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1. If you like to receive God's love, you have to deny everything in this world and offer your life in loving God, which means entering into a loving relationship with God. If you like to receive God's love, you must invest your life; the force of life will enter you proportionally with your investment.
If you thus unite your life with God's life, you can finally be restored to the position of a son or daughter before the Fall, a son or daughter whom God can trust. This is the way you build the foundation of faith.
Once you have built the foundation of faith, it means that you have conditionally moved from the position of Adam who fell due to his disbelief, to the position of Adam who can be trusted by God, namely, the position God had hoped Adam would take. Afterward, we have to fight against Satan's temptations and create the foundation of substance.
From the position of Abel, we must bring Cain to a natural surrender. We do not fight against Satan with fists; we fight with love. This is because human ancestors fell in love. If the level of Satan's love is ten, then the level of our love must be fifteen. If Satan's love is fifteen, our love must be twenty. (40-244, 1971.02.06)
Change of lineage through the Messiah
2. Because of the Fall, human beings lost their Heavenly Parent, received Satan's lineage, and came under Satan's dominion. Restoring what was originally intended requires going in the reverse order.
We can receive the Messiah only when we have laid the foundation of faith and the foundation of substance.
This is what the Divine Principle teaches: we, in our lifetime, have to establish the foundation of faith and the foundation of substance. (54-188, 1972.03.24)
3. Since Adam lost both faith and substance, he can recover love only after he has restored both the foundation of faith and the foundation of substance. What did Adam lose? First, Adam lost faith, next, he lost substance, and finally, he lost love. He lost these three; therefore we need to restore them. (65-314, 1973.03.04)
4. To go the way of restoration, you first need to establish a foundation of faith. The foundation of faith is necessary to create a solid foundation upon which you can secure your place and stand in the subject partner position.
This will enable you to pursue Heaven's goals by yourself; however, that is not enough. You still have to establish the foundation of substance. The foundation of substance is the foundation that makes Cain surrender to Abel. Cain is the son of the enemy, Satan.
It was by the hand of Cain that struggles in history came about. Through him, evil took root, and waves of death swept through history. To block these evil actions and stop the evil side, a person in the Abel position, that is, a person on God's side, must win over a person in the Cain position. (30-290, 1970.04.05)
5. There are two paths we must take. One is for our sake; the other is for the sake of Cain. That is to walk the path of serving our enemy. This means that to go our path, we must deal with Cain. What is the foundation of substance?
Even though Abel has paved his way, he cannot stand before God unless he wins over Cain. Abel should bring his enemy with him. He should not attack his enemy; rather, he should lead his enemy and bring his enemy with him.
(30-339, 1970.04.06)
6. To remove the original sin, we establish a foundation for the Messiah by restoring the foundation of faith and the foundation of substance. Once we have done that, we can newly enter the realms of God's life and love.
To remove the original sin requires an engrafting process. To make a wild olive tree into a true olive tree, we have to prune it and engraft it with a branch from a true olive tree.
Likewise, for people who are like wild olive trees to become true olive trees, they have to go through a process of self-denial and then welcome and completely affirm a new self. (41-063, 1971.02.13)
7. People say they have reached a standard of perfection, but this standard does not straighten out the blood lineage. Since human beings have inherited Satan's lineage, their lineage is not pure. To purify it, they need the Messiah.
Therefore, fallen people require the foundation of faith and the foundation of substance as the foundation to receive the Messiah. The ultimate question is how to create the foundation to receive the Messiah and change your lineage through the Messiah. (55-136, 1972.05.07)
8. What should be your standard in living your life of faith? Your goal must be to achieve a higher position than that of our ancestors Adam and Eve. To get there, you must fight. But against whom do you fight? Brothers are not meant to fight against each other.
You must fight against Satan. When you are about to do something good, Satan is bound to appear, but so is God. You stand in the middle, between good and evil. In that position, you can become a person of goodness only by conquering evil and following goodness, until evil surrenders to you of its accord.
In the terminology of the Divine Principle, this is called completing the foundation of substance; it is accomplished by fighting with Satan and gaining victory. After you defeat Satan, you will be rewarded.
In this world, accomplishments are recognized with plaques or money, but we are not talking about such trivial things. Our reward is unique and of inestimable value; it is the love of God. (58-018, 1972.06.06)
9. Fallen people must seek the Messiah. The Messiah comes as the True Parents to give us rebirth. It is a rebirth not through life, but through love. Where does that love originate? Consider the parent-child relationship: we think of our natural parents, but the original subject partner of love is God.
If God is the subject partner of love in heaven, then it is Adam who represents God's love on earth. This means that the True Father is in the position of the subject partner of love.
Since True Father is in the position of the subject partner of love, True Mother must appear alongside True Father as his object partner. For this, Christianity to this day has been seeking the positions of father and mother, but it has not found them.
The decisive teaching that shows how to find these positions is the biblical concept of the bride and bridegroom. (58-019, 1972.06.06)
The origin and value of the Blessing
10. In the Bible, we learn that the human ancestors, Adam and Eve, fell. The Fall means that they failed, and failing means that they did not pass their test. Another way to look at it is that they contracted a sickness.
Therefore, history began with sorrow and tears instead of joy. Definitely, it was not filled with blessings. Where was the word “Blessing” to have begun? The history of the Blessing should have begun with Adam and Eve. There should have been someone to receive the Blessing and someone to give it.
If Adam and Eve were the ones to receive the Blessing, then God was the one to give it. In this sense, human beings were created to receive the Blessing from God.
By giving them the Blessing, God would have had continuous relationships with all people. Therefore, the Blessing belongs to God and, at the same time, to human beings. (91-207, 1977.02.20)
11. Since Adam and Eve fell at the completion level of the growth stage, in the course of restoration as well, the originating point of the Blessing from True Parents begins at the completion level of the growth stage.
That is the stage when you receive the Blessing. After receiving it, you then have to pass through a seven-year course before you can stand at the level of perfection.
Even I have to pass through this course just as you do. It is our common destiny to have to pass through this course. (25-027, 1969.09.21)
12. The term, “the Blessing” did not begin with the Unification Church. It has been the hope in God's innermost heart – something He has pursued and strived to fulfill while leading the providence through history. God had wanted to fulfill this hope by giving Adam and Eve the Blessing of marriage after He created them in the Garden of Eden.
However, to this day, no one has ever received this Blessing. God has been in the sorrowful position of waiting throughout human history to see the realization of His hope for the Blessing. After working in history for four thousand years, God sent Jesus to this earth to finally realize the Blessing that He had desired to give human beings.
Jesus was doing God's providential work, but he was crucified before he could receive the Blessing. Throughout subsequent history, many Christians struggled and shed blood as martyrs, but still, God's hope remained unfulfilled.
God walked the path of suffering along with them to see His dream come true, but until now, He couldn't find that day. Only with the coming of that day will His bitter grief in history be dissolved, and the dream that He has nursed throughout history be fulfilled. (30-164, 1970.03.22)
13. The Fall occurred at the completion level of the growth stage, and we have to reverse its course to be restored to the original state. Adam and Eve fell through the misuse of love.
In the course of our restoration as well, when we reach the stage Adam and Eve were in when they fell, we also must overcome this problem of love. Up to the present, people have been receiving love from the false parent, Satan.
To overcome this concern of Satan's love, there is no other way but to connect to the True Parent's love, which is centered on God. Therefore, human beings, who have inherited the fallen parent's lineage in the realm of the Fall, must meet True Parents and unite vertically with them to find their way along the path that leads beyond the realm of the Fall. The Divine Principle teaches that we must take that position.
However, it cannot be fulfilled alone; it requires that men and women be paired as couples. This is the Blessing conducted in the Unification Church. Therefore, the Blessing cannot be performed based on how you want it; it must be done centered on the Parents, the vertical center. (55-137, 1972.05.07)
14. Human beings lost all things of creation due to the Fall. Satan also defiled their substance and their bodies and took away their hearts. Everything must be restored through indemnity.
Hence, we must put God at the center of our lives and resolve the problem of all things, the problem of substance and the problem of heart. Furthermore, unless we pass through the completion stage, we cannot attain the standard of perfection. This is a principle and law.
Thus, all the lost things of creation must be restored and the defiled substance of human beings must be restored. The stolen heart has to be restored as well. When we look at this horizontally, all things represent formation, substance represents growth and the heart represents completion. (55-138, 1972.05.07)
15. People commonly use the word “blessing” to denote the highest value. When businesses are successful, people say they are blessed; it means that they are fortunate. They also say they are fortunate when they have a good son or daughter. However, the Blessing is to be received by men and women.
What is great about the Blessing received by a man and a woman? First, it is to begin a relationship of love in the very place where life is created. This is the most precious thing.
Next, the Blessing is where a man and a woman connect to a life that does not belong only to human beings, but to God, who is the center of eternal life. It is where they inherit the ideal of love where their love is not only their love but is connected with God's eternal love.
Upon this foundation, they should strive to fulfill the ideal of life. This truly is a blessed life. (91-208, 1977.02.20)
16. The Blessing is to receive and inherit the bond with the True Parents of Heaven and Earth.
Although God could not realize the relationship of heart that He wanted to have with Adam and Eve after the creation, through the Blessing thousands of generations of descendants will come forth, fulfilling God's hope for a world that will last for eternity.
God's hope that was not realized in the beginning has been bequeathed to us today. We inherit that hope as representatives of True Father and True Mother.
We inherit the glorious medals and plaques that True Father and True Mother received and all their great, victorious achievements in their fight against Satan's world. (158-021, 1967.11.10)
17. The Unification Church is the only place since the beginning of history that lays out a systematic path to the salvation of the family. That is why families that believe in the teachings and follow the way of the Unification Church will be able to receive salvation and enter the kingdom of heaven.
Our mass weddings are the ceremonies that create such families. The world sneers at us and says all kinds of nasty things, but it does not know what an amazing and astonishing thing the content of the Blessing is.
We must become true sons and daughters who are one with the principles of heaven and earth and who share in both the heart of heaven and the heart of human beings. We should then form families in the position of God's true first sons and true first daughters, and live our lives on this earth with God as our center.
When we do this, we can fulfill the purpose of our life as true human beings born on earth and fulfill God's original purpose for creating human beings. This is the path true people have to follow. (41-314, 1971.02.17)
18. We stand on the foundation of the merit of True Parents, who have been walking the course of restoration. Our value is now higher than that of Adam and Eve who fell in the Garden of Eden.
Therefore, you are within the realm of authority where you can represent the standard of a people, tribe, family, and couple, all of which Jesus was unable to attain.
If you follow the standard of faith that is united with the Word, and if you are united with the life and heart of the True Parents, you can receive the Blessing from God without any problem. (76-080, 1975.01.26) 19.
Centering on whom can you receive the Blessing? Centering on the Parents. They are the True Parents, in whom you can place your absolute faith. You would be punished if you received the Blessing without being able to say with absolute conviction, “I have come forth because of my relationship with True Parents, with their flesh and blood.
No force in the universe can sever this relationship.” In the future, if you violate this condition and fail, your life will become miserable. You have appeared as a representative of history and the representative of your good ancestors. You stand in a solemn position, representing all your good ancestors and your tribe in this era. (30-226, 1970.03.23)
20. You will be able to return to God only if you can feel from the tips of your fingers to the ends of your toes that you have been completely reborn through the love of True Parents and are grateful for it.
However, there are all sorts of things tying you down, so you must kick all of them away and move beyond them. That is the path you are destined to take, no matter how tremendously difficult it may be.
How many people without even a twig to grab have fallen into the abyss? Countless individuals, families, tribes, and countless nations have been destroyed because while on the path they fell off the cliff and died.
However, if someone could build a bridge that spans the abyss between the cliffs, such a thing would be worth more than nations and even more than the world.
That precious bridge has now been built for you, thanks to your relationship with True Parents. It is more valuable than receiving all heaven and earth.
(35-234, 1970.10.19)
21. Satan's blood is churning in your veins. Therefore, after cursing and trampling on your unworthy self and repenting in shame for having nothing in you that God can accept, you must come to the place of the Blessing.
True Parents suffered to open this way for you, so you need to come with love and gratitude deep in your heart. At the place of Blessing, you must not measure good or bad based on your thoughts and brain.
Right there, your lineage is changed; your bloodline is changed. The place of the Blessing is the very best place you can be in the entire world. It is impossible to attain the place of the Blessing on your own; you attain it solely by the love of True Parents.
When a child is born from his parents, whether he is good-looking or not, the child resembles his parents. In the same way, in the Unification Church, you are taught the way to become true parents. For you, that is the blessing of blessings.
(35-235, 1970.10.18)
Sun Myung Moon