The True You

1: What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? 2: By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? 3: Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4: We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. 5: For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. 6: We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the sinful body might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. 7: For he who has died is freed from sin. 8: But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him. 9: For we know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. 10: The death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. 11: So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

These words that Paul wrote to the Romans exemplify a very startling point of view, a point of view that certainly was not shared by the people of his day; it was not shared by Jewish people by any means. It was a startling thought, a startling realization, and was not well received by many Jewish people. Being a new point of view, it met with immediate opposition, because people didn’t understand, because people didn’t want to change.

On another level, we have a similar problem daily in our own personal lives. We have a problem accepting a point of view towards ourselves which is different and this problem affects everything that takes place around us in our relationships with other people.

Specifically, our problem is to experience God’s love, to put ourselves in a position where we can receive what God wants to give to us all the time. Having received that, we can give it out to other people. That’s our constant problem, our constant struggle. When I sin, I think of God not as saying, “Oh, you’re really awful. You’re a terrible person. I just want to kick you away and throw you down into hell so you can suffer.” I experience God as saying to me, “I’m so sorry that I couldn’t love you more, because if I could love you more then you wouldn’t want to sin.” But I constantly find it’s so difficult to take God’s point of

view toward myself, to see myself the way God sees me, just as the Jewish people couldn’t see what God was saying to them. It was a different point of view.

Let’s begin on the individual level, in our own internal spiritual life, and try to understand what this concept means in our day to day living. We can pray, we can fast, we can pay as much indemnity as we want. We can go out and shout into the wilderness, “Heavenly Father, Heavenly Father. Come to me! Come to me!” And in the end we won’t feel so much; it’s as if nothing happened. On another occasion, we can almost just whisper to God, “Heavenly Father,” and our face is covered with tears. We feel God’s presence. We ask ourselves, why the two different experiences? One time I tried so hard to do my five percent. “How much harder can I try, God, to reach you?” In the other experience we say, “I hardly tried at all.” What was the difference?

The difference is our openness to God. What does that mean? It means the way we are seeing ourselves. I once heard humility defined as taking a proper position. When I am humble I am taking a proper position towards those above me, my center director, my minister, or my God, my Savior. To take a proper position, I have to be aware of what is an improper position.

Seeing ourselves from the wrong point of view involves two different kinds of pride, one which is very frequently recognized and one which is very seldomly recognized. The first kind of pride is arrogance, giving ourselves certain qualities or certain abilities which aren’t ours by any means. It means trying to be something we are not, trying to be something greater than we are. I may have a great talent as a writer, but that talent may not be realized. Nevertheless I may imagine myself as a great writer unrecognized by the world or as a great witnesser, unrecognized, or as a great fund-raiser, or a great saint. But I tend to see myself as having realized those qualities which are still only a potential inside of me. I’m not a saint yet, though we have times when we are saintly; we have times when we are humble. This kind of pride is easily recognized.

The other kind of pride comes from another point of view. That kind of pride says, “I’m awful, I’m no good. I’m unlovable. God, why don’t You throw me away? You can never use me.” We all experience this kind of pride, too. It’s also not seeing ourselves from God’s point of view. We’re constantly bouncing between seeing ourselves as much worse than we are, and seeing ourselves as much better than we are. There are ten billion wrong ways to see ourselves and one right way. That’s why it’s hard to find out, “How does God see me?” We may find a great hero, someone we admire very much, like Reverend Moon, a very great saint, a very great prophet, a great man of God. We may think, “If I can be like Reverend Moon, then I would be good.” Let’s see what Reverend Moon would say about that. This is a quote from him on spiritual growth:

We are all looking for the ideal man or ideal woman. However, having looked at the people of the whole world, you will come to the conclusion that there is no person who can truly be the model for you. Ultimately speaking, however hard you try to find such a person, you will not find one. You must finally decide that you had better find the perfect model for you in yourself. Then you have started in search of your original self.

What is the original self? Our original self must be unchanging. It must be true, it must be unique, it must be eternal. If you find that this is a measure for everything else, so that you can measure other things by this as a standard, you will take great delight in this self. If there is anything like this, then you can safely say that this is the original self.

You have to discard all the rest to find this original being of higher value, broader dimension and greater closeness to the Source. I am confident in saying that there is such a self of yours. You can discover it and restore it.

We know that conflict is something that came into the world through Satan; through conflict we experience fear, anxiety, insecurity. When I am out of harmony with a brother or a sister I experience anxiety, fear. I feel unsettled in my heart. Likewise, when I experience disunity in my own mind or my heart, I feel anxiety, fear. I feel I need love and I reach out for it. Love makes me feel better.

But love, in a sense, is a temporary solution. The cure of the conflict inside of me is to recognize what those two parts are. Here is my original mind, the center of my being, the indwelling of God in me. When I try to be worse than I am, there’s a conflict. I’m not seeing myself from God’s point of view, yet there is something in me that demands that I do. So I feel insecure, I feel unsettled, I feel conflict, and I feel terrible. What can I give? I don’t want to witness, I don’t want to fund-raise, I don’t want to do anything. We’ve all experienced that conflict.

So we think, “I’d better go pray.” That’s a great idea because in prayer I penetrate and experience my original mind, as I humbly seek God and say, “God, tell my what kind of person I really am.” As I humble myself to see what God wants me to see, then I become integrated, I become unified inside of myself.

What should you do if you really want God’s love? As an individual, you must be internally united. That is the basic thing. With that done, uniting with other people will make God’s love within you deeper and broader.

We talk about four aspects of fallen nature. These four are: failure to see from God’s point of view, receiving false words, multiplying evil, and establishing false dominion. This is what Satan did. This is how Adam and Eve united with Satan. In restoration we go backwards. We put ourselves under the dominion of someone who’s closer to God than we are and we obey him. We receive God’s words and we multiply goodness. But so often we forget the last point, coming back to having God’s point of view towards ourselves, our situation, and everyone around us. We’re familiar with the idea of seeing Christ in the other person; how about seeing Christ in ourselves? Jesus said, love your neighbor as yourself. Implicit in that is the command to love ourselves.

Dr. Young Oon Kim’s book, Divine. Principle and its Application, says, “Man attracts Satan by making a base for him.” We are quick to say, “Satan is accusing me. I feel accused.” Satan cannot accuse us if we don’t accuse ourselves first. The opposite is also true. It is man who attracts God by making a base for him. God can’t love me unless I love myself first. We have to love ourselves to open ourselves to God’s love.

How do you love yourself? Sometimes loving yourself is doing something nice for yourself. Sometimes it means to see some of the good things that you did today instead of all the awful things. Sometimes it’s the opposite, but most of the struggle is with this feeling of inferiority. I think the biggest problem that God faces every day is, “How can I convince My children that they are beautiful and lovable, that they are valuable?” He agonizes in His heart over this point. God needs some help. He wants to say to us, “I have a problem. My problem is this. I have a limited number of people to work through and I have very much love. I want to express that love to everybody, every day, but I can only express it through you to the extent that you make a foundation, to the extent that you love yourself.” That doesn’t mean narcissism, adoring yourself. “I’m so wonderful, I’m such a saint.”

This is not an easy idea. To try to see myself from God’s point of view means to try to identify when I’m not being the real Regis Hanna, when I’m being a phony. When we’re being a phony — and we’re a phony when we think we’re greater than we are and when we think we’re less than we are — the love that comes from another person can’t go in. It’s like two trash cans on either side of you. People may adore the arrogant, egotistical man, but does he feel fulfilled? No, he needs more and more and more. The same is also true of the person who doesn’t like himself, who hates himself. You can love him and he’ll say, “No, I’m not lovable, I’m terrible, I’m awful.” You can try all day long and not convince him. But if you ask him if he wants love he’ll say yes.

The problem is to put ourselves in the position where we can really receive another person’s love, where we can receive God’s love, where we can give love to ourselves. If we’re in a situation where we feel like nobody likes us, nobody’s taking care of us, how about taking care of ourselves? We have to find that place where we’re being real.

I think Jesus was a great psychologist. In one place in the Bible he gave us a key to identify when we’re not being our real selves. He said, “Why do you seek the speck that is in your brother’s eye but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.”

One immediate application of this is that when I meet somebody whom I don’t like, I realize there’s something in that person that I don’t like in myself. If I can find out what it is that I don’t like in myself, I’ve identified a conflict. I’ve identified some way in which Satan is working inside of me. He’s creating fear and anxiety. I’ve identified a conflict and I’ve recognized that part of that conflict is that I am trying to be a phony; I’m trying to be something or somebody that I am not. Maybe I meet a very arrogant person. “He’s really arrogant. I don’t like him.” Then I look in the mirror and I say, “You’re very arrogant and that’s why you don’t like him. So what are you going to do about that?”

Well, I can’t do anything to completely solve the problem, but I can say, “It’s true, I’m arrogant, but I can’t solve my arrogance in a day. How does God look at me in this situation? How does God look at my arrogance?” Does God just condemn me and say, “You’re rotten, go back to hell, crawl into a hole?” I may start doing that to myself. I may look at myself and say, “Oh, you hate him so much. You’re really awful!” But how does God look at me? He says, “Yeah, you’re arrogant. Many people in history have been arrogant, you’re not the first one.” King David would get very arrogant sometimes, but then he’d come back and humble himself, and humbling himself meant he would seek to see God’s viewpoint towards himself. That’s why God could use him, because he was seeing himself the way God saw him. David knew how to love himself.

This is what we have to struggle with, to not condemn ourselves when we sin. We all make dozens of

mistakes every day. But loving yourself has to do with taking a different attitude towards yourself. My physical parents and your physical parents, my past teachers, ministers, my friends, they all took different viewpoints towards me; I adopted those viewpoints, and some of them were wrong! When I feel bad, when I sin, I tend to adopt those viewpoints towards myself. Many of us do that. It involves a whole revolution of our identity to see ourselves from God’s point of view, to see our situation from God’s point of view. That involves prayer. It’s a challenge. It involves putting ourselves in a position where God can speak to us and opening ourselves to that. It involves taking care of yourself sometimes when you need love not depending on others. It involves praising yourself when you do something good.

Moses, 4000 years ago, came with a different point of view to a people who were enslaved. He said to those people, “You know, God loves you and God is going to lead you out of this country. You feel that you’re weak and that you have no power, but God is going to gather you together and He’s going to miraculously deliver you from these strong Egyptian overseers.” Those people looked at Moses and they said, “Moses, you are crazy!” So Moses took off for 40 years and when he came back again he said, “I may still be out of my head, but look at this that God is going to do for you, and this and this.” Many plagues were brought down upon Egypt and the people began to say, “Maybe this is possible.” Moses brought a controversial point of view. The people began to believe after they saw that what he was doing really worked.

Two thousand years after Moses, a man named Jesus came and he, too, had a controversial point of view. He said, “I am the way, the truth and the life.” And the people said, “You’re saying that you’re God. God is infinite. How can you be God? You forgive people’s sins. You’re crazy!” They said even more than that: “Then he went home; and the crowd came together again so that they could not even eat. And when his friends heard it, they went out to seize him, for they said, ‘He is beside himself.’ And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem said, ‘He is possessed by Beelzebub, and by the prince of demons he casts out the demons.’ “ People looked at his point of view and they said, “That’s different than what we believe” and they felt threatened. Why? Because to change their point of view meant a change in their identity, a change in their whole orientation towards life.

Martin Luther came with another point of view. He told the Catholic Church hierarchy, “What you are preaching is wrong. Salvation is not based on how many indulgences you can get, how many relics you buy or how much you contribute to the great dome of St. Peter’s. Your salvation is based on faith and faith alone. You can work as hard as you can, but you can never do enough to redeem yourself.” It was a different point of view and people felt threatened by it.

Today, Reverend Moon has come to us with a different point of view. He’s saying, “God is telling me, ‘Let’s build the kingdom of heaven on earth now.’” And people are saying, “You’re crazy! The Second coming of Christ has to take place, this has to take place, that has to take place.” But Reverend Moon doesn’t listen to what anybody says. He just goes right ahead and says, “This is what God is saying for us to do. Anybody who can hear, listen to what I’m saying and come join me and let’s see what happens.”

In Acts, an incident took place in which Peter and some of the other disciples were brought before the Council. The priests wanted to kill them, but one man stood up and said, “Friends, if what these men are doing is not of God, it will pass away. If what they are doing is of God, then we risk opposing God by opposing them.”

The same thing is true today. If what we are doing is wrong, then it will pass away. If what we are doing is God’s will, then it will multiply. It will grow far beyond anything that we have the power to do. It is a testimony to the truth of what Reverend Moon is saying, that his point of view is indeed God’s point of view, that a handful of people could bring hundreds of thousands to Washington Monument. It was not our power, it was the power of God. It was a sign from God and a miracle, that something is happening, that God is doing something new, that God has a new plan.

God’s viewpoint isn’t dependent on what we want Him to believe. God’s viewpoint is dependent on His holy desire to fulfill His will.

I hope that you and I can take this idea — to see from God’s point of view — and apply it to our lives, apply it to our prayers. Take it and work with it as a tool in helping us to get that internal unity that’s so necessary if God is to work through us and love people through us. When we feel unified and when we feel good about ourselves, God can work through us and do marvelous things. God needs each one of us to work through. The powers of evil are very much at work in the world today. God needs each one of us to be as unified each day, to be as good a channel as possible. God is counting on you.