Sermon Notes July 24, 2011

In Jin Moon

1. In Jin Nim greeted everyone – she shared that she felt the energy in the room. She especially recognized the members of the high school camp who were present. It was her privilege to spend a little bit of time with them at UTS. Every time she gets a chance to spend time with our kids she realizes that there is so much hope for the future -- in the sheer beauty of their faces and the promises of all that they can be – it inspires her to work a little bit harder and to run a little bit faster -- and hopefully create the kind of world that we are all longing for.

2. In Jin Nim just came back from a world tour of sorts. The last time she spent time with True Parents was in the beautiful city of Abuja, Nigeria. Our True Father poured out his heart to the African people. Together with the Lovin' Life team, In Jin Nim was able to share a Lovin' Life Sunday service with our African brothers and sisters -- about 800 of them.

3. As In Jin Nim gazed out over the audience she was overcome by the sheer beauty of the audience – such a rare occasion to have such a contrast of colors in the audience. Here in New York City at Lovin' Life, with the beauty of all different cultures from different backgrounds and races coming together – there is dark and light hair, chestnut brown, red hair, all different shades, but, in Africa, the audience was predominantly black skin. It was like looking into a sea of ebony – in which the only thing you saw sparkling were the whites of the eyes of our brothers and sisters. It was as if she was gazing into the midnight sky and seeing the twinkle of the brilliant stars embedded in the sky. Of course, when they smiled, you saw their fabulous flashing white teeth – the sheer contrast between black-and-white was shockingly beautiful. In Jin Nim realized, every day there is something beautiful that God shows us.

4. If we have the heart and eyes to take in the little details, the little beauties of life that are shared, she realized how blessed and how grateful we can feel in our life of faith. The time with our African brothers and sisters was truly memorable.

5. Just as beautiful and exciting as the morning could be, we realize that in Oslo, Norway there is a great tragedy unfolding in that many lives were taken away by this 32-year-old man, Anders Breivik, who took it upon himself to teach the world what he wanted to teach. They say that he is a right-wing Christian fundamentalist. He was terribly upset about the position that the Norwegian government took in regard to allowing cultural exchange, allowing for different faiths to be celebrated – in particular Islam. He was very unhappy about Marxist thought that was being disseminated across the country. In order to clear the air and shake the world up to what he wanted to say, he took the lives of 84 children who were all under the age of 25 at a youth workshop. And he blew up a government building killing seven and wounding over 90 people.

6. When we wake up to this kind of news and we realize that there is so much hatred in the world today, once again In Jin Nim is reminded how important it is to have True Parents with us at this time of the breaking news.

7. One of the young survivors, a little girl, said that this man was a testament to how ugly hatred can be – but if we could all unite together in love, if we can stand together in love – how beautiful would that be?

8. If one man can showcase his hatred in such a horrific way – shouldn't we as a worldwide community, understanding ourselves as one family under God, showcase the love we have for each other by standing together as that united family, and by saying, if we truly understand our Heavenly Parent, our God up in heaven, if we are a true Christian, Muslim, Catholic, Protestant, or Unificationist, then it is our duty to showcase our love for one another by rising above our differences – cultural, racial, and religious differences. This is the message that our True Parents have come to teach and to remind humanity of.

9. They come to teach the importance of unity. "U" 'n (and) "I" need True Parents, we need True Parents in our lives – to understand the value of what our purpose is – to be those eternal sons and daughters of God, to understand that we are not going to just preach about being one family under God, but we are actually going to substantiate, become one family under God through this beautiful process of the Holy Blessing ceremony –where people from different cultures, races, and religions are encouraged and empowered to seek international, intercultural, and inter-religious marriages – so that we don't just talk the talk about unity and one family under God, but we substantiate it by becoming part of God's original lineage through the magic of the Blessing.

10. Therefore, the church that our True Parents gave birth to – and In Jin Nim knows that a lot of people have a problem with this concept of our movement as a church – but you have to understand that one of the most glorious and beautiful sacraments that our True Parents bring to this world is the Blessing, this opportunity to graft on to the original lineage of our Heavenly Father. And this sacrament is administered through the church, through the Unification Church. You do not receive the sacrament of the Blessing through a peace organization or peace movement – but you do it through the context of a religious organization or a church – truly understanding and honoring God in that sacred hour, when a man and a woman who are prepared in knowing who they are, and who are prepared in wanting to commit their life to God, to humanity, and to each other – and through this magical beautiful process of the Blessing enter into this worldwide family and really have an opportunity to have that ideal family – or have a chance to build that ideal family on their own.

11. When we think about how glorious it is to be living at this time with the Second Coming, the Lord of the Second Advent, our True Parents – we need to realize that this is not an ordinary time. And our True Parents are not ordinary people. They are people who have been anointed with a special mission to really heal the world and to teach the world about the preciousness and profundity of living our lives infused with true love and thereby be the kind of people, be the kind of nations, the kind of world that can usher in a new millennium of peace.

12. Our True Father, the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, said many years ago, and has consistently reminded us, that we cannot have peace without understanding what love is all about. He has consistently taught us and reminded us that love is the greatest force, the greatest power in the universe. It was love that ignited the spark of God's imagination to create his beautiful sons and daughters. God wanted to experience love – to love and to be loved – that is how we came to be.

13. In order to really fully understand what we are all about we cannot preach about the world of peace, we cannot claim that we are doing fabulous service projects – and therefore because we are "living for the sake of others" and feeling good about ourselves – by default the world of peace is going to take place. We can do good works, but if we do not understand what love is all about then there is no way we can accomplish what we want to accomplish so badly.

14. Our True Father has taught us over the years that we come to understand what love is all about in the context of the family – by rubbing up against, truly rubbing up against our parents, our children, our spouse, our brothers and sisters, and through this process of overcoming all the difficulties and jealousies and maybe even hatred that might arise within the context of a family – if they can overcome this and truly learn to love each other as members of a family – that is what gives us hope in building a world that can truly say, "we belong to one family – truly practicing the art of true love, truly understanding what a difficult process it is to heal" But as long as we have a plan and a purpose and direction in our lives, because we know that we are God's eternal sons and daughters, then there is an infinite possibility to what we and our community and our world can be.

15. When In Jin Nim thinks about how precious it is to have our True Parents with us she realizes that life is very much like a journey. It is like getting a new car and driving down this long highway.

16. The Bible says in Deuteronomy 28:1-2, it reminds us that if we diligently hearken to the voice of God, God is talking to us every minute, every second, and every hour of our day. It is really our responsibility to exercise our 5% responsibility by taking that initiative, being proactive in tapping into that divine voice, that inner voice through which God speaks. If we can diligently hearken to the voice of God, God promises us several things. God says that we will be able to overcome many, many different things if we concentrate on observing and truly doing what he commands us to do.

17. The Bible uses the word 'observe'. The Webster dictionary defines that word in several ways -- it can be to watch something, it can be to celebrate a special day such as a religious holiday or in remembrance of something. And observe – means you exercise your visual perception.

18. The Bible goes on to say, if you observe and you diligently do – the visual perception and awareness that we have in our daily life needs to be linked to what we do, meaning how we put that perception into action. In the Bible it goes on to say, if we do this – then God will put us on the most high, above all the nations of the world. And it says that we'll come to realize that the blessings will come on all of us, and the blessings will not come slowly – but will suddenly overtake us, if we hearken to the voice of God.

19. In Jin Nim always found this passage to be quite interesting, in that it encourages us to really listen to the divine voice that is always flowing through our veins and through our hearts and through our soul. It is encouraging us to listen to that inner voice, and to not just listen but to be aware, be self-aware and be aware of your surroundings – knowing not just who we are as God's eternal sons and daughters, knowing not just what we are – we may be a great student, doctor, professor, dancer, or musician. But also the word 'observe' pinpoints or highlights the importance of knowing where we are.

20. It asks us to not just observe and understand who and what and where we are in life, but it also links the importance of visual perception, how we see things, together with the importance of actually substantiating, or doing, or manifesting what we perceive. And if we do so, continuously listening to the voice of God that rings through all of us, because we are all divine human beings, then we can tap into this incredible blessing that God promises, or prophesies, or wishes upon us – that He would like us to sit on the most high above all the nations of the world, that he wishes upon us great blessings to come on thee, on us, and not to just come on us but to overtake us, surprise us, to really wake us up – to see what we are all about.

21. When you look back at over 50 years of our Unification Church history, we realize that many times the first generation went through a process of driving down this highway. When they first came across the beauty and the profundity, and the sheer power of the truth of God's message to His sons and daughters – they suddenly became alive. It is as if a spark plug has ignited our souls and we realize that our life has a divine purpose and there is a divine plan and we are so overjoyed in knowing that we have also been anointed to live at this time together with our True Parents – and we come alive. In a way the world starts brand-new for all of us. This is certainly the experience that our True Parents, your (2nd gen) parents had, and anyone who comes to understand the truth and beauty of the breaking news. We all come to feel alive in our new spiritual life – because our spiritual eyes and spiritual hearts have been awakened.

22. We realize that the last 40 years in the wilderness – that in a way it has been something to be able to maintain this spark of feeling alive – for the long torturous process of going through the wilderness in the last 40 years. We experienced the highs and the lows, we experienced when our Father first arrived on American soil and everyone was so delighted to hear the breaking news of our True Parents, the Day of Hope tours, the Washington Monument rally, the Yankee Stadium rally – we were so alive.

23. But we also experienced the lows, the persecution that came thereafter, of everybody being afraid of this eccentric oriental couple coming with this incredibly powerful message of hope and of true love and of trying to build this ideal family – of being a part of God's 'one family under God.' Many people were afraid that our True Parents had such a powerful sway over the young people. How else are you able to take someone's life, someone who is going nowhere, someone who did not understand their destiny in life, did not have a purpose, perhaps were engaged in drugs and a half-hazard way of living with no thought about their future or the future of the nation – suddenly becoming someone who is incredibly determined, alive, and pointed towards a purpose and a goal. The change from someone who lives the life in disarray to someone who has a finite and clear purpose – this was something that was incredibly contrasting – so contrasting that many people could not understand how such a change could take place. Because of this words like brainwashing were used. "Rev. Moon must be really busy washing people's brains. He must be having a special laundry service after Sunday service." They started calling us brainwashed zombie and cult. In reality the word cult is a positive word – it means a new religion, a new way of thinking. But they took that word and use it to mean something incredibly ugly. We were seen as a cultish church. We suffered the backlash of being called Moonies for decades. We've had to deal with the misunderstanding of our church – branded as a monstrous predator that preys on these helpless young American brothers and sisters.

24. We have gone through a great deal of suffering, but now at this time of the breaking news, it is really no longer a call to just merely survive – but to really transition into the age of settlement when we have arrived at a point in our lives when we no longer struggle with the survival mentality of the wilderness and we can finally put down our roots and become that internally and externally awesome people that we all are – and truly celebrate and love each other, loving our community, and loving our families, and begin to enjoy thriving – no longer surviving and barely making do – but truly thriving, tapping into what we initially felt by being alive. Perhaps we lost that spark along the way while we tried our best to survive through the years in the wilderness. But this is really a time to thrive. It is a time to observe what God is telling us, and not just observe, but do.

25. If we understand our life to be like a journey on a highway – usually when people set off on a journey it would be helpful if they had an awareness of where they are going and how they are going to get there. But one of the things you realize when you get into the seat of the car – a lot of people are very good drivers and many people have driven quite a number of years, they have a great deal of experience, but many times we become so good at doing what we have been doing that perhaps we are not aware of the changing scenery, or the changing highway, or the different roads that are being built as we move on down our journey of life.

26. One of the things that we need to concentrate on, if we are to be a safe driver, is that we have to be mindful of looking forward through the front windshield at the road. We have to look out toward where we are going. We have to look forward to where we want to go. During that time of survival, the wilderness time, we have been very good drivers – in terms of looking forward to what we want to build, to where we are going. We have been very good about keeping our focus on the distant horizon as we move on down the highway, steering ourselves down the highway.

27. Even the simple things that we enjoyed, making us comfortable, or giving us satisfaction – for example we were very good at delaying gratification, because we were looking towards the future so we were going to sacrifice everything we have – because we are building a better future. We are going to delay our gratification because we are fixed on the distant horizon.

28. But one of the things we need to realize in wanting to be a good driver, you not only have to look forward when you're driving – but just as important as keeping our eyes on the distant horizon, where we would like to reach and how we would like to reach our destination – it is incredibly important to be mindful of where we are now in the present. Meaning, we have to be aware of what is happening in our environment now. It is as important as looking forward.

29. Many of us in our life of sacrifice, our life of suffering, and living for the sake of others were literally dying for the sake of others. Because, delayed gratification became – denied gratification. In order to survive we came to deny any kind of gratification whatsoever. We thought that was the reason why God put us here on earth. We were not realizing that – even as we have our eyes towards the future, we must still be driving in the present, we must still be enjoying the ride, creating the ride, substantiating the ride – as we move forward.

30. We also realize that when we are driving we also have a rearview mirror that we must always be cognizant of – that we must be aware of. It's not just looking to where we are going, towards the distant horizon, from time to time we need look back. The rearview mirror is like looking back into your past – looking at what is behind you.

31. But if we are to be a great driver we cannot just be looking in the rearview mirror. Because, if we are going 60 or 70 mph while not being cognizant of where we need to go, or where we are in the car right now at the present time, then sooner or later, just looking backward, we are going to run into something.

32. We realize that many times in our effort to survive the wilderness mentality we were also preoccupied with indemnity. We were preoccupied with indemnifying all the sins of the past. We were overburdened with all the bad things that we had done, or that our ancestors had done, and we kept on looking backwards. And, sometimes the sheer weight of our past kept us fixated in the past – not allowing us the room, or flexibility, to process into the future by seizing the present and making it into what we wanted it to be.

33. We realize in our period in the wilderness, that not only were some of us fixated only on the future – understanding our lives to be denied gratification, but some of us were also fixated only on the past in that we cannot let go of the very thing that we needed to let go of in order to move on and become those better people.

34. At the same time we know that probably one of the most dangerous things we need to be cognizant of is this thing called the side view mirror. There is always this little message on the side view mirror which is very interesting – it says, "objects may be closer than they appear." So many people are not cognizant of this blind spot that the side view mirrors are hoping to highlight. Many, many accidents are caused – because we are not aware of how close the object is that we see in the side view mirror. Of course the technology has caught up and now good cars have a blinking light on their side view mirror – in case you don't see it, the light blinks to let you know that something is there.

35. Many times in our life of faith we have lots of blind spots, depending on where we are in life – and we want to go forward, we want to capitalize and seize the day in understanding what we need to do in the present, but at the same time being held back by our past – all the while not realizing that sometimes the greatest danger comes from something that is incredibly close. It is just like – the darkest area of a lamp is right underneath the lamp. The lamp gives us brilliant light to allow us to do the things that we need to do in the evening – such as to read, but the darkest place is under the lamp.

36. In a way, this blind spot in this analogy of being the driver in a car, is a reminder for all of us to not be shortsighted in taking for granted the time that we are living in together with our True Parents. The True Parents of mankind are here with us, truly guiding and paving the highway that we are driving on – and we are so close to our True Parents, we are living at the same time as our True Parents, we can see our True Parents, we can hear the words of our True Parents – many times we are too close and we don't notice how incredibly precious they are. When we take them for granted, when we fail to see them with our spiritual eyes and just look at them as an old man and a woman – we are forgetting to realize how incredible our anointment is – living at this precious time with our True Parents. And just as the blind spot is incredibly dangerous to the driver, if we do not understand how incredibly important our True Parents are in our life at this time – then we are like the driver ready to collide into the very thing that can give us incredible inspiration, empowerment, and nourishment – and drive over them, drive over our True Parents, not realizing who they are or what they are in the context of providential history, and not realizing that where we are is shown by the roads that they have paved, the different highways, the different interstates, the different pathways that they've been paving for the last 50 or so years.

37. And if we are so close to this object in our blind spots that we don't realize the time and significance of what we are dealing with – living together with our True Parents – then we are not going to be observing, we are not going to be aware, when God wants to put us on the most high above all nations – when God wants to bless us, the blessing to come on all of us, when God wants to bless us in such a way that the blessing over takes us – if we are not aware because we have succumbed to our blind spots – we will not able to even recognize the blessing that is traveling right alongside of us. We are not going to even see the blessing that is going to come upon us, that will overtake us, because we are so preoccupied with what we are dealing with in our own individualistic lives.

38. When In Jin Nim thinks about and prays about this verse in Ecclesiastes it is really an effort by our Heavenly Father and Mother to really encourage us, to own up to who we are. A lot of people say, "I don't want to really reflect on the kind of person that I am. I don't want to start to take a really hard look at what I'm about, because I know what I am." Most people in our movement have come to that conclusion. "I have heard the Divine Principle, I have been sparked into a new life, I know the truth, and I know who I am." But, as important as it is to know who we are as God's eternal sons and daughters, we as a divine being, that eternal son and daughter, have a responsibility to grow and deepen in our faith – to grow in our faith, to bare flesh in our faith, and the only way you can truly bare flesh in our faith is by experiencing the drive ourselves – by experiencing being aware of who we are, but also knowing where we need to go – because once we decide where we need to go, then we can work on how we are going to get there.

39. Here at Lovin' Life Min., it is not just a feel-good Sunday service. Here is an attempt to build the kind of community, a thriving community that can truly inspire our own to be great sons and daughters of God – not just internally but also externally – to encourage our youth to see beyond what we thought we could be, and to remind our community that these dancers (there were 3 dance performances before In Jin Nim began speaking) can dance the way they do, not because they were blessed with a talent. Talent is just the beginning. It is to diligently listen to the voice of God (as it says in Ecclesiastes), diligently listen – meaning if you have a good teacher you need to unite with that teacher by diligently listening, uniting, and following what the teacher is asking you to do – by observing what is asked of you and to carry it out. The great dancers from Dancing With The Stars dance the way they do because they diligently united with their teacher.

40. They did not just unite, but they practiced. When someone does something well in life – no one becomes great or successful by default. Nobody is born great or successful. Success and greatness come through hard work, diligence, to go through putting in the grinding hours, suffering through the blood, sweat, and tears, having a plan and a purpose in life, and if you want to be a great dancer you spend those four or five hours every day in the studio sweating it out, practicing against the resistance of your own body – understanding resistance is not something that obstructs, but something that offers opportunity for you to become stronger, leaner, and more flexible.

41. If we think in these terms, and understand that the difficult things that we need to work out, what In Jin Nim calls the 'resistance' in life – is not something that should kill us, that should chop us off at our knees – but when we are feeling a bit of resistance, that is when we need to open up our eyes and say, "here I have before me resistance. That means I have been given an opportunity to stretch beyond my thoughts of what I could be, to strengthen, to become stronger through the process of going through this resistance. Ahh, this is an opportunity for me to go deeper into myself, into my limbs so that I can truly be that flexible body that can be thrown into any situation – but because we are so flexible and we have been trained and we have been diligently practicing – we can survive in any environment, in any setting, and that is what defines a winner."

42. When you look at our two father's life, this is a man who overcame every odd possible. He was born into a very small provincial village. He was called and anointed by Jesus Christ at the tender age of 16, but this is a man who has gone through six prison terms – one of which was in a North Korean concentration camp, Heung Nam – where he survived for two years and eight months. This is a man who was thrown out for dead, a man who has been misunderstood, misrepresented, abused, and called every name in the book. But he never, never wavered. He was diligent in harking to the voice of God. Regardless of what resistance he saw in his path he saw it as an opportunity to grow and to strengthen and deepen – and he never, never wavered. Throughout all these years of incredible suffering, and it is not just our True Father but it is our True Mother as well.

Sun Myung Moon, Hak Ja Han, Hyung Jin Moon, and Ye Jin Moon, May 5, 2011

43. When In Jin Nim spends time with True Father in Las Vegas, Father is relentless – five, seven hour Hoon Dok Hae, Mother being the wonderful beautiful wife, reminding Father to please eat, as he totally disregards usual schedules, going on and on, pushing himself – and mother trying to be there. She is the only one who is awake when father is a wake, who goes to sleep when father goes to sleep. And this woman has been at it for more than 50 years. It is extraordinary!

44. In Jin Nim said to Father, "the world is a better place because you were born, but thank God for our True Mother – the world is a beautiful place."

45. And so we have before us this inner voice made manifest in the person of our True Parents. So when In Jin Nim spoke to our members in Nigeria she told him that when she was on the plane and they told her, "25 minutes before landing," she said in her mind that she hopes the pilot is absolutely united with the control tower. Because, her life is in the hands of the pilot and the person in the control tower. Even if the direction is off by 1° many, many bad things can happen.

46. Think about JFK airport and LaGuardia airport, think of how many thousands of planes land every day. But we live our days assuming that our takeoff and landing will be safe, that we will be brought home safely to our loved ones, because we know that there is just one control tower at the airport – and we hope that our pilots are in constant communication with the control tower. Because, imagine if there were at JFK more than one control tower. What if some people who do not like the JFK airport – "JFK Airport is no good, the person in the control tower is no good, he is not doing a good enough job, he is getting too old, he is senile." Let's say a group of people bring their cardboard and papier-mâché and build another control tower next to the original control tower and break into the communications with the different pilots, who are communicating with a real control tower, telling them not to listen to the senile person in the control tower – "they do not know what they are doing you must listen to us, listen to our coordinates, listen to what runways we are asking you to land on. Do not land on the runways that the real, senile, control tower is asking you to do."

47. Can you imagine what would happen? Can you imagine if you were on the highway, and you believe you are on Interstate 90, but then further down, the road splits into two or three highways, each with a sign for Interstate 90. What are you going to do? How will you know where to go? Or if we are on flight, 83, going into Abuja, can you imagine the horror and shock of the people on board when the stewardess tells them that there are two control towers in Abuja. That would be a nice way of saying we are all going to be, "Kentucky fried chickens!"

48. We have to understand that the clarity of direction is incredibly important for any organization. An airport is a very good example – we are talking about life and death. We're talking about the life and death of people taking off and coming in for landing. If we do not have clear direction of where we need to go, because we know who we are, we will never reach our destination, we will never get there. Likewise if we are so consumed and confused at the critical hour when we have to land, as to which control tower we need to be listening to, and we are weighing the options of more than two or three control towers, that plane is not going to be able to come home. It will land but it will not come home.

49. We have to understand that at this time of the breaking news, it is our founder that has been anointed by God, inspired by God, that has taken us through the time of the wilderness and is now pointing us towards the time of settlement when we need to thrive and love life and really be gratified and satisfied in our religious life as we are in all other aspects of our life.

50. This is a time in which there will be static in the air, there will be a lot of ad hoc control towers saying, "listen to me, we are better, we know better." But if you want to come home safely, and we all want to come home safely into the embrace of our Heavenly Father and Mother, then we need to remain true, loyal, and unified with our control tower, because whether we are faithful loyal and unified or not will determine whether we live or die. This is a critical time when whether we are united with our True Parents or not will determine whether we live or die spiritually.

51. Sometimes the greatest danger is something that is incredibly close to us. Another control tower may be someone else in the True Family, it might be someone else in the position of leadership, maybe one of the Continental Directors, or it may be someone who is a national leader, but this is a time to not be confused – and unite with our True Father who speaks through the youngest son, who is the spiritual head of our movement.

52. We as a movement, in order to thrive, in order to be alive in the glorious community that God envisions for all of us, we have to help transition from the real control tower to the next one that our True Father and True Mother are preparing – by raising up the younger brother, Rev. Hyung Jin Moon, to be that spiritual head, to be that new control tower. The clarity of direction, clarity of communication, and clarity of longitudinal coordinates given will be understood and brothers and sisters taking off, and coming and going, will always land safely.

53. In Jin Nim knows that a lot of people think, "maybe we should listen to the other control tower. Maybe they will help us fly higher, fly further, and fly more efficiently." But it is not how high you fly, it's not how far or how efficiently you fly, if you do not know where you are going. If you don't have a clear destination you will run out of fuel. Regardless of how high you fly, regardless of how brilliantly far you fly, with no fuel you will have nothing. Fuel for us is the true love that our True Parents are conducting through their love for humanity, because they understand that they are the conduit through which all of humanity will be grafted on to this heavenly family, this heavenly lineage.

54. "Brothers and sisters we are living at a glorious time. And the Bible teaches us in Proverbs 3:6 – that as long as we acknowledge Him (and Her) be mindfully aware, have our self-perception enlightened by the power of true love, as long as we are mentally, spiritually, and emotionally aware – to be in a position to acknowledge our Heavenly Parents to be our parents up in heaven and to acknowledge their representative, our True Parents here on earth – as long as we can acknowledge him and her, God will prepare the path, pave the path, for all of us – pave the path to reach, to satisfy, and to complete our glorious destinies that are waiting for us if we can only open our spiritual eyes and begin to see, to observe, and to continue to do the good work that we are doing."

55. "So brothers and sisters I bring a great love and hope and blessing from our True Parents who are in Las Vegas right now. Please have a glorious Sunday and please go in knowing, we are that incredible and that phenomenal movement, here to do good work. And we need to be confident and proud of who we are as Unificationists. So be that proud eternal son and daughter of God, be that empowered son and daughter of God, in knowing that by acknowledging our God up in heaven that our path has been paged gloriously by God. And I always find it quite fitting, when I hear the words of great saints and teachers that have always said, "many times people miss the glory of who they are, when people are so engaged in living out their story" – so all of us are like a myth in the making. Everything that we do will be a story for our children and our future generations. Just because we are in the midst of living out our own story, we must not be so blind-sighted to our blind-spot, to neglect – that the life, the course, and the drive that we are on is a drive that is glorious – which will inspire many, many people to come."

56. "You are blessed you are anointed. Please go in love and work hard for the peace and harmony for all of our brothers and sisters. And I pray that you can have a special prayer for those good souls who lost their lives in Norway. Have a great week and thank you once again."

Notes:

Deuteronomy, chapter 28

1: "And if you obey the voice of the LORD your God, being careful to do all his commandments which I command you this day, the LORD your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth.

2: And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, if you obey the voice of the LORD your God.

3: Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the field.

4: Blessed shall be the fruit of your body, and the fruit of your ground, and the fruit of your beasts, the increase of your cattle, and the young of your flock.

5: Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading-trough.

6: Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out.

7: "The LORD will cause your enemies who rise against you to be defeated before you; they shall come out against you one way, and flee before you seven ways.

8: The LORD will command the blessing upon you in your barns, and in all that you undertake; and he will bless you in the land which the LORD your God gives you.

9: The LORD will establish you as a people holy to himself, as he has sworn to you, if you keep the commandments of the LORD your God, and walk in his ways.

10: And all the peoples of the earth shall see that you are called by the name of the LORD; and they shall be afraid of you.

11: And the LORD will make you abound in prosperity, in the fruit of your body, and in the fruit of your cattle, and in the fruit of your ground, within the land which the LORD swore to your fathers to give you.

12: The LORD will open to you his good treasury the heavens, to give the rain of your land in its season and to bless all the work of your hands; and you shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow.

13: And the LORD will make you the head, and not the tail; and you shall tend upward only, and not downward; if you obey the commandments of the LORD your God, which I command you this day, being careful to do them,

14: and if you do not turn aside from any of the words which I command you this day, to the right hand or to the left, to go after other gods to serve them.

15: "But if you will not obey the voice of the LORD your God or be careful to do all his commandments and his statutes which I command you this day, then all these curses shall come upon you and overtake you.

16: Cursed shall you be in the city, and cursed shall you be in the field.

17: Cursed shall be your basket and your kneading-trough.

18: Cursed shall be the fruit of your body, and the fruit of your ground, the increase of your cattle, and the young of your flock.

19: Cursed shall you be when you come in, and cursed shall you be when you go out.

20: "The LORD will send upon you curses, confusion, and frustration, in all that you undertake to do, until you are destroyed and perish quickly, on account of the evil of your doings, because you have forsaken me.

21: The LORD will make the pestilence cleave to you until he has consumed you off the land which you are entering to take possession of it.

22: The LORD will smite you with consumption, and with fever, inflammation, and fiery heat, and with drought, and with blasting, and with mildew; they shall pursue you until you perish.

23: And the heavens over your head shall be brass, and the earth under you shall be iron.

24: The LORD will make the rain of your land powder and dust; from heaven it shall come down upon you until you are destroyed.

25: "The LORD will cause you to be defeated before your enemies; you shall go out one way against them, and flee seven ways before them; and you shall be a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth.

26: And your dead body shall be food for all birds of the air, and for the beasts of the earth; and there shall be no one to frighten them away.

27: The LORD will smite you with the boils of Egypt, and with the ulcers and the scurvy and the itch, of which you cannot be healed.

28: The LORD will smite you with madness and blindness and confusion of mind;

29: and you shall grope at noonday, as the blind grope in darkness, and you shall not prosper in your ways; and you shall be only oppressed and robbed continually, and there shall be no one to help you.

30: You shall betroth a wife, and another man shall lie with her; you shall build a house, and you shall not dwell in it; you shall plant a vineyard, and you shall not use the fruit of it.

31: Your ox shall be slain before your eyes, and you shall not eat of it; your ass shall be violently taken away before your face, and shall not be restored to you; your sheep shall be given to your enemies, and there shall be no one to help you.

32: Your sons and your daughters shall be given to another people, while your eyes look on and fail with longing for them all the day; and it shall not be in the power of your hand to prevent it.

33: A nation which you have not known shall eat up the fruit of your ground and of all your labors; and you shall be only oppressed and crushed continually;

34: so that you shall be driven mad by the sight which your eyes shall see.

35: The LORD will smite you on the knees and on the legs with grievous boils of which you cannot be healed, from the sole of your foot to the crown of your head.

36: "The LORD will bring you, and your king whom you set over you, to a nation that neither you nor your fathers have known; and there you shall serve other gods, of wood and stone.

37: And you shall become a horror, a proverb, and a byword, among all the peoples where the LORD will lead you away.

38: You shall carry much seed into the field, and shall gather little in; for the locust shall consume it.

39: You shall plant vineyards and dress them, but you shall neither drink of the wine nor gather the grapes; for the worm shall eat them.

40: You shall have olive trees throughout all your territory, but you shall not anoint yourself with the oil; for your olives shall drop off.

41: You shall beget sons and daughters, but they shall not be yours; for they shall go into captivity.

42: All your trees and the fruit of your ground the locust shall possess.

43: The sojourner who is among you shall mount above you higher and higher; and you shall come down lower and lower.

44: He shall lend to you, and you shall not lend to him; he shall be the head, and you shall be the tail.

45: All these curses shall come upon you and pursue you and overtake you, till you are destroyed, because you did not obey the voice of the LORD your God, to keep his commandments and his statutes which he commanded you.

46: They shall be upon you as a sign and a wonder, and upon your descendants for ever.

47: "Because you did not serve the LORD your God with joyfulness and gladness of heart, by reason of the abundance of all things,

48: therefore you shall serve your enemies whom the LORD will send against you, in hunger and thirst, in nakedness, and in want of all things; and he will put a yoke of iron upon your neck, until he has destroyed you.

49: The LORD will bring a nation against you from afar, from the end of the earth, as swift as the eagle flies, a nation whose language you do not understand,

50: a nation of stern countenance, who shall not regard the person of the old or show favor to the young,

51: and shall eat the offspring of your cattle and the fruit of your ground, until you are destroyed; who also shall not leave you grain, wine, or oil, the increase of your cattle or the young of your flock, until they have caused you to perish.

52: They shall besiege you in all your towns, until your high and fortified walls, in which you trusted, come down throughout all your land; and they shall besiege you in all your towns throughout all your land, which the LORD your God has given you.

53: And you shall eat the offspring of your own body, the flesh of your sons and daughters, whom the LORD your God has given you, in the siege and in the distress with which your enemies shall distress you.

54: The man who is the most tender and delicately bred among you will grudge food to his brother, to the wife of his bosom, and to the last of the children who remain to him;

55: so that he will not give to any of them any of the flesh of his children whom he is eating, because he has nothing left him, in the siege and in the distress with which your enemy shall distress you in all your towns.

56: The most tender and delicately bred woman among you, who would not venture to set the sole of her foot upon the ground because she is so delicate and tender, will grudge to the husband of her bosom, to her son and to her daughter,

57: her afterbirth that comes out from between her feet and her children whom she bears, because she will eat them secretly, for want of all things, in the siege and in the distress with which your enemy shall distress you in your towns.

58: "If you are not careful to do all the words of this law which are written in this book, that you may fear this glorious and awful name, the LORD your God,

59: then the LORD will bring on you and your offspring extraordinary afflictions, afflictions severe and lasting, and sicknesses grievous and lasting.

60: And he will bring upon you again all the diseases of Egypt, which you were afraid of; and they shall cleave to you.

61: Every sickness also, and every affliction which is not recorded in the book of this law, the LORD will bring upon you, until you are destroyed.

62: Whereas you were as the stars of heaven for multitude, you shall be left few in number; because you did not obey the voice of the LORD your God.

63: And as the LORD took delight in doing you good and multiplying you, so the LORD will take delight in bringing ruin upon you and destroying you; and you shall be plucked off the land which you are entering to take possession of it.

64: And the LORD will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other; and there you shall serve other gods, of wood and stone, which neither you nor your fathers have known.

65: And among these nations you shall find no ease, and there shall be no rest for the sole of your foot; but the LORD will give you there a trembling heart, and failing eyes, and a languishing soul;

66: your life shall hang in doubt before you; night and day you shall be in dread, and have no assurance of your life.

67: In the morning you shall say, `Would it were evening!' and at evening you shall say, `Would it were morning!' because of the dread which your heart shall fear, and the sights which your eyes shall see.

68: And the LORD will bring you back in ships to Egypt, a journey which I promised that you should never make again; and there you shall offer yourselves for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but no man will buy you."

The Books of Proverbs, chapter 3

1: My son, do not forget my teaching,
but let your heart keep my commandments;

2: for length of days and years of life
and abundant welfare will they give you.

3: Let not loyalty and faithfulness forsake you;
bind them about your neck,
write them on the tablet of your heart.

4: So you will find favor and good repute
in the sight of God and man.

5: Trust in the LORD with all your heart,
and do not rely on your own insight.

6: In all your ways acknowledge him,
and he will make straight your paths.

7: Be not wise in your own eyes;
fear the LORD, and turn away from evil.

8: It will be healing to your flesh
and refreshment to your bones.

9: Honor the LORD with your substance
and with the first fruits of all your produce;

10: then your barns will be filled with plenty,
and your vats will be bursting with wine.

11: My son, do not despise the LORD's discipline
or be weary of his reproof,

12: for the LORD reproves him whom he loves,
as a father the son in whom he delights.

13: Happy is the man who finds wisdom,
and the man who gets understanding,

14: for the gain from it is better than gain from silver
and its profit better than gold.

15: She is more precious than jewels,
and nothing you desire can compare with her.

16: Long life is in her right hand;
in her left hand are riches and honor.

17: Her ways are ways of pleasantness,
and all her paths are peace.

18: She is a tree of life to those who lay hold of her;
those who hold her fast are called happy.

19: The LORD by wisdom founded the earth;
by understanding he established the heavens;

20: by his knowledge the deeps broke forth,
and the clouds drop down the dew.

21: My son, keep sound wisdom and discretion;
let them not escape from your sight,

22: and they will be life for your soul
and adornment for your neck.

23: Then you will walk on your way securely
and your foot will not stumble.

24: If you sit down, you will not be afraid;
when you lie down, your sleep will be sweet.

25: Do not be afraid of sudden panic,
or of the ruin of the wicked, when it comes;

26: for the LORD will be your confidence
and will keep your foot from being caught.

27: Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due,
when it is in your power to do it.

28: Do not say to your neighbor, "Go, and come again,
tomorrow I will give it" -- when you have it with you.

29: Do not plan evil against your neighbor
who dwells trustingly beside you.

30: Do not contend with a man for no reason,
when he has done you no harm.

31: Do not envy a man of violence
and do not choose any of his ways;

32: for the perverse man is an abomination to the LORD,
but the upright are in his confidence.

33: The LORD's curse is on the house of the wicked,
but he blesses the abode of the righteous.

34: Toward the scorners he is scornful,
but to the humble he shows favor.

35: The wise will inherit honor,
but fools get disgrace. 

Nigeria's Great Destiny

In Jin Moon
July 17, 2011
Abuja, Nigeria

InJinMoon-110717a.jpg

We are truly delighted to be with all of you this morning. My team and I are truly honored to partake of this beautiful Sunday morning with our African brothers and sisters. I've long heard about Africa for many years, but this is my first visit to your beautiful country. From the moment we arrived at the airport to this morning, where I get to meet all of you face to face, my family, my Lovin' Life team, and I are truly moved by the embrace that you have shown us and by the love and the sheer beauty of your country, and by the beauty of all of you.

Father always says the most beautiful things are when you take two contrasts and put them together into one entity. You all have such deeply black, beautiful, ebony skin. But when you smile, your teeth are so gloriously white and you have such beautiful faces. When I look at all of you, and I know when True Parents look at all of you, the first thing True Parents see are the white in your eyes and the beautiful smile that you share with our True Parents every time you are so happy to see them. I know that they are overcome with love. When they gaze into your eyes, I know that they sense a great destiny and great blessing for this country of Nigeria.

Sun Myung Moon being welcomed to Nigeria by President Goodluck Jonathan

It's interesting, and this is another reason that having our True Parents with us at this time is an incredible blessing for all of us around the world, but for Nigeria in particular, our True Parents had an opportunity to meet with your president. I thought it was quite interesting that you have a president named Goodluck Jonathan, and his first lady is Patience. Now if these two words don't give us a signal as to what this country is all about, I don't know what is.

But I believe that with a president named Goodluck Jonathan, if Nigeria can truly embrace and unite with our True Parents, united with the heavenly fortune that travels with our True Parents, that travels through our True Parents, if Nigeria and the good president are really in the heartistic position of receiving this great heavenly fortune, Nigeria can continue to prosper as the great country that I know God has planned for it.

We all know that your country is one of the fastest-growing economies in the world. I heard that we will be traveling to the capital of Nigeria and the name is Abuja. For those of you who know a little Korean, bu-ja in Korean means wealth, great wealth. So the capital of your city is ah-bu-jagloriously wealthy city. You have been incredibly blessed by Heavenly Father. The rich oil reserves that you have in your country are going to make Nigeria a significant economic player in the future.

But Nigeria, instead of concentrating on its external resources and its external riches, if it can truly inherit the heart of God and the importance of building character in our youth, in the different curricula that we have ongoing in the country, and really raise this country, united with our True Parents, as a paradigm of true love and great heartistic character, there is no limit to what Abuja can become.

Nigeria, the word itself in Korean is very interesting. When you say it slowly, nai-ja-ri-ah, it sounds like "my place." So if it unites with our Heavenly Father and our True Parents, to truly inherit the true love of God, realizing who we are and what kind of a destiny God has for the good country of Nigeria and for all of Africa, then we realize that as eternal sons and daughters of God, every one of us is a handiwork of God. Every one of us has been specially prepared, beautifully crafted into that beautiful, man, woman or child that you are. You have been anointed to be living at this incredible time of the breaking news with our True Parents.

When we can know our place as that eternal son or daughter of God, born with the destiny to be living and breathing and walking at the time when our True Parents breathe, walk and work together with us, then we realize that our mission in life is really to unite, really to work together with our True Parents, apply the philosophy of living for the sake of others, truly empowering each other, and in realizing our place as that eternal son and daughter of God, work on who we are. Not what we are. We can be great in many different things. The band that played earlier, Sonic Cult, can be great musicians. That's what they are. But they also know that they're not just great musicians but they're children of God, sons and daughters, divine beings of God. As long as they remember who they are, then they can channel this universal energy, the incredible power of true love, and inspire people wherever they go.

Likewise, all of you sitting in the auditorium today can be that agent of change that changes your country of Nigeria, truly understanding your place as that child of God. You can be that agent of change that changes your continent, this great continent of Africa, to be something incredible, something brilliant, something inspiring for the rest of the world.

Following the Blueprint of True Parents

When I think about how blessed we are, I like to turn to the Good Book, the Bible, and there's a passage, Jeremiah 29:11, which reads, "God said, 'I know I have a plan for you.'" God clearly says, I know I have a plan for you. God is not simply wishing a plan for you. God is not simply praying about this plan for you. God knows. He knows your destiny. He knows the divine son or daughter that you are.

God goes on to say in Jeremiah 29:11, "I know I have a plan for you. I want you to prosper. And I do not wish harm on you, but I wish upon you hope and the future." So God, knowing He has a clear plan for all of us, there's a clear path. We are not just dust in the wind, endless, nameless faces in a crowd. Every one of you has been specially prepared by God to be at this anointed hour living with our True Parents. And God wishes – not just wishes but he knows that your destiny is the destiny of prosperity, a destiny of hope, and a destiny of an incredible future. God declares so in the Good Book.

Many times, as the senior pastor, as I travel around the country and meet many brothers and sisters, they always come to me and like to share with me some of their personal testimonies or different things they are going through. But many times they ask me, "In Jin Nim, I really want to be a great winner, that successful child of God. I want to be a great winner for God. How can I become a great winner for God?"

The interesting thing about life and about who we are as human beings is that when we have a sincere desire to make something wonderful out of our lives, when we have a sincere desire to win at something – for instance, win the gold medal at the Olympics – when we have a sincere desire for a particular purpose or a destination that we would like to accomplish, one of the things that we need is a clear plan of action. We need a strategy of sorts. We need a purpose. We need a reason for why we do the things that we do.

When we want to build a great house, we have to have a plan as to how the house is going to be manufactured, how it will be constructed, what it will look like. Before you build a house, you need to create a blueprint. Perhaps some of us would like to travel around the world, but before we travel it would be beneficial to have a great map in front of us so we can think about where we want to go. If we want to go to France, we may want to look at the map. If we want to go to the south of France, we might want to investigate what towns we would like to visit. In other words, before you go on your travels you need a map, a plan, a purpose, a strategy.

But many times in life, in the most important things that make us human – for instance, becoming a family, becoming husband and wife, becoming blessed couples, raising children of our own, deciding to raise our children in a certain way – many of us do not have a plan. Many haphazardly fall into the responsibility of being a husband and wife. We haphazardly fall into the responsibility of becoming a parent without a clear plan as to how we want to raise our children, what kind of a home we want to construct. We have not thought about what the blueprint of an ideal family is going to be all about.

The incredible thing about True Parents is that they provide exactly that. They give us a blueprint or map through our travels in life. They give us a blueprint how to become that solid, loving, beautiful blessed couple, or how we can build a family that actually nourishes the children and empowers them to be great men and women of not just Nigeria, but as citizens of the world, and as part of one family under God.

Through the example of our True Parents, the way we look at Father and Mother, the way Father so lovingly walks around holding hands with True Mother, the way he brings her close and sings together and kisses Mother on the cheek – it turns us into small children, does it not? We love that because it's so beautiful.

So we realize, looking at Father and Mother's example, "Oh, a husband needs to honor his wife. Oh, the wife needs to honor the husband." Look at the way our True Parents live their lives for the sake of others. They try their best in empowering, encouraging, advising, guiding the children, yet at the same time engaged in the work of service for the rest of mankind. Through them we have a paradigm of what true love looks like for the first time in religious history. It's no longer the male model of what the world needs to be. But standing next to our True Father is a beautiful woman that we can relate to as True Mother. We have the yin and the yang, we have the masculine, the feminine through the victory of our True Mother, standing in the position of perfected Eve, working together as that great partner of our True Parent.

Mother becomes the secret ingredient that allows our True Father to be the True Parents of mankind. Father is that messiah, the Lord of the Second Advent, the Second Coming, but without True Mother he cannot be True Parents. That is why our True Mother is incredibly important, and that is why we as a worldwide movement have to recognize that we are a worldwide movement following the example and the guidance of True Parents.

So, just as we love and admire our True Father, so too do we admire and honor our True Mother. They become one in that harmonious relationship as that paradigm of true love. They are separate, but through this magic of love they become one entity that we can proudly call our True Parents. They become the physical manifestation of our Heavenly Parent up in heaven, and through them we realize for the first time what it is like really to be with God. What does it feel like actually to be in the same room with our Heavenly Parent? Well, we can experience that by being in the same room with our True Parents.

What does it feel like to hear the laughter of God? We can experience that by physically experiencing the laughter of our True Parents. Through our True Parents we become closer to our Heavenly Parent, and through our True Parents we realize the importance of grafting onto this new lineage.

Our True Parents are this beautiful man and woman, but the great gift that they bring into the world is the [marriage] Blessing. It's through marriage that different people coming from different backgrounds and different cultures become one family. How else does a black man from Nigeria become one family with a Japanese lady from Tokyo? They come together as one family through the magic of the Blessing.

So, the miraculous magic of our True Parents is that through them we can be released from the bondage of sin and from the bondage of all the burdens of having to deal with the fact that Adam and Eve fell away from God. Because they fell away from God and they united with Satan, humankind has lived as that child of a satanic lineage. But through our True Parents and through the magic of the Blessing we can come to graft onto this true lineage of God. We can be released from the bondage of what we were before.

Our True Parents take us from where we were before to realizing our true potential as divine children of God, and compel us to move forward to fulfill our destiny. They compel us to move forward as the citizens of Nigeria to be great men and women of God. Not just become rich in your natural resources, or in the external accomplishments that your country will go though. But experience and partake of the heartistic revolution that is taking place through our True Parents.

Brothers and sisters, just the fact that our True Parents shook hands and met with your president, Goodluck Jonathan, is an auspicious sign for many great things to come. I've heard many people throughout my life say, "well, that person is lucky, that person is not lucky, that person is a little bit lucky." But the thing about good luck is that people have good luck when we can exercise our five percent responsibility truly to unite with our True Parents. When we do that, then we are channeling the heavenly fortune that comes through our True Parents, so everything we do becomes anointed. Everything we do becomes blessed. Everything we do becomes inspired.

But knowing that our Heavenly Father and Mother put a great blessing before each and every one of us, we also know that in preparation to receive such a blessing we have to do a little bit of work, right? It's interesting that when my children were little, I used to say to them, "Kids, come and eat breakfast, come and eat lunch, come and eat dinner." Many times they were not too keen on eating. They wanted to go out and play, play football, play video games, to read, but many times they didn't want to come to the meal. I would have to chase my children around and then entice them to the table. I would have to promise them a delicious dessert, and then they would come.

And when the kids came, many times they would start eating and quickly try to leave. But trying to encourage this family atmosphere where we all sit down at the table, and we discuss our plans, what kind of a family we want to be, what kind of a team we want to be – I've had to do a lot of thinking as to how to capture their attention.

One of the things I used to do when they were little and making a lot of noise, we would be sitting around a round table and they would be eating and laughing and making a lot of noise when I was trying to talk to them about what kind of a family do we want to be, what kind of a team do we want to be, and they would talk loud, loud, loud. Sometimes I would say, brrrrrrupp! And the children would say, "What's that?" They would suddenly stop, trying to figure out where the sound came from. They would stop what they were doing, become very quiet, look around the table, at me, and then they listened. But after a little while they got noisy, noisy again. Then I would go brrrrupp again. Once again they would stop and look at me and they would listen. This is very, very interesting to me. When there's a sudden sound, tiny children, even 12 months old stop everything they are doing, they look around and they listen.

Only One Control Tower

I thought it was really interesting because when I was flying into Abuja, and I realized that ever since I came on board as head of the American movement, one of the occupational hazards is I'm constantly traveling. I'm basically living on different airplanes. One of the things I thought about is it's absolutely incredible that at a big airport like JFK or LaGuardia you have thousands of planes coming in and landing and taking off every day. Every day. And it's a miracle that there are no accidents. It's a miracle that we're not having crashes in the air every day.

But when you think about it, you realize that in the airport all these destructive crashes in the air are avoided because there are certain principles at work. When you go to the airport you realize that every airport has one control tower. There are never two or three control towers. There's always one. You realize that there is usually one main runway. Of course, you can have small runways, but one major runway. And you also realize that every plane coming in, regardless of how sophisticated we become – and many times the planes fly autopilot in the air – but when taking off and landing it has to be manually done by a pilot and a co-pilot.

You realize there is a clear principle at work. There is one control tower giving directions to the pilot who navigates the plane in and out of the airport using the runway. When you think about this, you realize the reason we can have safe travels and can evade huge destructive accidents in the air is because the pilots and the control tower have an ongoing conversation, an unobstructed conversation. There is a process of listening. There is a process of looking. There is a process of working together. Nevertheless, the pilot absolutely trusts the voice coming from the control tower. It tells you to take the plane in, landing at a certain degree. The pilot must obey. The pilot must listen. Otherwise the pilot might bring the plane in on top of another plane taking off.

So, you realize that a beautiful symphony is taking place. I was thinking about this, here we are 30,000 feet in the air, coming down for landing, and you're riding on this plane guided by a pilot who is in communication with the control tower. We don't hear what's taking place, but we trust that the pilot is one with that control tower. And he's not communicating with two or three control towers telling him what to do. He's only listening to one.

You realize that regardless of where you go in your travels, when you get on a plane you have a clear destination. You have an understanding of how many hours you're going to travel, but you know that when you get on the plane British Airways #83, you are going to Abuja. You clearly know your destination. You get on the plane, you trust the pilot, and you trust the pilot because the pilot is in direct communication with the control tower that will bring you into a safe landing.

In many respects the control tower is like God, or like our True Parents. Our True Parents have laid great foundations all throughout their lives. Our True Father is well into 91 years of age but he is still going strong. Our True Father and our True Mother have paved the way. They have paved all the runways that we will need to do our job at hand. God has prepared us, has shown us, has guided us. They have given us the longitudinal numbers, clearly showing us how to come home.

Every travel is an attempt to reach a new destination, but from that destination to come back home safely. If you think about it, brothers and sisters, every one of us has a different journey in life. We were born to a different family. We were born to a different nation. We were born to a different culture, a different background. All of us are different in that sense, but we have our particular destination, our personal destinies that we are meant to fulfill in our lives.

But the ultimate goal in life is to come home into the embrace of our Heavenly Father. So, if God is our control tower, there is only one God, and there is only one True Parents. There are no True Parents and then a substitute. There is only one, now and forever. And we as the True Children, it's our duty and privilege to honor them as the eternal True Parents. As long as they are with us, they are our one and only control tower.

Through their good works, they have paved the runways in every city, in every country, through their blood, sweat and tears, and through the good missionaries they have sent all around the world, people like Kathy [Rigney], people like the boon bang wangs [representatives of True Parents], people like the continental directors [Unification Church directors of groups of churches on a particular continent]. True Parents have paved this glorious runway that you can use to come home, no matter how far, no matter how fast, no matter how high you travel, to bring you back safely.

Each and every one of us is like a pilot of our families, our own little teams. We as blessed central families need to be totally united with our control tower, knowing that we have nothing but gratitude for all the different runways that await us everywhere we go. Our job as pilots is absolutely to unite and listen and obey the commands and the guidance that is coming through the control tower, through God and our True Parents.

Pray, But Also Do

When God talks to us, just like a little child, when we hear a little sound from God, God is telling us, it's the breaking-news time and we need to stop what we are doing. When God has paved different runways for us to use to come home, we need to look at that runway, be grateful, knowing that we're going to be guided safely. We need to listen to the different coordinates that the control tower, our Heavenly Parent and our True Parents are telling us. We need to follow the different coordinates so that we can come home safely. We need to listen, we need to obey.

Just as a little child responds to a little sound, God is talking to us each and every day. Many times God talks to us through the little things. Many times we as sons and daughters want the grand miracle in life: "God, save me from my misery! Do you not have a glorious plan for me? What is my strategy in life? God, take away all my suffering. God, please relieve me of my misery."

We have to understand that God talks to us and shares miracles with us in the little things that many times we take for granted, the little blessings that many times seem to go unnoticed. Little blessings like the person sitting next to you in the hall today. That brother or sister who helps all of us become a community. The little blessing like the gift of joy, or the gift of a beautiful Nigerian smile that reaches the heart and inspires anybody that sees your beautiful smile. That is a miracle.

It is a miracle to think that I, a child that was born in Seoul, Korea, could come to love a country like America as my own because I have been taught that we are one family, that we need to go beyond our national boundaries, we need to go beyond our cultural boundaries, and that together with our True Parents can come to this beautiful country of Nigeria and meet all of you, my brothers and sisters, and feel incredibly welcome as your family. That's a miracle, brothers and sisters. It may not be a miracle that takes away all your pain, but these are the little miracles that make life beautiful.

When we realize God in the little things in life, we realize how truly blessed we really are. Many times when we're talking about the different things we have to go through in life, things we're dealing with, our spouse or with our children, we all want to be winners in life. Many times people say, "I will be a winner, if only. I would be a great husband, if only – my wife was prettier. I would be a great wife, if only – my husband was only a little bit more intelligent." In other words, when we tell ourselves we can only fulfill our own destiny if only – that means that we are waiting for some kind of contingency to take place that God has not provided for us already.

But what we realize when we come to understand God as our Heavenly Parent, that they are our Father and Mother, and when we have a chance to have children of our own and we look into the faces of our children, we don't love our children conditionally. We don't love our children based on some contingency. We don't tell our children, "I love you, if only you were good." We love our children regardless of whether they are good or bad. We don't tell our husbands, "I will only do your laundry if only you will take out the garbage." In fact, we want to do things for each other because we simply want to, and because we simply want to love.

When we are thinking and complaining to God: "Where is my winning plan of action, God?" Many times we have to realize that everything we need we already have. And what we need to do in order to become that incredible winner in life is simply to change our way of thinking. Simply change our way of thinking in realizing that we are not dependent on something to become great. We are our [own] agent of change, so there is no need to say, "I will be a great eternal son or daughter of God, if only God would give me this." God gave us everything, and we can become great if we only believe, and if we only work, and if we are only grateful.

Many times, I think in a religious life, or in a religious community like ours, the work of actually dealing with our spouses in creating a lovely family, or dealing with our children in creating that ideal family, is sometimes too difficult. I've seen different husbands and wives say, "I need to work on my ideal family, so I need to go pray for 21 days." That's wonderful. Prayer is wonderful. But the work, the good work that we need to do in this world has to be a combination of prayer together with effort. We cannot pray all our dealings away that we need to work on in the family.

A wife that just prays and never really works on a relationship with her husband by talking about the difficult things, by seeking help, by doing the homework, by applying different principles that a husband and wife can apply to make the relationship better – if this work is not done in conjunction with prayer, the effectiveness of prayer is not going to be felt.

Likewise, many parents come to me as the senior pastor and say, "Can you please pray for my child, please take care of my child." I always say, "You need to help me take care of your child. You need to pray but you need to work together with your child. Do that homework. Take that drive and talk to your son. Take that time and have that difficult conversation that you've been ignoring with your daughter. Talk about the difficult things. Work on the relationship."

See, prayer without work, without effort rarely results in a winning formula for a winning family. Again, we need to eradicate this dependence on if-only. We need to realize that in order truly to become winners in life, we have to understand that as incredible as prayer is, it needs to go hand-in-hand with effort. It needs to go hand-in-hand with manual work. Spiritual work needs to go hand-in-hand with manual physical work that we need to do here on earth, in the realities of our families.

Seizing, not Criticizing, the Opportunity at Hand

Another thing we need to think about in order to become a really successful, that winning couple, that winning team, that winning family, is to realize that we need to stop being that sideline critic. I remember when we spent summers in Dusseldorf in Germany with True Parents. One summer Father spent there where he wanted to watch soccer games all the time. Almost every other day, every soccer game that we could find Father took me and my younger brother Hyun Jin to all these soccer games.

For any of you who enjoy watching soccer, watching soccer on TV is relatively mild compared to sitting in the stadium and watching soccer with big, burly, strong and loud Germans cheering for their lives, with beer kegs at both hands, drinking up a storm. It's quite an experience.

The interesting thing about watching a soccer game is that everybody sitting in the stands thinks they can do better than the professional player on the field. Every time somebody misses a kick, or a goal, or the ball goes off the field, the Germans will stand up and shout, "What are you doing? You should have done this." They are the sideline critics who always know better. These are professional players on the field. They've trained their whole lives to have the privilege of playing on the team, to the enjoyment of so many people. But it's the people in the stands, the sideline critics, who have a whole lot to say, and are constantly telling the players, "How can you miss the ball? You should have kicked it with your left foot, not your right foot. You should have headed that into the goal." Everybody has an opinion.

See, the incredible thing about being that winning person, having that winning formula to build an incredible family is to take ourselves away from the sideline-critic mentality and to put ourselves into the game. This is why I'm encouraging all the different brothers and sisters in America, and all the district directors I work with, to not be sideline critics telling the professional players what to do. Everybody has an opinion, everybody can tell somebody what to do. But it's a whole different ballgame when you yourself are on the field kicking that ball, dribbling that ball, heading that ball into the goal and scoring that goal. It's a totally different game.

Many times in our movement different leaders, different members or brothers and sisters heartistically mean well, but we find ourselves in the position nai-ah-ja-ri-ah. What is my position? Many times we find ourselves in the position of sideline critic of one of the most phenomenal movements in the world. Our movement, the Unification Church, is by far – when you look at the history of religion – the most phenomenal religion in that the growth continues exponentially, even while the Founder still lives. Nobody has seen church growth like the Unification Church. We are an incredibly powerful church.

God has anointed our True Parents. God has hand-crafted and hand-picked all of you to unite with the Messiah at this crucial time, to bring about a change in the world, to bring about a change in the way people think, to bring about a change in the way people feel, revolution of heart. Change in the culture, the way we relate to each other, the way we look at each other, the way we love each other.

True Parents come at this incredible time to usher in this great new millennium, but many of us are still stuck in our stadium seats as sideline critics, not realizing that God needs all of us on the field, playing the game so we can make the world a better place. God needs all of us to get up from our seats, not to just be the critics. Anybody can do that. Even children know how to criticize things. But the truly wise and the truly mature person knows the importance of gratitude and knows the importance of seizing the opportunity at hand, seizing this incredible opportunity and turning it into a victory. That's the time that we're living in, brothers and sisters.

The Prophecy of Nostradamus

Nostradamus

Our True Father and Mother are not just mere mortals. They're not just your everyday man and woman. They have been providentially prepared, especially anointed. They were prophesied. Even Nostradamus, the celestial scientist, prophesied several hundred years ago that a great man, the prince of peace, would come from the East and call the West his own. Nostradamus goes on to say that this man will wield the rod of Hermes. For those of you well versed in philosophy, the rod of Hermes symbolizes the rod of enlightenment, the rod of truth that the Messiah brings, or the prince of peace brings upon the world, to usher in a whole brand-new religious consciousness.

This prince of peace is not just going to wield this rod of Hermes, but in many respects not only does the rod of Hermes symbolize the rod of enlightenment, but Hermes symbolizes also the god of commerce. This is a man that might be better known as a businessman, better known for all the different businesses that have started in the world. And many times in the 1970s when they were busy calling us "Moonies" and a cult, they always called Father a "self-proclaimed messiah" and a "businessman." So again, this was prophesied several hundred years ago in the volumes of predictions called "Centuries" that Nostradamus published.

He also goes on to say that this man will be an outlaw in that he will move in and out of jail many times. And he will be an outlaw in a sense that he will destroy the rocks but not harm the living. What are the "rocks" of society? They are the established religions, or the established dogmas or principles of ways of thinking. The prince of peace comes to destroy our old ways of thinking. Not harming the living. He comes to truly share the rod of the enlightenment, or the new truth or the new consciousness that he brings.

Nostradamus goes on to say that, protected by the planet Mars, this new sect that will come from this man will spread like wildfire all around the world. If you look at our movement, it has a presence all around the world, like none other. Nostradamus goes on to say that this man comes to unite against the red with all the religions. Red is a symbol of communism, but this man comes to unite all the religions, God-fearing people, to fight and put away communism.

You tell me how many other religious leaders in the world have done that, have put in billions and billions of dollars through organizations like the Washington Times, fighting together with the Reagan Administration, bringing down the Berlin Wall, bringing down the Iron Curtain that has in a way been the bulwark of communism for years. Only Father as a religious leader came to unite the religions, unite the faithful children of God to fight against communism.

Nostradamus also says there will be a great significance in the color red when it comes to this man's sect. It would be like a symbol upon the world, and he uses the word 'the rose.' The rose will be his symbol. Anyone who knows the Unification Church symbol, the color is red. And, to many people who don't understand what it represents, it looks like a red flower or red rose.

These are the predictions made several hundred years ago. Nostradamus goes on to say – this is the biggest clue he spoke about. He said that this man will have somewhere in his name "Diana's moon," meaning the word "moon." Literal name "Moon." Now, can you be more specific than Rev. Sun Myung Moon?

He also goes on to say that this man will be characterized by constant traveling. He will travel through the skies. Now think about it. How did Nostradamus know that this man, who will come as the prince of peace, will travel through the skies? Because he must have seen an airplane but could not describe what it really was. Our True Parents are flying through the skies in an airplane following the control tower that is our Heavenly Parent up in heaven. They are traveling and sharing in the breaking news that True Parents are here and that we need to wake up to a new religious consciousness that is going to unite the world, that is going to usher in a peaceful world, a world of love and harmony and justice.

Nostradamus talked about it several hundred years ago. And he also found something I find incredibly interesting. Something about this man will have something to do with rare birds. This is where I feel that Nostradamus gave the greatest gift for humankind. He couldn't quite understand how the prince of peace was going to be symbolized by rare birds because in the Christian model you only had the model of Jesus Christ. He was one man. He did not have a wife, his feminine counterpart, he did not have a family.

But the beautiful thing about Nostradamus' prophecy, when he talks about this man having something to do with rare birds that will travel through the skies with him, declaring "Now, now, now is the time." Well, I find it incredibly inspiring that our True Mother's name means "heavenly crane." Nostradamus probably did not know how to describe what he saw, but he knew it was a rare spiritual bird. My mother's name means "heavenly crane." So, he prophesied that somewhere in the life of this prince of peace somehow this bird would manifest as part of his grand symbol. He didn't have the terminology yet of True Parents because True Parents did not exist until 1960. But what was prophesied was that a rare bird will symbolize something great about this man.

I thought it was incredibly exciting that it would be our True Parents declaring the dawn of the Pacific Rim era, and it's our True Mother, the power of the feminine, the beauty of a compassionate spirit, the beauty of a loving and empowering spirit, that is being pushed to the forefront. Our True Mother is the one sharing the breaking news of the Messiah being here, of True Parents being here, of us living at the anointed time. She is the one traveling through the skies, brothers and sisters, saying, "Now, now, now is the time of the breaking news." Now is the time of our True Parents, and it is our responsibility to know our place as those eternal sons or daughters of God. And by knowing our place, we realize that God has this incredible plan for us. And His plan for us is for us to prosper, for us to have incredible hope, for us to have a future – future meaning many, many beautiful descendants.

The Importance of Unity

God is saying, when you know your place – nai-ja-ri-ah – if you know your place and you are united with our True Parents, then ah-bu-ja. Nigeria will be a bu-jah country. It will be a country of wealth, not just in terms of its external economic successes, but, united with our True Parents, the spirit and the vitality and the power of true love will flow through your veins, and each and every one of you will be mobilized into that agent of change that will bring incredible changes all around the world.

When I contemplate this word "unity," I remember we usually think of our movement as an acronym, Unification Church. We will begin to see the truth. We will begin to see what the true plan of God is for all of us. We will begin to see our own destinies when we are united with our True Parents, when people slowly come as part of our community, as part of this one family under God. Unification Church – you will begin to see. And we will realize that the word that we need to concentrate on is this word called unity. "U-need-T." We need True Parents in our lives. You need True Parents. I need True Parents. Nai-ja-ri-ah needs True Parents.

And the great thing about True Parents is that, just as they are the parental figures, Father doesn't say, "I'm going to do it all." What he does is, he raises up his children. He raises up unworthy children like me and you and all of us, asking us to do great things. Our True Parents, as the eternal True Parents, have done us a great favor of declaring and proclaiming his spiritual head of the movement. After the True Parents will be the youngest son, Hyung Jin. He is the spiritual head of our movement and the spiritual head of our family. And it is the job of the True Family truly to unite with that head, as different body parts, like different hands and different feet, and work as one body for the sake of the world, in service of the world, in service of the True Parents that had been prophesied several hundred years ago by this man named Nostradamus.

Brothers and sisters, there is a great Persian poet that is one of my favorites, whose name is "Rumi." He used to say to his disciples that the joy of being human is truly the process of uncovering the core of what we already are, the treasures within the ruin. Meaning, even when we might feel like a ruin most days of our lives, we are these divine creatures. We have this treasure, and the joy of our life is having the opportunity to uncover this beautiful treasure that God placed in every one of you and in every one of us, that makes us a child of God.

Brothers and sisters, on this glorious Sunday morning you will be meeting this man and woman several hours from now that Nostradamus prophesied, that we have the honor to call "True Parents." You need to understand what an incredibly blessed time this is and how lucky you are. Out of all the Nigerians that have lived, why you? Why beautiful you? Why unique you? Why special you? Why were you given this chance to work together with our True Parents?

I will be the first one to say, "Why not me? And why not you?" So, brothers and sisters, go in peace and go with a heart of gratitude because you have our True Parents with us in Nigeria today. God bless, and thank you very much.

Notes:

Jeremiah, chapter 29

1: These are the words of the letter which Jeremiah the prophet sent from Jerusalem to the elders of the exiles, and to the priests, the prophets, and all the people, whom Nebuchadnez'zar had taken into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon.

2: This was after King Jeconi'ah, and the queen mother, the eunuchs, the princes of Judah and Jerusalem, the craftsmen, and the smiths had departed from Jerusalem.

3: The letter was sent by the hand of Ela'sah the son of Shaphan and Gemari'ah the son of Hilki'ah, whom Zedeki'ah king of Judah sent to Babylon to Nebuchadnez'zar king of Babylon. It said:

4: "Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon:

5: Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce.

6: Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease.

7: But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.

8: For thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Do not let your prophets and your diviners who are among you deceive you, and do not listen to the dreams which they dream,

9: for it is a lie which they are prophesying to you in my name; I did not send them, says the LORD.

10: "For thus says the LORD: When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you, and I will fulfil to you my promise and bring you back to this place.

11: For I know the plans I have for you, says the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.

12: Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you.

13: You will seek me and find me; when you seek me with all your heart,

14: I will be found by you, says the LORD, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, says the LORD, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile.

15: "Because you have said, `The LORD has raised up prophets for us in Babylon,' --

16: Thus says the LORD concerning the king who sits on the throne of David, and concerning all the people who dwell in this city, your kinsmen who did not go out with you into exile:

17: `Thus says the LORD of hosts, Behold, I am sending on them sword, famine, and pestilence, and I will make them like vile figs which are so bad they cannot be eaten.

18: I will pursue them with sword, famine, and pestilence, and will make them a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth, to be a curse, a terror, a hissing, and a reproach among all the nations where I have driven them,

19: because they did not heed my words, says the LORD, which I persistently sent to you by my servants the prophets, but you would not listen, says the LORD.' --

20: Hear the word of the LORD, all you exiles whom I sent away from Jerusalem to Babylon:

21: `Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, concerning Ahab the son of Kola'iah and Zedeki'ah the son of Ma-asei'ah, who are prophesying a lie to you in my name: Behold, I will deliver them into the hand of Nebuchadrez'zar king of Babylon, and he shall slay them before your eyes.

22: Because of them this curse shall be used by all the exiles from Judah in Babylon: "The LORD make you like Zedeki'ah and Ahab, whom the king of Babylon roasted in the fire,"

23: because they have committed folly in Israel, they have committed adultery with their neighbors' wives, and they have spoken in my name lying words which I did not command them. I am the one who knows, and I am witness, says the LORD.'"

24: To Shemai'ah of Nehel'am you shall say:

25: "Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: You have sent letters in your name to all the people who are in Jerusalem, and to Zephani'ah the son of Ma-asei'ah the priest, and to all the priests, saying,

26: `The LORD has made you priest instead of Jehoi'ada the priest, to have charge in the house of the LORD over every madman who prophesies, to put him in the stocks and collar.

27: Now why have you not rebuked Jeremiah of An'athoth who is prophesying to you?

28: For he has sent to us in Babylon, saying, "Your exile will be long; build houses and live in them, and plant gardens and eat their produce."'"

29: Zephani'ah the priest read this letter in the hearing of Jeremiah the prophet.

30: Then the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah:

31: "Send to all the exiles, saying, `Thus says the LORD concerning Shemai'ah of Nehel'am: Because Shemai'ah has prophesied to you when I did not send him, and has made you trust in a lie,

32: therefore thus says the LORD: Behold, I will punish Shemai'ah of Nehel'am and his descendants; he shall not have any one living among this people to see the good that I will do to my people, says the LORD, for he has talked rebellion against the LORD.'"  

Sermon Notes, July 3, 2011

In Jin Moon

1. In Jin Nim greeted everyone. She wished everyone a happy Independence Day, July 4.

2. You can't celebrate Independence Day properly without a little Bon Jovi in the morning. She was torturing herself the other day with a stair master to the music of Bon Jovi. She felt, a great way to start Sunday morning, getting us all prepared for the festivities on Monday celebrating Independence Day.

3. For those who grew up in this country, were born in this country, and can call themselves citizens of this country – Independence Day has great meaning attached to it. We know it was the Declaration of Independence that proclaimed the 13 colonies to be free from Great Britain. It was an attempt at self-government and to take destiny into our own American hands, and starting from that time America has grown to become one of the super powers of the world, wielding a great deal of influence in countries all around the world. Therefore it has a great deal of responsibility in its desire to exercise its freedom.

4. Usually on this day, we are contemplating the word 'independence.' The Webster dictionary defines it as freedom from control or influence or determination of another.

5. That word has a very interesting place in all of our lives, in particular for those of us who are young and looking towards our life and the different things that we would like to do. Sometimes the word freedom overrides anything else in our lives. For lots of people freedom can mean, or seemingly mean, you can do whatever you want. But freedom is guaranteed, not because it exists alone, but because it exists in the context of the Constitution of the United States -- which guarantees freedom for all of its citizens. Just because we long to be free, does not mean that we can be free – doing whatever we want, if it infringes on the rights of another individual in the United States of America.

6. When In Jin Nim thinks about or prays about the word freedom, it is made of two syllables, 'free' and 'dom.' And it is a reminder for all of us wanting freedom or seeking freedom, or wanting to express freedom in our lives – that, yes we need to be free and that we have the right to exercise the important decision making ourselves – and in the Divine Principle we call it 5% responsibility, we have the free will to decide what we are going to do, but we need to do that wisely, we need to do that lovingly, we need to do that thinking and living for the sake of others. Therefore we should all be free, but free – not being involved or doing things that might fall under the category of things that are dumb.

7. We can be free, but it is not a smart thing if we tell people that I'm free to hurt you. That is not a smart thing to do. Or, I am free to cause myself bodily harm – that is not a smart thing to do. Or, I am free to inflict misery on myself or be my own prisoner or taskmaster – in such a way that I no longer function as the eternal son or daughter of God – that also would not be the smart thing to do. Those things might fall under the category of things that would be considered dumb.

8. When we are thinking about this word freedom and we are tossing it around in this beautiful hall this morning – one of the things In Jin Nim noticed is that whenever we make progress, for instance in the technological area or the process of modernization – every process forward allows this to be a little more free. For example with the invention of the washer and dryer we became more free with time to do other things. Or, when the state of New York started to implement EZ Pass at toll booths, it's an attempt to free us from having to rummage through our pockets as we approach the toll booth – trying to get all the coins in to the toll booth as we drive away. This process of modernization is freeing us from what we were held bondage to – such as trying to find change and trying to get that change into the toll booth.

9. Or for instance when the Lovin' Life team prepares with the good brothers and sisters at headquarters, the Launch-pad that has been shared with all the District Pastors around the country, it is truly an effort on the part of headquarters and the Lovin' Life Ministry to help the District Pastors create an effective and efficient satellite community to the best of their ability. It's their (Headquarters) way to serve the District Leaders and communities to allow them to own their own programs, to develop their own circles, to develop their own projects, to really make Lovin' Life their own in every state all around the country.

10. What In Jin Nim noticed about freedom is that when freedom is made available, for instance with the state of New York as in the case of the EZ Pass – and we have had EZ Pass for over 10 or 15 years, but there are still a great deal of people who are having a hard time switching over from the habitualized understanding of what a toll booth means – the habitualized accepted form of rummaging through the pockets, driving up to the window, throwing the coins into the toll booth, and then driving away. Even though freedom has been offered – that you can totally forgo all of these processes, you can be free from rummaging through your pockets and from having to get the coins into the toll booth before you drive away – you can just simply glide through the toll booth. Even though that freedom has been awarded it takes a long time for people to change their ways.

11. Headquarters initiated the Launch-pad and sent it out to all the pastors across the nation, but the gift of the Launch-pad from headquarters, just as the state of New York provides EZ Pass to provide a more efficient effective and comfortable alternative – that is what the Launch-pad is trying to do – give back the power to you so you can develop your own successful Lovin' Life satellite. But just like the EZ Pass, many of you are not using the Launch-pad. Many of you are not familiar with the thought processes that those at headquarters have gone through and have gifted to us so that when you think about the possible bullet points, or possible phrase that you might want to use as your slogan or banner for the different projects that you will be doing, such as Live Out Loud – it has already been thought out, it's already been gifted, it's been given.

12. But with all freedom that has been given to the District Pastors and communities, the right to exercise the freedom of making Lovin' Life your own – but if you don't own that freedom and receive it and make it yours, that freedom doesn't really award anything to anybody.

13. When we consult the Bible, the good book, there is a wonderful passage in Romans 12:2. It says "be not conformed to this world, but be transformed in renewing your mind, so that you may prove that which is good, acceptable, and perfect – the will of God."

14. When you highlight all the verbs in this passage – be not conformed to this world, but be transformed – how? By renewing your mind. And why be transformed by renewing your mind? – So that we can prove the will of God – what is perfect, acceptable, and that is good.

15. If we are to savor this passage in Romans, what the Bible is saying is, do not get stuck in what has been accepted, do not get stuck in the ways that we have done things before, do not become habitualized to the ineffective ways of doing things, do not become habitualized to the miserable type of living. Some people don't want to get out of poverty because they need to feel the pain every day of their lives. Even when you afford these people a means of getting themselves out, pulling themselves up by their bootstraps to seek a better way of life – many people don't leave.

16. It is interesting when Pres. Abraham Lincoln issued the emancipation proclamation, issued September 1862 and became effective the year after – there were a lot of slaves who were taught that you no longer are slaves, now you are free men and women, now you can go as you please. They were in a way awarded a freedom to be citizens of this country – they were no longer slaves or second-class citizens. But even though freedom was awarded to these people, a lot of the slaves did not want to leave their masters because they were conformed to the world, they were habitualized in their slavery. They knew nothing else. So, instead of taking courage to seek a better life, they would rather stay in the state of being a slave.

17. This is quite shocking for a lot of people. But slavery takes many, many different forms. Yes, the African Americans have been given their emancipation proclamations, but even in this modern day era there are slaves of many different sorts. For example many people are slaves to drugs. And, even though we want to afford these people the freedom to rid themselves from a life in bondage and enslaved to drugs – they don't want to leave because they have been conformed to their world. It has been habitualized, it has been accepted and they allow themselves to be stuck.

18. The Bible is asking us to not be conformed to the world. And when HQ sent out the Launch-pad to the District Pastors they were asking them not to be conformed to the world as they knew it. We just celebrated the end of the world, May 21, 2011 in Las Vegas with True parents (True Parents) – which was prophesied by many prophets and by the Good Book a long time ago.

19. When they sent out the Launch-pad it was an invitation not to be conformed to the world as we knew it. This is a time in which we can build something new, something better, something that is worthy of our children and our grandchildren.

20. The Bible goes on to say, "Be transformed." It is not saying that God will transform you. In other words the Bible is asking us to be that responsible adult who will decide to exercise that 5% responsibility of our free will and become that agent of change who will determine our own great destinies that await us.

21. The Bible says be transformed. How do we transform ourselves? By renewing our minds. What the Bible is actually saying is, get yourself unstuck from the habitualized way of thinking, way of living, and way of expressing ourselves to each other, and be transformed – meaning, all of us, In Jin Nim, we, all of us – not waiting for God to do the job for us, not waiting for the band of Angels to sing good wishes unto us, but we need to be our own transformation by renewing our minds.

22. When you renew something – for example In Jin Nim has owned different places, apartments, and now has a home in Boston – when spring rolls around and the paint on the outside of the house is looking a bit flaky and dull – she is thinking about painting the exterior or interior of her house in different colors – to renovate it and give it a brand-new face, a brand-new feeling – on which everyone can be carried throughout the year. In Jin Nim knows that when she decides to renovate something it is a conscious decision. She becomes her own agent of change and she decides for herself that a bit of transformation is necessary to move the house from dull to fabulous, from something that is putrid to glorious, from boring to exciting.

23. Transformation means moving something from one state to another. It predisposes that there is growth, there is movement. Transformation is a wonderful word that promises growth and movement in our lives from one state to another. And how do we do that? Simply by changing the way we think – renewing, renovating the way we think over the way we have been going about doing what we've done before.

24. "Each of the District Pastors around the country, God bless you – we are so lucky to have all of you." But what the Good Book is asking is for us to do something a little bit different, not to do the old method of approaching the tollbooth, rummaging in our pockets and throwing the coins in – it's asking us to try the EZ Pass. And the more people that do – it will make the morning traffic that much better, it will be good for everybody. It is a call to help transform ourselves, our families, our society, our nations, and our communities into something better – moving them from one state to another. How? By renewing our thinking, by changing our thinking, by deciding for ourselves that we are not going to be dependent and addicted children to our God or to our True Parents, but we are going to be healthy, independent children who love and honor God and want to do something great, want to build something wonderful, and by changing or renovating our thinking, constantly on the lookout for new ways to take what is beautiful, which is our tradition and the beautiful brothers and sisters that we have in our fold – and help to bring them up to the modern day era so that we can be more effective as a family, as a community, and as a movement.

25. In doing so – prove the will of God. If we understand that God is our Heavenly Parent, our Father and Mother up in heaven, and we know that when God talks about creating his children, the first thing that He had in his mind was to love and be loved. He wanted to experience love by creating his children. Then the desire of God, as a parent gazing upon his beautiful sons and daughters all around the world, is for them to be incredibly wonderful and beautiful sons and daughters truly loving life. Our Heavenly Parent would like all of us to truly love life, truly inherit the true love of God – meaning that our children, for all of us, will have the chance and opportunity to experience true love, true life, and also true lineage – building true families of our own.

26. In that way we realize that God is not a God that sits on a high throne, casting commands up in heaven, making the children miserable, making them suffer, but what he is hoping is that, if the children are suffering, that perhaps through that difficult time the children would learn something and perhaps become deeper and stronger as a person and become better as a person. But what He and She wishes for all of us is to be happy, is to be healthy, and to be in love – truly loving life. That is what our Heavenly Parent wants.

27. If the goal of our life is to prove the love of God – when you think about the word prove – when you want to prove the truth of something, first of all you have to have a concept of what truth is. You have to be able to conceive what you want to prove – this truth or this particular mathematical equation – and you have to believe in the process, that once you understand what you want to do, there is a process that needs to be played out. In geometry when you prove something you are going to have to explain how you got from one premise to the other. You have to conclude it elegantly.

28. When we are thinking that our goal or mission in life is to truly be that embodiment who proves the will of God, the wish and desire of God in wanting to see all of us as that incredible son and daughter of God – then we realize that once we can understand or have a concept of this in our mind – we have to believe it, we have to keep faith in the process of actualizing it or of substantiating it, or of achieving it in our lives. So when you prove something you make real something that was originally in your head, a concept that was in your head.

29. When God is asking us to prove the will of God, that we, as his sons and daughters, have this incredible responsibility to be that divine being, to be that eternal son and a daughter. Its asking us to simply put into practice the three steps of conceive, believe – keep the faith while you're doing it, and achieve it.

30. When In Jin Nim read this passage several times she said to herself, "I need to work on not being conformed to this world." A couple of weeks ago she was dealing with a particular conformity in that she had a great deal of pain on her neck and shoulders. But, you don't have the time or the will to take yourself to the doctor – it's an added inconvenience in your day and all the things that you have to do. So she never took care of it and it kept getting worse and worse. What she was doing was exactly conforming to the world as she knew it. It was an excruciatingly painful world. And in a strange way the pain became her friend and that's how she knew she was in trouble.

31. In Jin Nim had heard about a wonderful acupuncturist. He is a member of our faith. Also In Jin Nim 's daughter has had a pain in her foot for several years which becomes inflamed every time she dances. But like her mother she just grinned and thought it might go away, but it did not go away and it got worse and worse.

32. When In Jin Nim read this passage in Romans, she said, "well the Bible says, be not conformed to this world but be transformed by renewing your mind so that you can prove the will of God." That told In Jin Nim that someone up there was hinting to her, "get your life in gear and fix your problem. Do not be conformed and suffer with the pain. Transform yourself and make your state, your health, better by renewing your mind, by deciding that you are going to do something about it and prove the will of God – meaning prove that God is not wishing or desiring that she suffer.

33. They heard that this doctor was very good but they also heard horror stories. On the internet is says that this is a "no mercy" doctor. If you come to him for treatment you are there to be treated and you are at his mercy. No amount of screaming, Aju, or hallelujah is going to save you from the treatment he will inflict on you once you are in his care. And so they were apprehensive. But the Bible say, do not be conformed – and so they went.

34. They met the doctor -- a tiny man, happy face, very smiley – he did not look like someone who could inflict a great deal of pain. He was very soft-spoken. He asked them to explain what is going on. In Jin Nim explained her pain and her daughter explained the pain in her foot. He looked at them and brought out a metal box. He closed his eyes and opened the box. In Jin Nim has been to many acupuncturist before – they use very skinny short needles. When they poke you, you barely feel it and the needles don't go in so deep, maybe a centimeter. But when this man opened his metal box those metal "rods," they were not needles, they were very long. In Jin Nim looked at her daughter and said, "oh my goodness!" But once they go into treatment there was no way out.

35. When you go to a regular acupuncturist -- the needle usually goes where you feel the pain, but he told them that those acupuncturist don't know the divine principle, they don't understand subject -- object, masculine -- feminine, ying -- yang, heaven and earth, east and west. They are putting the needle in the wrong place. You don't put the needle in the pain, you put the needle where you can excite the nerve to do something about the pain. In the past all of the acupuncturist put the needles where she felt the pain, but this doctor put his metal rods on the opposite shoulder where she had no pain. In Jin Nim was wondering what this man was doing.

36. She asked him to explain to her his metal rod system. He explained it's like when you are falling asleep, such as in Sunday's service (In Jin Nim expressed that she hoped we were not falling asleep) when you are nudged by someone it actually makes you more tired. He said the western style medicine is like someone trying to nudge you awake when you are falling asleep. His heavenly rod method of acupuncture, is not to nudge the person, but to slap him awake, so hard that it shocks the system and starts it up all over again with extreme renewed renovated energy. Because when you're slapped awake your sleepiness suddenly disappears and you are like, "who did this? Come out of the woodwork?" And you are suddenly awake. This was the philosophy of his heavenly rod acupuncture system.

37. And so In Jin Nim sat there as they were tortured. Unlike other acupuncturist, these needles, she could feel them going in and you could feel the circuitry being affected by them. He would drill them slowly in your neck, but you feel it in your lower back, or he treats your shoulder but you feel it in your leg.

38. He told them, "this will be painful." As if it might make it any better, but it did not make it better, but at least he warned them. And he kept on poking them. He told In Jin Nim that she was very stressed out and that it was good she saw him, if it had gone much further something might have had to give. Then he told her she must come back two more times. She thought, "oh no! I was hoping for a one-time miracle!"

39. Then he worked on In Jin Nim 's daughter. They told her to lie down and he was preparing to put the needles in her other foot. But she refused to lie down, she had to see what he was going to do to her feet. They told her not to look but she was so scared she was clinging onto In Jin Nim. She was kicking In Jin Nim in the process. In Jin Nim told her, "let's give it a go." Then the doctor started slowly drilling in the metal rods, telling them that it would hurt. And Ariana was screaming like a coyote. It was extremely painful, but she sat through it and completed the treatment, and it was extremely painful because it was on the bone.

40. But after the treatment – after two years of pain in which she could often not walk – but after the first treatment the pain went away. She expressed how incredible it was. All the other doctors wanted to treat the foot that was affected with needles and electronic devices, but nothing got rid of the pain. But he treated the opposite foot and the pain went away. He also told Ariana to come back two more times, and she did. They completed their treatment.

41. The interesting thing was, they could have both continued on living with their pain, because it was what they knew, it was what they were used to, it was what they became accustomed to. And the added effort of making that phone call to the doctor, getting themselves over there, or when we make the effort to learn how to use the computer instead of being stuck to a typewriter – yes you have to learn, if we try something new, you have to go from being computer illiterate to computer literate, but in the end that process frees us to do so much more.

42. In Jin Nim realized that going through that process and receiving that extremely tortuous acupuncture session, in the end it yielded the kind of results that allows her to do much better her mission of truly proving the will of God, trying to be that eternal son and daughter of God, really fulfilling all of our divinity and realizing that we are not just dust in the wind, meant to just float around in the air and feel glorious about ourselves, but there is a meaning and a purpose to our existence – and our life is an opportunity to do just that, to actualize what God originally intended for His first son and daughter, Adam and Eve.

43. In Jin Nim realized in this whole experience of going through the acupuncture treatment, there has to be that decision, that defining moment where you say, "enough is enough! We need to do something different. Let's see if we can take ourselves from one state to another. Let's see if we can make ourselves better by changing our way of thinking. Let's see if we can change the course of our destiny by holding the horns of our destiny and driving it ourselves. We're not going to wait around for our parents to do the job for us all the time. We are going to be that independent, that responsible child that exercises their freedom, the freedom to do the right thing, and to do things in the right way. And truly by embodying the philosophy of living for the sake of others we grow to be free in terms of knowing all the blessings that have been given us, and understanding that we are governed by an incredible philosophy, living for the sake of others. We need to exercise our freedom by practicing it in our daily lives, by carrying for the ones that we care about, by helping the community that we care about. District leaders don't just sit on the Launch- pad that was sent to you, and you should have received the second packet last week. Please utilize it in your community. It was created to help you do your job better, to help you own your own ministry, to help you develop your own communities. We never had a system like this before, but that doesn't mean we can't have one now.

44. The incredible thing is, whether the districts are following the Launch-pad as has been recommended or not, the amazing thing about the ministry that our Heavenly Parent has allowed us to experience and partake of – is that every month 30 or 40 members are joining. So imagine how much better that average will be if we really start actually using the Launch-pad – so that people can talk freely amongst ourselves – and do we even know the theme? Are our pastors and youth ministers aware that the theme of the Launch-pad is, "I care." We are using compassion and caring as our theme.

45. But regardless of how much is done at headquarters if headquarters does not have your support, and not just receiving the packet but implementing, sharing, talking about and brainstorming about the packet – inviting your congregation and youth to participate and make the ministry your own – then it is not going to be as effective as we would all like.

46. Despite, whether you use this or not, growth will take place. But how much faster and more effective would the growth be, especially considering that we are looking towards the date of 2013. There is a whole lot of breaking news that needs to be shared – the news of our True Parents, the news that we can finally live as one family under God. And how do we become one family? Everyone thinks Rev Moon is crazy about mass weddings. But it is not just to people getting married with thousands of other couples, it is really their testament and their wanting to share with the world that they are going to transcend the barriers of race, religion, and culture to come together in this common denominator, understanding God as our Heavenly Parent and ourselves as the eternal son and daughter, and that son and a daughter that proclaims that they will live a compassionate life, an altruistic life – living for the sake of others, raising up others to be better than ourselves, and in the process not being just internally excellent men and women but externally excellent men and women.

47. The internal knowledge of who we are, as that divine being, is manifested in all the different things that we do, be it as lawyers, ministers, teachers, nurses, or chefs – it doesn't matter. If we are beautiful on the inside and we are strong in the knowledge that we are here for a purpose and that we have a mission and that we have this incredible gift of life, that we should unfold as part of our myth making – then we realize that we have been gifted an exciting, an engrossing, and compelling ride called our life. So we can approach our life with gratitude, with excitement in knowing that we were meant to leave something beautiful behind. And what is more beautiful than our children, the next generation, who are better prepared than we are to usher this world into the next millennium.

48. As the world continues to come together, in this promise of building a peaceful world – you cannot have peace without truly understanding how to love, and the way you understand how to love is by understanding how relationships work in a family. This is why Rev and Mrs. Moon teach that building the ideal families is the cornerstone, the building block, of building a peaceful world. If we don't learn how to love we will not know how to be peaceful men and women, we will not know how to be harmonious men and women.

49. These international blessings are an effort to see our world as one family. Not that one race is better than the other, not that one culture is better than the other, not that one economic class is better than the other – we are all children of God. That is what our True Parents and our Heavenly Parent want us to concentrate on.

50. When Jesus was healing the sick in the book of Matthew 9:29 Jesus was saying to the people who came to him to be healed, "according to your faith be it unto you." Meaning that the healing Jesus provides will be according to their faith. The healing that our True Parents and our Heavenly Parent brings to the world is according to our faith, "be it unto all of us." If we can remain vigilant in our faith to our Heavenly Parent and in our faith and loyalty to our True Parents, there is nothing that we cannot heal, that we cannot accomplish.

51. There is an incredibly profound saying that comes from a tribe in Nigeria; "The small pebbles are the strength in walls." All these small pebbles are you and me. You and I become the strength in the city and the walls that we are building. We need to make sure that these little pebbles, you and me, are inspired, that we are not conformed to the world, but that we are transformed by renewing our way of thinking so that we can live the rest of our lives proving the will and the desire of our Heavenly Father and Mother in heaven.

52. "So brothers and sisters, on this beautiful July 4 weekend, celebrating Independence Day, please have a safe weekend. Lots of young pyromaniacs in the audience, please take care and have a great time, have a great family sharing, and all throughout the weekend please keep the faith. Thank you"

Notes:

Romans, chapter 12

1: I appeal to you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

2: Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

3: For by the grace given to me I bid every one among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith which God has assigned him.

4: For as in one body we have many members, and all the members do not have the same function,

5: so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.

6: Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith;

7: if service, in our serving; he who teaches, in his teaching;

8: he who exhorts, in his exhortation; he who contributes, in liberality; he who gives aid, with zeal; he who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness.

9: Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good;

10: love one another with brotherly affection; outdo one another in showing honor.

11: Never flag in zeal, be aglow with the Spirit, serve the Lord.

12: Rejoice in your hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.

13: Contribute to the needs of the saints, practice hospitality.

14: Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them.

15: Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.

16: Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; never be conceited.

17: Repay no one evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all.

18: If possible, so far as it depends upon you, live peaceably with all.

19: Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God; for it is written, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord."

20: No, "if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals upon his head."

21: Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

The Emancipation Proclamation

By the President of the United States of America:
A Proclamation.

Whereas, on the twenty-second day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, a proclamation was issued by the President of the United States, containing, among other things, the following, to wit:

"That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom.

"That the Executive will, on the first day of January aforesaid, by proclamation, designate the States and parts of States, if any, in which the people thereof, respectively, shall then be in rebellion against the United States; and the fact that any State, or the people thereof, shall on that day be, in good faith, represented in the Congress of the United States by members chosen thereto at elections wherein a majority of the qualified voters of such State shall have participated, shall, in the absence of strong countervailing testimony, be deemed conclusive evidence that such State, and the people thereof, are not then in rebellion against the United States."

Now, therefore I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, by virtue of the power in me vested as Commander-in-Chief, of the Army and Navy of the United States in time of actual armed rebellion against the authority and government of the United States, and as a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing said rebellion, do, on this first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and in accordance with my purpose so to do publicly proclaimed for the full period of one hundred days, from the day first above mentioned, order and designate as the States and parts of States wherein the people thereof respectively, are this day in rebellion against the United States, the following, to wit:

Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, (except the Parishes of St. Bernard, Plaquemines, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St. James Ascension, Assumption, Terrebonne, Lafourche, St. Mary, St. Martin, and Orleans, including the City of New Orleans) Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia, (except the forty-eight counties designated as West Virginia, and also the counties of Berkley, Accomac, Northampton, Elizabeth City, York, Princess Ann, and Norfolk, including the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth[)], and which excepted parts, are for the present, left precisely as if this proclamation were not issued.

And by virtue of the power, and for the purpose aforesaid, I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States, and parts of States, are, and henceforward shall be free; and that the Executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons.

And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be free to abstain from all violence, unless in necessary self-defence; and I recommend to them that, in all cases when allowed, they labor faithfully for reasonable wages.

And I further declare and make known, that such persons of suitable condition, will be received into the armed service of the United States to garrison forts, positions, stations, and other places, and to man vessels of all sorts in said service.

And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution, upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind, and the gracious favor of Almighty God.

In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the City of Washington, this first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty three, and of the Independence of the United States of America the eighty-seventh.

By the President: ABRAHAM LINCOLN
WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.

Matthew, chapter 9

1: And getting into a boat he crossed over and came to his own city.

2: And behold, they brought to him a paralytic, lying on his bed; and when Jesus saw their faith he said to the paralytic, "Take heart, my son; your sins are forgiven."

3: And behold, some of the scribes said to themselves, "This man is blaspheming."

4: But Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said, "Why do you think evil in your hearts?

5: For which is easier, to say, `Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, `Rise and walk'?

6: But that you may know that the Son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins" -- he then said to the paralytic -- "Rise, take up your bed and go home."

7: And he rose and went home.

8: When the crowds saw it, they were afraid, and they glorified God, who had given such authority to men.

9: As Jesus passed on from there, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax office; and he said to him, "Follow me." And he rose and followed him.

10: And as he sat at table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and sat down with Jesus and his disciples.

11: And when the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, "Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?"

12: But when he heard it, he said, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.

13: Go and learn what this means, `I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.' For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners."

14: Then the disciples of John came to him, saying, "Why do we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?"

15: And Jesus said to them, "Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come, when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast.

16: And no one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch tears away from the garment, and a worse tear is made.

17: Neither is new wine put into old wineskins; if it is, the skins burst, and the wine is spilled, and the skins are destroyed; but new wine is put into fresh wineskins, and so both are preserved."

18: While he was thus speaking to them, behold, a ruler came in and knelt before him, saying, "My daughter has just died; but come and lay your hand on her, and she will live."

19: And Jesus rose and followed him, with his disciples.

20: And behold, a woman who had suffered from a hemorrhage for twelve years came up behind him and touched the fringe of his garment;

21: for she said to herself, "If I only touch his garment, I shall be made well."

22: Jesus turned, and seeing her he said, "Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well." And instantly the woman was made well.

23: And when Jesus came to the ruler's house, and saw the flute players, and the crowd making a tumult,

24: he said, "Depart; for the girl is not dead but sleeping." And they laughed at him.

25: But when the crowd had been put outside, he went in and took her by the hand, and the girl arose.

26: And the report of this went through all that district.

27: And as Jesus passed on from there, two blind men followed him, crying aloud, "Have mercy on us, Son of David."

28: When he entered the house, the blind men came to him; and Jesus said to them, "Do you believe that I am able to do this?" They said to him, "Yes, Lord."

29: Then he touched their eyes, saying, "According to your faith be it done to you."

30: And their eyes were opened. And Jesus sternly charged them, "See that no one knows it."

31: But they went away and spread his fame through all that district.

32: As they were going away, behold, a dumb demoniac was brought to him.

33: And when the demon had been cast out, the dumb man spoke; and the crowds marveled, saying, "Never was anything like this seen in Israel."

34: But the Pharisees said, "He casts out demons by the prince of demons."

35: And Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every disease and every infirmity.

36: When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.

37: Then he said to his disciples, "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few;

38: pray therefore the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest."  

Freedom

In Jin Moon
July 3, 2011
Lovin' Life Ministries

Good morning, brothers and sisters. Happy Independence Day. Happy July 4th weekend. I'm terribly glad to be with you once again. I thought that you can't really celebrate Independence Day properly without a little bit of Bon Jovi in the morning. So when I was exercising and torturing myself the other day – I usually like to torture myself on the Stairmaster to the music of Bon Jovi – I thought, "This is the kind of stuff that really gets people going and it takes me successfully through all my torturous routines." I thought, "What a great way to wake up on Sunday morning, getting us all prepared for a great deal of festivities on Monday, celebrating Independence Day."

For those of us who grew up in this country or who were born in this country and who now call ourselves citizens of this country, Independence Day has a profound meaning. We know that it commemorates the signing of the Declaration of Independence, which proclaimed the thirteen colonies to be free from Great Britain. It was an attempt for self-government and attempt to take destiny into American hands.

Starting from that time, America has grown to become one of the superpowers of the world, wielding a great deal of influence in countries around the world. So America has a great deal of responsibility in its desire to exercise freedom. When we contemplate the word independence, we see that Webster's defines it for us as "freedom from control or influence, or the determination of another." That word has a very interesting place in all of our lives. Particularly for those of us who are young and looking toward our life and different things we would like to do, the word freedom may override anything else in our lives.

For a lot of people, freedom can seem to mean you can do whatever you want. But freedom is guaranteed not because it exists alone but because it exists in the context of the Constitution of the United States, which guarantees freedom for all its citizens. Just because we long to be free does not mean we can do whatever we want if it infringes on the right of another citizen or individual in the United States of America.

Likewise, when I reflect on the word freedom, I see it as being made up of two syllables – free and dumb. Viewing the word in this way can help remind all of us seeking freedom in our lives and wanting to express it that, yes, we need to be free in that we have the right to make the important decisions ourselves, but as we know from Divine Principle we also have a 5 percent responsibility. We have the free will to decide what we're going to do. But we need to do that wisely and lovingly. We need to do it thinking and living for the sake of others. Therefore, we should all be "free," but not be involved in things that fall into the category of things that are "dumb."

We can be free, but if we tell people, "I am free to hurt you," that is not a smart thing to do. Or, "I am free to cause myself bodily harm." That is indeed not a smart thing to do. Or, "I am free to inflict misery on myself, or be my own prisoner, my own taskmaster in such a way that I no longer function as an eternal son or daughter of God." That also would not be the smart thing to do. Those things might fall under the category of things that could be considered dumb.

I notice that when we make progress in a technological area or in the process of modernization, every step forward allows us to be a little more free in doing other things. For instance, with the invention of a laundry washer and dryer, we became more free with our time to do other things. When the State of New York decided to implement EasyPass at tollbooths, it was an attempt to free us from rummaging through our pockets as we approach the tollbooth and then trying to get all those coins into the tollbooth before we drive away. The process of modernization is freeing us from things we were held bondage to, such as our chump change and having to get that change into the tollbooth.

When the Lovin' Life team at Headquarters prepared the Launch Pad that we have shared with all the district pastors around the country, it was an effort on the part of Headquarters and Lovin' Life Ministries to help you create an efficient satellite community to the best of your ability. Preparing the Launch Pad was our way of serving you and your community by helping each community to own its worship – to develop its own programs, its own circles, and its own projects. In this way, the Launch Pad is a tool for every state all around the country to use in making Lovin' Life its own.

One thing I noticed about freedom is that when a new tool to support greater freedom is made available, it can still take a long time for people to change their ways.

For instance, in the State of New York, even though we've had EasyPass for over 15 years, there are still many people who have a hard time switching over from the habitual understanding of a tollbooth – rummaging through their pockets, driving up to the window, throwing the coins in, and then driving away.

By initiating the Launch Pad and sending it out to all the district pastors around the country, Headquarters is providing a way to make the ride more efficient, more effective, and more comfortable. That's what the Launch Pad is trying to do: to give the power to you to develop your own successful Lovin' Life satellite. But just like the EasyPass, many of you are not using the Launch Pad. Many of you are not familiar with the thought processes that we've already gone through at Headquarters and gifted to you, so when you think about the possible phrase that you might want to use as a slogan or banner for different projects that you might want to do, like "Live Out Loud," it's already been thought out, gifted, and freely given.

We have given all the district pastors and communities the right to exercise freedom to make Lovin' Life your own, but if you don't own that freedom, receive it and make it yours, that freedom won't award anything to anybody.

When we consult the Bible, we find a wonderful passage in Romans 12:2, "And be not conformed to this world, but be transformed in renewing your mind, so that you may prove that which is good, acceptable and perfect – the will of God." Highlight the verbs in this passage – "do not be conformed to this world," conform; "but be transformed," transform. How do we do so? By renewing our minds. Why be transformed by renewing our minds? So that we can prove the will of God, the will of God that is perfect, acceptable, and good.

If we are to savor this passage a little, what the Bible is saying is, "Do not get stuck in what has been accepted. Do not get stuck in the ways that we've done things before. Do not become habitualized to the ineffective ways of doing things. Do not become habitualized to the miserable type of living." Some people don't want to get out of poverty because they need to feel the pain every day of their lives. Even when you afford these people the means of getting themselves out, pulling themselves up to a better life, many people don't leave.

It's interesting how when President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in September 1862 and it became effective the year after, there were a lot of slaves who were told, "You no longer are slaves; now you are free men and women. Now you can go as you please." They were awarded the freedom to be citizens of this country; they were no longer slaves or second-class citizens. But even though this freedom was awarded to these people through the Emancipation Proclamation, a lot of the slaves did not want to leave their masters because they were conformed to the world. They were habitualized in their slavery. They knew nothing else.

Instead of taking the courage to seek a better life, they preferred to stay in the state of being a slave. That is quite shocking for a lot of people, but slavery takes many different forms. Yes, the African Americans were given their Emancipation Proclamation, but even in this modern-day era there is slavery of many different sorts. For instance, many are slaves to drugs. Even though we want to afford these people the freedom to rid themselves from a life of bondage to drugs, they don't want to leave because they have been conformed to their world. It has been habitualized and accepted, and they allow themselves to be stuck.

What the Bible is asking us to do is not to be conformed to the world. When we send out the Launch Pad to every district pastor, what we are asking them is, don't be conformed to the world as we have known it. We just celebrated the end of the world on May 21, 2011 with True Parents, right? It was prophesied by many great prophets and the Good Book a long time ago. When we're sending out the Launch Pad, it's an invitation not to be conformed to the world as we have known it. This is a time when we can build something new, something better, something that's worthy of our children and our grandchildren.

The Bible goes on to say, "Be transformed." It's not saying, "God will transform you." It is saying, "Be transformed." In other words, the Bible is asking us to be responsible adults who will decide to exercise the 5 percent responsibility of our free will and become agents of change who will determine our own great destinies. The Bible says, "Be transformed." How do we transform ourselves? By renewing our minds.

What the Bible is actually saying is, "Get yourselves unstuck from the habitualized way of thinking, living, and expressing yourselves to each other – and be transformed, meaning all of us, me, you, us, we." We are not to wait for God to do the job for us, not to wait for a band of angels to sing good wishes to us. We need to be our own transformation by renewing our minds.

I've owned several apartments, and I have a home in Boston. When it comes to that time of year and the paint on the outside is looking a bit flaky and dull, I'm thinking about renovating the house, possibly painting the exterior or painting the interior different colors, to renovate it, giving it a brand-new face and feeling on which we can all be carried throughout the year.

I know that when I decide to renovate something, it's a conscious decision. I become my agent of change, and I decide for myself that a little bit of transformation is necessary to move the house from dull to fabulous, from something that looks a bit putrid to glorious – something that looked boring to exciting. Transformation means moving something from one state to another. It presupposes growth and movement. Transformation is a wonderful word that promises growth and movement in our lives from one state to another.

How do we do that? Simply by changing the way we think – by renewing, renovating, and overhauling the way we think and the way we have gone about doing what we did before. For each district director around the country, I have to say, "God bless you. We are so lucky to have all of you." But what we are asking, and what the Good Book is asking for us to do, is something a little bit different. It's not to do the old method of approaching the tollbooth, rummaging through our pockets and throwing the coins in. It's asking us to try the EasyPass, and it's telling us that the more people who try it and use it, the better the morning rush traffic will be. It will be good for everybody.

It's a call to help transform ourselves, our families, our societies, our nations and our communities into something better, to move from one state of being to another. How? By renewing our thinking, by changing our thinking and deciding that we are not going to be dependent and addicted children dragging down God and our True Parents. We are going to be healthy, independent children who love and honor God and want to do something great, to build something wonderful by changing and renovating our thinking, and by being constantly on the lookout for different and new ways to transform what's really beautiful. We are going to help bring the beautiful brothers and sisters that we have in our fold up to the modern-day era so that we can be more effective as a family, a community, and a movement. And in doing so we will prove the will of God.

If we understand that God is our Heavenly Parent, our father and mother in heaven, and we know that when God thought about creating His and Her children, the first thing that God had in mind was to love and be loved. God wanted to experience love by creating children. The desire of God as parents, gazing upon God's beautiful sons and daughters all around the world, is for them to be incredibly wonderful and beautiful sons and daughters, truly loving life.

Our Heavenly Parent would like all of us to love life and to inherit the true love of God, meaning that our children or all of us will have the chance and opportunity to experience true love, and true life, but also true lineage, building families of our own. In that way we realize that God is not sitting on a high throne casting commands in heaven to make the children miserable and make them suffer. What God is hoping is that if the children are suffering perhaps through a difficult time, the children will learn something, or perhaps become deeper, stronger, and better. But what He and She wish for all of us is to be happy, healthy and in love, truly loving life. That's what our Heavenly Parent wants.

If the goal of our life is to prove the will of God, we need to think about the word prove. When you want to prove the truth of something, first of all you have to have a concept of what the truth is. You have to be able to conceive what you want to prove – this truth or this particular mathematical equation. Then you have to believe in the process – that once you understand what you want to prove, there is a process that needs to be played out.

In geometry when you prove something, you're explaining how you get from one premise to the other. You have to conclude it elegantly. When we're thinking that our goal and mission in life is to be the embodiment that proves the will of God, the wish and desire of God to see all of us as a remarkable son or daughter of God, we realize that once we have a concept of this truth in our mind, we have to believe it. We have to keep the faith in the process of actualizing or substantiating or achieving God's wish and desire in our lives.

When you prove something, you make real something that was originally a concept in your head. When the Good Book asks us to prove the will of God, it is telling us that we as God's sons and daughters have this paramount responsibility to be the divine being, the eternal son or daughter. It's asking us to simply put into practice the three steps of conceive, believe – keep the faith while you're doing it – and achieve.

When I read this passage several times, I said to myself, I need to work on not being conformed to this world. A couple of weeks ago I was dealing with a particular conformity in the sense that I had a great deal of pain in my neck and shoulders. It was as though I didn't have the time or the will to take myself to the doctor. It was just an added inconvenience in my day of all the different things that I had to do. I never really took care of it, and it kept getting worse and worse. I was conforming to the world as I knew it. It was an excruciatingly painful world. In a strange way, the pain became my friend. That's when I knew I was in trouble.

I had heard about a wonderful acupuncturist, a member of our faith. My daughter has been having pain for the last two years, and every time she danced it would flare up and cause her a great deal of pain. Like mother, like daughter; she would just grin and bear it, hoping a little bit of rest would make it go away, but it kept getting worse and worse.

When I read Romans 12:2, I said, "Well, the Bible says, 'Be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by renewing your mind so that you can prove the will of God." That told me that somebody up there was hinting that I should get my life in gear and fix the problem. I shouldn't be conformed and just suffer with the pain. I should transform myself. I should make my health better by renewing my mind, by deciding I am going to do something about it and prove the will of God – meaning, "prove that God is not wishing for me to be suffering each day and night."

We had heard that this acupuncturist was very good, but we had also heard that unlike other acupuncturists this is a no-mercy doctor. If you come to him for treatment, you are there to be treated, and you are at his mercy. I had heard that no amount of screaming or Hallelujahs would save you from the treatment he's going to inflict on you once you are in his care.

We were a bit apprehensive, but the Bible says, "Do not be conformed," so off we went. This doctor is a rather tiny man, with a very happy, smiley face with crescent moon eyes. He didn't look like somebody who could inflict a great deal of pain. So we thought, "Okay, we're doing pretty well." He was very soft-spoken, asking, "Tell me what is going on."

I told him, "I've been having this excruciating pain, like I'm carrying something on my right shoulder but it doesn't quite feel like an arm." My daughter told him, "I have this incredible pain. I can't step on my foot without feeling like I want to scream." He quietly dipped his hand into his black bag and out came this little metal box. He closed his eyes and quietly opened the box.

I've been to acupuncturists many times before, and the ones I got treatment from use really skinny needles. You barely feel the needles when they poke you. The needles don't go in more than a centimeter. But when this man opened his metal box, there were metal rods, not needles, and they were very long. I looked at Ariana and we thought, "Oh, my goodness." But once we go into treatment, there's no way out until he's finished. It's an understood thing.

A regular acupuncturist usually puts the needles in where you are experiencing the pain. If you have pain on the right side of your neck, that's where the needle goes. But he said, "Those acupuncturists don't know Divine Principle. They don't understand subject-object. They don't understand masculine-feminine. They don't understand yin and yang. They don't understand heaven-earth, they don't understand East and West. They are putting the needle in the wrong place. You don't put the needle in the pain. You put the needle where you can excite the nerve to do something about the pain."

All the previous acupuncturists that I had been to had stuck needles in my neck and my shoulder. This guy stuck metal rods, huge long metal rods, on the exact opposite place of where my pain was. He stuck them on the left shoulder, where I had no pain. I was thinking, "What is this man doing?" He was saying, "Yin and yang, the left part, right part are connected."

I said, "Explain to me your metal rod system." He said it's like when you are falling asleep, for instance, in the middle of Sunday service, which I hope none of you are doing right now, and somebody next to you nudges you, you realize that when you are trying to stay away, every nudge makes you more tired. When you are in class and you're super-tired, you've been up all night – hopefully in the library and not partying – and somebody next to you needles you with a pen to wake you up, you become more tired.

He was saying that many times Western-style medicine is like trying to nudge you awake when you're falling asleep. He said his heavenly rod method of acupuncture is not to nudge the person but to slap him awake so hard that it shocks the system and starts it up all over again with extreme renewed, renovated, and rehauled energy. He was saying, "Because when you are slapped awake, your sleepiness suddenly disappears and you are like, 'Who did this? Come out of the woodwork!' You suddenly become awake." He said, "That's the philosophy for my heavenly rod acupuncture system."

So we just sat there while he tortured us. These needles were thick. The thin needles other acupuncturists use you can't even feel – a pinch at the most. This needle you can feel going in, and when he twists it, you can feel the circuitry that he's manipulating because you realize that the body is literally a circuit board. He's pinning you here, drilling slowly that heavenly rod on your neck, but you feel it on your lower back. He puts it on your shoulder, but you feel it down on your legs. It was really quite miraculous.

He was twisting it, saying, "This will be painful." I was thinking, "Okay, not only do you slowly drill me with this rod of iron but you're telling me it's going to be painful as if it's going to make it any better. It didn't make it any better, but at least he warned me." But he kept on poking me. He said, "Yes, you're very stressed out. It's very good that you came to see me because if you went much further, something might have had to give." I said, "Well, that's good news." He said, "You need to come back and see me two more times." I said, "Oh, no!" I was hoping for a one-time recovery.

My daughter saw the needles and she said, "Nooo!" He was getting the needles ready to put them in the foot that was not affected. She just would not lie down because she had to see what the man was going to do to her feet. The doctor was saying, "Lie down; don't look!" But she was so scared that she was clinging onto me and I had to hold onto her other leg because she kept on wanting to kick the doctor away. She was kicking me in the process, trying to free herself. I said, "We're here, so let's just give it a go."

Then he took hold of her foot and started turning in the metal rod. He said, "Yes, this will hurt." The first treatment she was screaming like a coyote. It was extremely painful, but she sat through and completed the treatment. It was extremely painful because it was on the bone and these metal rods are long. They're really long, like this.

But after the first treatment, two years of pain – which meant that she could barely walk many times because it was so inflamed and painful – went away. She said, "This is incredible. The other doctors I went to wanted to operate on the foot that was affected. They were treating the foot that was affected with electronic devices, but nothing got rid of the pain. But he treated the other foot and the pain went away."

He said, "Come back two more times." We did complete our treatment. He said, "It's going to take some time, so you have to take care of your health. Please take these herbal medications and you'll feel better." The interesting thing was that both of us could have continued on living with the pain because it was what we were used to, what we became accustomed to, instead of exerting the added effort of making that phone call to the doctor and getting ourselves over there.

In some ways our experience was similar to learning to use the computer instead of being stuck to a typewriter. You have to try to learn something new. You have to go from being somebody who is computer illiterate to being somebody who is computer literate, and that might take a process. But in the end it frees us up to do so much more.

Going through the process of receiving torturous acupuncture in the end yielded the kind of result that allows me to do much better in my mission of proving the will of God, by trying to be an eternal daughter of God, fulfilling all of my divinity, realizing that I am not just dust in the wind meant to float around in the air and feel glorious about myself, but there is a meaning and a purpose to my existence. For each of us our life is an opportunity to do just that, to actualize what God originally intended for His first son and daughter, Adam and Eve.

I realized in this whole experience of the acupuncture treatment that there has to be a decision, a defining moment when you say, "Enough is enough. We need to do something different. Let's see if we can take ourselves from one state to another. Let's see if we can make ourselves better by changing our way of thinking. Let's see if we can change the course of our destiny by taking it by the horns and driving it ourselves. We're not going to wait around for our parents to do the job for us all the time. We are going to be independent, responsible children who exercise the freedom to do the right thing and to do things in the right way."

By embodying the philosophy of living for the sake of others we grow to be free in knowing all the blessings that have been given to us, and understanding that we are governed by a powerful philosophy: living for the sake of others. We need to exercise our freedom by practicing it in our daily lives, caring for the ones we care about and helping the community we care about.

District leaders, don't just sit on the Launch Pad that we have sent you. The second packet should have arrived last week. Please utilize it in your community. We created it to help you do your job better, to help you own your own ministry, to help you develop your own communities.

We've never really had a system like this before, but it doesn't mean we can't have one now. The amazing thing about the ministry that our Heavenly Parent has allowed us to experience and partake of is that whether those districts are following the Launch Pad as we would recommend, or not, every month 30 or 40 members are joining. So imagine how much better that average would be if you really started using the Launch Pad, so that people can talk freely about it.

Do we even know the theme? Are the district pastors, or youth ministers or assistant pastors aware that the theme of the Launch Pad is "I care"? We're using compassion and caring as our theme.

Regardless of how much we do at Headquarters, if we don't have your support – not just receiving but implementing the packet, sharing the packet, talking about it, brainstorming about it, inviting your congregation, your youth to participate and make the ministry their own – then it's not going to be as effective as we would all like.

Sun Myung Moon, Hyung Jin Moon, and Yun Ah Lee Moon, May 2011

Despite its full use or not, continual growth takes place. But how much faster and how much more effective could the growth be, especially in light of the fact that we're looking toward the date of 2013? There's a whole lot of breaking news that needs to be shared: the news of our True Parents, that we can finally live as one family under God.

How do we become one family? Everyone thinks Reverend Moon is crazy for mass weddings, but it's not just two people getting married with thousands of other couples. It's really their testament, their wanting to share with the world, "Look, we are willing to say that we are going to transcend the barriers of race, religion and culture to come together in this common denominator, understanding God as our Heavenly Parent. We understand ourselves as eternal sons and daughters proclaiming that we will live a compassionate life, an altruistic life living for the sake of others and raising others to be better than ourselves. In the process we will become not only internally excellent but also externally excellent, so that the internal knowledge of who we are as a divine being is manifested in all the different things that we may do – whether it be lawyers, ministers, teachers, nurses, chefs or any other living practice to which we may be called. It doesn't matter, because we know that success will follow if we're beautiful on the inside and we're strong in knowing that we are here for a purpose, we have a mission, and we have this amazing gift of a life that we should unfold as part of our myth-making."

Considering these insights, we realize that we have been given an exciting, engrossing, and compelling ride called our lives, so we are empowered to approach our life with gratitude. We can approach our life with excitement in knowing that we were meant to leave something beautiful behind. What is more beautiful than our children of the next generation, who are better prepared than we are to usher this world into the next millennium?

You cannot have peace without truly understanding how to love. The way you truly understand how to love is by understanding how relationships work in a family. That's why Reverend and Mrs. Moon teach that building ideal families is the cornerstone of building a peaceful world. If we don't know how to love, we will not know how to be peaceful men and women. We will not know how to be harmonious men and women.

These international blessings are really an effort to see our world as one family. They are highlighting the understanding that no one race is better than another, no one culture is better than the other, no one economic class is better than the other. We are all children of God. That is what our True Parents and our Heavenly Parent are asking us to concentrate on.

Brothers and sisters, when Jesus was healing the sick, he said in Matthew 9:29 to the people who came to him to be healed, "According to your faith, be it unto you." The healing that Jesus provides will be according to our faith. Be it unto you. Be it unto us.

So the healing that our True Parents and our Heavenly Parent bring to the world is according to our faith, be it unto all of us. If we can remain vigilant in our faith in our Heavenly Parent, in our faith and loyalty to our True Parents, there is nothing we cannot heal. There is nothing we cannot accomplish.

An extremely profound saying comes from the Buji tribe of Nigeria: small pebbles are the strength in walls. All these small pebbles are you and I, but we together become the strength in the wall, or the city or the world that we are building. We need to make sure that these little pebbles, you and I, are inspired, that we are not conformed to the world, but that we can transform ourselves by renewing our way of thinking so we can live the rest of our lives proving the will and desire of our Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother.

So brothers and sisters, on this beautiful July 4th weekend as we celebrate Independence Day, please have a safe weekend. There may be lots of pyromaniacs in the audience. Young people, please take care. Have a great time. Have great family sharings all throughout the weekend, and please keep the faith. Thank you.

Notes:

Romans, chapter 12

1: I appeal to you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

2: Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

3: For by the grace given to me I bid every one among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith which God has assigned him.

4: For as in one body we have many members, and all the members do not have the same function,

5: so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.

6: Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith;

7: if service, in our serving; he who teaches, in his teaching;

8: he who exhorts, in his exhortation; he who contributes, in liberality; he who gives aid, with zeal; he who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness.

9: Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good;

10: love one another with brotherly affection; outdo one another in showing honor.

11: Never flag in zeal, be aglow with the Spirit, serve the Lord.

12: Rejoice in your hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.

13: Contribute to the needs of the saints, practice hospitality.

14: Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them.

15: Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.

16: Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; never be conceited.

17: Repay no one evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all.

18: If possible, so far as it depends upon you, live peaceably with all.

19: Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God; for it is written, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord."

20: No, "if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals upon his head."

21: Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

The Emancipation Proclamation

By the President of the United States of America:
A Proclamation.

Whereas, on the twenty-second day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, a proclamation was issued by the President of the United States, containing, among other things, the following, to wit:

"That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom.

"That the Executive will, on the first day of January aforesaid, by proclamation, designate the States and parts of States, if any, in which the people thereof, respectively, shall then be in rebellion against the United States; and the fact that any State, or the people thereof, shall on that day be, in good faith, represented in the Congress of the United States by members chosen thereto at elections wherein a majority of the qualified voters of such State shall have participated, shall, in the absence of strong countervailing testimony, be deemed conclusive evidence that such State, and the people thereof, are not then in rebellion against the United States."

Now, therefore I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, by virtue of the power in me vested as Commander-in-Chief, of the Army and Navy of the United States in time of actual armed rebellion against the authority and government of the United States, and as a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing said rebellion, do, on this first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and in accordance with my purpose so to do publicly proclaimed for the full period of one hundred days, from the day first above mentioned, order and designate as the States and parts of States wherein the people thereof respectively, are this day in rebellion against the United States, the following, to wit:

Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, (except the Parishes of St. Bernard, Plaquemines, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St. James Ascension, Assumption, Terrebonne, Lafourche, St. Mary, St. Martin, and Orleans, including the City of New Orleans) Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia, (except the forty-eight counties designated as West Virginia, and also the counties of Berkley, Accomac, Northampton, Elizabeth City, York, Princess Ann, and Norfolk, including the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth[)], and which excepted parts, are for the present, left precisely as if this proclamation were not issued.

And by virtue of the power, and for the purpose aforesaid, I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States, and parts of States, are, and henceforward shall be free; and that the Executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons.

And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be free to abstain from all violence, unless in necessary self-defence; and I recommend to them that, in all cases when allowed, they labor faithfully for reasonable wages.

And I further declare and make known, that such persons of suitable condition, will be received into the armed service of the United States to garrison forts, positions, stations, and other places, and to man vessels of all sorts in said service.

And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution, upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind, and the gracious favor of Almighty God.

In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the City of Washington, this first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty three, and of the Independence of the United States of America the eighty-seventh.

By the President: ABRAHAM LINCOLN
WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.

Matthew, chapter 9

1: And getting into a boat he crossed over and came to his own city.

2: And behold, they brought to him a paralytic, lying on his bed; and when Jesus saw their faith he said to the paralytic, "Take heart, my son; your sins are forgiven."

3: And behold, some of the scribes said to themselves, "This man is blaspheming."

4: But Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said, "Why do you think evil in your hearts?

5: For which is easier, to say, `Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, `Rise and walk'?

6: But that you may know that the Son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins" -- he then said to the paralytic -- "Rise, take up your bed and go home."

7: And he rose and went home.

8: When the crowds saw it, they were afraid, and they glorified God, who had given such authority to men.

9: As Jesus passed on from there, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax office; and he said to him, "Follow me." And he rose and followed him.

10: And as he sat at table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and sat down with Jesus and his disciples.

11: And when the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, "Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?"

12: But when he heard it, he said, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.

13: Go and learn what this means, `I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.' For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners."

14: Then the disciples of John came to him, saying, "Why do we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?"

15: And Jesus said to them, "Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come, when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast.

16: And no one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch tears away from the garment, and a worse tear is made.

17: Neither is new wine put into old wineskins; if it is, the skins burst, and the wine is spilled, and the skins are destroyed; but new wine is put into fresh wineskins, and so both are preserved."

18: While he was thus speaking to them, behold, a ruler came in and knelt before him, saying, "My daughter has just died; but come and lay your hand on her, and she will live."

19: And Jesus rose and followed him, with his disciples.

20: And behold, a woman who had suffered from a hemorrhage for twelve years came up behind him and touched the fringe of his garment;

21: for she said to herself, "If I only touch his garment, I shall be made well."

22: Jesus turned, and seeing her he said, "Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well." And instantly the woman was made well.

23: And when Jesus came to the ruler's house, and saw the flute players, and the crowd making a tumult,

24: he said, "Depart; for the girl is not dead but sleeping." And they laughed at him.

25: But when the crowd had been put outside, he went in and took her by the hand, and the girl arose.

26: And the report of this went through all that district.

27: And as Jesus passed on from there, two blind men followed him, crying aloud, "Have mercy on us, Son of David."

28: When he entered the house, the blind men came to him; and Jesus said to them, "Do you believe that I am able to do this?" They said to him, "Yes, Lord."

29: Then he touched their eyes, saying, "According to your faith be it done to you."

30: And their eyes were opened. And Jesus sternly charged them, "See that no one knows it."

31: But they went away and spread his fame through all that district.

32: As they were going away, behold, a dumb demoniac was brought to him.

33: And when the demon had been cast out, the dumb man spoke; and the crowds marveled, saying, "Never was anything like this seen in Israel."

34: But the Pharisees said, "He casts out demons by the prince of demons."

35: And Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every disease and every infirmity.

36: When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.

37: Then he said to his disciples, "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few;

38: pray therefore the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest."  

Original Divine Principle Workshop in Las Vegas Had the 'Wow' Factor

In Jin Moon
June 29, 2011

Written reflections by participants of the 146th Original Divine Principle (ODP) Workshop in Las Vegas, reveal that they felt deeply enlightened and refreshed after encountering aspects of the Divine Principle they had never heard before. The ODP Workshop (the Education Session Proclaiming the Completion of the Liberated Realm of the Portion of Responsibility in God's Providential History) took place at the Flamingo Hotel from Saturday June 18 until Wednesday June 22, 2011.

120 participants from around the country attended to hear education sessions on True Father's teachings about the Divine Principle as revealed by True Father over the years to Rev. Jeong Og Yu, who has been directly appointed by True Father as the director of the ODP program. The term, "Original Divine Principle," refers to the principles that would have been taught to Adam and Eve and their descendants in the Original Garden of Eden, if there had been no Fall from God's dominion. ODP is a study on the true nature of God and of human beings, and the proper relationship between the two. It explains God's ideal for all people which has been fulfilled by True Parents, thus allowing for true love, true life and true lineage to take root and multiply through Blessed Families. ODP is a refined expression of the Divine Principle based on a digest of Father's words given over more than 50 years. New concepts, such as "God of Day" and "God of Night" and other new terms introduced by Father, are explained in the ODP Workshop.

Rev. Yu has been trained by True Father for many years in order to become the agent through whom the ODP could be revealed. He is a member of the 430 Couple Blessing and has served as a church leader for over 40 years. He was the top leader of the Japanese movement for over ten years, has been the National Messiah of Uruguay, and is the overall supervisor of the Hawaii providence. In September 2008, True Father gave the direction to Rev. Yu to begin ODP workshops. In October 2008, the first workshop was held in Hawaii with content directly chosen by True Father for all members to hear.

Participants of the 146th ODP workshop also were able to see True Parents directly at Hoon Dok Hae at the Cheon Hwa Gong (Palace of Heavenly Harmony).

ODP workshops are being set up to take place on a regular basis in Las Vegas, with the direct involvement of True Father in their development. The next ODP is scheduled to take place in Las Vegas on July 22, 2011.

Original Divine Principle Workshop Reflections from Las Vegas, June 18-22, 2011

"The Original Divine Principle (ODP) workshop made the Divine Principle relevant to me by taking ideas and points that have always been within the Divine Principle and transforming them into things I should implement within my life. I really began to feel in my heart the true value of True Parents to me, and to the world. Rev. Yu made so much effort and elaborated on ideas deeper than I have ever heard before. The movement and mission became so much clearer: What we have to accomplish, the need to follow True Parents absolutely, and what achievements True Father has succeeded in. It was amazing to see True Parents in Las Vegas as well. This has been an amazing time that has been a blessing in my life."
- Jin Ae Sakai

"One descriptive word that comes to mind about this ODP is "Refreshing." Rev. Yu gives amazing new insights and also shows a good example of being truly united with Father's passion to communicate God's word. The interpreter, Tossa Cromwell, also does an amazing job. Even though I don't understand Korean, I really felt the passion through the voice and spirit of Rev. Yu."
- Frank Davis

"Overall, my experience during this ODP workshop was fabulous. There was so much deep content that helped me to see how the Divine Principle is complete by looking at what our True Parents and True Family are doing. It isn't just information about what the 3-Great-Blessings are, but instead we have a real example by our True Parents of what completing the 3 Great Blessings is all about. I also really appreciate all the information we received about blessed couples. As a newly blessed couple I felt as though I could benefit from it tremendously."
- Shizuka Pehling

"I feel like I was showered with blessings during my time in Las Vegas. From being able to see True Parents, I can only look upon this as a positive experience. What clearly sticks out in my mind from all that I learned at the ODP workshop is the importance of True Mother's position in relation to True Father and God. I learned from Rev. Yu that it is True Mother who will inherit the role of True Parents once Father enters the spirit world."
- Kaeng Takahashi

"The highlight of the experience was to be able to be close to True Parents and to receive much deep heartfelt guidance from True Father. Rev. Yu's lecture was also deep and insightful. The recounting of his experiences with and personal guidance from True Father was very precious."
- Robert Beebe

"I feel deep gratitude for what we have been given here in Las Vegas. The ODP is "red meat," with much more detail than the Exposition of the Divine Principle."
- Anonymous

"I realize how shallow my understanding of the Divine Principle was through studying the ODP. There were a lot of things I heard for the first time during this workshop. I deeply appreciate all the stories, testimonies, and side information regarding True Parents' life course. This is my second time to hear the ODP and it is so much more developed than the first time I heard it. I also appreciate Rev. Yu who because of his close association with True Parents has been able to give us the deep background and history of Fathers' life course. I realize, as we march forward into the future, the preciousness of our elders who had close experiences with Father. Unless these stories are told by elders like Rev. Yu, young people, and future members, cannot know the depth of True Parents' heart, life, and tradition."
- Ernie Ho

"It was really good to have a presentation of the Principle that is directly connected to the current level of the Providence. Although we hear the terms "God of Day and Night," we have not understood them. It was also very good to spend the whole day focusing on the nature of God."
- David Kasbow

"It will take time to review, pray, and digest everything but this was a life-changing workshop. Now I know that there is so much I don't know, but many questions have been answered. Now there is more power in my heart to make a difference in my family and community. Now I understand God so much more than I thought possible. With tears, I am so grateful and honored to be here."
- Judith Lejeune

"The key message I took away from the ODP was that God has to be the center of my life. I also learned much more deeply that True Father's life is the most precious to God in human history, and that Father's life has been one of complete sacrifice, offering, and suffering. I realized that True Parents are the substantial body of Heavenly Father in this world, and that restoration requires us as blessed couples to purify ourselves and let God dwell within us. I greatly appreciated Rev. Yu's personal testimonies with and about True Parents, and I am excited to share these with members in my state of South Carolina. I am determined to share as much of the ODP content with members as possible, and I will strongly encourage them to attend for the sake of their future spiritual lives and their families."
- Timothy Murphy

"My eyes and heart were opened to new depths of how God's providence is unfolding. The ODP should not be missed by any Unificationist who has invested their hearts into Father's work to establish the Kingdom of Heaven. I have a renewed seriousness and feel more confident to grow into perfection."
- Alan Jessen

"I am very happy that I came to this workshop. Originally my mother asked me and I said no, but last minute I decided to go. It has been a very good experience. ODP has made many things clear and some points of the principle have been more practically explained. Also, I was very happy that Rev. Yu was our lecturer. His personal experience with True Father helped me come to a deeper understanding of God and True Parents. This program is something that I would easily recommend to church friends. I think it is something that is necessary for everybody to go through. Also, having Hoon Dok Hae with True Parents during the workshop was an experience that helped me feel more connected to the Principle, and understand its value."
- Izak Hernandez

"I am very happy that I was able to attend this Original Divine Principle workshop because of the interesting and in-depth information that was given. With a great source of new knowledge, and a dedicated speaker, I was to gain more than I expected. With the main focus on the Principle of Creation, I was able to understand it and thinking deeply about my life. Although I've heard it many times, it always felt like a distant thought unrelated to me. Our portion of responsibility expressed as our development of character was mind-blowing, because it logically makes sense that God can't do that; it's the first time it has been explained to me like that. Rev. Yu's explanations and examples given for many small things made me actually grasp previously ungraspable comments. Also, I was extremely grateful for the truth put into blunt terms, instead of vague sentences avoiding the main thought. Also, we were granted the opportunity to have Hoon Dok Hae with True Parents, which was extremely gratifying."
- Mayo Sakai