Salvation And The Blessing - Part III - Slides

a ~ • The following quote is from the Introduction to Restoration

I from Part II of the “Exposition of the Divine Principle: • The providence of restoration refers to God’s work to restore human beings to our original, unfallen state so that we may fulfill the purpose of creation. As discussed in Part I, human beings fell from the top of the growth stage and have been held under Satan’s dominion ever since. To restore human beings, God works to cut off Satan’s SALVATION influence. Yet, as was explained in Christology, we must have the original sin removed before we can sever Satan’s AND THE BLESSING bonds and be restored to the state before the Fall. This is possible only when we are born anew through the Messiah, the True Parents. To explain further: we first need to go through a course to separate Satan from ourselves. We do this in order to restore ourselves in form to the spiritual level which Adam and Eve had reached before the Fall-the top of the growth stage. On this foundation, we are to receive the Messiah and be reborn, and thereby be fully restored to the original state of human beings before the Fall. Finally, by following the Messiah, we should continue our growth to maturity where we can fulfill the purpose of creation [my emphasis].

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Restoration of a Couple ·

SALVATION Perfection I Maturity of Heart Ideal World

AND THE e Messiah T.fr (saviour) True Parents

BLESSING Personal Restoration Course

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THE BLESSING • In the following slides I will be examining the actual course and growth to maturity that Blessed couples need to go – or we will be dealing with the Course and Providence after a couple is reborn through the Blessing Ceremonies – The Process of Re-growing- Up, including mitigating factors. It is also important to stress that, in addition to fulfilling the 5 steps of the Blessing ceremonies, thereby externally accomplishing the cutting away and indemnification the presence of the original sin; an internal dimension reflected in a transformation and change of heart and loyalty needs to be realized, whereby the new couple recognizes the True Parents as the originators of a new and True Lineage having nothing to do with the false lineage that was initiated by the fallen Adam and Eve.

I • I would even declare that the absolute purpose of the Blessing in this time of restoration is to create marriages that will focus on the business of accomplishing and SALVATION AND THE completing the Process of Restoration, fulfilling the 3 Blessings and accomplishing

BLESSING the Kingdom of God. Perhaps it will be clearer to say that Blessing holds out the possibility of effective, un-tethered and complete Restoration and Advancement towards becoming the Ideal Couple and Family.

a ~ • Also, in addition to taking responsibility for I and dealing with sin within and without, Blessed Central Families are also responsible for fulfilling all three Blessings, the purpose of creation, and the building of God’s Kingdom. Core to that is the need for everyone who SALVATION receives the Blessing to grow through the all of the stage of the growing period and achieve AND THE perfection – a process I would describe to an individual and now family re-growing up or BLESSING growing properly through the three stages of growth and correctly completing that journey.

SALVATION AND THE BLESSING

• The process I am describing is a gradual movement of humanity towards the state where finally each child that is born will simply need to grow through the 3 stages of growth and the Indirect Dominion and finally accomplish the 3 Blessings or God’s Purpose of Creation. It is not National Geographic and Getty Images Achieves that I am implying that this original course is easy. Not at all! I might liken it to the task of climbing Mt. Everest – a daunting one indeed. I would like to explain, though, that accomplishing the Purpose of Creation coupled with having to deal with the remnants of sin, fallen nature and evil is just so much more difficult – perhaps similar to an individual attempting to climb Mt. Everest while carrying a 500 lb. gorilla who doesn’t really want to accompany he or she but is somehow stuck to them and in addition, this creature is constantly beating upon this individual and the gorilla must absolutely be shed before the summit can ever be reached

SALVATION AND THE BLESSING • Challenges in the Process:

• Out of Orderness

• Uneven Spiritual Growth in the Couple.

• Restoration, Restoration, Restoration

• Growing in the midst of Sin Familyfriendpoems.com

SALVATION AND THE BLESSING • From one perspective, these problems can be found in all marriages, including Blessed marriages, however since Blessed Families represent the first real chance for families to effectively deal with such problems, they tend to attract a lot of attention from both good and bad spirit world.

• I mention the challenges that are part and parcel with all marriages, including Blessed marriages, to provide a fuller picture of all the dimensions and reality connected to this sacrament I

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SALVATION AND THE BLESSING • Out of Order-ness

• One key reason that trouble will exist within our Blessings is the fact that our Blessings take place prior to each of us accomplishing our 1st Blessing and so, actually, our Blessings are out of the Order originally prescribed by the Principle. Let me share one section of Linna Rapkins’ “The First Blessings” that can be found in the Unification News, January 2000, describing the blessing of the first 3 couples:

• He talked about many things, but after a while he started talking about perfection. “If you give up everything you own and work as hard as you can and get hardly any sleep and are absolutely determined, you MIGHT become perfect in about 70 years,” he said. “Furthermore, that could only happen if you had been a good person all your life and if your ancestors were good people, as well.”…Father continued, “And you know by now that becoming perfect yourself is the first blessing, and getting married is the second blessing. If you are married before you are perfected as an individual, your marriage will have many problems. Ahl-ah-yo? (Do you understand?)…But, we have a problem here,” said Father. “If we wait until you are fully perfected, no one will ever get married while on earth, at least not until you’re too old to have children. Yet Heavenly Father cannot be happy until he has blessed families all around him.” This appeared to be an impossible situation. You have to be perfect to be married, but God can’t be happy if you aren’t blessed in marriage. Father’s eves focused on one person and then another as he looked around the room to see if they understood. “So,” he continued, “Heavenly Father wants a few of you to be blessed now. colinbeavancom

SALVATION AND THE BLESSING

• Let’s Recap – Possible Handicaps due to the Out of Order-ness:

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The first blessing: Be fruitful The ability to create and complete our character Be ye perfect as your Sensitivity to the heavenly Father is perfect. heart of God God Matthew 5:48

“And I will raise up for myself a faithful priest, who shall do according to Mind Body Joy what is in my heart and in my mind.” Subject Object I Samuel 2:35 True Person “You are the temple of God and God’s spirit dwells in Unity of mind and body you.” Words and deeds are one 1 Corinthians 3:16

SALVATION AND THE BLESSING

• Uneven Growing Pace through the Three Stages of Growth

Immigration in Process

SALVATION AND THE BLESSING • And then there is: • Restoration,

• Restoration,

• Restoration!

SALVATION AND THE BLESSING

• The Great News of the Blessing

• Strategies for Success:

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SALVATION AND THE BLESSING

Let’s Talk about Strategies:

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SALVATION AND THE BLESSING

• And Still More Strategies:

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SALVATION AND THE BLESSING • Strategies for Restoration: Life is not complicated We are complicated • DO THE RIGHT THING – ALWAYS! When we stop doing he a 1g . ings and start · g he right ings, life becomes - WWW.LIVELIFEHAPPY .COM

SALVATION AND THE a BLESSING • Overall Strategies - ’ \ • Heavenly Law of Absolute Sexual Purity Prior to Getting Married

• Heavenly Law of Absolute Fidelity in the Love of Husband and Wife

• Living for the Sake of Others

• Love as a Verb = True Love is expressed and grows through Action and Practice.

• Maintain a Healthy Individual and Family Level Spiritual Life. Best Practices include: Prayer; HDH; Participate in Public and Providential Activities; Respect, Incorporate, and Emulate the Heavenly Vertical Standard

SALVATION AND THE BLESSING • Let me share from Davelin Popov, of the “Family Virtues Guide” and “A Pace of Grace” • Spiritual companioning requires the awareness that we cannot keep each other happy but we can keep each other company. We can only walk beside one another in the journey of life. We cannot control one another nor do the spiritual work of the other in our relationship. The purpose of spiritual companioning is to help one another empty our cups and get to the heart of the matter. We do this by asking cup-emptying questions starting with “What”, “when” , and “how” – never “why”, which puts each other on the defensive.

• And also from Mehri Sefidvash, Coral and Pearls, page 26- 27: • Respect means wanting the other person to grow and develop into what he is and can be. Respect automatically excludes exploitation and selfish expectations. To have respect for a person we love means having the desire that he should grow and develop according to his own wishes and his own capabilities, and not just because this is useful for us.

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SALVATION AND THE BLESSING • More Good News! Emergingedtech.com

I would like to suggest 3 purposes for a Blessed Marriage.

1. The expansion of the true lineage. • 19. If Adam and Eve had not fallen and instead had become perfected, they would have experienced their 2. To establish the merit of the age to benefit and help Blessing ceremony. In other words, Adam and Eve were to have been the substantial object partners of God. With Him all humanity more easily enter into the Principled as the subject partner, they automatically should have become the object partners. As the object partners, they Realm. should have achieved individual perfection. This would have been the foundation upon which they could have connected their objective love to God, the subject partner 3. To truly accomplish God’s Purpose of Creation, of love, and fulfilled the Blessing through marriage. In the end, perfection refers to marriage, and marriage refers to becoming perfect individuals, couples and families the manifestation of God’s love. If marriage did not exist, and expanding that to both absolutely establish the love would never have begun in the human world. The owner of that love is not humanity; it is God. When that Kingdom of God on the earth and in the Spirit world love of God appears within human beings, it becomes true love. When that heavenly true love is realized for the first and to be qualified to enter into those realms. time within humanity, it becomes the pride and joy of God. That is the feeling of God’s love. (76-040, 1975.01.26) (Cheon Seong Gyeong, Book 5, Chapter 2, Section 2, #19)

SALVATION AND THE BLESSING • There came to him some Sadducees, those who say that there is no resurrection, and they asked him a question, saying, ‘Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies, having a wife but no children, the man must take the wife and raise up children for his brother. Now there were seven brothers; the first took a wife and • Two Bible Verses to Consider: died without children; and the second and the third took her, and likewise all seven left no children and died. Afterward the woman also died. In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman • To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is well for them to remain be? For the seven had her as wife. And Jesus said to them, ‘The single as I do. But if they cannot exercise self-control, they should marry. sons of this age marry and are given in marriage; but those who are For it is better to marry than to be aflame with passion…Now concerning the accounted worthy to attain to that age and to the resurrection from unmarried, I have no command of the Lord, but I give my opinion as one who the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage, for they cannot die by the Lord’s mercy is trustworthy. I think that in view of the present anymore, because they are equal to angels and are sons of God, distress, it is well for a person to remain as he is. Are you bound to a wife? being sons of the resurrection. (Luke 20:27-36) Do not seek to be free. Are you free from a wife? Do not seek marriage. But if you marry, you do not sin, and if a girl marries she does not sin. Yet those who marry will have worldly troubles, and I would spare you that. I mean, brethren, the appointed time has grown very short; from now on, let those who have wives live as though they had none, and those who mourn as though they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as though they had no goods, and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it. For the form of this world is passing away. I want you to be free from anxieties. The unmarried man is anxious about the affairs of the Lord, how to please the Lord, but the married man is anxious about worldly affairs, how to please his wife, and his interests are divided. And the unmarried woman or girl is anxious about the affairs of the Lord, how to be holy in body and spirit; but the married woman is anxious about worldly affairs, how to please her husband. I say this for your own benefit, not to lay any restraint upon you, but to promote good order and to secure your undivided devotion to the Lord…So that he who marries his betrothed does well; and he who refrains from marriage will do better.” (I Corinthians 7:8- )

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SALVATION AND THE BLESSING

• It may be enlightening for you to consider that the early Christian church focused more on the legal implications of marriage, rather than the spiritual aspect. It wasn’t until the time of the reformation that marriages were held inside the church building (rather than at the church door or the local tavern or a home, that the early church’s involvement in marriage was minimal) and the emphasis shifted from the idea of a contract to that of a covenant. At the same time, the Protestant reformation removed the status of a sacrament from institution of marriage, though it still remains as such in the Roman Catholic tradition.

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SALVATION AND THE BLESSING

• In relation to these verses, it is clear why it is necessary to seek the Blessing of the True Parents for both those individuals seeking to be engrafted onto the true lineage that emerges from the True Parents and for those children that are born into this lineage and are thereby extensions of it.

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SALVATION AND THE BLESSING • Even with all the disadvantages that are probable to appear in newly emerging Blessed marriages, these marriages are approved by God and therefore there is hope for success.

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SALVATION AND THE BLESSING

It is quite literally true that the Kingdom of God is built on the foundation of the ideal family, the realized four position foundation, one family at a time.