Filial Attendance: The Way of Filial Piety of Holy Sons and Daughters of God - Elio Roman
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Filial Attendance: The Way of Filial Piety of Holy Sons and Daughters of God - Elio Roman |
What is attendance all about? What is this mystery called life all about? It is before us and yet it is hidden as if it were an unattainable secret. Life is about attending God as a son and as a daughter. It is about attending God as a family, as a tribe, as a society, it is about attending God as a nation, as a world, and as a cosmos. It is about the magnificence, the splendor and glory of life in relationship with God. This is the primary purpose of our lives.
Human beings have a sense of somehow, quite clearly being aware of God and yet are searching for a deeper awareness and experience in the Heavenly Parent and child relationship. Due to the Fall we have become like existential orphans, often living a life centered on ourselves, a life of misery and silent tears. We have lost sight of living a true life of attending God, rejoicing in our relationship, and being intoxicated in His love and blessings. Now we can begin a true life of attending God. We need to attend God with all our heart and place Him in the position of owner of true love. Instead, human beings have made Him the owner of a broken heart. I this course of restoration we need to attend God with absolute faith, absolute love and absolute obedience in order to restore the oneness of God and His children and to restore our lineages and establish the realm of liberation and complete freedom. In attending God, filial sons and daughters cultivate a character of true love and realize the Parent and child relationship.
We need to become filial sons and daughters who can transcend the limitations and entrapment of the mindset centered on the values of a fallen society and soar with God in faith and in substance to fulfill the ideal for which He created, the purpose of our lives. These are beyond the mundane scope that society in our postmodern age and all past ages instills in human beings. We must become filial sons and daughters who gain a sensibility to the heart of God, as if to feel the vibrations from His heart with our hearts.
Filial sons and daughters who attend the Heavenly Parent pioneer a new way of life in the Completed Testament Age and then in The Age After the Coming of Heaven. They practice the way of true love, true life and true lineage in accord with the laws of the universe, the way of heaven. In establishing an ideal family, the true education that should have been established in the Garden of Eden can now be administered. This is the mission of the Family Pledge which has remained relatively unrecognized.
The returning messiah and his bride in the position of true parents, true teachers and true owners establish the model family attending the Heavenly Parent which establishes the standards of attendance of filial sons and daughters and families of God. They attend God as their vertical True Parents and embody God, thus becoming horizontal True Parents.
Without filial sons and daughters who establish an ideal family God's creation remains incomplete. In establishing the true life of attendance to God, the True Parents complete God's ideal of creation. They form a family centered on true love, true life and true lineage. They become the owners of creation in the original hometown and homeland and build God's Kingdom on earth and in heaven. God cannot multiply His lineage nor even construct a building on earth without dwelling in the bodies of His true children and true families which are His temple and home. Such families are representative families of the cosmos which complete the work of God's creation. The ideal family expands God's ideal as a patriotic family in the nation, a saintly family in the world and a divine family of God in the cosmos.
A true man embodies God's masculine nature and a true woman embodies God's feminine nature. A filial son and daughter living a life of attendance to God each represent half of the universe. When they are blessed in holy matrimony by God, they then unite as husband and wife and form an ideal family. A husband and wife who are united in love indicate the completion of the creation of the universe. The husband represents all the masculine characteristics of God and the wife represents all the feminine characteristics of God. A husband and wife united represent the unity and harmony of the masculine and feminize characteristics found in the Cosmos. Such a union establishes an ideal family which is the embodiment of God and becomes a representative model and central family of the cosmos.
Adam and Eve by design had to develop their hearts of filial attendance to God. It is the heart of attendance of filial sons and daughters which establishes the realm of the heart of perfect object partners. These become the original perfected individuals and model the heart of attendance for all to emulate. God has been trying to develop the heart of attendance in human beings since the beginning of creation. Human beings come to realize their value when they become perfected object partners living a true life of attendance.
The character of attendance of filial sons and daughters of God needs to mature. Without the heart of attendance to God, the Parent and child relationship can never be established and God's creation cannot advance and remains incomplete. The heart of attendance of filial sons and daughters, which develops the character of the object partner, allows for the formation of the three objects purpose which establishes the family four position foundation and realizes the Four Great Realms of Heart. This is the ideal of creation. God will settle and live in such a family. Attendance in the Four Great Realms of Heart is then followed by attendance in the three generational family (the Three Great Kinships) which sets the foundation for a hierarchy of attendance. These then establish the foundation for a hierarchical social order of attendance. The hierarchical structure of attendance and the purpose of life begin with attending God.
Our existence should be sufficient reason for attending God. He has given us not only life but also love and everything to sustain our lives. God has gone through a long and suffering course in order to save and restore us. Because God has given so much through the creation and our re-creation it places an obligation in our hearts to love Him in return. We cannot deny or rationalize away this obligation of love. To love God is to return to Him the love He has given to us by living our lives attending Him. If we return love to God through our attendance God the Father becomes the owner of true love. If we do not return love to Him we maintain Him in the position of the owner of a broken heart. When we place God in the position of owner of true love, all his love and blessings flow down to us. We inherit the blessings of the our Heavenly Parent have purposed for us. We inherit his love, life and lineage. We inherit His ideals and tradition. We gain the right of inheritance and become the owners of the universe which includes material fortune. We also gain the right of dwelling together with God and the right of equal participation with God. Through our attendance of God we enable God. The transcendent God becomes the immanent God. Through our attendance we enable God to work in our lives, to live in our families, society, nation and world. The All Immanence of God is established.
In the original homeland, we must attend God as our King. He is the King of the universe, nation, tribe, and family. (209-154, 1990.11.28)
You need to form families and a nation through which you can attend God. That is the ideal of creation. (271-230, 1995.8.28)
Respected world leaders, what do you think is God's ultimate purpose for creating human beings? Simply put, it is to experience joy through relating with ideal families filled with true love. What does an ideal family look like? First, each person in the family is an owner of true love. When God first created human beings, He made Adam representing all men, and Eve representing all women, with the intention that they become owners of true love. The quickest way for them to cultivate a character of true love was to secure a parent-child relationship with God, whereby they could live in attendance to God as their Father. (Messages of Peace 1-13, 2005.9.12)
Up until the present time, a life of faith brought salvation through faith, but, from now on, you attain salvation through attendance. Originally, if humankind had not fallen, we would be following our normally intended path by attending God. What is the use of faith alone? You can fulfill everything by leading a life of attendance. When you attend God, you should attend Him in your daily activities and with your whole heart. (150-213, 1961.4.15)
Originally, people should have attended God in their lives. All things should have attended God and rejoiced. However, we have lost the Father who created us, the Master who should rule us. Therefore, we have become pitiful people, much like orphans. From the moment we realize this, we can seek the new providential will.
You should live a life of attendance. So then, why should we live a life of attendance? To receive God's love. For this reason you should serve God first. You should attend Him. (78-30, 1975.5.1)
Please become true princes and princesses who can attend and live together with God, the eternal Peace King and True Parent of humanity. (Messages of Peace 1 -- 30, 2005.9.12)
Through your life on earth in which you welcome and attend God and live together with True Parents centering eternally on the family, you can go beyond being a family on earth and become a family of God's Kingdom on earth and in heaven, and everyone can enter the unified world. Therefore, God must be able to live in your families. You must create the family of Eden where God wants to live. Because God could not dwell in Adam and Eve's family, you must attend God and live together with Him in your families.
Things were offered in the Old Testament Age, sons and daughters in the New Testament Age, couples in the Completed Testament Age. And then you attend God. As a result of the Fall, we human beings failed to attend God on earth, serving Satan instead and being separated from God. We should now attend God and reconnect everything to Him. Thus, the things in your possession are not really yours. They correspond to the Old Testament Age, and sons and daughters to the New Testament Age. In the Old Testament Age, things were sacrificed to pave the way for the children, and in the New Testament Age, sons and daughters were sacrificed for the coming of the parents. It is ultimately to attend God on this earth that the Lord at his Second Advent, the True Parent, comes and suffers on this earth. Now we are in hell because we have been in service to Satan on earth. Thus we should attend God through the application of true love. (211-352, 1991.1.1)
If Adam and Eve had attended God in their hearts and become one with Him, then married on the basis of having perfected themselves, had children and created a family, they would have become the external and horizontal True Parents in substance, while God would have been the internal and vertical True Parent in substance. (Messages of Peace 2 -- 35, March 2006)
The starting point to unravel the problems humanity faces today is the certain knowledge of God, the Father of all creation and, on that foundation, the building of true families that live in attendance to God. This calls us to establish and attend God in our families, not as a concept but as the substantial Parent of us all. To do this, we first must clarify the relationship between God and humanity. (Public Venue, 2004.3.23)
You should know that God exists near you and is concerned about each of you more than anyone else. People think that the love of their own family is the greatest in this world. However, you should know that God's love is greater and deeper than that love; it is deeper and greater than any human love in this world. You should be embraced in God's love and be able to call Him, "Father." You should become such true sons and daughters who deeply experience God's internal heart in a position that says, "I know the Father's sorrow." If you can become such sons and daughters, and possess the Kingdom of Heaven in which you attend God, no one would be able to take that kingdom away from you. (2-234, 1957.6.2)
Since God is the center of the universe, when you go near Him you will want to be governed by Him for tens of thousands of years and even longer. This is the way to attend God. Thus, there is no greater happiness. (77-328, 1975.4.30)
When you are happy as people who are attending God, how happy have you made God? Have you attended God with a gratitude that is greater than the feelings you have as you eat when you are hungry? You should always feel grateful to God when you eat or wear something nice, even when you are sad or facing difficulties. Hence, you should leave behind good circumstances that can be remembered in God's mind. (17-291, 1967.2.15)
It can be said with certainty that there has been no family, no nation, and no world in which God can dwell together with human beings. You must always have this concept in mind. God could not live together with you, your families, your nations, or the world. You must attend God once again and live in attendance to God from a position of being higher than any of the filial sons and daughters, patriots, saints, and divine sons and daughters of this fallen world. That is the motto of your faith that you must strengthen. (266-85, 1994.12.18)
You should live in attendance to God and True Parents. This should be evident when you are talking and when you are moving about. You should live a life of attendance whether you are asleep or awake. If you think in this way twenty-four hours a day, Satan cannot invade you. (161-231, 1987.2.15)
Offer your first words to Heaven after rising from your bed in the morning. When you step outside your home, you should step with your right foot first, dedicating your first step to Heaven. If you develop such habits, your life will become a life of attendance. From this viewpoint, you should maintain the standard of a principled attitude in daily life. (17-296, 1967.2.15)
We ourselves are lone individuals and only one out of thirty million people of this nation. Yet if we can become the children who can attend God and make it possible for Him to descend to this earth, then we will become more valuable than the thirty million. We will become more valuable than the 2.4 billion people of the world. You have to understand that the Father has been working hard because He wants to relate with us as people with this kind of value…
If the human ancestors had attended God and become true parents, then their descendants would have realized the ideology of the family that would allow them to attend God eternally in their lives. However, because humankind fell, they have inherited the lineage of the fallen parents and have been carrying on a life of attending Satan, instead of God…
The ideology of Eden is not only attending God after achieving unity between the mind and body centering on God; it is attending God after becoming one with all things as well. Because these are the basic principles, God has been trying to become one with you through the historical course of toil. You have to understand that these kinds of agonies have taken place.
Had Jesus actualized the concrete temple when he came, had he realized the substantial family that could represent the ideology of God and begun to attend God on that basis, today we would not have any need for the idea of a kingdom of a thousand years. There would be no need for the idea of a second coming.
Therefore, you must now become sons and daughter who can demonstrate concern for the heart of the Father and attend Him. Otherwise, you will become pitiful people… We must form one body with God on earth eternally. We must live with Him. He is the substantial Master who can share all pain and joy with us eternally. He is the origin of unchanging love and the reincarnation of eternal hope. Before this God, Jesus could forget himself without any pretense or excuse. He was willing to do anything for the sake of the Father's will. You must become sons and daughters who inherit the footsteps of Jesus…You have to realize that the mission to attend the Father and pioneer the path of ordeals rests with humankind, who came from fallen descendants.
Therefore, now after you fight all battles and defeat all enemies, you must offer bows of victory to the Father. Your bodies and minds must become His peaceful resting place.
Having done this, you must rekindle the memory of having caused sorrow to the Father at the time of the creation of the world and be able to say, "As You relate with me, please feel the joy that You would have felt if You were relating with unfallen Adam. Father! Please claim back the will that You lost because of the fall of Adam." You have to remember that only when you can do that can you become sons and daughters of the Father who can say, "Oh, Father! We welcome You." (Sermons 4 -- 50-62, 1959.3.9)
Those who don't yearn for God every day cannot attend Him. You should always be immersed in longing whenever you yearn for someone. But when it gets to midnight, and you say, "It's already twelve midnight, let's go to bed," this causes God concern. There is no concept of day and night in the Kingdom of Heaven. Night poses no difficulty when you are living and embracing centering on heart. (17-293, 1967.2.15)
The extent to which you devoted yourself to meeting the Father and creating bonds with Him will become your asset. (50-288, 1971.11.8)
You should become the sons and daughters who, from the valley of tears, can receive a response when calling for the Father. You should become the people who, when you call, "Father!" from a place of tears, He will reply, "Yes! I am here." When you call, "Father!" from a place of piercing pain, shedding blood and sweat, He will reply, "I have endured, so you can too." When you call for Him even at the moment when death approaches, He will reply, "I am here, be at ease." The question is how much you attend the Father, how much you consult with Him and how much you live with Him in such situations. No matter how hard you call the Father from a place of self-centered glory it does no good because the Father has still not seen His day of glory. (11-102, 1961.2.12)
God is not a fantasy or a conceptual God, nor is He an abstract God. With His leadership in our daily life, He is always with us as the master of our daily circumstances. He does not just receive attendance but is living together with us by sharing love. This sounds like a dream. (168-111, 1987.9.13)
Without making a beginning point where God enters our mind, and where we human beings become completely one body with God, there is no way of liquidating the devil's world. From this point of view, we can understand that this time is the age of attendance and the age of salvation by justification through attendance. We are saved through attendance. God is not a God who is way up in the sky far removed from us. We should attend God as the master in our daily life. (144-274, 1986.4.25)
How many times during the day are you aware of God's existence? How many times during twenty four hours do you feel God's presence? How can people who are determined to be saved through attendance, attend God just one or two hours in a day? God is something you need more desperately than even the air. God is something you need more desperately than even water. God is more precious than your meals. Yet, do you really feel this? (33-230, 1970.8.16)
We must live a life of attendance. Although we have welcomed the Kingdom of Heaven of hope, we have not welcomed a Kingdom of Heaven of attendance and practice. In other words, we have not been aware in our daily lives that God is our subject partner. (6-226, 1959.5.17)
What should you do to receive parents' love? You should love everything your parents love. Only after that can you receive their love. In your physical family, if you want to be loved by your parents, you must love everything about them. You must know this. Those who want to be loved by their parents, without doing this, are thieves. If you irresponsibly try to take over everything your parents value, you cannot be loved. (133-26, 1984.7.1)
Man and woman should come together in harmony, find the lost family of the Kingdom of Heaven, and attend God as the King. This is why the grandparents are God's representatives. You have to attend your grandparents as God's representatives. Your father and mother are the king and queen representing the families of all the five billion people of humanity. Their sons and daughters should be attended like future kings. You should inherit the way of the parents by attending the parents, who are like God, the parents who are like monarchs who represent the families of today. The world to which you bequeathed this parental way that will prevail for all future ages will become the Kingdom of Heaven on earth. Amen! (239-76, 1992.11.23)
Why do we listen, and learn these things and live a life of attendance? What is the purpose of our suffering for six thousand years? It is for the sake of understanding God's circumstances and His heart just as the Bible showed. It is for the purpose of understanding that God related to ethnic peoples and nations, as well as to individuals, with a parental heart and that He is our Father who has been wounded, trampled upon, rejected and torn to pieces. (8-252, 1960.1.17)
The Unification Church states that salvation comes through attendance. It is justification through attendance; in other words, salvation through attendance. When men buy suits for each season, they should be doing that for Father as well. However, since He does not have a body, they should combine a monetary offering with their devotion instead. During these seasons, they should make an offering in the donation box for the sake of the church, with a tearful heart of attending God, regardless of whether anyone is watching. If they can do so, that devotion will accumulate in the Ark of the Covenant. This way of living should be real and expressed; not remain only as a concept. (48-328, 1971.9.26)
The problem we face now is how to create a new tradition from the standard of attendance that God wants from the individual, family, church, this nation and this people. (38-12, 1971.1.1)
In order to join the realm of attendance, you must possess the quality of heart to comfort a sorrowful God and to experience together with Him His painful circumstances in having devoted Himself. The principles of restoration reveal this and teach us how to establish indemnity conditions before God. (17-245, 1967.1.29)
There are laws in attending God. It displeases God when these laws are broken. (17-287, 1967.2.15)
In the homeland of love, if we can have loving parents and, moreover, attend God as the center of that homeland, there will be no place of higher glory. (138-105, 1986.1.19)
Then what will you do after having been liberated? Because you will serve and attend God instead of the devil, you will have to create a new cultural realm. You have to create True Parents' realm of daily life. (202-283, 1990.5.25)
What is the final thing that God wants from human beings? It is the place where God meets His sons and daughters and loves them. And the final destination desired by human beings is also a place where they attend God as their father and receive love as His sons and daughters. (56-145, 1972.5.14)
Is there a place where perfect people, that is, a perfect man and woman, come to be? It is a place where they can receive God's love centered on the public will of heaven and attend God as the subject partner after completely uniting their mind and body. When they come to such a place, they will stand in the position of perfected Adam and Eve. When such people form a family and make a start, this is a historic start. This is the beginning of a historic life course. (26-160, 1969.10.25)
Families who attend God, the subject of love, must form the base for the beginning of God's Kingdom on earth centered on His true love. The core family is comprised of a man and a woman who are united as the object partners of God's love, who fulfill the desire of the conscience, who have sons and daughters within God's love, and who live happily as a family, (270-238, 1995.6.7)
Just as the love within the parent-child relationship is cherished in the physical world, if you live with such love on earth, you will attend God as your Parent and live your life in heaven as His child. (214-268, 1991.2.3)
What kind of place is heaven? It is where we can take pride in what we prepared during our life on earth, and in our life of attendance. Then what kind of people enters heaven? Is heaven a place for those who simply believe in the Lord and expect to receive blessings or who act only for the sake of receiving blessing? No. Heaven is the destination for those who live preparing their hearts to attend God, as well as those who can leave behind a life of attendance and joyfully move on, even if they were to die while preparing. There is resurrection there. The details of life do not appear there. How we should live from now on is the important question we should reflect upon in our life of attendance. (8-303, 1960.2.14)
If you can become such sons and daughters, and possess the Kingdom of Heaven in which you attend God, no one would be able to take that kingdom away from you. (2-234, 1957.6.2)
Those who say they go to church for someone else's sake, for their beloved sons and daughters or for their beloved husband or wife, will not be able to go further. They should go to church for God's sake. You should go to church to attend God as your own God and to find God's love as your own love. (8-162, 1959.12.6)
You should be strict in keeping your promise to attend God. How can someone who does not keep his promise receive grace? Such a person would fall away from the path. From now on, I will guide you as you move. If you do not like it, you may quit. Let us see who will be the one to perish. (11-133, 1961.3.26)
Therefore, the mother should be absolutely obedient to the commands of the father; the eldest son should be absolutely obedient to the mother; and the younger siblings should be absolutely obedient to the eldest son. That is the way it should be. Therefore, it is the overall view of the Principle that any family failing to reach such a standard as just described cannot become a family which can attend God. (283-56, 1997.4.8)
Through your life on earth in which you welcome and attend God and live together with True Parents centering eternally on the family, you can go beyond being a family on earth and become a family of God's Kingdom on earth and in heaven, and everyone can enter the unified world. Therefore, God must be able to live in your families. You must create the family of Eden where God wants to live. Because God could not dwell in Adam and Eve's family, you must attend God and live together with Him in your families.
Your clans must attend God as tribal messiahs. Your nations must live in attendance of God. Your world must live in attendance of God, and heaven and earth must attend God. So the family is the starting base that can attend and live together with God. You have to know that the family is the starting base of the Kingdom of God on earth and in heaven. (270-103, 1995.5.7)
We should attend God through the application of true love. (211-352, 1991.1.1)
How great it would be if you could, while attending God, say "I want to live for thousands of years!" A verse in a Korean folk song that goes, "Moon, Oh moon, you bright moon, moon loved by the poet Lee Tae-baek! Oh moon, on you grows a laurel tree. I want to chop it down with a jade axe and trim the branches with a gold axe to build a thatched cottage to bring my parents to..." These are nice words, but where are the Parents? If they are parents based on their own desires, they will completely disappear. Where are the Parents who can reveal the great way of Heaven and earth and plant the tradition? My life's purpose, until I die, is creating the way for the world that is like that folk song. (127-281, 1983.5.15)
What would be our ideal, desire and hope? The conclusion should be as follows: first, attending God as our Father is our greatest hope; second, we are to become His beloved sons and daughters; and third, we are to inherit everything He owns. There cannot be a human hope greater than this. (Blessed Family -- 480, Korean Edition)
Had Adam and Eve not fallen, they would have occupied the positions of father and mother eternally in the spirit world; yet, due to the Fall, this was not possible. Had there been no Fall, everyone could have gone to Heaven simply by attending their parents as though they were attending God. (119-109, 1982.7.4)
The love between father and child is cherished in this world. If while on earth you live your life with that kind of love, you will be attending God as your parent and will live in heaven as God's son or daughter. That kind of life in the spirit world corresponds in every respect to the way of life of an unfallen family on earth, since the character and quality of the people are the same. (214-268, 1991.2.3)
Adam and Eve fell in the Garden of Eden. Since they lived within the fallen realm they were unable to live a life of direct attendance. People who have no experience of attending God are not qualified to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Although you have lived your life within the fallen lineage, you have paid indemnity in the course of restoration and you have attended True Parents on earth, in the flesh. Even Adam and Eve could not attend them. This condition of having attended God in your lifetime gives you the qualification to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Thus, citizenship of the Kingdom of Heaven is given to you. (150-233, 1961.4.15)
God stands in the position of the invisible internal Adam and the invisible internal Eve. In front of humankind, Adam was to stand as the substantial father, attending God, the internal Father, and Eve as the substantial mother, attending God, the internal Mother. Through this, the vertical basis was to be expanded to a horizontal foundation. (138-245, 1986.1.24)
Had they reached perfection without falling, Adam and Eve would have perfected themselves not only individually, but also universally, and a new family centered on God's love would have begun. In this way, if the clan, tribe, people, nation, and world had been created from the family, the world would have become one great extended family attending God. The center of such a great family-like society would have been God and Adam. Furthermore, in that world, Adam's family life and life course centered on God would have remained as a historical tradition, together with his lifestyle, customs, practices, and life background. Those things could only become intertwined as traditions based on God's love.
God's love is the source of life and all ideals, so that even if one wanted to leave His bosom, one could not; and even if one did, one could not but return again. (91-240, 1977.2.23)
Had Adam and Eve not fallen, they would have established an ideal family and tribe, and their descendants would have formed a race and nation within the realm of God's love, and these would have expanded and accomplished an ideal world in which Adam's ideals would also be realized. Just as the root, trunk, and leaves of a tree are connected as one living body, human beings centering on love, attending God as their Father above, and attending each other as siblings below, making them into one living body, turn themselves into beings of love and establish an eternal and ideal God-centered world. This was indeed the worldview of God's will.
People living in such a world do not require salvation or the Messiah because they are God's good sons and daughters. (110-213, 1980.11.18)
Why do we seek justification by faith, justification by works, and justification through attendance? Without being justified you cannot distinguish between good and evil. The evil world and the world of goodness would not be separated. What is the standard of righteousness? It is God. What God believes, how He works and attends is the standard. Why is that so? Satan cannot accuse righteous people who resemble God. If you create an environment in which God's faith, works, and standard of attendance lives through you, then Satan cannot intervene. Even if you are within the satanic realm, if a righteous standard is created that enables you to be with God in such an environment, Satan will withdraw from there. (161-218, 1987.2.15)
Without creating a starting point from which we can bring God into our heart and where we human beings can be completely one body with God, there is no way to liquidate this devilish world. From this point of view, we understand our time as the age of attendance and the age of salvation based on justification through attendance. We are saved through attendance. God is not a God who is up there in the sky. We should attend God as our subject and Master in our daily life. (144-274, 1986.4.25)
From now on you should live a life of attendance. Up until now, a life of faith brought salvation through faith, but from now on you attain salvation through attendance. Originally, if we had not fallen, we would be following our normal path by attending God. In attending God, you should attend Him in your daily life and with your heart. (161-218, 1987.2.15)
We are eagerly anticipating the time of attendance. Attendance of whom? Attendance of the lord, and the lord wants to attend the Father. This is the hope of humanity. Without this foundation there is no salvation. (8-293)
The time when we can be filial sons and daughters to God does not always exist. It doesn't exist in the spiritual world after we die. From the point of view of eternity, the time when we can practice filial piety is extremely short. We can only do it during our life, which is just like an instant when compared to eternity. During this time we have to establish the condition of having loved God, and establish the condition that we fulfilled our filial duty to God.
And we have to confirm that we are absolutely necessary sons and daughters to God while we are still alive. We have to do this while we are alive. (26-114)
In the beginning, human beings were created as God's children. They were destined to grow to maturity, form families with His blessing, and multiply His descendants for endless generations in a lineage of goodness unstained by sin. The first human ancestors, Adam and Eve, were to have attended God as their vertical True Parent, and with God the True Parent as their axis, they were to have become the embodied, horizontal True Parents. In such a world, the word "messiah" would never have come to exist. Their family would have been the ideal family reflecting God's ideal of creation, and the world would have been the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth, where God's ideal of creation was completed. After living out their lives in this world, human beings would have automatically been registered as citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven in the spiritual world, where they would live eternally in freedom, peace, and happiness.
Perfected Adam and Eve would have communicated directly with God using their five spiritual senses, and at the same time, they would have freely worked with the creation using their five physical senses. They would have lived as true masters, true parents, and true kings representing both the spiritual and physical worlds. (Public Venue, 2004.1.27)
Where do you currently reside? Do you live in concert with me day and night, whenever or wherever you go? Until now, I have not managed just on my own. Can you go up to the summit of Mt. Baekdu, remove the stones, plow a field, plant potatoes, and serve God with those potatoes? You should do that. Would you be hit by lightning if you made your wife plow that field because you did not have an ox? Would you stop if God said, "Hey, stop it!" when He saw you plowing the field, using your beloved wife as an ox? Will you still attend with all your heart, with your entire mind, and with all your devotion? You must. (37-25, 1970.12.22)
The first commandment for humankind is to love God. Should you love God deeply until the end, or shallowly for a short time? Will you love God even at the risk of your life? You must love God even if you get hit by lightning. If you love God at the risk of your life, there will be nothing you cannot do. (37-25, 1970.12.22)
Human beings have set up moral laws that teach children to be filial children centered on their family, which teach husband and wife to live for each other and teach that parents should love their children. But the Heavenly Law is wider than that. Human moral laws, heavenly moral laws teach to act centering on heaven. You should love, but love as God loves. "I am the longing master. I long after this earth. Have the love and heart to embrace all things." This is what the Heavenly Law tells us. The returning point of Heavenly Law starts with this. The returning point for humankind starts with the individual family but the returning point of the Heavenly Law starts with the universal family which will appear in the Last Days. (8-106)
The final words in the Last Days, when we have to be the ancestors of the Third Israel, are the words of God's love -- the words according to God's love. You shouldn't deviate from God's words; instead you should be the visible substance of God's words. God's internal heart should be your internal heart; in other words, you are to be the substantial body of the original mind (God).
You have the mission of being a second creator, who can multiply God's words. This means that you should express His words, life and substance. Only if you become one centering upon love can you attend God eternally. That is the standard of the Third Israel. Only by setting up this standard can you implant words, life and substance into people. Let us be the substantial body of words who can attend God and who can see and feel the words; let us also be the substantial body of life and of the heart of 6,000 years of fallen history, so that we can fulfill the mission of recreating the Second Israel. Then we can become God's sons and daughters, who penetrate God's internal heart, and by being God's true children we can live in eternal glory centering on God's love. (Blessing Pt. 2 -- 85-86)
The engagement ceremony is the ceremony that restores the fact that the human ancestors Adam and Eve fell during the engagement period. Those blessed families who received the engagement and the Blessing at the same time should, by establishing a true family, attend God, and in the position of true parents liberate the resentment of all things. The engagement ceremony is the beginning of the day of promise to liberate man's resentment as well as God's resentment. (Blessing Pt. 1 -356)
You can only go to Heaven when you walk the path of filial piety for God. You have to leave the tradition of filial piety behind you. If you don't do this, you won't be able to go to Heaven. (27-307)
The position at which a husband and wife marry and love each other with true love is the heavenly palace, which is the origin of the love, life, and lineage of God and humankind. It is the starting point for the ideal of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth and in the spirit world.
When children who are the fruit of such true love achieve perfect unity as husbands and wives, they form families living in attendance to God. They constitute the base upon which peace and all ideals can be established. Then men and women, each representing one side, will perfect. (World Peace -- 188, 1994.3.26)
You must walk the path of restoring the kingdom of Heaven. You must become the sons and daughters who receive the love of the universe. Next, you must learn to attend God, who is the center of the universe. (Sermons Vol. 1 -- 258, 1956.12.30)
When God held out His hands and gave the three blessings to Adam and Eve, what kind of hope did God have for them as their father? He would most likely have said, "Embrace the cosmos that I have created and become loyal subjects attending me as the King." God had this kind of hope.
Accordingly, Adam and Eve should have established the principle of being loyal subjects amongst all of the creation and should have lived their lives centering on this tradition for the whole of eternity. If Adam and Eve had become a true filial son and daughter before God and had served and attended Him as the True Father, then the filial piety they showed to God would have become the tradition, and the history of the world would have been connected to the Heart of God and Adam and Eve, and evil would never have been able to come about. (9-105)
In all religions, they teach people not to look at, listen to, speak to, or treat people carelessly. This means that you should do everything -- look, listen, talk, feel and love -- centering on God. You should not do so centering on yourself. (66-231, 1973.5.13)
Attendance in the Completed Testament Age is not the only thing that remains after the Old Testament Age of works and the New Testament Age of faith have passed. Even in the Completed Testament Age, we need to do works, we need to have faith, and we also need to lead a life of attendance. There are the stages of formation, growth and completion which remain; these cannot be separated. (161-218, 1987.2.15)
The Kingdom of Heaven is a place where we attend God as the absolute center and develop relationships of love through Him. God carries out the providence of salvation in order to set this foundation straight, so asserting oneself is absolutely not permissible. (92-255, 1977.4.18)
The age of the Unification Church is the age of the parents. We are paving the road whereby God can come and be present on earth. This is why it makes sense to say that we are saved through attending Him when He comes. This is how history is developing. (177-157, 1988.5.17)
Now the final time has come. I am going to recover my country from the Parents. All the blessed families are representing Father and Mother in the horizontal position. And by fulfilling loyalty and filial piety, they are keeping the law of God's palace by upholding the formula of fulfilling filial piety and going up through the stages of filial piety, being a loyal subject, saint, and divine sons and daughters in order to recover "my country". This law also has to be established in the Kingdom of Heaven as well. You should understand that the law of Heaven starts through us. This is what "my country" means. (197-87)
Now is the time for the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification. Everything starts in the family. Focusing on the family, tribe and nation, you should attend God. Without realizing the family ideal, through which you can unite with God, the Kingdom of Heaven on earth will not come about. (300-229, 1999.3.23)
If, as members of the Unification Church, you become patriots, should you just be like other patriots, or should you be patriots such as the world has never seen? Even after you have become filial sons and daughters, patriots, saints, and divine sons and daughters, you have to take on each of these roles in such a manner that the world and history have never encountered, and only by following these respective paths can you attend God. (273-114, 1995.10.22)
The history of humankind is that of a fallen world, yet it actually arose based on ethics and morality. At the center of that morality is love. Filial children want to love their parents ever more, patriots want to love their country ever more, and the path of sainthood teaches us to transcend nationality in order to love the world. It is the duty of saints to love the world more than they love their own families or their own countries. The way of divine sons and daughters is to love with the highest love in accordance with the law of the royal palace rather than all the laws of Heaven and Earth. Centering on love, all things should be done this way.
Filial children must follow the right way in loving their families. Patriots must follow the right way in loving the nation. Saints must follow the true way in loving the world. The children of Heaven observe the laws of the heavenly nation and the royal palace, but they do not truly understand the reasoning behind the laws of the royal palace. You can only become divine sons and daughters if you attend God in accordance with the law of the royal palace. These are the stages that people must go through. The filial child is welcomed by the nation; the patriot is welcomed by the saint, and the saint by the divine child. The divine child in turn is welcomed by God. The marrow of all this is true love. It is unchanging and absolute true love.
However, humankind has been wandering about in ignorance of true love and the fact that it establishes the ties that bind absolute filial children, absolute patriots, absolute saints, absolute divine children and absolute parents, and sons and daughters together. You may do all kinds of things, but once you realize this, you still have to go the way of following heavenly principles. Thus, you cannot continue to wander about. (206-62, 1990.10.3)
God's heart has been in pain throughout history because Satan's dominion entrapped humankind within its evil sovereignty, in the shackles of the "Era before the Coming of Heaven." That time has finally come to an end and, from this year on, the gates to the revolutionary Era after the Coming of Heaven can be opened wide, ushering in the era of a new sovereignty of goodness, in which humanity can serve and attend God as the Central Being. (Messages of Peace 13 -- 2007.10.14)
Do you know the significance of January 13, 2001? It was the day of the Coronation Ceremony for God's Kingship. For countless years Heaven had been waiting for that event in eager anticipation. It was the greatest and most exalted celebration humanity had ever witnessed. On that day, Reverend Moon, who had received the anointing as the True Parent of all humankind and traveled a path of indescribable suffering and pain until he gained the final victory, offered his entire foundation to Heaven.
For tens of thousands of years, God had endured an existence full of lamentation and grief, even as He conducted His providence with a parental heart. When that coronation ceremony was offered to Him, it marked the moment of His long awaited liberation and inner freedom. On that providential day, we declared to all heaven and earth that we would attend God as the vertical True Parent and Great King of Heaven and Earth, that we would unfurl and raise high the banner of Cheon Il Guk, and that the new sovereignty of Heaven had begun. (Messages of Peace 5 -- 72, 2006.6.13)
God's heart has been in pain throughout history because Satan's dominion entrapped humankind within its evil sovereignty, in the shackles of the "Era before the Coming of Heaven." That time has finally come to an end and, from this year on, the gates to the revolutionary Era after the Coming of Heaven can be opened wide, ushering in the era of a new sovereignty of goodness, in which humanity can serve and attend God as the Central Being. (Messages of Peace 13–190, 2007.10.14)
God, the absolute being, created human beings as His children in order to instill in them absolute values on the basis of an absolute standard. Thus, human beings must follow the way of that absolute standard in keeping with the demands of the heavenly path. This means we must follow our destined life course in order to attend God, the absolute being, as our Parent. In other words, for people to perfect themselves in resemblance of God and obtain the stature of people of character who can be called sons and daughters of the absolute being, they must follow the path based on the absolute standard God has determined. (Messages of Peace 10–143, 2006.11.21)
Start living the life of attendance now. (Spiritual Leader Pt. 1-194, 1960.10.1)