Cheon Seong Gyeong: Episode 284
Chapter 3: The Mission of a Church Leader
Section 2: The Public Life of a Church Leader, 38
Section 3: A Church Leader's Devotional Life, 06
Working proactively
(38) Think about your past and present and ask yourself: Does your past stand as the subject partner, or does your present? If your past and your present cannot form a subject-object relationship, you should look toward the future as the subject partner of hope. What happens when you slack off and cannot devote yourself with hope in the future? In that case, you will inevitably view the past as the subject partner and the present as the object partner. Therefore, in your life of faith, you should not just let the grace you received in the past slip by. As you walk the path of faith, you will encounter lax times without realizing it. When that occurs, you can deal with the present reality by taking your past life of faith as your subject partner. Read again the diaries you wrote in the past, or reflect on what you experienced during your prayers when your life was filled with grace. You need to revive the heart you had at that time, and repeat what you did back then. Then you can make a resolution with a motivation even greater than you had in the past.
(39) As you walk the way of the Will you should have a subject partner, someone who represents the entire church, someone on the side of truth. But what if you do not have a relationship with such a person? You need to compare your present life with your life in the past, and if you find the past to be better than today, you should bring your past life back into your present. The question remains, how can you rekindle the determination you had back then? How can you re-experience the heart you felt back then? How can you re-create the circumstances of that time, when you fought your way through? If you cannot resolve these issues in your own prayers, you should find a way to resolve them by taking some kind of action.
(40) While walking the way of the Will, you can easily become estranged from the church. It means sometimes you are not within the church, but are living centered on yourself. If you are not within the church, that is, if you do not center your life on the church in all aspects but stand in the position of a third party estranged from the church, then you will drift away. The church will no longer stimulate you, and your ties to it will weaken. Then, inevitably, although you did not intend it, you fall into a situation where your church life becomes lax. What then should you do? You need to work for the sake of the church in all aspects and unite with its leader. You should not isolate your self from church activities, but instead be active and keep pace with the leader. By fighting your way through while keeping pace with the leader and fighting evil, you can experience the circumstances faced by those at the forefront, the decisions that they make, and the conditions that motivate them. When you do that, you will not only follow in the footsteps of the leaders representing the church, but will even arrive at a position ahead of them.
(41) What must the Unification Church teach? It should teach about the relationship you should have with me. Once you have an internal relationship with me, you can set up a clear model for applying it to your external relationships. You have to absolutely value your relationship with me. Otherwise, you cannot establish the realm of the absolute object partner, the most precious position in the church. Then what should the Unification Church actually do? What you and I feel in our hearts should be the core, and then we should apply that core to our relationships. Then, what should I do? My part is to share what I feel about God with you. Thereupon, although you do not know what I know, you will know what you feel about me and that feeling will be your own. That is how you cultivate the field of your heart and mind, and open the door of your heart and mind. However, even when you have finished cultivating the field of your heart and mind, that is not the end; you should then apply this to your own relationships.
Section 3. A Church Leader's Devotional Life
(1) Have you ever prayed for a church member after he or she has visited you? Have you ever thought of that person throughout the night and prepared under the light of a kerosene lamp the words you would like to share the following day? Have you waited for sunrise, longing for that persons return? If you wait like that, that person will surely come. When that happens you will realize, "Wow! This is the true meaning of devotion. If I offer sincere devotion, I can move God!" If you desperately want someone to come and you pray for that person for three hours with total unity of mind and body, he or she will start to feel restless. A desire to come to the church will stir in that persons heart That kind of thing is possible.
(2) When you offer devotions for your members, rather than praying for many people at a time it is better to pray for each person individually. The difference in results between praying for many people and praying for one person at a time is very clear, like the difference between east and west or north and south. As a subject partner, pick one object partner and draw a line to that person. Then you should be able to determine all four directions. Focus absolutely on the relationship with that person until all four directions are secured. Only then can a sphere be formed.
A leader whom Heaven remembers
(3) If people are to serve God while living on earth, they need to travel the way of the saints who laid the foundation for religions. We should realize that, as a matter of course, we too have to go the way that the many religious leaders of the past have gone. We have to want to travel this road and be determined to do it. If you unite with all the past religious leaders, you will naturally find your place in the world of the Principle, the world of religion. Having made that foundation, when you pray you will rise to a position that transcends the sphere of religion, and you will shorten the distance between yourself and God. That is why, even though you walk a religious path on earth, you still need to offer devotion. Some people need to offer much devotion, while others, thanks to their good ancestors, can simply go straight along the path that their ancestors hoped for. What did their ancestors hope for? They sought the same world and purpose that religions have been seeking.
(4) The goal of religion is to find one true man, one true family, one true nation, and one true world. This is the purpose of religion, and it is also the purpose of God. It is the purpose of the providence God has been conducting in this world. If we stand on the foundation of the devotion of past religious leaders, we can connect with God’s purpose. The people of any particular religion do not follow only that religion's founder, but also the many believers of that religion and the leaders of all nations that identify with that religion. If that religion has a worldwide foundation, many global leaders will want to follow it too. Thus, the distance between religious people and the spirit world can be reduced.
(5) In the Last Days it is not enough to learn from only one person who received grace; you should compare the teachings with those of many others who also received grace. You need to be wise about finding the best methods to elevate your spirituality on your own by meeting spiritual leaders with higher truth. However, many people of faith today do not know this. They need a comprehensive outlook; they need to effectively compare and analyze to find the fastest way for themselves. So when you travel a new path, do not just go along with it.
(6) Do not always seek to receive grace. Do not always try to drink water from a well dug by someone else. Follow the stream until you find a new spring of pure water. By the same token, when you conclude that the leader who has been inspiring you has reached his or her limit, you should offer greater devotion than that person did at the peak of inspiration. Then you will surpass that person. People of faith today do not know this.
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