The Words The Kwak Family
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The Words The Kwak Family |
The birthday of our True Parents just has passed. Listening to Father's speech on that day, I was so amazed and excited and grateful as he proclaimed his blessing to all of us. He said in essence, "I will transfer all of my victories to you, but only on the condition that you do not leave any scars upon the Blessing, upon my word, or upon the historical tradition" If we don't soil the preciousness of these three things, we will be able to receive everything -- all his successes, all his accomplishments -- as our inheritance. This is truly an amazing grace.
Please try to understand Father's meaning. By tradition he means the restoration of our relationship to God through eight stages, from the servant of servant's position all the way up to the father's position. We have to follow True Father's pattern, and not hesitate to go the course of suffering and indemnity. Also we must not violate the Blessing.
Father mentioned that he himself took great concern and care not to leave a scar on the heavenly tradition, so that he could pass on this tremendous gift, purely, to all blessed couples, to all Moonies, and ultimately to all mankind. Now it is up to us to prepare to purely inherit this great blessing and tradition. Again I have to express how incredibly fortunate we are to have received this profound grace.
The question arises: How can we fully restore the true vertical and true horizontal relationships? Most important of all is, where should we do this? This is nowhere else but home church.
Think about the many times Father has spoken about home church. He has taught over and over that your home church represents your world, your cosmos. Everything is there, ready for you to fulfill. How could Father make a statement like this? Before he could even give us such a direction as home church he had to create a foundation utterly free from Satan's accusation. Until he could do that, he could never transfer the home church providence to us. Before 1978, when Father introduced the home church idea for the first time, he never mentioned even one word about home church. As you know, we are now publishing Father's speeches in Korean-500 volumes of 500 pages each. Out of so many hundreds of speeches, I know that before 1978 there was not a single word of home church mentioned. Only after having created a victorious foundation free from Satan's grasp could Father freely proclaim the idea of home church. This is the grace of grace, the blessing of blessings.
Home church is our ultimate place to restore horizontal relationships. Among your 360 homes you will find all kinds of people. They are the representatives of all mankind. You might have difficulties with them on many levels; your struggle may be internal or external. But in any case, unless you do home church, how can you have any means to reach the world and cosmic levels? Many of you have never even left the country of your birth or have visited only one or two other countries.
Restoring horizontal relationships ourselves is not a simple matter, even though we have the restored True Parents with us, and without going through home church, it is impossible.
Besides our horizontal relationships, how can we restore our vertical relationship with God? Because we come from fallen ancestors, our original position is one of an enemy to God. So far, Christians of even great faith who follow good Christian principles have only been able to reach the adopted son's position. The four higher stages of stepson, true son, mother, and father still remain to be conquered, and even to reach one of these stages is not easy. So how can we do it?
Like the gift of home church, we Unification Church members have received another great gift and grace from God, the holy Blessing. No matter how unworthy we consider ourselves, no matter how many struggles we had in our past, we can jump to just above the growth stage through our Blessing. The Blessing itself is recognized by God and True Parents as even higher than the adopted son's position, higher than the stepson's position. Through the Blessing we become True Parents' actual sons and daughters.
After the Blessing we are still like immature children, and because of the fallen world around us and our fallen background, we still have to set indemnity conditions. Most importantly, we have to faithfully follow True Parents' tradition and direction. But after our Blessing our main course is to go the way of the Principle, and we have to go that way cot by laying indemnity conditions but by fulfilling our human responsibility.
Let me explain. Our Blessing was mainly God's and True Parents' grace bestowed on us after we fulfilled only minimum indemnity conditions. That indemnity was like a small fund with which we gained amazing interest. But we can grow vertically through the last stage only by fulfilling our portion of responsibility. The Principle view is that we can reach perfection in seven years, but actually the course cannot be set as an exact number of years because it is entirely dependent upon whether we personally fulfill our responsibility or not. I emphasize, our own. No one else can do it for us.
If, after the Blessing, you dedicate yourself completely, you can reach the level of perfection under ideal circumstances in seven years, but seven years is not to be understood literally. Look at it from the point of view of the eight stages, vertically and horizontally. If you fulfill them, then you have passed.
So internally, you can check yourself. Which stage am I in at the moment? What does the true son's position really mean? Even though I am blessed, am I really connected heartistically with the True Parents? Am I centering on their love as a real son or daughter would? If you are thinking of True Father and True Mother 24 hours a day and devoted to them in all of your thoughts, never separating yourself from them, then you will be directly linked to them.
It is your task and destiny to create this kind of heartistic unity. If you are focused on True Parents internally, the spirit world will always assist you, and you will absolutely reach your goal. You will discover the depths of True Parents' heart more and more, and you will be able to plunge deeper and deeper into the very heart of God.
Question: The Divine Principle frequently mentions that Satan knows God's plan in advance and because of that always copies God's design ahead of time. How far does Satan really know the details of God's plan?
Answer: Satan does have a clear knowledge of God's principles and indeed he has a good understanding of God's overall plan for the establishment of the Kingdom of Heaven. However, the step-by-step process is within God's mind alone because it unfolds according to the fulfillment of man's portion of responsibility, and is flexible according to that fulfillment.
Question: Is it unwise to speak too openly with brothers and sisters about positive contacts or specific ideas for the future? I have heard that doing this might create a foundation for negative spirits to come and attack that person or that idea. Is this being overanxious or is it a justified concern? I don't feel such a concern in small groups where there is strong unity among the brothers and sisters.
Answer: Indeed, it is not good to speak too openly about positive contacts or ideas for the future. Too much casual discussion can tend to take energy away from good developments in our life and work. It is sometimes better to keep the energy inside of ourselves where we can work with it towards the fulfillment of the ideas, rather than to bring the ideas out through too much talk, which can draw unneeded skepticism. Where there is a good solid bond of unity and trust among brothers and sisters, however, sharing regarding a positive contact or a good idea for the future can be a good thing and can inspire even better ideas.