Ep 546 - Top Gun Training For Young Leaders Part 7
Top Gun Training for Young Leaders 181-26-14-40-546 & Kodai Abe’s Testimony - April 24, 2022
Today True Mother all of a sudden called American major leadership (for a meeting). We went to the Cheonjeong Gung and met True Mother. Dr. Walsh, Tom McDevitt, Dr. Jenkins, Jerald(?), Dr. Ki Hun Kim and I were there all together. We listened to Mother’s words. Our Western leadership shared their reflections after participating in True Mother’s special workshop. She asked us to really take care of our assets very well. She also spoke about witnessing. She (then) had another appointment, so we greeted her and left. It was a very beautiful time. She recognized the American leadership and encouraged us to do our best.
Today I’d like to talk about “Top Gun training for young leaders” from True Mother’s Anthology, Book 1.
There is one more thing. You need to die well. The culture of Seonghwa was created by True Parents. Seonghwa does not refer to the death that comes when the life of one's physical body is at its end. Your life on earth must become that which qualifies you to live forever in the next world, our original homeland. You have the responsibility to practice living for the sake of others with true love, tell the seven billion people of the world about True Parents and guide them to the position where they can be embraced as their filial sons, filial daughters, and loyal citizens. When you do this, you can become filial sons, you can become filial daughters and you can become loyal citizens.
It is only through the Seonghwa that you can go to the spirit world. You need to live a life of loyalty on earth in order to be in a good situation in the spirit world. The spirit world is where you breathe true love. Those who do not practice true love for the sake of others will have difficulty breathing in the spirit world. It is not easy to live. However, the problem is that people want to pay indemnity and move on quickly, but there is no such path. You must understand how precious it is to live in this time when you can attend the True Parents on the earth. It is important to live well and die well. To do this you need to become one with True Parents with absolute trust, faith, and love. (2015.08.02, Cheon Jeong Gung)
The Seonghwa culture was started by True Parents. The Seonghwa that True Parents speak of does not mean dying with the exhaustion of the body. It means getting the qualification during your earthly life so that when you go to the spirit world, you can live in God’s original hometown.
Fallen human beings must go through three major ceremonies. This is very important; without exception you need to go through (these) three major ceremonies. First through the Blessing, you have to go through the rebirth ceremony (substantially, the three-day ceremony), and the second is the resurrection ceremony. The resurrection ceremony is to go through the process of receiving the Blessing and growing and being resurrected through the Word.
That is why we need to really grow day by day. Every moment, every second, every hour we need to resurrect and grow. Then finally we can reach the perfection level, right? After that kind of ceremony, finally (we have) the seonghwa ceremony.
Finally, you must go through the eternal life ceremony. That is the Seonghwa ceremony. The Seonghwa ceremony is the ceremony held before entering God’s homeland after realizing the three great blessings, completing everything, and finally registering in the CheonBoWon on earth.
I would like to remind you again. There are three kinds of ceremonies human beings need to go through. The first one is what? The Blessing ceremony, which is the rebirth ceremony. Second is the resurrection ceremony. Finally is the eternal life ceremony. This ceremony is not in the spiritual world. Before going to the spiritual world, you need to fulfill the three blessings. Also, you need to fulfill the tribal messiah mission and finally you need to register in the Cheonbo Won on earth. Then your job will be completed. Your five percent … portion of responsibility will be completed. Then you can declare, “I am completed, perfected and concluded.” Then everyone will come and attend your Seonghwa Ceremony. (By the time of) the Seonghwa Ceremony … your job is already fulfilled. That is why it should be a very beautiful ceremony.
Therefore, we humans must live well and die well. To do this you need to become one with True Parents with absolute faith, love, and obedience.
LIVING DIVINE PRINCIPLE: Principle of Creation 44 - What is Good and Evil?
Let’s study the EDP content first.
• An act or its result is considered good when it fulfills God’s purpose of creation; this takes place when subject and object partners unite through the harmonious and spirited give and take of love and beauty, become the third object partner to God, and form the four position foundation.
• An act or its result is considered evil when it violates God’s purpose of creation by forming a four position foundation under the dominion of Satan.
What is good and evil? First, let's find out what good and evil are, focusing on the contents of Romans in the Bible.
Romans 7:19-24: 19 For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.
Evil desires are many times stronger than good desires. Therefore, without prayer, without jeongseong, and without the word of God, one will inevitably become an evil person. It is easy to become Satan’s object partner. That’s why as a fallen man you definitely need prayer and jeongseong. You need to study and teach and listen to God’s word. Without this kind of process and effort, it is impossible to distinguish good from evil.
Prayer, jeongseong, and God’s Word are spiritual breathing and a channel to connect with God.
20 Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
I have original sin and fallen natures in me. Since birth, human beings have both good and evil at the same time. Many people do not know about that. A baby comes from the parent. They have the original sin. They have the nature of goodness and the nature of evil as well because of Adam and Eve’s fall. We are the ones who have inherited from our ancestors.
21 So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me.
Therefore, humans are contradictory beings. We did not realize this, but we found out through the principle. It is clear that man has fallen. We can know that we are fallen descendants through the conflicts and contradictions of good and evil every day.
22 For in my inner being I delight in God’s law;
23 but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me.
24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?
You must control the four great desires that Satan enters through (material, sleep, sex, food). Control your body very well. Who is a great person? A person who manages these four desires well is a great person. Beware of these channels of evil. Therefore, unity of body and mind is important. If you fail to master these four desires, you can always become an object of Satan.
The Apostle Paul also fought a fierce battle between body and mind. And he lamented over his endless thoughts of immorality. In the Bible St. Paul lamented about how much he struggles because he had that kind of contradictory mind between good and evil.
Human Contradiction, Good and Evil
Let’s study from the Original Divine Principle point of view what good and evil are centering on (the) human contradiction.
1. In the lives of religious people one can see an intense struggle to realize goodness by single-mindedly following the desires of the original mind. (EDP-1)
2. Yet since the beginning of time, not even a (single) person has abided strictly by his original mind (EDP-1)
Who will solve this problem, the human contradiction of good and evil? It is only the Messiah. The Messiah has the authority and qualification to liquidate our original sin.
3. We find a great contradiction in every person.
4. Within the self-same individual are two opposing inclinations: the original mind that desires goodness and the evil mind that desires wickedness. They are engaged in a fierce battle, striving to accomplish two conflicting purposes. (EDP-2)
5. Nevertheless, we have been unable to find the ultimate answer to the question: What is the nature of good and evil (EDP-2)
Good and Evil Seen from the Viewpoint of Purpose
6. Any standard of goodness set during the course of the providence of restoration is not absolute but relative.
7. In any particular period of history, obedient compliance with the doctrines expounded by the prevailing authorities is considered good, while actions in opposition to them are considered evil. But the change of an era ushers in new authorities and doctrines, with new goals and new standards of good and evil. ( EDP-70)
Everyone has a different standard for good and evil. The standards of good and evil also differ according to the standards of environment, ideology, personality, culture, and tradition.
What is Good and Evil? (True Father)
1. Good is always centering on others
This is because love comes from the object partner. I cannot create joy and happiness by myself. We need to know what the channel of love is. The channel of love comes from the object partner. Parents’ love comes from their children; the husband’s love comes from his wife; Human beings’ love comes from God. Our love always comes from the object partner. We cannot create our own love, joy and happiness by ourselves. We need to understand that the channel of love always comes from the object partner. That is why those who understand very clearly what good and evil are need to understand that good is always centered on others. Why? Because love comes from the object partner.
2. Evil is always centering on myself.
Therefore evil never has the satisfaction of love. Evil thinking is always lacking something. It easily feels a lack of love. It always has complaints and dissatisfaction because it does not know where love comes from. It always lives centering on oneself. When you feel a lack of love, that is a signal to you that you need to live for the sake of others. When you live for the sake of others, then you can definitely get energy and power and you can feel joy and happiness because through serving others you can create your own happiness and joy.
3. Good is to sacrifice for the sake of others.
Love is sacrifice. Love always requires sacrifice. When I discovered this content, I was so amazed by Father’s word! Love requires sacrifice all the time. When parents raise their own children, there is always sacrifice. The baby cries and the mother has to wake up at midnight, or 1 or 2 or 3 a.m. Her entire life is totally sacrificed for the sake of her children. How much do you love your children? That means, how much can you sacrifice for your children? We need to know that love always requires sacrifice
Good is to sacrifice for the sake of others all the time. Without sacrifice and paying the price you cannot feel love. Parents always sacrifice for their children. When I think of the sacrifice of my physical father and mother, my tears come down. How much they sacrificed for me! I am the one who really inherited from my father and mother. I really want to practice that kind of love for my own children: sacrifice and sacrifice and forget and still want to sacrifice with a joyful heart. Love is really amazing!
Many people do not know that one of the great attributes of love is sacrifice. For many people love is only obtained. It is not like that. Love is sacrifice.
Who is good and bad? The good guy always sacrifices for the sake of others. We need to know this point very clearly.
4. Evil is to make the others sacrifice for the sake of myself.
Evil will try every possible means for its own sake. Evil always uses power and weapons. Evil abuses its authority and position.
TODAY’S YOUTH MINISTRY: True Father’s Words That You Have to Feel the Pain of God to the Depths of Your Bones
1. In True Father’s speeches, there are words that say, “You have to feel the pain of God to the depths of your bones.” These words are not deeply understandable if you have not actually experienced them. These words say that the family must deeply feel a parental heart. Even when it comes to serving God, it is not just to live for His sake, but to serve until your bones ache. Rather than worrying about others, we focus on our own circumstances and only worry about ourselves. A person who worries about himself cannot be worried about others. How can fallen man feel God’s concerns and worries? Jeremiah 31:22 also says: “Is not Ephraim my dear son, the child in whom I delight? Though I often speak against him, I still remember him. Therefore my heart yearns for him; I have great compassion for him,” declares the Lord.” Jeremiah expressed God's heartache like this.
In True Father’s speeches, there are words that say, “You have to feel the pain of God to the depths of your bones.” These words are difficult to understand if you have not actually experienced them. This is because the world of the heart is a world that cannot be felt without experience.
That is why I always say love is experience. Heart is experience. Without becoming a father or mother, you do not know what parental heart is. Without marriage you do not know what the husband’s or wife’s love is. Love and heart are experience. Without experience you will never understand what love and heart are. If you do not become a parent after giving birth to a child, you will never know the heart of a parent.
How can we feel the heart of God to the depths of our bones deeply? As a fallen human being, it is virtually impossible. Fallen humans always focus on their own circumstances, so they have no time to worry about others. Fallen human beings have no capacity to worry for others outside their own family. A person who cares about himself doesn't let other people's worries resonate in his heart. If you are self centered (and) focused on your own job, you don’t have any space, any heart to worry for the sake of others.
But if we change our concept, if we know that love comes from the object partner and we try to serve and live for the sake of others, (then) we start to have more responsibility for other people’s problems and gradually (become) closer and closer. Through this kind of process and way we need to reach an understanding of the heart and pain of God.
2. Jesus could not reveal God's pain when he came to this earth. Jesus suffered the pain of carrying God’s cross. But no one spoke of God's pain through Jesus. There are no such words in the New Testament. Although the Apostle Paul talked about the cross, Hebrews 2:10 says, “God, for whom and through whom everything was made, chose to bring many children into glory. And it was only right that he should make Jesus, through his suffering, a perfect leader, fit to bring them into their salvation.” This is Christianity’s view of the cross today. How contrary is it to the Principle ideology to think it is natural that God crucified His beloved only begotten Son to atone for our sins? This is a failure to discover God’s sorrow. They could not discover God’s sorrow of losing His only begotten Son.
When Jesus came to this earth, he did not mention God's pain at all. Do you know why? Why could he not share God’s pain at all? Jesus suffered the pain of God’s cross, but he never mentioned God’s pain.
I think one of the reasons is that the children who followed Jesus did not have a relative standard to learn about God’s pain. Parents cannot share their struggle, their pain, their real situation with their very young children. Even though Jesus knew God was a God of sorrow, he could not share this with his own disciples because they had not reached that kind of standard.
There is no mention of God's sorrow in the New Testament either. There were people who mentioned the pain or sorrow of Jesus' cross, but no one mentioned God's sorrow and the pain of God's heart looking at Jesus' cross.
3. What our Unification Principle discovered is God’s sorrow. We discovered God’s resentment through the word of the Principle, and discovered that God was unable to fulfill His will on earth because man did not fulfill their responsibility. Knowing this, our faith must be transformed. The reason we cannot get out of our own circumstances right now is that we are struggling with carrying our own crosses and are not able to revive our spirits in time. Our spirits do not grow since we cannot stand in Heaven’s circumstances because each of us is struggling to carry our own crosses. The reason we don't have harmony is that each of us is absorbed in our own worries.
One of the great things our Unification Principle discovered is God’s sorrow. If we know God's sorrow through the Principle, our faith must be changed 180 degrees.
The reason our lives do not change today is that most of us are unable to get out of our own circumstances and our own worries.
Each of us is unable to stand in Heaven’s circumstances because we are struggling to carry our own crosses.
4. Fallen human beings should be able to understand and love others more because of their own hardships and experiences. But on the contrary, it is easy to become a person who rejects others, feels alienated, and betrays all others. There is no one who takes responsibility for the suffering of others the more they themselves suffer. True Father is the one who discovered God’s unspeakable sadness through many hardships. Many people in hardships often lose the world and their affection for each other. There are many people who have failed through hardships, and it is rare to find a generous person who embraces many people, understands others, and becomes rich in love through hardships.
The more people in the world suffer, the harder and colder they become, and the more they lose affection for each other. Furthermore, no one wants to take responsibility for the suffering of others.
However, what True Father teaches us is that he discovered God's unspeakable sorrow through many hardships.
There are many people who fail through hardships. It is rare to find a generous person who embraces and understands many people and becomes rich in love through hardships.
5. It is difficult to begin faith, but it is even more difficult to endure and persevere without getting tired. Looking back on our past lives, there are many people who are exhausted from the path of restoration and refuse to go any further. How many people work harder for others, try to understand others more and take more responsibility for the whole, the more difficulties they face themselves? Are there people who take other people’s suffering as theirs through their own suffering? Our True Father is the one who discovered God's sorrow through many hardships. When did True Father come to meet God so closely? Through what event did he meet God? Jacob slept on a stone and met Jehovah God, and Moses met Jehovah in a burning bush in the Midian wilderness. In other words, they met God in the midst of suffering. Moses meeting God in a burning bush means that he met God in the midst of hardship.
When people face difficulties, no one works more for others, tries to understand others more or takes more responsibility for the whole.
Are there people around us who will take responsibility for the suffering of others through their own suffering?
All providential central figures met God through hardships. Jacob met the Lord God when he slept on a stone in Bethel, and Moses met the Lord in a burning bush in the Midian wilderness.
We can see how all the central figures met God: through suffering and sometimes incredible trials. They met God and inherited God’s vision(?).
6. If you look at those who have met God, they all met Him in a world of death and in a desperate state. When Jesus was crucified, the thief on the right in a place of despair on the cross, recognized Jesus as the Messiah and went to paradise. He made a parent-child relationship with Jesus when he was crucified. Before Jesus went to the cross, Judaism was a servant-level religion. Such a right-side thief made a parent-child relationship through the cross. It is the same in the course of Abraham's offering of Isaac. Abraham's offering of Isaac was a demonstration of God's pain in losing Adam. Second, Jesus’ carrying the cross was to bear the sorrow and bitterness of the Father in one body as his son. It was to experience God’s pain personally.
If you look at those who have (have) met God, they all met Him in a world of death and in a desperate state. When Jesus was crucified, the thief on the right in a place of despair on the cross, recognized Jesus as the Messiah. When Jesus was crucified, the thief on the right of Jesus established a parent-child relationship with him through the cross. If you look at this, the thief on the right was saved when he understood the suffering of Jesus through his own pain and bearing the cross.
Abraham was the same. The same is true of the course of Abraham's offering of Isaac. Abraham's offering of Isaac was a demonstration of God's pain in losing Adam.
How did Abraham build up a parent-child relationship? He established the parent-child relationship with God when he absolutely obeyed God’s order and offered his only son, Isaac. Then Isaac become a living offering. He really tried to kill (Isaac), but God intervened: “Don’t do that!”
Beyond that kind of death, beyond that kind of desperation, God appeared and intervened: “Don’t do it.” That was to build a parent-child relationship between Heavenly Parent and Abraham. Then God said, “I am the God of Abraham.” Wow!
When we go through difficulties and sometimes incredible suffering, if we treat this as God’s pain -- it is more than our pain -- and feel God’s pain, (then) God will really be moved by our understanding and experience. That is the moment to build the parent-child relationship.
You see (that) Abraham was like that; Isaac was like that, even Jacob was like that. That is why (God) said he was “The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.” How did they build the parent-child relationship? Through suffering. When they suffered, they clearly understood God’s suffering.
That is why when any suffering or pain comes, it is a great moment, a great opportunity to build a deeper parent-child relationship.
Second, the scene where Jesus was carrying the cross was to show the sorrow and bitterness of Heavenly Father in one body by experiencing God's pain firsthand as the Son of God.
Tomorrow I would like to share more about God’s pain.
LIVING TESTIMONY: I’m a Living Testimony that Anything is Possible
Now it is time to share a living testimony. Let's take the time to hear another living testimony of Kodai Abe from LA CARP. Let’s welcome him. Thank you very much.
(Testimony of Kodai Abe, LA CARP.)♦
NOTE: This lightly edited transcription may contain errors and omissions. Indecipherable or uncertain words and guesses are tagged with a “(?)” and indecipherable phrases, with an ellipsis “...”. First, second and third person pronouns have been left as spoken if the meaning is clear, and other apparently Korean English expressions have been preserved. Some repeated phrases have been eliminated. This text and the powerpoint slides from this speech are available as pdf files at the top of this text and at text.morndev.com & yong.hoondok.com. Audio only is available at anchor.morndev.com, spotify.morndev.com & audio.morndev.com. Notes or transcripts of Dr. Yong’s Morning Devotion speeches from November 11, 2020 through January 2, 2022 are available as five paperback books at cost at Lulu.com/Shop -- search for Dr. Chung Sik Yong -- and as PDF downloads free of charge at MDBooks.Hoondok.com.♦