The Seventh Principle: Be sexually pure to create the culture of heart

Previous Lesson | Home | Contents | Next Lesson

LESSON 31: The Kingdom of Heaven

A. The true family and the kingdom of heaven.

1. The culture of heart is nothing other than the kingdom of heaven on earth, which we build in our family and hometown.

• The kingdom of God was God's ideal from the beginning and it remains so. It is an eternal ideal.
• The call deep in the human heart (conscience) for this ideal is a force that constantly urges us to make social and spiritual progress.
  • This is the root of the cry for all kinds of human rights.
  • We seek freedom to love others; this is expressed through the concepts of democracy, equality, and social welfare.
• But these concepts require a spiritual center, or they are liable to be abused and exploited for selfish gain.
• Democracy by itself is not an eternal solution. After two hundred years, America is casting off its spiritual moorings, and its freedom is turning into self-indulgent license. The freedoms are not wrong, nor is democracy evil; but they must be accompanied by responsibility directed from within.
• What is the root of "responsibility directed from within"? It is the God-centered family.

2. God's ideal of creation is the world ruled by true love.

• The kingdom of heaven is where the will of God is done ("Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven"). The will of God is life for the sake of others.
• Therefore the kingdom of heaven does not come from the sky, nor is it given to us by a revolution in the "system."
• Rather, the kingdom begins with me, my family and my neighborhood. I must take responsibility to build it, whether by serving the president of the nation or the president of the local PTA.
• God is love. Therefore, the starting point of the kingdom is to fill one's life with true love and to live for others.
• We serve our neighbors and relatives and build the kingdom of heaven where we live. This begins with our commitment as a family.

3. True family values foster the creation of the kingdom of God.

• God is our Parent. All of humankind, as God's sons and daughters, are members of God's family.
• God's family is not a mystical concept; it is substantialized in every family.
  • People of true love are fostered in families.
  • Family love the basis for all social relations.
  • Family values are the basis for social values.
• As St. Paul taught, the kingdom of God is like one human body (1 Cor 12).
  • The body is the extension of one mind and nervous system.
  • Likewise, all people in the kingdom of God create one living eco-system, one organism, connected in God's love. Each part of the body moves freely and voluntarily contributes to the whole. The right hand does not seek its own well-being by cutting off the left hand. If you ask your right hand what it wants to do, it says it wants to serve a healthy, whole and balanced person.
  • Its people feel joys and sorrows of others through feeling God's Heart. They care for one another and help the less fortunate out of family love.
  • It allows for great diversity and development, as does a healthy family in which all are cheered by each one's happiness and success.

4. Although we are all members of one family, this family has been broken.

• There is distance between ourselves and God. We are not truly in a personal relationship as a son of God or daughter of God. In other words, we are not part of God's lineage.
• Jesus in fact told us we are of our father the devil (John 8:44) and John the Baptist called us a brood of vipers (children of a serpent) (Matt. 3:7).

5. At this time in history, each family can connect, or engraft, into God's family.

• We inherit the dignity of the one royal family by engrafting into "the true olive tree, to share the richness of the root" (God's lineage, Rom. 11:17). As Paul wrote to the Christians in Corinth, ". . . you have become kings! And would that you did reign, so that we might share the rule with you!" (1 Cor. 4:8). He was speaking of spiritual kingship, given by Christ through true love.
• From the viewpoint of nobility and authority of true love, a true family stands as a royal family.
• By engrafting into God's lineage, we become part of the royal family, and gain the spiritual foundation before God to stand as people of true nobility and authority, based upon our sincere effort and investment.
• All true families have kingship granted from God.

6. The spiritual authority of true love is the foundation of true kingship.

• The kingdom of God is an environment in which the authority of true love is recognized and its fruits are abundant.
• A kingdom is a realm of royal authority.
• The authority of true love comes from true parents and true families. The kingdom of heaven, therefore, is the realm of the royal family.
• The true royal family is ultimately the family of all humankind, centering on God, filling heaven and earth (the cosmos).
• The era of kingship has three characteristics.
  • It is the age of conscience.
  • It is the age when the spirit world and physical world are in harmony.
  • It is the age of voluntarism to do God's will

7. True family values are the blueprint for establishing the kingdom of God through the vertical ethic.

• They represent a new stage of our relationship with God.
• Thousands of years ago, the relationship between God and us was primarily based upon God giving prohibitions: "thou shalt not . . ."
• With the advent of Christ, our relationship with God turned primarily upon our petitions to God for His mercy and assistance: "Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. . . . how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him! (Matt. 7:7-11)
• The principles of true family life call us not to ask God for help, but to take responsibility for God's true love and commit ourselves to His Will. This is the attitude of filial piety to God, the vertical ethic of holy sons and daughters. It is summed up in the words of Reverend Sun Myung Moon:

I never prayed from weakness. I never asked my Father to help me. My Father knows me so well. He already knows my suffering; how could I burden Him with more requests? All I could do was promise that I would never be defeated by my suffering.

Previous Lesson | Page Top | Contents | Next Lesson

MEANINGFULL ENCOUNTERS