Cheon Seong Gyeong: Episode 79

Cheon Seong Gyeong Book 3: True Love
Chapter 3: The Practice of True Love
Section 2: The Practice of True love 03-18

The way of true love through self-sacrifice

3 A human life is conceived centering on the ideal of love; therefore, its essence is love. Since our life originates from love, it is Heaven's principle that we live for the sake of others, just as God does. So we can say that we were born for the sake of true love. True love begins by living for the sake of others. Human beings were originally created to live with God's true love within their mind and body and to respond to His love directly. Their mind would respond to God centering on true love, and their body naturally would resonate with the mind. The true love of God that they would inherit and experience would be the basis of true unity, where there is no conflict between mind and body.

4 God's love is not meant to appear only in the heavenly realm. It must first arise in the physical universe—the created world—and ultimately in human beings.  Parents' love is seen in their children. A husband's love is seen in his wife; a wife's love is seen in her husband. This is the mutual commitment of love; this is the direction that love takes. Unless you follow this way, you cannot perfect your love.

5 For God to love, He must sacrifice Himself. Likewise, for us human beings to love, we need to sacrifice ourselves. This is the way we should go. Why? It is because God goes this way. If we are to go with God, we must go this way. When I as an individual take the path of sacrifice, it leads me to the position where God participates in my family along with me. Next, when my family sacrifices, it earns the right for God to participate with it in the life of the tribe, and so on to the people, the nation, the world, and the cosmos. From the time we begin our course in the world of love, as we travel through all the stages on the path of love, we will come to earn these qualifications. This is possible because our life from the beginning is centered on love. It is because we always strive to participate in God's love and tune ourselves to the direction of His love. This is how we can be free from the realm of the Fall.

6 The way of love is not to live for oneself but to go the way of self-sacrifice. Love is so powerful that hearing a single word from your beloved can give you the strength to endure ten years of suffering. It is why just a one-word promise from your beloved husband or wife can enable you to persevere through any hardship, for ten years or even for your whole life. The more adversity you face, the more difficulties you overcome and the more misery you endure, the more you cherish that promise of love and the more value it holds on a higher and multidimensional level.

7 When a husband has a sacrificial heart for his wife and offers her his absolute, self-sacrificial love, his wife will do everything possible to become a good life partner to him. She will not do so unwillingly but joyfully and with sincerity. There is no suffering in it. Her sacrifice does not make her miserable. Instead, it has a sweet and interesting taste. Parents' love for their children is inevitably accompanied by sacrifice, but they do not demand repayment for it. Parents sacrifice and forget their sacrifice. Sacrificial love is to give and forget how much one has given. God has been giving and sacrificing for humankind, then forgetting how much He gave, how much He sacrificed. This is why Jesus said, "When you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing." (Matt. 6:3) If you give expecting something in return, you are not a real owner of love. If you give and then forget how much you gave, you can be a central person of love.

8 Let us go the path of love that God wants us to go. Only when we reject the path of the Fall that the devil wants us to go, and follow the path of love that God wants us to go, can we be separated from the devil. We cannot be separated from Satan by our worldly knowledge, by our understanding of doctrine, or by having better skill or wisdom. Love is what enables it. The reason Christianity has endured to this day is because it promotes the way of self-sacrifice, even to the extent that many believers have sacrificed themselves, willing to go the path of martyrdom and shedding their blood.

9  The way of love is the way of giving yourself to be used by others for a higher purpose. Individuals who have love want to be used by their families—families who have love want to be used by their nation, nations want to be used by the world, the world wants to be used by the cosmos, and the cosmos wants to be used by God. This is the way of true love.

10 The way of faith requires long endurance; endurance and sacrifice are the way of faith. Human beings have been able to go on living because they have faith in God's promise of a world of love, and with faith, they are willing to endure and sacrifice to attain it. When we are told, "God is love," we need to understand that within that expression is sacrifice and endurance.

11 When people love each other—for example, parents and their children—their love knows no seasons. When you weep for the ones you love, your tears transcend spring, summer, autumn, and winter. True love transcends youth, middle age and old age. True love follows the track of eternal life, eternal joy, and eternal happiness. This world is one of change upon change. Revolutions come and go; life and death come and go. But true love never changes. Therefore, let us always maintain the environment of love in our hearts. To do so, we need a life of prayer.  By that, we can grow. When going the way of God's Will and the way of love, prison is not a problem; even death is not a problem. In fact, the way of true love is about overcoming death and difficulties.

12 There is a power that enables that which is true to exist forever. In order for us to connect to it—in order for us to connect eternally to what is beyond time and space—we must be connected to God's true love. To possess that love, we need to sacrifice ourselves to secure love with our eternal partner. By sacrificing as couples, we should recover the family; by sacrificing as families, we should recover the tribe; by sacrificing as tribes, we should recover the people; by sacrificing as peoples, we should recover the nation; by sacrificing as nations, we should recover the world; by sacrificing as a world, we should recover heaven and earth; and by sacrificing as heaven and earth, we should find God. Even for God, going the way of love requires sacrifice. God sacrifices too. He sacrifices Himself for love.

The one who sacrifices becomes the central person

13 To walk the path of love, you need to serve and sacrifice for others. Without serving and sacrificing, your love cannot grow. Although you may have a capacity to love that rates only ten, if you sacrifice and serve, that capacity can grow to one hundred, one thousand, even ten thousand. Especially, if you have some ancestors who were evil, your love rating may be even lower than ten. Nevertheless, you would want to increase it to one hundred, one thousand or even ten thousand if only you could find a way to do so. That way is the path of love, by serving and sacrificing. Because I understood this principle, no matter what kind of abuse and indignities I suffered, no matter how many times I went to prison or faced pain to the point of death, I endured everything. When it comes to loving people, I am willing to sacrifice more than anyone else. When I meet anyone whose sacrifice and love is greater than mine, I immediately resolve to sacrifice and love more. If it means I have to sacrifice and love one thousand or ten thousand times more, I will go that way. I know that only by becoming like that is God able to pour out His love upon me.

14 The way of love opens to us only when we sacrifice for others. After parents love their children, they do not say, "We raised you for twenty years and sent you to school, so now, according to the principle of restoration through indemnity, you have to sacrifice for twenty years for us.” No. Parents sacrifice for their children without considering or calculating the extent of it. In fact, the harder they work for their children, the more their children's love for them grows. Even Though parents ask no compensation, their children's original mind cannot but love them. That is why children whose parents loved them are never unfilial. It is impossible for a child to be unfilial to such parents. In a family of sacrificial parents, filial children will emerge. The more a nation's king sacrifices for his subjects, the more loyalty they will display to him. On the path of love, sacrifice and suffering do not diminish your value.  Instead, they double it. Such is the path of love.

15 Love drives you to the place of sacrifice. You may feel that being pushed to sacrifice is unfair. Especially if you collapse and die as a sacrifice, you may feel even more that it is unfair. But unbeknownst to you, God's love builds up behind you. So widen that place by going over the realm of your tribe and your people.  Widen it even further to influence your nation. On the day when you change the standard of your nation, you can take the flag of your renewed nation and march toward the world. The Unification Church is going this way toward that goal.  Therefore, you must love your country more than you love your own children. You are in the position of following God's Will, so you should expect to take responsibility as His representative over and over again.

16 Sacrifice accompanies the way of love. It is how you can totally possess the love of your partner. You need to sacrifice because doing so builds the foundation for your partner to completely unite with you and follow you. People can unite completely with those who sacrifice themselves to pay the price of love. It turns out that the dwelling place of love is not in yourself, but in your partner. Do not think that your husband or wife loves you because you are great.

17 The center of your love has to be your counterpart, not yourself. Only when you fully recognize the value of your counterpart wilHis or her full value in love become manifest. Why do you have to sacrifice on the path of love? It is because your love does not belong to you. You must make your counterpart the focal point of your love. That being the case, unless you make the condition to be completely in accord with that focal point of love, you cannot fulfill love's purpose. Therefore, if you want perfect love, you must sacrifice completely. When you follow the way of total sacrifice, you will see perfect unity.

18 Without fail, the sacrificial person becomes the central person. In a family the filial child is the one who sacrifices the most; thereby he or she becomes the center of the family. A patriot who sacrifices the most for the nation becomes the central person of the nation. The saint who sacrifices the most becomes the center of all saints. This is Heaven's principle, so follow this way with sincerity and become individuals who can bring people into harmony in all respects. When you do so, God's new hope will dwell within you and the power of God's love will be added to your efforts.