The Words of Hyung Jin Moon From 2010
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The Words of Hyung Jin Moon From 2010 |
Good afternoon brothers and sisters. (Good afternoon!) Good afternoon. It is so great to see you all. Welcome to the headquarters of the Unification Church. Even though as a human being we are weak, within Heavenly Father and True Parents' love we can be strong. Today we sincerely hope and pray that we can be proud sons and daughters of Heavenly Father and True Parents with their true love. Aju.
Good afternoon brothers and sisters. Let's manifest the Principle first. Give and receive action; four position foundation; may I inherit the True love of God. Aju.
Today is Cheon Seong Gyeong 3:16, and Father speaks. He says,
"The core of the universe is human, the root of life is love and the root of love is God."
When we as Unificationists say Aju, that is composed of two Chinese characters. As you know 'amen' was the traditional way of affirming a particular prayer or statement, and it means 'truth' and 'so be it.' Truly, it is an affirmation of what has been said. But True Father has given us Aju, which means in the Chinese characters, the Chinese character 'me' or 'myself' or 'my,' and the second character juinchuja, which is 'Lord.' So here, what we can understand is that whenever we say 'Aju' as Unificationists, what we are doing is praising the Lord. We are saying, "My Lord!" See, "Aju!" That is what we are saying.
So in the Korean congregation, the services, we have been doing a very fun exercise and training. What we usually do is say, "Hallelujah, amen," -- hallelujah is from the Hebrew which means 'praise God' -- "Na-e junim!" Na-e junim means 'my Lord.' "We praise you," this kind of feeling is inside there. And then we say "Aju."
So when I say "na-e junim," you guys say, "Aju." Ready? Na-e junim! (Aju!). Hey, you did it. See how wonderful that was? But whenever we do that we are actually affirming God. We are thanking him and lifting up our praise to him. So we don't just say 'truth' and 'so be it.' Every time we feel the grace of God, we lift up our praises to heaven and return the glory back to Almighty God. Na-e junim! (Aju!) Oh yes! You guys learn very quickly!
Brothers and sisters, now we are going to meet one of our wonderful brothers and one of our families. As True Parents said, the core of human beings is life, the core of life is love, and the root of love is God. And here we can truly feel the pulse of God's life and love in the wonderful families who really make a difference in our community. This is a wonderful family that we have known from Ma-Po Church. Just a tremendous family of faith; wonderful children. So through this video we are going to have a chance to meet Jo Hyeon-hwan and Kim Sam-sook's family. Let's take a look at this video.
Let's hear the story of true love of the family of Jo Hyeon-hwan and Kim Sam-sook who apparently drove through the night in a cold briquette delivery van to come to receive the Blessing. "I am a proud member of the Unification Church." This is Chun Wan Li, Chung Pyung Lake area where we have a lot of land and foundation. Mr. Jo is a member who is in charge of landscaping, construction work, and road maintenance and so forth on this land.
"If there is anything to boast about, my church life is fulfilling. When I was small I was made to go to Sunday Service without fail. We were woken up for five o'clock pledge and Chung Sung (holy songs), complete with holy robes. We kept a 21-day or, if longer, a 40-day condition of separation before we gave birth to our second generation, to our children. The 95% of responsibility from heaven is the 95% True Parents granted to us, but the remaining 5% Jeong Seong, or investment, has to be offered by the Blessed family. When that Jeong Seong becomes 100% you can conceive and give birth. But if you think vaguely about it like those in the outside world, I believe it may be more difficult to have children.
"We hear things like, 'First generation parents may have gone through many hardships but I don't want to do that.' We hear these things a lot. But our second generation should understand what the parents have gone through. The second generation work less than their parents. In order for them to go the way of faith clearly, the first generation parents really went through much suffering. The hope is that the second generation can grow daily for the sake of the providence."
This is Mrs. Jo, his wife. She is asked about donating for the sake of the construction of Cheon Bok Gung. She says, "I think we have to find a way, rather than just saying there is no way. After working until 6 pm I went straight to my job until midnight. That income was only 400,000 won but I put it in a dedicated account which people kept for us. 'Heavenly Father, just give me a word,' I thought, and He said to me, 'Sam-sook, do your best, I love you.' With that I was able to move on. With that kind of heart I kept working. But once I was sick for ten or fifteen days, and was laid up in bed. I became so worried, I didn't know what to do. It was difficult to work during the day -- even to eat and to live was difficult. But somehow I gathered my strength and started working on another job. There, I began to earn much more money: 1.6 to 1.7 million won. I felt God was alive at that time also. God had found me this job so that I wouldn't have to work late at night all the time.
"At these times, at such times, I am so grateful and I do my best. But for the most part, if parents tell their children about their difficulties like this, the children… But I believe that if parents and children can talk heart to heart and understand what is going on, if there is good giving and receiving, we can become one. So I spoke to the children's father first and said I would work part time jobs to make the donation to build Cheon Bok Gung. If dad was coming home late, I always waited for him. And if he came late, the children would go out and meet him on the way and bring him home. We gathered our Jeong Seong in that way and we're so grateful for this things.
"The children's father is very grateful for this giving and receiving of heart and that the children can also know the heart of their parents together. Sharing heart, sharing circumstances, sometimes my own daughter becomes like my God, for example. I ask them, 'What do you think? What do you think is good to do?' When I ask them like this, I speak with the heart of reporting to my substantial God.
"Our eldest child is very humble. 'Mom if I can get a scholarship,' he said, 'it would be good, but maybe I won't be able to, right?' And I said, 'Well, why don't you try harder and see? You always try hard with your studies.' Then one day he came and said excitedly, 'Mom!' and I said, 'What?' 'Mom I got a scholarship! Look at this! It really is one, isn't it?' So that was good, and that time at that moment I spoke to our son saying, 'You work very hard for the sake of your father and mother, and you've got a scholarship. Something this important, though, should really be offered to heaven shouldn't it?' Anyway, I decided to offer the extra money to build the perfection stage Cheon Bok Gung. And he said, 'Oh really?' Then he thought quietly about it and asked, 'Mom, then how are you going to pay my school tuition?' And I said, 'Well, think about it; don't you think a way will open up if our motivation is good?' And he said -- 'Yes, I understand.'
This is the daughter, Hyung Mi, speaking: "Based on the foundation the first generation has cultivated, our second generation will advance the Cheon Il Guk and become the center and become the owners. Each of us should have a sense of mission and become able to testify to God and to our True Parents in our own positions, and do our best."
"Brothers and sisters of the Unification family, we love you!"
Let's give it up for Jo Hyeon-hwan and Kim Sam-sook's wonderful family, three children, beautiful kids -- such a wonderful family!
Brothers and sisters, today I want to talk to you about a love that conquers all. Oh, you better get ready! Yes! Na-e junim! (Aju!) Yes! You guys did it. It's better than hallelujah!
We will start with world scriptures first. Let's look first at Christianity. This is I John, chapter 4, verse 8. Let's read this together:
"He who does not love does not know God, for God is love."
Aju.
This is Buddhism today: Nagarjuna, the Precious Garland; second century philosopher -- very important figure in Buddhism -- verse 437. Let's read together:
"Compassion is a mind that savors only mercy and love for all sentient beings."
Aju.
This is Islam; this is the Koran, 39th Sura, 10th verse. Let's read together:
"Those who act kindly in this world will have kindness."
Aju.
And this is True Parents' words. This is from Cheon Sung Gyeong 3:10. And let's read this together:
"What is the holiest thing in the world? It is true love. True love begins from love. God desires the path of true love above all, not any other path."
Aju.
And for a love that conquers all we are going to look at the primary scripture, from I Corinthians 13, we'll start with verses 1 through 3. Let's start by reading this together:
"If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing."
Aju.
Of course there is probably nobody in this room that does not know this very powerful scriptural passage. This is from Saint Paul who was writing to the Corinthians, the Corinthian church, and he makes these statements: that even if I have a faith that can move mountains, even if I have the power that I give everything to the poor, and surrender my body into martyrdom, that it is nothing if I have not love. Here we remember the fact that the Unification church exists because of true love. Let me say that again: the Unification Church exists because of true love. Na-e junim. (Aju.) Yes! Oh, you've got it. That is because God so loved the world that he sent his son as a second coming.
He sent True Parents to give us eternal life, to save us and bring us into the light as families. That doesn't mean perfect families that means families that are constantly working to build God's Kingdom. Here Paul reminds us that knowledge or spirituality or faith that can move mountains or service to the poor or even martyrdom without the sake of love is nothing. These things are meaningless without the power of love. But we often confuse what Saint Paul was talking about when he talked about love. Many times we will think that it is the common notion of love that we know in our normal lives, the love that we may feel between two lovers, or the love that we may feel for another person in a sort of emotional way in our hearts. But that is not the love that Paul is talking about. He is talking about the love of Christ. And the love of Christ is not just a warm feeling on the inside. The love of Christ is a love that lays down its life for his friends. The love of Christ is the love that Jesus exemplified on the cross. Na-e junim. (Aju.) Yes.
It is the radical love of Christ that here Paul is referring to. For us as Unificationists, this love has to go even one more step up. Where Christ said in John 15:13 that he who lays his life down for his friends, there is no greater love than that. In the life of True Parents, not only does the True Parent have to lay down his life for his friends, but for the children that have been stolen from God. The True Parents must lay their lives down over and over, and die and die and die, and descend and descend into hell, and descend over and over again, for the sake of the salvation of our souls, of our family, nation, world, cosmos etcetera. They must fulfill the indemnity conditions of all the eight stages to bring us to the gates of heaven, the promised land, the Kingdom of God. Aju.
See, this is what Paul is mentioning when he is talking about love. And it is only when we as Unificationists obtain and inherit this type of Parental True Love heart, with a desire to save the rest of the world -- as Father has called us to me mini-messiahs, to have the heart of saving the world, laying down our life even if it is at that cost, to save the children that have been taken from God -- it is only when we have that kind of heart of love do any of the good actions that we do have meaning is what Paul is telling us. If we do good deeds for recognition or praise, or good deeds for such things as rewards and plaques, then it is not the greatest good and it does not return glory to the Father, to God. The good deed is only a truly good deed when it helps others and at the same time increases God's glory and joy. When He sees we are resembling His parental heart, that is when the good becomes the greatest good.
The only way to resemble this heart is not to increase in ourselves, to make our ego even larger, to feel that we are more powerful and strong -- no, it is the opposite: To resemble this parental heart we must decrease in self and in ego, and we must let God become greater in our lives, greater in our minds and our hearts and our souls, and in our actions and all that we do.
You see, Paul says that the strongest are the weakest. We usually think that leadership requires strength -- and it does of course. Leadership, we oftentimes will think that the strongest will survive. But this is not the case. What Paul says is that the weakest become strong in Christ. In weakness we open ourselves to the power of God. We don't have this misconception that we can do everything and all things in our own ability. We don't have that delusion. We understand that we are weak and have limitations, and so thus open ourselves to God. And it is only in that opening of ourselves to God that He can make us strong and He make our inadequacies adequate. And He can make us, the meek, into the ones that inherit the Kingdom of God. You see this is what Paul was talking about.
When David was a sixteen year old boy, he was a weakling -- weak in body. But when he fought Goliath and he swung the stone with the sling, God imbued him with the power that he did not have within himself and gave him the power to slay even the greatest opponent. Na-e junim. (Aju!) Yes.
Even Abraham, when he was 75 years old, an old man, very old, no power in his physical body -- weak! Very weak! -- God asked him at that very advanced age, and strengthened his faith so that Abraham would be able to lead the children and the chosen people of God.
Joshua and Caleb had taken on the mission that Moses had taken on after the four hundred years of slavery in Egypt. Then they had to cross the desert for forty years. They were totally exhausted and wiped out, totally weak in the heat of the desert, and now they had to go into Canaan and overcome all the kings and the armies inside and enter into the promised land. On their own effort, no way could it be possible. But, see, we must remember that with God, all things are possible, my friends. For God made the Israelites, who were weak, he made them strong in faith, he made them strong in spiritual ability and he made them overcome the powerful Canaanites, the giants that ruled the promised land.
It is in this weakness that we ask God for help and that we don't pretend to be 'all that and everything in between' or that we don't need help or for Him to work through us to effectuate His will. When we do that then our God-given, individual, in-truth, incarnate nations, personalities, etcetera -- then those things can be utilized for the will of God. Na-e junim. (Aju!) Yes, you see, that is what Paul is talking about.
Let's move to the next portion of this. This is an extraordinary piece by Paul. This is verses 4-7. Let's read together:
"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres."
Aju.
Here we see one of the most powerful descriptions about the characteristics of love. Paul describes love as being patient, being kind, not envious, boastful or proud. What we can understand here is that love is not a noun. It is not a feeling inside that is just warm, and a feeling that we have towards another person. It is not that thing! Here, what we learn is that love is a verb! It's a verb! It is an action. It is a discipline. It is a training. You see? He describes what love is: that love is kind, that love is patient, that love is protecting others, trusting others, never giving up hope, persevering. He describes these as the traits of love.
And at the same time he describes what love is not. He describes love as not being full of envy, not boastful, not full of self-pride, not being rude, not being self-seeking, not being easily angered or keeping records of wrongs, on how people hurt me. That is what love is not.
Here we can understand through Saint Paul that the discipline of not delighting in evil but rejoicing with the truth is love. Not delighting in evil but rejoicing in truth! Here the evil is that which separates us from the love of God, which is sin. Sin separates us from God's love, His motion towards us. When we create sin in small areas or in great areas, that is what separates us from the power of God's love in our life.
You see, we don't delight in evil, in the sin, but we rejoice with truth: the truth that God has given His son; the truth that God has laid down His life through True Parents over and over, to save us, to save our souls, to bring us to eternal life, to bring our children to eternal life. Then we understand what rejoicing in truth can be. Many people mix this point up: when we love we don't want to delight in sin. People get this mixed up! Sin is what separates us from love.
There are people right now that are preparing -- people even in this room -- that are preparing to go to the Blessing, young people and other Unificationists, whether they be first or second generation. If I ask them, "Now you are getting ready to be Blessed, would you commit adultery on your spouse?" If I ask them that, they would surely say, "Of course not! Are you crazy? Why would you even ask me such a thing? Why would you ask me if I would commit adultery on my spouse?" And then I would ask them: "Why? Why won't you do that? Is it because it is God's command? Is it because True Parents said for me not to do it? Is it because of the law? Or is it because I love my spouse and that's why I won't want to do something that would destroy and shatter her heart?" You see what I mean: it is the power of love that allows us to overcome the power of sin. Na-e junim. (Aju!) It is not by our own power but it is by the power of the love of God, the power that gives His life for us, and the power that we can obtain when we give our life to Him.
You all know, of course, Hoon-sook nim. She is the number-one premiere ballerina in Korea. Let's give it up for her one time -- number-one premiere ballerina in Korea! (Applause) We call her the 'famous' sister-in-law. She is really wonderful. Everybody recognizes her on the street. I can't go anywhere with her. She's really wonderful. She said one time, she was having an interview with a media outlet, a newspaper, and this interviewer was doubting her greatly, and he didn't like our church so much. So, he asked her in a very sarcastic way, he said, "So, you don't have a lover?" because he knew she had a spiritual marriage. "So, you don't date?" he asked her in this very sarcastic tone. And being the person she is, always graceful and elegant, she did not respond by slapping him in the face. She should have! But she did not do that. She said, "You know what, I'm going to tell you something. I love my husband. I love my husband. And I believe this time and this life here is just a long engagement, and when I meet him on the other side, I'm going to live with him forever. That is why I don't need to answer such a question." Let's give it up for Hoon-sook nim! (Applause) Oh, I'm making everybody cry with that! Oh, my goodness.
This is the same with God. So many people receive God's forgiveness and God's grace. But then they continue to commit the same sins that they have always done. "Oh, God will forgive me again." You see, when somebody does that, because we understand that love is an action, when someone acts in such a way, we understand that such a person does not love God. Because if you really even loved your spouse you wouldn't cheat on them, if you loved your spouse, you would treat them with kindness and patience. It is the same way with God. By our actions we show whether or not we love Him or not. Because love is not a noun; it is a verb. Na-e junim. (Aju!) Yes.
I heard a story about a farmer who was raising cattle, cows, and there was this one baby calf who was injured, his leg was injured. So he could not walk, and he had to walk about 500 meters to get to the barn. So, the cow was incapacitated and was on the ground, and the farmer saw him, and he picked him up… and the cow would not have any of it! The cow did not like the fact that he was being lifted two meters above the ground while his leg was in pain, so the cow started doing all sorts of moving and kicking and mooing and screaming -- and all sorts of things. But the farmer knew he had to bring him to the barn so that he could fix him up and get him back to health. So he held him very tight and continued to press forward.
But all of a sudden he felt a very warm stream of water -- or something -- coming down his body. And he looked at his white shirt, and now it was a yellow shirt! Of course now he is sweating, he has to pick up this 200 pound cow and walk the 500 meters, so he is getting an enormous workout, sweating, plus he got all the urine on top of him: that is not a delightful scenario.
So the farmer gets to the barn. He puts the cow down. He bandages the leg, puts the brace on, even washes the cow -- washes the cow first. He does not go into the barn and say, "Boy, I smell terrible! Cow, you wait here with your injured leg and I'm going to come back after I take a shower." He first puts the cow down, bandages him up, puts the braces on -- and washes the cow first, even though he's soaking in cow pee-pee! He washes the cow first, and then after that he goes to wash himself. The farmer goes to the bathtub -- which is an old-style bathtub, where you had to fill it with water, to get a bucket and pour it in -- but there's no soap! He has no soap! So, he is sitting in the bathtub, trying to rinse himself, but the more he rinses himself the more the water becomes yellow. So the more he cleans himself the dirtier he becomes! So the farmer has to get out, empty the tub, fill it up with water, while he is all messy. And he has to get in there and try to rinse off again, and then again and again -- multiple times!
This farmer realized on that day -- God spoke to him on that day; God spoke to him on that day when he was in the urine in the bathtub -- he realized that God is just like him, the farmer; that God does everything in His power to save us who we are injured, who cannot make it on our own power back home, back to the Kingdom. And God will hold us, and even though we kick and squirm and scream, God holds us tight, so that we can get back home. And when we sin -- the farmer realized -- when we sin, we are making God's white shirt yellow. When we sin, we are defiling Him. We are not showing our gratitude towards Him. We are defiling Him. And God, of course, in His grace, will continue to try to carry us home, will put us down, bandage up our leg, put a brace on and wash us first, even though He is all defiled. And He will go and rinse himself over and over. This is what the farmer realized: that this is God's love; that when we sin we do what the cow did to the farmer.
And so it is out of love that we do not sin. Because we are greater in intellect and in emotion and in heartistic quality than a cow! So it is out of love for 'the farmer,' love for God, who saved us who are injured, it is out of our love that we don't defile him, we don't commit adultery against Him. It is the love that allows us to overcome the chains of sin.
Brothers and sisters, let's end with the last part of this wonderful passage. This is verse 8-10. Let's read together:
"Love never fails. But where there are prophecies they will cease; where there are tongues they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears." … "And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love."
(Verse 13) One more time: the greatest of these is? (Love!) Yes.
What does Paul say to us here? He says that love never fails. What is another way to say that? Love always wins. I will say that again. Love always wins! Na-e junim. (Aju!) Love always wins, because love doesn't take a short-cut. It doesn't take the short-cut route. It may take months, and years and even decades, it may take your whole lifetime to love somebody that is hard to love. But love never fails. He says 'never fails.' That means it always wins in the end.
All things, like prophesying or speaking in tongues or knowledge, pass away. They become irrelevant, Paul says, because when perfection comes the imperfect disappears. When the returning Christ comes, there will be no need for imperfect prophecy or speaking in tongues or imperfect knowledge.
We will have the ideal of perfection, the heart of God's essence, the true parental heart. A love that is so powerful that it can overcome evil and sin and death over and over and again, and it can rise and resurrect over and over, even though it sacrifices itself to die and die. A love that is so powerful that neither the grave nor the greatest evil can overcome it. For love never fails and always prospers.
Out of faith in God, out of hoping for God, and loving God, Paul clearly says which is the greatest. Out of having faith in God, hoping for God, and loving God the greatest of these three is loving God. Because it is exactly that love -- in which he had to sacrifice his life for us so that we may have eternal life -- it is precisely that love that saves us and it is that love that is the greatest when we return it back to the glory of God.
Jesus, through his powerful exemplification of love, changed the course of history, moved the course of history from bounding to the law to the overflowing of law into love and grace. And Jesus' love has changed the course of the past 2000 years of history.
Nobody on this globe does not know the name of Jesus Christ. And nobody does not know about the love that Jesus had. Nobody does not know about the love that Jesus had. Jesus' love, in that small Mediterranean city -- from Nazareth -- has changed the world; the power of his love, the love which he defined as the greatest love, which is the love that will lay down its life for its friends.
But, brothers and sisters, as True Parents have returned to fulfill the mission of Jesus that Jesus asked them to fulfill, they have walked not only the course of one death and resurrection, they have had to walk the course of seven deaths and resurrections, to exemplify not only the love for friends, that will sacrifice for friends, but a love that is of the parental heart; the love that is of God's essence, which is God as the parent; a love that will die and die and die again, that will gratefully go to hell and to hell again for the sake that its children may be free and enter the Kingdom. And this is the love that True Parents have exemplified and God has succeeded in, in their lifetime. And this is the love that has influenced the course of history from now and forever. Aju! This is the love, brothers and sisters: the parental heart.
It is this love that will allow us as the Unification church to inherit the Old and the New Testament ages and to move into the Completed Testament age, in which all peoples come together into God's family, to bring the world into the realm of heart of the True Parent -- the parent: the true nature of God and the savior of our souls. Let's give it up one time for God and True Parents and the great true love that they have given, for us, to us. (Applause) That is the power that we have, and that is the power that chases away sickness, and chases away weakness, and chases away disease, and chases away inadequacy, and chases away obstacles. It is not our own power but it is God's power.
Let's finish with True Father's words, from Blessing And Ideal Family, 383. Let's read together:
"We must search for true love. Where are we to go to find true love? True love has no day or no night; it is eternal and unchanging. It cannot be true love if it is only for myself. True love cannot be my individual possession. True love is for all people and for the entire universe. True love is what connects family, society, nation, world and cosmos. If the whole world came to love each other with true love, even at the price of death, there would be a burning fire of rebirth."
Aju!
Let us close our eyes and, Brothers and sisters, let us take this time for prayer. Let's raise our hands -- it says in the Acts of the Apostles that we have holy hands in Christ. Let's lift our hands up to the heavens and towards the nations as we pray.
Heavenly Father, we thank You so much for this day. Beloved True Parents, thank you so much for giving us true love, true life and true lineage, for we know that we have come from the servant of servant's position to become your true children.
Father, You have lifted us up from the depths of hell so that we can be freed. You have paid the price so that we can enter into the Kingdom. You have paid the price so that our families can go with us to Your eternal resting place.
And, Father, we offer You grace today because we want to worship You and praise You this day. Father, we know that it is Your love that makes us strong, not our individual characters, not our abilities, or the things that we may develop in our life. For, Father, it is those who are weak before You, those who are meek that will inherit the earth. It is those who know that they cannot do everything in their own power, that come before You humbled, that You will use. We see it, because you used Noah and Moses and Abraham and Isaac and Joseph, and you used Caleb and all the saints. You used Jesus, who was born in meekness, in a manger. The world expected a Lord that would come and unify the tribes of Israel and come in glory and power but You sent him in meekness and weakness because it is through that humility that You would show Your power over death.
Father, we thank you so much, because today, we admit that we are not strong. We are not strong. If we are strong we should go home. Father, we are weak before You. We need You. We need a savior, forgiveness. Father, we cannot solve the problems that are great in this world -- the current problem of North and South Korea -- we cannot solve this on our own power, dear Lord. Father, it is when we acknowledge that we are weak, that we are just human, that we open ourselves to the glory and the divinity and power of Your Kingdom. Father, we pray that today we may acknowledge this, we may know this, and it is through that power that You may work through us and achieve miracles for Your sake.
Thank you so much; as You have offered Your life for us, we offer our life to You. Father, we do it with gratitude and in joy, because we do not delight in evil, as Paul said, but we rejoice in truth, for we always hope and we always have faith and we always persevere, Father. And we thank You today for giving us new power.
We pray these things in gratitude in our own names as central blessed families and in the name of True Parents. Aju!
1: Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I do not want you to be uninformed.
2: You know that when you were heathen, you were led astray to dumb idols, however you may have been moved.
3: Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking by the Spirit of God ever says "Jesus be cursed!" and no one can say "Jesus is Lord" except by the Holy Spirit.
4: Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit;
5: and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord;
6: and there are varieties of working, but it is the same God who inspires them all in every one.
7: To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.
8: To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit,
9: to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit,
10: to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues.
11: All these are inspired by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills.
12: For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.
13: For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body -- Jews or Greeks, slaves or free -- and all were made to drink of one Spirit.
14: For the body does not consist of one member but of many.
15: If the foot should say, "Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body," that would not make it any less a part of the body.
16: And if the ear should say, "Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body," that would not make it any less a part of the body.
17: If the whole body were an eye, where would be the hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell?
18: But as it is, God arranged the organs in the body, each one of them, as he chose.
19: If all were a single organ, where would the body be?
20: As it is, there are many parts, yet one body.
21: The eye cannot say to the hand, "I have no need of you," nor again the head to the feet, "I have no need of you."
22: On the contrary, the parts of the body which seem to be weaker are indispensable,
23: and those parts of the body which we think less honorable we invest with the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty,
24: which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior part,
25: that there may be no discord in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another.
26: If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.
27: Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.
28: And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then workers of miracles, then healers, helpers, administrators, speakers in various kinds of tongues.
29: Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles?
30: Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret?
31: But earnestly desire the higher gifts. And I will show you a still more excellent way.
1: If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
2: And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
3: If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
4: Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful;
5: it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;
6: it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right.
7: Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8: Love never ends; as for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.
9: For our knowledge is imperfect and our prophecy is imperfect;
10: but when the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away.
11: When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways.
12: For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood.
13: So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.