Book Three - True Love
Chapter Four - Love and Family
Section 2. The Family is the School of Love for Life in the Heavenly Kingdom

The Kingdom of Heaven is a world of love, a world that exists for the sake of God, where people live for the sake of God. (98-33, 1978.4.8)

The family is an encapsulation of history. It is connected to history, with its origin in God. You inherit the family vertically. However, inheritance must take place in a perfectly vertical manner, at a ninety degree angle. The grandfather and grandmother, representing God, have already inherited this. (216-262, 1991.4.7)

So your grandfather and grandmother are nothing less than an encapsulation of your ancestors. (214-268, 1991.2.3)

Your grandfather is an heir and a godly representative for all the ancestors who lived at different times in history. He is God's heir who, centered on God, connects us to that history. (216-262, 1991.4.7)

The grandfather and grandmother are representatives of the past, the bygone ages, and the mother and father represent the present age. The sons and daughters represent the future. Therefore, your grandfather and grandmother are the past, your mother and father are the present, and you represent the future. Then, when you have sons and daughters, they will bring together the past, present, and future; thus, the three sets of parents and three ancestors must connect their three loves and love the four generations. Thus, the Fall signifies God being unable to see His grandson. (211-206, 1990.12.30)

The Kingdom of Heaven starts from the family. The grandfather represents God, the mother and father represent the present, and the sons and daughters are the future. In this way, the past, present, and future are all condensed in the family. Thus, the mother and father represent this world. The grandfather represents God. The grandfather and grandmother have the position of the past God, the mother and father have the position of the present God, and the future sons and daughters have the position of the future God. However, they are all equal because of true love.

When their fundamental core is based on living for the sake of others in true love, they are able to develop a view of essential oneness and equal value. When the four directions blend into one we will live eternally as God's love partner based on the logic of true love because that place is eternally protected by the fortune of God's love. (211-289, 1990.12.30)

How precious it would be if I were in a position to forge a direct relationship with God! The purpose of seeking the truth lies in perfecting your family and feeling infinite love and happiness there. (33-68, 1970.8.8)

What is the family? It is a training ground through which we can inhabit the ideal nation and world with love. Furthermore, it is a training ground through which we can even occupy the heavenly kingdom and God. (106-25, 1979.11.4)

Those who have not loved will choke in the other world. They will not be able to breathe. The earthly life is a training ground that prepares you to be able to breathe in that world. Your family is the textbook of love. When you see someone of your grandfather's age, you should think that you will love him even more than your own grandfather. When you see someone of your father or mother's age, you should welcome him or her regardless of nationality, or whether he or she is an outside person, or whether he or she is black or white. When you see a youth, you should love him or her like your own son or daughter. (121-294, 1982.10.29)

What is the Kingdom of Heaven? It is the place where you can love the people of the world as you love your family, and such people are the people of the heavenly kingdom. What do the four generations of your grandfather and grandmother, your mother and father, your wife, brothers and sisters, and your children make up? They make up a family, which is like a textbook to help you experience the true love of the universe as a person of the heavenly kingdom. You should know that the family, which is the textbook, is the foundation upon which you receive this teaching. (129-96, 1983.10.1)

God's love manifests itself in the things of creation. Where does parental love appear? It appears in children. Also where there's a husband, the wife's love appears. Just as we can see the parents' love by looking at their children, or see the wife's love by looking at the state of her husband's clothes, we can see God's love by looking at the things that have been created in this world. (20-18, 1968.3.31)

God's love appears in an orderly fashion. First is parental love, and next come conjugal love, children's love, and the love of brothers and sisters. (20-33, 1968.3.31)

If we only have love, we can be friends with God and also have Him as our father. (67-171, 1973.6.3)

It is said that life is but a journey and we the traveler. We must deeply experience vertical and horizontal love while on the journey. After creating a family based on the love of true parents, true husband and wife, true brothers and sisters, and true sons and daughters, we should expand this horizontally throughout all families, in all directions. Once establishing the model of the true family that joins both the vertical and horizontal, we must expand this to the tribe, nation and world. This world of true love, which connects to God, we call the Kingdom of Heaven. (298-306, 1999.1.17)

God's love opens the gate of salvation. We must inherit God's true love, true life, and true lineage. We should know that there can be no salvation otherwise. (275-55, 1995.10.31)

The worst of all sins is to shatter something and then scatter the pieces in all directions. Also, the worst and most hated of all enemies is the one who has destroyed love. There is no devil more atrocious than the devil who makes it impossible for children to love their parents and who destroys a couple's relationship so they cannot love each other as husband and wife. (82-200, 1976.1.25)

Because of the Fall of our first human ancestors, we first lost brother and sister's love, then conjugal love, then lastly children's love. Without restoring this lost love, we cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven. (82-201, 1976.1.25)

The Kingdom of Heaven is the place we enter after living in oneness with God's true love, and having prepared a tribe of God's true love. Without possessing true love, we will never be able to enter the Heavenly Kingdom. We must prepare for that day even if we have to wait for thousands or even tens of thousands of years. (270-240, 1995.6.7)

Since God is the original substance of true love, when we are connected to true love, we all become one. The parents represent God as a living God in their own right. A husband and a wife each represent one aspect of God's divided nature, and the sons and daughters are additional little Gods. The family organization built by the three generations through true love is the foundation for the Kingdom of Heaven. Without establishing such a foundation, the Kingdom of Heaven will not be realized. The family is the center of the universe. Since the perfection of the universe is based on the perfection of the family, if you love in the universe just as you love in the family, you will be able to travel freely. In this case, God stands at the center of all love as the parents of the entire universe. (298-306, 1999.1.17)

The basis for an original, God-centered family includes all the love of men, women, sons, daughters, parents and God. If you love your parents, your husband, and your sons and daughters in such a place of unity, it will be like living in the heavenly kingdom. (Blessed Family - 942)

Where does the heavenly kingdom start? It starts in the family. It does not unfold from somewhere else. The heavenly kingdom is just a three-dimensional expansion of the family. It is not something that is outside of the family. Therefore, when you embrace your wife or husband, you should think that you are a man and a woman becoming one on behalf of the world. The family is the place where you substantiate your love for humankind through action. (30-82, 1970.3.17)

You should respect your own flesh and blood. You should respect your parents and grandparents as the owners of your house who represent heavenly right of kingship. But they are despised because they are old, aren't they? Is this what we call the generation gap? Who invented this? Satan invented this word. Where is the generation gap? Does love have a generation gap? Do you think that the way to love a thousand years ago was different from the way to love now? The ways are the same and the means of loving are the same.

The inner aspect has changed. If there had been no Fall, then the formula for love would have remained unchanged even after a hundred million years. Even if heaven and earth are in constant upheaval, if the three generations of grandparents, parents, and children strongly unite, as an iron fortress, to usher in God as their core, then they will be the seed needed to bring about the heavenly kingdom anywhere. The fundamental source for the seed of God's love and the seed of life is this lineage. If we cannot establish this, then there will be no hope for the heavenly kingdom on earth, the heavenly kingdom of peace or the world of happiness and freedom. (225-300, 1992.1.26)

What is the heavenly kingdom? You talk about going to paradise or the heavenly kingdom, but you cannot go alone. The Kingdom of Heaven is a place where you must go together with your parents and brothers and sisters. (15-278, 1965.10.30)