The first thing that I want to say about indemnity is that it does not equate to suffering. Many brothers and sisters always have this thought come to their minds when they think of indemnity. Indemnity does not equal suffering. Another thing that indemnity is not is "punishment". God is not really a "hellfire and brimstone" God. He does not have a desire to punish his children. This is what Satan wants you to believe so that you will never be able to go back to God. What would you do if you were shown the door to a room and you were told that in that room was God Almighty and He was waiting to see you? How would you feel? Many of you would be scared to death to go in that room. Wouldn't you? You would think, "Now I'm really going to get it."

From the Divine Principle you should realize that Heavenly Father is not like that. You should not be afraid of Him. He's your Father. He wants to help you. So why are you afraid? Satan has made you afraid of God. You have inherited his fear since the fall.

The Master-Servant relationship is very different from the Parent-Child relationship. Think about it. If the servant does something wrong, the master will punish him in some way. Or in the case of something really bad, the master will kick the servant out all together. Now think about the Parent-Child relationship. If the child does something wrong, the parent is not going to kick the child out. The parent is going to try to restore the original relationship and the original good nature of the child. The parent in his heart takes full responsibility for the mistakes of the child. The parent raised the child. The parent is the cause and the child is the result. So the parent automatically has to take responsibility.

So if your child does something wrong, what do you want to see happen? You want to get back to the original relationship before the bad action occurred. But you can't just ignore the bad action. You can't let it continue to happen either. Something has got to change.

First, you would want the child to realize that he did something wrong. Next you would want the child to apologize for the mistake that he made and then change his behavior. Preferably he would demonstrate thoroughly that he understood what he did wrong and then act in a good way from now on. This would rebuild your trust and faith in the child.

You would not want just a shallow apology from the child and then have him repeat the same mistake or in some way show that he doesn't care or understand what mistake he is making. As long as the child is making progress in his understanding of what is right in the sincerity of his heart, then you are satisfied with his growth. In other words, you can forgive immaturity as long as it is growing into maturity. And also you can forgive ignorance or even wrong actions as long as you can see sincerity and that the motivation was a sincere desire to do the right thing.

If that's the way you are, wouldn't you expect God to have even greater love than that? God's understanding of your ancestors and the spiritual forces acting on you is complete, whereas yours is not. God can understand why you do what you do better than you do. He is more sensitive in His heart than you are in yours and He can feel and understand your motivation better than anyone else. He also knows the amount of effort you are making compared to your level of capability at this stage in your growth. God knows He's putting a lot of pressure on you to do bigger things than anyone in history has ever been able to do. He wants you, one person at the end of thousands of generations of sinners, to be able to rise above all historical sins in only one generation, in just your own lifetime. It's not easy to restore all of history in one generation. God knows that. He knows it better than you.

So the real key to God and the secret to paying indemnity is your sincerity. If you have pure motivation and you sincerely want to know the truth and do the right thing, you never have to be afraid of God. He will always want to embrace you and help you to better understand the truth and right actions. Everything was made to grow to perfection over a certain period of time. Every skill that you have was developed with a lot of practice and a lot of mistakes over a long period of time. Heavenly Father knows this very well. He created it that way. He is aware that you are going to make many, many mistakes.

"If you make a mistake, you are going to have to pay indemnity." You hear this a lot in the church. It is a threat of punishment to scare you into doing something. There is actually truth in this statement, but the understanding of "indemnity" as something to be feared is coming from Satan, not from God. If you think of indemnity as punishment, then every time you make a mistake, then more punishment is added on to your total. After a while it seems futile to do anything because however hard you try you are bound to make mistakes. Each mistake is adding more punishment to your pile of indemnity which is already a mountain. The smartest thing to do is just to do nothing. Then at least your punishment is not getting any greater. Satan likes this.

But this is not indemnity. Indemnity is actually a gift from God. Indemnity is grace from God. Even you can think that indemnity equals love from God. God is the source of love and not torture, therefore indemnity must be an expression of God's love. When you experience indemnity, you should at the same time (or as a result of indemnity) experience God's love. If all you experience is suffering, you are not "paying indemnity." If your suffering is for God, then the result will be that you are closer to God and can feel more of His love.

This is very important. The purpose of indemnity is restoration. Restoration of what? Restoration of your relationship with God is what. Therefore, if true indemnity has been paid, the net result will be that you feel closer to God. If you feel farther away from God's love, then indemnity has not been paid. In fact, Satan has gotten the victory. It is Satan's will to separate you more from God. If you feel closer to God, indemnity has been paid. If you feel farther away from God, indemnity has not been paid.

Many times a person will get some physical injury and others will say, "You're paying indemnity." Please don't think that physical suffering is indemnity. It might be, but then again it might not be. Indemnity is spiritual only. Unless there is some spiritual benefit as a result of the physical suffering, no indemnity has been "paid." Heartistic indemnity is spiritual. Therefore a small amount of heartistic indemnity can be far, far superior to a great amount of physical suffering. It is all decided by how much you become closer to God as a result.

Let me also clear up some of the confusion about "lesser than, equal to, and greater indemnity." Lesser indemnity is always the case in the Unification Church. You never have to pay the full amount. Because of the True Parents it's always a lesser amount. You never even have to pay equal indemnity. That is an Old Testament concept back before Jesus came and back before anyone knew anything about the Parental Heart of God.

Greater indemnity will never have to be paid as long as you maintain a sincere heart. Abraham, when he had to sacrifice his son Isaac, was not paying "greater indemnity." Sure it was greater than the sacrifice of the animals, but it was not greater than all the sins of himself and the human ancestors. Abraham through it all was sincere to do God's will, so he was actually paying "lesser indemnity." He did not, in the end, have to kill his son, he only had to offer him, which was tremendous heartistic indemnity.

"Greater indemnity" only applies if a person remains insincere and unrepentant. Greater indemnity should be thought of like this. If someone hurts you or wrongs you, then you cannot feel love for them. As long as they remain insincere or unrepentant you cannot love them. You could have a condition to love them only if you saw them suffering. If you see they are suffering more than they have made you suffer, then you have the condition to forgive them and begin loving them. This is an example where the person has paid "greater indemnity." Your heart wants to love them now because of their suffering. You are just waiting for them to turn to you to seek a relationship again.

If a person has hurt you, your heart will become closed. But as soon as a person becomes sincere and repentant, your heart automatically wants to open up to them. It could be a long time before you see a person's sincerity, but when you finally see it, your heart begins to open. Always at that point "lesser indemnity" is operating. The relationship is in the process of being restored and neither party wants to needlessly delay the reunion.

Heavenly Father is always seeking a reunion with you. He just needs to see your sincerity and repentance and He will rush toward you. He will then give you some physical act to symbolically restore the physical wrongs that have been committed. It can be relatively simple but it represents all your sincerity to restore the past. The simple physical act is the key, but the tremendous benefit is entirely spiritual. A small physical act can represent an incredible spiritual breakthrough on your part.

Therefore, physical acts of indemnity that you perform are almost insignificant compared to the spiritual and heartistic realities of what they represent. Once our hearts have made certain conditions, then the Grace of God brings about tremendous restoration.

This misconception that greater indemnity equals greater punishment has been hung over a lot of members' heads by Satan, causing many of them intense spiritual anguish and even causing some of them to leave the church. They lost all hope of being able to climb out of the big hole they were digging for themselves and their descendants every day.

It is important that everyone think about indemnity and these other concepts in the Principle in terms of how this expresses God's love for man. God has no other motivation but love. If for any reason you cannot understand or feel God's love behind every concept and aspect of the Principle, then please think that your understanding is not big enough yet. Pray to better understand God's point of view and how God's love is being expressed through this. Thank you for reading all this. It's a long comment but understanding indemnity is very important and Satan is really trying to confuse our members.

Love,
Heung Jin Nim