Love God and Serve Him as the Absolute Lord
Numbers 35
20-21 Or suppose you get angry and kill someone by pushing or hitting or by throwing something. You are a murderer and must be put to death by one of the victim’s relatives.
22-24 But if you are not angry and accidentally kill someone in any of these ways, the townspeople must hold a trial and decide if you are guilty. 25 If they decide that you are innocent, you will be protected from the victim’s relative and sent to stay in one of the Safe Towns until the high priest dies. 26 But if you ever leave the Safe Town 27 and are killed by the victim’s relative, he cannot be punished for killing you. 28 You must stay inside the town until the high priest dies; only then can you go back home.
Daniel 2
36 That was the dream, and now I’ll tell you what it means. 37 Your Majesty, you are the greatest of kings, and God has highly honored you with power 38 over all humans, animals, and birds. You are the head of gold. 39 After you are gone, another kingdom will rule, but it won’t be as strong. Then it will be followed by a kingdom of bronze that will rule the whole world. 40 Next, a kingdom of iron will come to power, crushing and shattering everything.
[d]41-42 This fourth kingdom will be divided—it will be both strong and brittle, just as you saw that the feet and toes were a mixture of iron and clay. 43 This kingdom will be the result of a marriage between kingdoms, but it will crumble, just as iron and clay don’t stick together.
44-45 During the time of those kings, the God who rules from heaven will set up an eternal kingdom that will never fall. It will be like the stone that was cut from the mountain, but not by human hands—the stone that crushed the iron, bronze, clay, silver, and gold. Your Majesty, in your dream the great God has told you what is going to happen, and you can trust this interpretation.
One Truth, Many Paths
2. Beneath the Differences Are Universal Elements
Teachings of Rev. Sun Myung Moon
In every culture, religion should be the core and standard of public righteousness. Hence each religion holds pride in keeping its own traditions and thinks itself superior to any other. However, the universal elements in each of their teachings come from the one God. (234:222, August 20, 1992)
Lamentable it is that the very religions that were supposed to serve as the leading elements of the human spirit and as the leading mediators of conflict have themselves become sources of conflict, thereby diminishing religious dignity and authority even further. Judaism fights Islam; Catholicism conflicts with Protestantism; Christianity contradicts Buddhism. Even within one religion, different denominations fight among themselves.
The basic cause of religious conflict lies in the ambiguity of their doctrines about Ultimate Reality. The Absolute Being is only one; there cannot be two absolute beings. However, when the leaders of each religion claim that only their absolute being is the true God, it leads to the contradiction that there is more than one absolute being. We would then conclude that the god of each religion is only a relative god, and that there is no basis for believing that the Absolute Being exists.
Consequently, although God has been promoting through the various religions a universal teaching about God’s love and truth, their various perspectives remain only relative. We can conclude that religions have been incapable of establishing the absolute value perspective that can bring the prevailing confusion under control. This is the inevitable result of the fact that no religion has been able to present the correct explanation about the Absolute Being. (122:300-01, November 25, 1982)
As most people live in two dimensions, all religions appear to them to be the same. However, if looking at their backgrounds, especially from the standpoint of God’s providence for the restoration of humankind, we recognize that religions are at different levels: the servant of servant-level religion, the servant-level religion, the adopted son-level religion, the half son-level religion, the son-level religion, the mother-level religion, the father-level religion, and finally the True Parent-level religion. Throughout history, religions have developed from stage to stage.
Yet all religions, regardless of their level, have something in common: Love God and serve Him as the absolute Lord. Most of their basic teachings are the same. For this reason, it is hard to distinguish the difference of their levels. If so, are all religions really the same? No, they are not. (143:75-76, December 9, 1990)
Good and evil are not determined by your beliefs and thoughts. They are determined by your daily life. Whether you are destined for heaven and hell is not determined by your doctrines and perspectives on the world, but by your daily life. (40:294-95, February 7, 1971)
Original Post: https://inspiration.visionroot.org/2021/04/02/love-god-and-serve-him-as-the-absolute-lord/
20-21 Or suppose you get angry and kill someone by pushing or hitting or by throwing something. You are a murderer and must be put to death by one of the victim’s relatives.
22-24 But if you are not angry and accidentally kill someone in any of these ways, the townspeople must hold a trial and decide if you are guilty. 25 If they decide that you are innocent, you will be protected from the victim’s relative and sent to stay in one of the Safe Towns until the high priest dies. 26 But if you ever leave the Safe Town 27 and are killed by the victim’s relative, he cannot be punished for killing you. 28 You must stay inside the town until the high priest dies; only then can you go back home.
Daniel 2
36 That was the dream, and now I’ll tell you what it means. 37 Your Majesty, you are the greatest of kings, and God has highly honored you with power 38 over all humans, animals, and birds. You are the head of gold. 39 After you are gone, another kingdom will rule, but it won’t be as strong. Then it will be followed by a kingdom of bronze that will rule the whole world. 40 Next, a kingdom of iron will come to power, crushing and shattering everything.
[d]41-42 This fourth kingdom will be divided—it will be both strong and brittle, just as you saw that the feet and toes were a mixture of iron and clay. 43 This kingdom will be the result of a marriage between kingdoms, but it will crumble, just as iron and clay don’t stick together.
44-45 During the time of those kings, the God who rules from heaven will set up an eternal kingdom that will never fall. It will be like the stone that was cut from the mountain, but not by human hands—the stone that crushed the iron, bronze, clay, silver, and gold. Your Majesty, in your dream the great God has told you what is going to happen, and you can trust this interpretation.
One Truth, Many Paths
2. Beneath the Differences Are Universal Elements
Teachings of Rev. Sun Myung Moon
In every culture, religion should be the core and standard of public righteousness. Hence each religion holds pride in keeping its own traditions and thinks itself superior to any other. However, the universal elements in each of their teachings come from the one God. (234:222, August 20, 1992)
Lamentable it is that the very religions that were supposed to serve as the leading elements of the human spirit and as the leading mediators of conflict have themselves become sources of conflict, thereby diminishing religious dignity and authority even further. Judaism fights Islam; Catholicism conflicts with Protestantism; Christianity contradicts Buddhism. Even within one religion, different denominations fight among themselves.
The basic cause of religious conflict lies in the ambiguity of their doctrines about Ultimate Reality. The Absolute Being is only one; there cannot be two absolute beings. However, when the leaders of each religion claim that only their absolute being is the true God, it leads to the contradiction that there is more than one absolute being. We would then conclude that the god of each religion is only a relative god, and that there is no basis for believing that the Absolute Being exists.
Consequently, although God has been promoting through the various religions a universal teaching about God’s love and truth, their various perspectives remain only relative. We can conclude that religions have been incapable of establishing the absolute value perspective that can bring the prevailing confusion under control. This is the inevitable result of the fact that no religion has been able to present the correct explanation about the Absolute Being. (122:300-01, November 25, 1982)
As most people live in two dimensions, all religions appear to them to be the same. However, if looking at their backgrounds, especially from the standpoint of God’s providence for the restoration of humankind, we recognize that religions are at different levels: the servant of servant-level religion, the servant-level religion, the adopted son-level religion, the half son-level religion, the son-level religion, the mother-level religion, the father-level religion, and finally the True Parent-level religion. Throughout history, religions have developed from stage to stage.
Yet all religions, regardless of their level, have something in common: Love God and serve Him as the absolute Lord. Most of their basic teachings are the same. For this reason, it is hard to distinguish the difference of their levels. If so, are all religions really the same? No, they are not. (143:75-76, December 9, 1990)
Good and evil are not determined by your beliefs and thoughts. They are determined by your daily life. Whether you are destined for heaven and hell is not determined by your doctrines and perspectives on the world, but by your daily life. (40:294-95, February 7, 1971)
Original Post: https://inspiration.visionroot.org/2021/04/02/love-god-and-serve-him-as-the-absolute-lord/
