by Carlton Johnson
Thank you for trusting me enough to share your heart the other day at Camp. Please forge your way deeper into the realm of God's heart. Not only are you suffering, but these are desperate times for God. Before Father leaves this earth, he must raise up 144,000 solid messiahs: people who have the ability not to commit sin; people who realize that the bottom line is: "I cannot afford the luxury to die (spiritually, not physically). Only `I' can finish the task left undone by Jesus and True Parents." No matter how many times we are knocked off of our horse, we must be ready to get back on and proclaim, for even the hundredth time: "Satan! I am still the child of God and True Parents! I am still alive! No matter how many times you grab me and tempt me, my ultimate heart is to serve God and True Parents. I will always return, so you may as well give up! Even if I die, ten will rise up in my place, ten stronger and better than myself, and I will fight through them from the spiritual world. So you had better just let me do my job, here and now."
When we are under Satan's foot, we must accept his accusation and judge ourselves accordingly, then quickly confess, repent and pay indemnity. Recently, in Japan, I researched the etymology of the Chinese character for Tang-Gam (indemnity-in Japanese: Token-Joken). I found that the Chinese characters actually, literally translate "reduce squander." Because of the fall of man, our very existence is one of squandering our divine inheritance. There is a leak in our vacuum pump. By making indemnity conditions, we patch up the hole in our cup of fortune until, little by little, we no longer are a cause of squander, and we ourselves lead others and eventually all of humankind to this state of no squander.
We must accomplish this task, in our lifetime, on the earth. Because of the merit of the age, because of where we are in the providence, there is enough truth on the earth, in the incarnation of True Parents and True Family, for us to actualize this mandate, to fulfill our very design (and accomplish the Three Blessings). When temptation comes, we must be able to think not only of the potential gratification of that desire, but we must take our minds further into the future, to the ultimate consequences of the act. If our minds only reach and frolic in the expectation of sensual gratification, we have no power to resist temptation. But if we can find our way to a point just a little further beyond the fulfillment of evil desire, where lies the fruit of that action, in the realm of God's desecrated Shimjung, we can draw upon that repugnance as a weapon, as a lever, to shut down that window of vain, suicidal desire. Imagine your own little kids viewing your mind's videotapes, or even the live performance of your current thoughts and actions. Carry some of the blessed children you know around in your mind with you. Perch them up on your shoulder, in your mind, when temptation comes to call.
Repentance is, in effect, finding out what God actually thinks and feels about what it is you have done (or even thought of doing). If you can truly come to experience such an emotional impact, earnestly, then the next time such a situation comes to you, you can play back the impact of God's anguished, frustrated, betrayed feeling. Ask Satan, sometimes, why he wants to do such things. Tell him: "I am learning to do what you cannot do. I am learning to be humble and learning to go the way of sacrifice and self-denial. Gradually, I am entering realms where you cannot come, because you cannot follow my lead." Ask him to try to come with you and do God's will. And what is that will? To make man in His (God's) own image (male and female made He them). Recently, I heard in a sermon by the Reverend James Bevel that lust is the function of re-defining someone as less than what they were created and designed to be. Each person was created to stand as the image of God and exercise messianic stewardship and loving dominion over all of the earth. When we look at someone with lust, we re-define them as simple objects of our own selfish desire. We therein reduce them from being divine vessels, temples of God, to being disposable receptacles for our momentary flings.
Let us return to the task at hand: being co-workers with God to Make man and woman in the image of God. The Purpose of the Messiah is to make and raise up messiahs. Therefore, our purpose is, likewise, to make messiahs. No matter where we are in our sojourn, no matter where we have come from, we must-from now, this moment-pursue the straightest possible course to that consummation (and inspire others to do the same). So we have no time to yield to temptation. One setback in our own spiritual schedule today may result in the loss of millions of lives (spiritually and physically) in the near future. Redeem yourself. Pray that you can become one who can more faithfully and more worthily intercede for others. Let Grace continue to fill you with the Golden Light of Wisdom. Disperse measureless blessing divine. Reflect constantly on what God has been (and still is) giving to you. Then rejoice and be glad, rejoice perfectly.