle, the new person who joins bears a wonderful resemblance to the person who fell away and yet is much better. When you see such a phenomenon, you can understand that sincere investment of devotion is never lost. This is true.
When you become acquainted with someone, you must not think the relationship ends as a simple acquaintance. Especially if you met that person based on Heaven's guidance, you should never forget him or her.
If the person stops coming to the church, you must not cut off or malign him or her. Even if the person falls away, never abandon that person.
(42-163, 1971.03.04)
41. Before you speak or teach, first you must feel God's heart. Do not just talk. Instead, put God's heart first before your words. You should always be humble. When you give a sermon on Sunday you should do so with the intense feeling and focus of women in labor. You need to direct all your attention to it.
Standing behind the podium, you need to feel like a pregnant woman on her way to the delivery room. If you reach that level of heart, you need no other preparation.
The issue is not the content of your sermon or how well you speak. The issue is whether your heart has reached that level. (96-168, 1978.01.03)
42. During the sermon, a boundary line is drawn that determines whether someone is bound for heaven or hell. Suppose a person comes to our church thinking, “I've always wondered about the Unification Church.
Let's see how it is!” But if the sermon is disappointing, he or she may think, “What kind of sermon was that?” The sermon has, in effect, cut that person's lifeline. Therefore, you should regard giving the sermon as a momentous matter, even more so than a judge rendering a verdict in court.
You have to understand that as a preacher, you are in a fateful position that can make many dozens or hundreds of people stand or fall. If you are a leader with a certain responsibility, you should not neglect it and thereby cause your subordinates to disrespect you.
You have to invest your efforts, so this never becomes the case. That is why it is difficult to be the person in charge. It is an extremely daunting position in which everything about your identity is exposed and revealed. (96-169, 1978.01.03)
Sun Myung Moon