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1. If you look at the Chinese character for shin (信 ), meaning belief, you will see it is a combination of the characters for person (人 ) and word (言). Belief therefore means a person's word. “Word” here signifies the means of communication that connects two people.
When a relationship is absent, not a word is spoken. But when two people speak, there is immediately an underlying giving and receiving. So, to form a relationship, we need belief. Moreover, the foundation for a relationship emerges from a connection established with love.
However, such a relationship cannot be established arbitrarily. A connection is possible because the necessary conditions of energy are there and somehow the levels of both parties' objectives coincide. (20-025, 1968.03.31)
The stages in establishing our faith
2. Hope always supports faith. What does faith demand? If a person has perfect faith, faith demands that he match it in value with substantial effort. Faith means standing for and believing in the person who has matched the ideal of creation, who is in accord with principled law, and who has not fallen, but has reached perfection, and then is acting accordingly.
The one who is victorious in this kind of faith will realize his hope. God's love comes naturally to the one who achieves victory in faith and hope.
(14-249, 1965.01.01)
3. Since God's formula based on principle requires absolute faith, He had no choice but to command Noah to build the ark on top of a mountain. Noah faithfully accomplished his task over 120 years.
That is how the number 120 could be reclaimed. Noah invested his entire life in carrying out God's command. After the flood, Noah's sons realized that their father had been correct, and they respected him, saying, “We thought our father was insane. But, as he predicted, God's judgment came to pass and only our eight family members are left.
Our father's words were true. He is a prophet and a man of God.” Nevertheless, after the flood, when Ham saw his father lying asleep naked, he felt ashamed and called his two brothers, saying, “Father is crazy. Now he's sleeping naked.” Then they took a garment and, walking backward, covered Noah's naked body. With this act, the brothers completely denied Noah's God-ordained position. That they opposed him in the end is undeniable.
Therefore, we must practice absolute faith before God. We must devote absolute faith only to God, not to Satan. The one who dedicates absolute faith only to God will surely be blessed by God as the father of faith. God cannot help but love such a person. (054-076, 1972.03.11)
4. When we look at faith and practice, there is always a gap between the two. Faith always precedes practice, not the other way around. Only when fallen human beings have strong faith can they practice it vigorously.
But God does not look at faith only. God requires faith as a bridge to a better outcome through practice. Despite this, people neglect the practice and focus primarily on faith. This is at odds with what God desires, but this is the way people generally practice their faith. (046-070, 1971.07.25)
5. God began the creation with absolute faith. So to accomplish the providence of restoration, He also had to begin it with absolute faith. However, absolute faith must be practiced with absolute love as the center. Love is the subject partner, and faith is the object partner.
This is why everyone yearns for absolute faith; this desire centers on love. The purpose of love is to give birth to the universe. Absolute faith is needed for creation. To create this immense universe, God has to invest His entire mind and body and continue to invest unto eternity. (403-267, 2003.01.24)
6. Absolute faith is about living for others. The absolute God lives for others. During their courtship, Young men and women ask each other how much each believes in and cares for the other. To lay a path of living for others, the two must become one over time.
Absolute faith creates an object partner. Moreover, investment is required, since unity is forged based on true love. One side must begin investing to level things out. But who should do this?
A man cannot ask that a woman invest herself for his sake, just as a woman cannot demand that a man invest himself for her sake. Both parties need to invest selflessly in each other in the hope of attaining the greater goal. Practicing this is absolute faith and absolute love. (417-242, 2003.09.10)
7. Why is absolute faith needed? God Himself needs to reach the highest, ideal standard. Based on this standard, the realm of love's object partner appears. Thus, God created with absolute faith the realm of the object partner, including the animal, plant, and mineral kingdoms.
God also invested Himself with His absolute love. God invested Himself absolutely during the mineral era, the plant era, and the animal era. After this comes the era of settlement. Unless we reach that final point where our mind and body do not fight each other, a heavenly world cannot be established. (426-276, 2003.11.27)
8. What is absolute faith? It is all about establishing the order of absolute love. It is all for love. A person who seeks absolute faith for the sake of absolute love forgets about him or herself as an individual embodiment of truth and invests everything.
And when God invests Himself completely, ignoring the internal nature and external form of His divine character, only then can His object partner become perfect.
Thereafter, God can say, “Please make me a Parent who can love His child as the Owner of love.” But it is the child who fulfills this request. Neither God nor the father and mother can do this. (461-056, 2004.07.20)
Removing the fallen nature through practice
9. God has toiled up to the present day, seeking what was lost. It is not because He is unable to take dominion over human beings. Similarly, God has been fighting Satan and his accusations not because He has no authority. God fights in this way to establish the Principle.
In this great struggle, God permits Satan to act; then He does the great spiritual work of rearranging what Satan has done. Satan cannot accuse God of rearranging what he has dominated first.
Thus, the wisest person is the one who knows how to get even Satan to run God's errands. Such a person will be the ultimate victor. (4-196, 1958.04.20)
10. If you wish to be victorious in battle and become victors representing the past, present, and future, you need to know the reality of Satan as he dominates history, his reality as he dominates the present, and his intentions for the future.
It was for this purpose that Jesus, representing the Jewish people, ascended the Mount of Olives all alone to pray. Jesus devoted his entire life to fighting Satan, the obstructer of the Will of Heaven.
In the process, Jesus established a standard of suffering on behalf of the past, present, and future. You must follow a similar course. Similar ordeals await each of you on your path. (2-229, 1957.06.02)
11. About the Unification Church, my responsibility is to proclaim all the principles of restoration and carry the overall providence without being encumbered by Satan's accusations.
I have paved this road. I have erected the signposts that people can use to find a way to please Heaven by God's law of love. This is the blessing humankind has received.
I, the leader of the Unification Church, have made it possible for people to begin to truly love for the first time in history. This is why the countless people who will learn the Divine Principle through our Unification Church members need to live out those teachings. (157-178, 1967.04.02)
12. We have fallen in nature. What are the four main characteristics of fallen nature? They are arrogance, jealousy, anger, and deceit. We have been fasting and performing other acts of devotion to remove this fallen nature.
To succeed in this, what are we to do in the era of judgment in the course of restoration? We each need to arm ourselves with the Word and become embodiments of the Word.
To make restoration substantial, we need to remove the primary aspects of our fallen nature. We have four aspects of fallen nature, and we need to go through persecution and hardships to remove them. (150-165, 1960.09.04)
13. What is the work of re-creation? It is for that which has fallen to ascend, in the opposite direction, through bursts of energy. As we are on the path to establishing oneness with God's heart, faith is required.
But practice is needed even before faith. Yet, we cannot act centered on ourselves. We must act from the position of loving God. We must act for the One we love.
Unless we establish this properly, we will be unable to go the way of redemption. History bears witness to this. (065-184, 1972.11.19)
14. In the Old Testament Age, God endeavored to nurture a relationship with human beings by inspiring them to make offerings to Him of minerals, plants, and animals, consecrated to the side of goodness. People living in that age needed to unite in heart with the sanctified offerings.
Fallen human beings have the responsibility to seek true value. Beyond our imagining, God toiled to nurture a relationship of true value with fallen human beings through sanctified offerings. (10-125, 1960.09.18)
15. The Fall occurred on earth, so we must break free from it on earth. Therefore, it is not a bad thing that God creates difficult situations for us. By encountering hardships wherever we go, by facing death or being unable to live well, and by living humble lives, we can swiftly remove the impurities of our Mien nature.
Our bodies are dysfunctional wrecks covered in waste products that are difficult to remove, but a challenging environment is conducive to removing the pollutants of the fallen nature. Hence, the more onerous the situation, the swifter will be our release from indemnity. (242-309, 1993.01.02)
16. Since this world exists as the realm of the Fall, we need to prevail over it. As long as a radio transmitter does not lie flat on the ground but remains erect, even if it must compete with other signals, this transmitter will continue to broadcast globally.
Similarly, the transmitter of true love must dominate and exceed the range of the fallen nature's transmitter. So for our transmitters of true love to dominate the realm of the Fall, we need to completely deny everything in Satan's world.
Then we can become conditional entities capable of connecting with God. Even then, however, we are not complete entities of perfect love. (273-290, 1995.10.29)
17. The Last Days represent the glorious day of resurrection when human beings on earth come to embody God's goodness. Witnessing is the battlefield on which we, as sons and daughters of God, smash Satan.
The arena of witnessing is the arena of tears, in which our ancestors bless and encourage us to fight victoriously, and in which we strive with deep hope to uplift our future descendants.
In other words, witnessing is the arena we enter to be resurrected from a servant into an adopted son and from an adopted son into a direct son. God's wish for us is that through these relationships of rebirth, we achieve substantial resurrection. We need to expand the historical standard horizontally by establishing this standard of resurrection. (11-339, 1962.04.17)
18. When walking the course of the providence of restoration, Unification Church members need to progress through the levels of the servant, the adopted son, and the direct son.
After growing through these three stages, each member has to love his or her spiritual children or followers in the same way parents care for their children, love them, and are ready to die for them.
Even as we sacrifice ourselves, to become God's blessed children we should naturally feel gratitude for our blessings, while at the same time hoping that all of them will go to someone else. (15-302, 1965.12.07)
Becoming perfect through true love
19. What is truth? For a man, it is a woman of true love. For a woman, it is a man of true love. What is truth for parents? It is a filial son of true love. What is truth for a filial son? It is a father and mother of true love.
What is the truth for human beings? It is God. What is the truth for God? It is Adam and Eve united in true love. Then all is completed. In the family, there are parents and teachers.
Fathers and mothers teach their children, while husbands teach their wives and wives teach their husbands. People who live this way will become true fathers and mothers, teachers and owners. Such a home becomes a base of peace. Therefore, all relationships bear fruit in the family. (203-252, 1990.06.26)
20. What was the starting point for True Parents? It was true love. In the end, love becomes the critical issue. Any family, tribe, people, nation, or world that advances based on true love is automatically united.
History should have followed the one direction of true love. But instead, history has followed a messy, zigzag course. True Parents are called to thoroughly change this situation after going through the levels of the individual, family, tribe,e, and nation. (213-244, 1991.01.21)
21. When the mind and body unite in true love, the mind belongs to the body and the body to the mind. When a man and a woman, each with a united mind and body, become one in true love, they can occupy God.
To occupy God, they need to build a bridge. A man cannot build this bridge by himself and neither can a woman by herself. Rather, a couple must join together in true love. For a man or a woman to become perfect, each needs his or her partner. (224-029, 1991.11.21)
22. Theoretically, there is no basis on which Satan can approach a family composed of true olive trees. While Satan can approach family members when they are at the top of the growth stage, he cannot when they are at the top of the completion stage.
Completion of one's portion of responsibility leads to unity in true love between the sphere of indirect dominion, based on accomplishments through the Principle, and the sphere of direct dominion.
Synergy occurs between the two spheres, and there is nothing Satan can do to separate the two. This marks a new, historical point of transition.
(230-341, 1992.05.10)
23. The institution in which the three great kingships are found together is the family. A family is a fortress or palace that holds the past, present, and future worlds. In the family, the grandparents, representing the past, should be attended to like God, with the absolute respect accorded a great king and queen.
The parents are in the position of Adam; they are the present king and queen of the family and its center. The children are the kings and queens of days to come; they inherit the kingdom of the fixture.
This is the concept of a royal family based on true love. Families who perfect this are destined to go to heaven. There is no other way; perfection takes place in this way. (246-085, 1993.03.23)
24. The purpose of creation was for Adam and Eve to follow the commandment of God, the owner of true love, and become perfected true beings. Afterward, Adam and Eve were meant to become a true couple united in God's true love.
This perfection of Adam and Eve based on true love would have been the fulfillment of God's wish that they become His extension on earth. Furthermore, their perfection as a true couple would have meant the perfection of God's absolute ideal of love. (282-211, 1997.03.13)
Sun Myung Moon