1. It Is the Highest-Level Life Corresponding to the Era
2. Good Habits Enable You to Succeed
Main Scriptures :
<Ephesians 5:16> “Make the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.”
<Luke 22:39–40> “Jesus went out as usual* to the Mount of Olives, and his disciples followed him. On reaching the place, he said to them, “Pray that you will not fall into temptation.”
{Translation note: The Korean version and some other English versions say “습관을 좇아 (as it was his habit), as was his custom, according to the custom, or as was his habit”}
Hallelujah!
On the Lord’s Day of this week,
I delivered the Word with the theme, “Unwelcome guests.”
As for today, I will speak on the themes: “First, it is the highest-level life corresponding to the era. Second, good habits enable you to succeed.”
◎ The Holy Spirit said, “You must live, treating the life pertinent to the current era like life itself. Only then will both you and God achieve the greatest purpose.”
◯ The present is the time of fulfilling God’s highest-level purpose of creation that was promised in the New Testament. Therefore, you who have come to this era must live that God-centered life at the highest level as His counterparts of love. If you fail to do this, even though you live in God’s greatest time period, you will become someone who has failed to fulfill the ultimate purpose. Even if each of you has come to the new era, if you live while not acting properly, you will just end in failure. In fact, some who failed left.
◯ God said, “My time, the era of God, has come. This is a ‘gift.’ Therefore, whether a person comes to My era or not, I grant them the basic blessings of the times. However, there is also suffering. As for the will that can be fulfilled only by bearing the cross of the era, [the righteous] must take action while carrying the cross of the era. Only then will I give them the blessings that follow that will.”
◯ Now is the time of prayer. However, if you do not connect with God even if you pray, you are like someone who is unable to meet God and just leaves [after being] at the door. Instead of simply praying, you must surely connect with God, the Holy Spirit, the Holy Son, and the Lord. The answer to your prayer is connecting [with them].
◯ The fact that you pray does not mean that you can do something that upends the entire world. When the whole world is moving according to people’s deeds, God does not flip everything again to give blessings or to judge simply because people pray. People are already receiving according to their own actions, and each nation is receiving according to its actions.
Nevertheless, we pray because God hears the prayers of those who pray and acts more swiftly, while helping as needed and rendering judgment for them, as needed, according to what was done.
◯ Even if we do not pray, God carries out His will. God certainly executes every plan He makes [for] nations, the world, or individuals because [His plans] are appropriate. If something that is God’s absolute will does not come true just because we do not pray, wouldn’t [it mean that] God’s will is broken?
Then why must we pray? It is because by praying, we become those who belong to righteousness and who participate in God’s will together.
◯ Furthermore, there are things that are fulfilled only if we pray. For things that can be fulfilled only through prayer, we must surely pray.
Prayers for yourself is what you must absolutely offer. God grants them most readily. They are prayers within your own domain.
◎ “Empty” is a word that indicates what ends with the body. [But] if you take action with your body, receive [things] as a spirit, and enjoy them for eternity, it is not empty.
◯ Let’s say we have eaten the most delicious food. No matter how deliciously we have eaten, we must eat again when a day passes. This is why people say it is in vain. If the food they ate continues to give them strength, they would not say it is in vain as long as [the effect goes on].
Likewise, if the body lives for the spirit while serving God out of love and doing righteous deeds, and if the body saves the spirit and enables the spirit to go to Heaven and live there eternally, it is not empty even if the body dies.
◯ The love of the body is like a flower or one day’s sun. It ends once it passes like a season. That is why it is said to be empty.
◯ The Absolute God created the heavens and the earth and gave the sun, the moon, the earth, air, and the gravitational field. He created water, land, plants, and all kinds of animals, so that our bodies would form heaven on earth and live [in it].
Therefore, if the body lives loving God in it, the spirit also will be joyful like the body, and it will live eternally. There is no greater blessing for human beings. If you live like this, you do not feel empty.
Even though God created all these things so wonderfully for [people], if they enjoy them only with the body, it is in vain. This is because they would feel them only for a moment, as if glancing at the scenery here and there while passing in a running vehicle.
◯ Now is the age of fulfilling the purpose for which God created the heavens, the earth, and all things. That time has come. Nonetheless, if anyone fails to come into this time period, they are unable to participate in the history of “the blessing of the eternal [and] ultimate love” that God is carrying out on earth.
Furthermore, even if a person participates, they [can] gain only if they take action. There is a law for all things under heaven. If you fail to do something, it ends with failure. Only those who take action make [gains]. Even if they take action, [the outcome] depends on the degree [of their action].
Therefore, both those who have not participated and those who have participated must cut off all unwelcome guests.
◯ Even though I prayed, received inspiration, and received the Word while feeling it as powerfully as if I were soaring up to the heavens, and even though I deliver [that Word] in writing, it is different from the way I felt while receiving the Word. Therefore, those who deliver the message must pray deeply before delivering it. Only then will [listeners] feel moved and be transformed. The listeners must pray deeply, too. If you listen without praying, even though God has delivered such profound Word, you will hear it as ordinary.
◯ You must love God just as you love the things you like in the world. You must love God the most. It is only loving God and the Holy Spirit.
◯ Love is not studying yourself. Love is studying the counterpart. It is the study of the other person. You should love in a way that is suitable for them while knowing [them].
To love God, you must study God’s love. The final thousand-year history that fulfills the purpose for creating heaven and earth, which was prophesied in the Bible, is the history of God’s love. You must study and realize this. I have already relayed all of this to [you].
◯ Even when loving creation, loving it in your own way is not love. You must love [all things] according to their way, in the way they exist.
For example, if you love water, do not just use water in your own way and declare you love it. Instead, you must love water according to the way it desires. You must keep the water clean. Then it likes it because only then will the water not rot. You should take out rotten leaves, which pollutes the water. If polluted water flows in, you should drain it by redirecting it elsewhere. You should prevent food scraps or waste of animals and birds from being discarded into the water, and you should do other things for the water, too. Then water will like it because you help keep it clean. In this way, with everything, you should love it, the counterpart, knowing about it. Only then will you [be able to] achieve [your] purpose.
◯ Destiny is determined depending on whether or not you know one thing. I, Seonsang, interpreted as the “spirit” the one thing that Christianity asserted for 2,000 years: Jesus’ physical body will come down again. As I unraveled that one word, “spirit,” I came to know the thousand-year history, the working of God, the Holy Spirit, the Holy Son, and Jesus. I have preached it, and it has been definitely correct.
◯ In the course of our lives, too, if we know one more thing, and if we put that one thing into action, we become successful. With paths too, one of two is the path to take. You will succeed only if you discern before departing, and then set off. If you make a wrong choice, it will be the path of failure. You should live the life of following only God, the Holy Spirit, the Holy Son, and the Lord.
◯ God created both good and bad, setting limits to them. He made it just as one would install a barbed wire fence around a flock of sheep.
The path deviant from the Almighty is momentary even if a person enjoys the honor, glory, and wealth of the world. While living only immersed in worldly honor, glory, and wealth, they will lose the eternal world. Before the sun sets, you must immediately and completely stop watching [the things] in the desert and come out of it. If you watch them longer and end up being buried in the night of the desert, you will be gripped by the cold, the lions, and the tribes traveling at night and dragged away. Likewise, those who live immersed only in worldly honor, glory, and wealth will miserably meet darkness in spirit, soul, and body in the world, and never be able to escape the torment of death for eternity.
◎ Editing writing, revising it repeatedly, and making it detailed is like sharpening a knife. Similarly, your good habits let you succeed. If you form good habits, they will make you take action more repeatedly, thus turning you into a skillful person, so that ultimately you will become an expert and achieve success.
Therefore, you must cut off things like unwelcome guests and develop good habits of practicing only good things. Good habits pull and lead you, and they make you run and act together, thus enabling you to succeed.
◯ Good habits wake you up in the predawn. They lead you to the spiritual world to meet God, the Holy Spirit, the Holy Son, and the Lord. Your habits make you become an automatic machine. They let you hasten along the path of success and win.
◯ When I, Seonsang, also developed good habits, those habits made me unable to bear not doing things accurately. Sometimes, they made me take action even when I did not want to, thereby leading me to success.
Good habits are stronger than money. If you only train good habits and take them along with you, you will certainly accomplish [things]. In my case, good habits ultimately became my [second] nature. In this way, good habits lead you to success.
◯ Someone said that they had developed the habit of going to [church] to pray [in the predawn], so there was not a single day they did not go to church for decades. Another person succeeded in their health management and thus succeeded in their daily life as well. Still another person, on the other hand, lived only with the habit of sleeping and playing comfortably in a room, and ended up suffering from a fatal disease and living in pain every day.
◯ God and the Holy Spirit said, “Develop good habits. If you do it repeatedly, it will become a habit.” For a good habit, you will not like doing it initially. [But] if you keep doing it even though you dislike it, you come to like it. Even with tasteless food, if you continue to eat it because it is good for the body, you come to like it, and eating it becomes your habit. As it becomes your habit and constitution and works in your brain as if muscles grow newly, endorphins are produced every time you eat it.
◯ Therefore, since the time I was young, Jesus told me, “Make good things your habits and become accustomed to them.” Therefore, after initially praying only in my room, I developed the habit of going deep into the mountains to pray for 21 years. So, now, wherever I go, I pray and do God’s work. Everyone, you should grow a habit of doing official work and become someone who does well anywhere. At this time, you must do it by gradually raising your level.
◎ Continuing from the Lord’s Day message that said, “Cut off things like unwelcome guests,” I have given the Word with the following as the core: “This age is the greatest time when we fulfill God’s highest purpose of creation; therefore, as the greatest counterpart of God’s love, develop the habit of praying, the habit of doing God’s work wherever it may be, and take action in the best way.” Especially since I told you why you must pray, you must become those who ignite a fire in prayer.
I bid you the peace of the Holy Spirit’s love.