God’s Greatest Wish June 2, 2020

Reflection of Dr. C. S. Yong's Morning Devotion

Message: God’s Greatest Wish

June 2, 2020, by Rafael E. Ablong

Dr. Yong's morning devotion message today is “God’s Greatest Wish”.  It talks about self-denial and the true spirit of offering to Heavenly Parents. This message made me repent from my heart. Even though I have been in the movement for 36 years, still I have so many things to change or overcome to become a true living offering of God and True Parents. Some of the words that had me repent and think today are:

1. A person who is a true offering have these attitudes in life: self-denial, feeling of unworthiness, insufficiency, and boasts nothing in front of God. A person who always feels concerned whether he has caused sorrow or shame to heaven is a true offering. He feels he does not deserves Heaven’s graces and because of his flaws and continues to have a pure mind and spirit in front of Heaven.

2. In our life of faith, one of the most important attitudes is to know that we are an offering. You and I are offering. Why Heavenly Father choose us, the Unification Church members to be offering? Who is the offering of offering? They are the filial sons and daughters who become completely offering of their parents. They always think of their parents. The mindset of a person of filial piety is not always thinking about himself.

3. Our attitude to our Heavenly Parents and Trues should be: I was born for you and I will die for you. I can do anything for and I can die for you, This is the spirit of Hyon Jeong.  That is why Hyo Jeong means the spirit of offering. So if we insist on our own opinion or self-concepts easily complain and talk about our self-concepts and struggled with our parents and others. Then we cannot become a good and true offering. If we indulge ourselves with selfish thoughts and always blame others or struggle with people around us then we cannot become filial sons and daughters. Hence, we cannot become real offerings.

4. This is why True Mother choose the word Hyo Jeong. Who is the best historical example of a true offering? He was Jesus. He became the offering for the whole of mankind. Even God offered Jesus as an offering for the whole of mankind. That is why Jesus prayed,” not as my Will but Your Will”  If this is Your Will, I will offer my life. This is the spirit of offering like Isaac who did not resist or say a word of complaint even if he knew that he was to be killed as offering to God. He did not resist or run away. He stayed in unity with his father Abraham and he laid down his life in front of God and his father. Can we be such an offering?

5. True Parents are true living offering for all humankind. When God chooses someone as an offering. He chooses the most obedient. If we are not obedient. If we always struggle with Abel, with the spouse, or struggle with our children. Then, we cannot become an offering.

6. If we are a real offering, we always feel unworthy,  inadequate, or insufficient. Even to the point of reproaching ourselves for whatever limitations we have or mistakes we do every day. People who feel grateful to Heaven even if they are not recognized by their Abels or people around them are real offerings. This kind of person easily gets resurrected.

7. We must be people who complete Bible. We have to know that love and peace is achieved, after a battle. As conveyed to us by Christian history, a battle of indemnity always occur before a victory of love is won.  This kind of situation is replicated in various situations and circumstances in history. This is also why in the early years of the movement we pledged to do our mission with the heart of God, “in the shoes of the servant, sweat and tears for mankind, and blood for heaven.” We saw and recited the new pledge with true love in it in the 1990s, because a battle had to be won first before a victory of love was declared.

8. Are we still in the era of indemnity in the era of love? Our first frontline is our body. The second frontline is our home: we need to overcome our struggles with our spouse and our children. The third frontline is my environment where I have Abel, my Cain, and the people I approach in my mission, fundraising, and or workplace.

9. Jesus prayed for his enemies even in the face of inevitable death through the crucifixion. He did not waiver his faith amid the great misfortune, disappointment, death, and dissatisfaction. That is why we have to overcome our enemies with the power of love. We need to give humility, respect, and love to members of our family, at home, with our spouse, with our children, relatives, tribes, and friends in the community. We have to inherit this internal power and spiritual dignity of Jesus wherever we go. Jesus was a real offering because he had nothing to do with Satan. Satan had nothing to accuse Jesus of. He did not make a single condition to be accused by Satan. We should emulate Jesus' example and apply what we have learned and experienced from the love of Heavenly Parents and True Parents through their chosen representatives.

10. Satan also needs some kind of recognition. We need to recognize His evil ways and know how to avoid being like him or be accused of being like him for doing the things he does.

I should always try my best to be attuned to the spirit and heart, pains, and sorrows of God.  I have to experience God’s heart of sorrows and tears in my daily life so I can avoid sinning and doing the things Satan likes the most that God hates the most. I have to ask myself if I ever cried so hard as if my eyes popped out and all body fluids meet from the top of my head, passing through my face and heart, to the bottom of my feet. I can only remember doing this when I was young, I cried when my mother had to leave me at home so she can sell bananas and other things in the market. I have to keep checking myself every day if I live for God or Satan. I have to ask myself every day: if I am living for myself or for others, if I am doing things for a greater purpose or not, every time.

I feel so sorry that I have not fully used my life to serve God and His people well. I still have a lot of things to change and overcome so I can become the person God wants me to be. I have to start winning the battle against the selfishness of the body, become victorious at home by truly loving and serving my wife and my children.

I am truly blessed because God has always guided me up until now through his chosen representatives from our True Parents. All the pains and hardship of the past when I started my family is slowly disappearing.or have completely disappeared. Sometimes I miss the early years of my marriage and family life where there were a lot of adjustments to be made, a lot of things to give up at first, a lot of struggles. Now, I am bored of not experiencing so much of those struggles anymore. It is true, real change starts as a battle, dangerous in the middle and peaceful at the end. Well, the end is not over yet because I still have my 2nd generation to look after and a mission to accomplice for the tribe and my ancestors. I just hope and pray that our spirit of Hyo Jeong and unity in the family right now will continue to grow and help us accomplish more for Heaven.

Thank you, Dr. Yong, for such a wonderful message full of reminders, and full of regrets to learn from. Please take care of yourself. We love you and we will always pray for your well-being with Heavenly Parents and True Parents as our Heavenly Asia Pacific Leader.

--Raffy Ablong