To love others is the Origin of the Kingdom of Heaven

We are all preparing for the D-day or the Foundation Day of Cheon Il Guk on January 13, 2013 (practically a few weeks later according to the Heavenly calendar). There may be many questions open for us what this may mean concretely, but at the same time there are essential points which we all should be clearly aware of like the fact that 2000 years ago the first words of Jesus as recorded in the Bible in Matthew 4:17 were: “Repent of your sins and turn to God, for the Kingdom of Heaven is near.” Or in another translation: “Turn to God and change the way you think and act, because the kingdom of heaven is near!”

As we well know, there could have been the substantial possibility for the God’s Kingdom to be established at that time but due to the arrogance of significant representatives of the chosen people like John the Baptist and the scribes or Pharisees this precious opportunity for which our Heavenly Father had prepared for thousands of years was lost completely.

Finally, two millennium later, the Lord of the Second Advent could be born on this earth and build the foundation for God’s world of True Love to be manifested substantially. In order for this to become a reality our Heavenly Father needs the response from his children and accordingly True Father has called again and again for repentance on our side as basis for this world to change, starting with our selves, as he requested for example on September 1, 1986 Father stated: “I am telling you Moonies first of all to repent. You have to repent!”

To put it into very simple terms: Adam and Eve failed to love God and one anther in the right way, leading to Cain killing his brother Abel, and to the realization of a fallen history with endless indescribably suffering and pain. In order to overcome this tragedy the task is expressed in Jesus telling the people to love God with all their heart and mind and strength and one another as they love themselves. This significant teaching has been refined through our True Parents who gave speeches about the prodigious theme of True Love for literally hundreds of hours.

Now I could offer you many quotations that emphasize the importance of love among us as members of our church, but I will not do so but use only a few quotes as I believe that every one of you knows some examples to which I am referring. The only question remaining is the practice of what we know to be true.

True Father condensed it into one sentence: “To love others is the origin of the Kingdom of Heaven.” This means nothing less than it is our main focus to love others so that we can contribute to the realization of Cheon Il Guk, a world which is centered on God’s Love.

We are in the position to demonstrate to others about relationships. Can we show through the relationships among us that we are representing the beginning of the Kingdom of Heaven?

Father told us: “If the whole world came to love each other with true love, even at the price of death, there would be a burning fire of rebirth. If all people loved each other, the flower of happiness and peace would blossom and fill the world with a beautiful fragrance. The world where true love is realized is indeed where the ideal of humankind is realized. Truth does not exist far away from us. It exists within us…”

For us as Unificationists it should be very clear: “The ideal of unification will be fulfilled when we treat everyone as our Abel.” This is what our True Father has stated and as his children we are called to show to the world that it is indeed possible to love everybody with the heart of deep appreciation, an attitude of wanting to come closer to God through any person whom we may encounter along the way.

Father says that if we are ready to treat everyone as our Abel then the ideal of unification will be fulfilled and we as members of the Unification Movement should take this fact really seriously! Then we can put His words into practice: “Believing has its limits. After you harmonize among yourselves, belief will no longer be necessary.”

Once we are united harmoniously in heart then we do not need to just believe in each other but we know the qualities of our brothers and sisters and we will treat them with the necessary respect and sensitivity, with a truly caring heart filled with love.

Here lies our real challenge and frontline which we are facing every day with the people close to us and also the ones whom we meet in person or via the possibilities of modern technology like telephone and communication through the internet.

That it is possible to establish heart to heart relationship via the internet is well proven by those who have invested themselves wholeheartedly on this level. One person wrote for example about being amazed in this respect: “I can still not believe that even through internet it is possible to build heartistic relationships… For the first time I feel the language of the heart - you have moved my heart very deeply and this probably for ever - this can not be forgotten… I hope very much that we will see each other one day.”

We are the ones who are destined to show to the world how to practice the teaching of the True Parents of Heaven, Earth and Humankind about True Love, what includes loving even ones enemy. Father told us: “When you become a person who creates a heartistic relation even with your enemies, you can restore history and be resurrected.”

In order to get to where we are supposed to be, as members of our True Parents extended family, we need to take it to heart when Father tells us that we are not enough and should improve our heartistic standard.

On January 25, 1987 he asked: “Are you real Moonies? Do the real Moonies outnumber the fake or half-hearted Moonies? Upon close examination, there seem to be few real Moonies, few people deeply committed to the Principle.”

Father expressed his concern about our inner qualities on many occasion, like when he asked: “With your attitude, do you think you can lead, teach and save the world? It is a very, very difficult situation. You have been giving God and me so much hardship. Is what I am saying true? You have to change your situation or you cannot approach God. You have to develop a different attitude.”

What our True Parents have been hoping for is that we don’t just remain Moonies but become truly Sunnies, who are shining with the Love of God flowing from our hearts: “The Moonies are those who can only gain their strength from Father, receiving his light and encouragement, then giving it out… Sunnies are dynamos themselves, giving out light to the world whether I am here or not. The wish of Heavenly Father, as well as my own desire, is for you to become such a Sunnie. Don’t stay too long on the Moonie level; promote yourself to a Sunnie.”

The attitude with which we are supposed to live is expressed when Father says: “If you want to become a Sunnie, you have to ‘burn up’ yourself in order to give energy and warmth to the world.” Isn’t this our task - to bring warmth into the world?

Father admonished brothers and sisters on that day in 1987: “Up till now, I must say, your practice of the Moonie way of life has been fake to the point of being almost scandalous. On the road of indemnity… you must invest your flesh, blood and every ounce of energy. This is the kind of investment you must make. When we have paid the indemnity, when we have consummated that road, we will come to a different level. But until we reach that point, nothing less than total commitment is required. That is the road of indemnity. Today is the day you must repent. You must say, “Yes, it is true, I have not been a good enough Moonie. But I will be different from now on.”

True Father explained about his life: “All the suffering was a method by which to gain something greater. I look at my life as one of great blessing. I can see that God has been with me every step of the way. I can see nothing but the flowing love of God throughout my life, supporting and protecting me.”

How many of us can offer such a testimony as our True Father about the way we have lived? Personally I would surely like to be able to say the same about my life and therefore I have looked at it again and again from this perspective: To which extend do I allow God’s love flow through me to others?

Our True Parent testified about how he has been living: “Father’s entire life was involved in this tradition, thinking, ‘I cannot leave even one little defect in the God-given Kingdom of Heaven’. By the same token, that is the tradition for you. I am bequeathing that Kingdom to you, so you must not become a person who shall leave any mark of shame there. On this momentous birthday of the True Parents, let us pledge, ‘I shall become the true child of our Heavenly Father and be victorious along this path, so all mankind can ultimately dwell within the heart of God.’”

Nearly two and a have decades have passed since Father encouraged us to invest into helping people to dwell within the Heart of God – which included, of course, our priority should

be to make sure that we live in this precious realm embraced by the Love of our Creator based on our being His True image not on in form but in the contents of our hearts.

It may sound simple when Father says, “All the difficult problems in the world now can be fundamentally solved only through the perfection of true love.” But this is very true. Therefore we must make it our very first priority to improve our ability to love – to learn from one another about how to manifest True Love in every aspect of our lives.

Looking into the future Father asked: “When you go to the spirit world, do you think that everyone’s pace of walking will be different or the same? There will be a big difference, depending on people. This is because the degree and quality of love is different for each person. Would you like to walk with me even in the spirit world? If so, you should inherit the level of heart equal to mine and God’s.”

We are called to inherit the level of heart of our True Parents and ultimately the one of our Heavenly Father. No matter how far from that standard we may be, I think it is important that we don’t push such a high goal away from our minds because it seems too difficult to achieve.

Father tells us and we know it is true: “One certainty is that once people get to the spirit world everything is revealed; nothing is hidden. People have many shells here on earth; so much is concealed under clothing and other coverings. But in the spirit world everything will become very visible.”

Should we not be therefore truly dedicated to walking the way of True Love, to live in such a way that we can be proud of how we spent our days here on earth once we enter the next world? That day will come for each one of us and we surely don’t want to feel embarrassed when our relatives welcome us in the eternal world.

Let us therefore make sure that we are truly contributing to the realization of God’s Kingdom here on this earth by focusing more than anything else on loving others as our brothers and sisters, as our parent or child, as our uncle or aunt, … in whatever way that we can possibly develop personal relationships, even with a stranger once we commit our hearts to this task and invest wholeheartedly into getting to know this person and connecting with this son or daughter of our Heavenly Father, no matter how much is lacking in their their present situation.

This is my hope for all of us and I wish that every one of us can make great progress on this course of learning to love with the same heart as God and True Parents manifest.

Sincerely yours,