Sacrifice is not something that we should forget, and not forgetting is the key to a life of gratitude. It’s easy to live in the moment – good or bad, but to do so creates a very one dimensional reality. Remembering releases us to encounter one another and appreciate the love, sacrifice and pain that is our inheritance.

We are the middle of a series on “Hope”. Last week in “Hope Liberates the Heart”  we talked about how faith without hope is dead and the importance of taking time to refuel. I don’t know about you but I thought a lot about some of the points we discussed, for example, when you are running on empty you are much more susceptible to toxic emotions; snapping at someone, or becoming irrationally angry, and before you know it you have lost all hope! When you recognize you are running on empty that is the time to take stock and decide to invest in your own spiritual growth.

In honoring Memorial Day and its message that “sacrifice is not something that we should forget” I began to contemplate what God has sacrificed and ask what He places His hope in. We hear that God has sacrificed Himself for us but that can seem academic, far away or intangible until you begin to think about God’s relationship with us. If you reflect on your own situation, the greatest sacrifices you make are in relationships with those closest to you. You give up something for a friend. You sacrifice for a brother or sister or move mountains for your child. The greatest sacrifices we make are made because of love. John 15:13 reminds us of this:

“Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.”

A special love story

I remember reading a true story from WWII. A young woman was asked to carry messages back and forth from Britain to the Resistance in France. She was fluent in French and could go unnoticed as a young woman in an occupied country. Eventually, she was caught, tortured and executed but never gave up a single secret. She managed to endure the painful interrogations because all her messages were coded based on a love poem that she dedicated to her husband who had been killed in action.

The life that I have
Is all that I have
And the life that I have is yours.
The love that I have
Of the life that I have
Is yours and yours and yours.
A sleep I shall have
A rest I shall have
Yet death will be but a pause.
For the peace of my years
In the long green grass
Will be yours and yours and yours.

The words of the poem were locked inside her heart and she would never give that up. Such is the power of love.

Hope is the power of parental love

Parental love is the greatest love and most powerful force in the Universe as that is the nature of God’s love. Every parent knows the power of that love and the kinds of sacrifice that come along with raising children. When we talk about God’s sacrifice it isn’t encapsulated in the pain of the first Marathon runner, or even the person who endured torture but a greater pain: a pain of the heart. If you, as a parent, think about sacrificing for your child, it’s not the long hours of carpooling or working your butt off for them that hurts in the end; the greatest pain comes if you discern the child you love doesn’t care what you think or ignores you. God’s sacrifice is the cross of loving those who don’t care.
No doubt, we have all experienced that in some form or other. Nevertheless, I wondered, “What is God’s hope? What keeps our Heavenly Parent going?

Rev Moon gave a powerful address “God’s Hope for Man” in 1973, to a packed auditorium in Washington, DC. Please email me at info@www.nhfaithfusion.com if you would like me to send you the entire speech. It gives profound insights into God’s hope for humanity.

In this address he makes some interesting points. Rev Moon says that it all starts by understanding our relationship with God. The problem is that there are many theories or ideas about that. Which one do you choose? As we pursue answers, we discover that there are two main perspectives which we might pick from. One view is from God’s standpoint, and the other is from humankind’s point of view. Although various religions and philosophies have developed through pursuing these two points of view, there must surely be one principle common to all religions which can clarify the relationship between God and us.

Rev. Moon speaks to these concerns in the following excerpts from, “God’s Hope for Man.”

Three things that make life worth living

“If somebody asks you, “What is the most precious thing in your life?” what will you answer? Some might say, “Power.” Some would undoubtedly say money: “Money is everything.” And others would suggest, “Wisdom or knowledge.” Then, are those elements, power, money, knowledge, really the most important things in life? When we look into this question deeply, eventually other thoughts emerge. We soon come to the conclusion that the most precious thing is love. And second to love, life itself is most precious. If we have love and life, we need one more thing, an ideal. These three elements, love, life, and an ideal, are not just precious and profound in value; they are the very things that make our lives worth living.
Furthermore, the words “love” and “ideal” without “life” are without meaning by themselves. Love exists only when there is someone to love and someone to be loved by. An ideal needs to be shared with someone. Love and ideals come alive as soon as there is a reciprocal and complementary relationship of give and take. We are in the position of the object and always need someone to be in the subject position. Love and ideals will bud and blossom into full flower only when two people are in a reciprocal relationship.

Really believing God is there for us

Is man the cause, the source of his universe, or did someone create us? How can man be the cause of the universe when he does not even create himself? It is obvious that we are resultant beings. We are the products of some cause. Therefore, a subject or cause must exist. There must be a cause for man’s existence. This subject, or cause, then is the essential reality. We should be as certain of this as we are of our own existence. Whatever name you choose for that cause doesn’t matter. The most important thing is that he is there. And we call him, “God.”

Let us put our question to God. “What is the most precious thing to you, God?” His reply will be no different from your answer and mine. God will answer, “Love, life, and my ideal are the most precious things to me.” Does God need money? He created all things. Everything belongs to Him anyway. He does not need money. Does God need power? He is already the source of all power. What about knowledge? God is omniscient and the source of all knowledge. Yes, God is all these things; but He cannot have love, life and His ideal all by Himself. He needs to share, to have give-and-take with someone. You can’t experience love and ideal or create life by yourself. Even almighty God cannot experience the value of love, life and His ideal when He is alone. That is why God created humankind.

God is just like you and me

“Why do we men act the way we do?” The answer is simple: because God acts that way. All human traits originate in God. Why are we the way we are? Because God is the way He is.

We are mirrors reflecting the characteristics of God. God is just like you and me. God is the origin. Therefore, our love comes from the love of God. Our life comes from the life of God, and our ideals come from the ideals of God. We feel these are the most precious things because God first felt these things were most precious.

Above all else God wants to:

• give life
• love us completely
• see his ideals reflected in our lives

It’s that simple and yet at the same time that complicated because everything including God’s hope hinges on our response.

“Think about this scenario: If I made vigorous gestures and shouted to an empty auditorium, I am sure that anyone who saw me would wonder, “Is that man crazy?” But if I have someone to have give-and-take with, some object out there to respond to me — even one small child in front of me — and I pour out my heart and soul to him, then I am considered normal.” – SMM

Joy comes when you receive stimulation from the object of your love. Not even God can be joyful alone. God created people and the universe for joy. But God’s joy remains dormant until He can have give-and-take with His children. God’s hope is that gap can be closed. Rev Moon was controversial because he said,

 “So far in Christianity, we placed God so high up in heaven, and pushed man so low in hell, that there has been an uncrossable gap between them. A wide and raging river has separated man from God. Men do not dare to reach out to God as a living reality. Man has been unable to realize that God is so close, so real, so approachable, that we can even dwell with Him. We are supposed to be the living temples of God. Yet conventional Christianity has been unable to make that a reality.”

No matter how wealthy and famous you may be, unless you have someone with whom to have give and take so that you can share your joy, your sorrow, your opinions, and your ideals, you are just a poor man. We feel joy and sadness because God’s heart can feel joy and sadness. Not until this time in history did we ever believe that God could feel sorrow. And God can feel excitement or indignation, just as we can. We, the objects of God, have this ability to experience emotion because our subject, God, has the same capacity for emotion. God is the first personality, and human personality comes from God. How then can we become true objects to God? By our efforts and hard work alone? No. There is but one way to come together in oneness with God. That way is through love, oneness in love with God.”

Another you

“When a child is born, that child is the manifestation of his parents’ love, life and ideal. When you look at your own child, you are actually seeing another you. You are looking at the fruit of your love, the fruit of your life, and the fruit of your ideal. You are looking at your second self; another visible form of yourself.
Now let us expand this truth onto a universal scale. God created man and woman as His son and daughter. He wants to see Himself in human beings. Therefore, the Bible says, “God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” ( Gen 1:27 )

Man is created in the likeness of God. In other words, God made Himself incarnate in man. Man is the mirror of the living God, and His every virtue, characteristic and quality is reflected in this mirror. God surely wants man to reflect His love, life, and ideal. Man is the fruit of God’s love, life, and ideal.”

This is the true life of joy unequaled by any earthly joy. Once you reach this state of perfection you don’t need prayer. Why should you? You meet God face to face, and you live heart to heart with Him. You converse with God. You no longer need religion, and you don’t need a savior. All these things of religion are part of the mending process, the process of restoration. A man of perfect health does not need a physician. The man in perfect union with God does not need a savior.

This is a radical concept but rings true. A life of penance isn’t the ideal. We were born to be free and that is worth fighting for.

One great way to live – You no longer believe, but you know, and you live the truth

Life in union with God is the one great way to live, life with God, life in God, and God living in you. This was the spiritual state of Jesus when he said, “Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father in me? …” ( John 14:10 ) God and man will embrace in one all-consuming love. This is the state where God is made the living reality. You no longer believe, but you know. And you live the truth. If you really experience this kind of love and oneness with God, then you have tasted the supreme experience of life.

God made man to live his life in intoxication. Man is meant to be intoxicated by the love of God. Since humankind lost this original capacity, they seek unnatural, artificial intoxication, getting drunk on alcohol, marijuana, or drugs. The perfect person, however, is created to be intoxicated in the love of God. There is nothing that can go beyond this feeling of joy. Every cell in your body will explode with joy. Your eyes and ears, the tissues in your face, your arms and legs, everything will be newly alive in a rapture of joy. Nothing else can ever match this quality of joy. This is the plan of God’s original creation. When you say, “Heavenly Parent”, do you really have a living and vibrant feeling of God’s presence? Don’t you want to hear God answering, “Yes, my son, yes my daughter”?

God is the ultimate security

Here is my gift to you. I want you to realize that the true relationship between God and man is a subject and object relationship. You are His sons and His daughters. Once you have achieved unity with God, nothing can trouble you. Neither sorrow nor loneliness, sickness or anything else under the sun can discourage you. God is the ultimate security. You could pay many millions of dollars and still not buy that kind of security. It is priceless. No money can buy it. This is the total experience of life. We are meant to live with God.

Your life is therefore the most valuable thing in this universe. That is why Jesus said, “For what will it profit a man, if he gains the whole world and forfeits his life? Or what shall a man give in return for his life?” ( Matt 16:26 ) Jesus is talking about life with God. Life without God is like a burned-out electric bulb which cannot give out light. A life without God is death.

Jesus Christ is the one man who lived God’s ideal in its fullest realization. He was the first man of perfection (or full spiritual maturity) to ever to walk the earth, and he came to restore the true relationship between God and man. All mankind is created to be able to say, “I am in the Father and the Father in me” This is the fully attainable goal of everyone.

We can learn a lot from God’s hope. Firstly, it must also be our hope. We too yearn for love, life and the ideal. I don’t know a single person that doesn’t deep down long for that (even if they can barely believe in it. And, think about it – all great movies and literature parody this.) How does God maintain the same hopes we have but unlike us not give up on them?

How do you keep hope in the face of disaster?

There is a famous quote expressing God’s relentless determination.

“The Lord of hosts has sworn, saying, surely, as I have thought, so shall it come to pass; and as I have purposed, so shall it stand.” Isaiah 14:24

It’s about being committed for the long haul, knowing that God will achieve his purpose for your life. Even in the midst of disaster having faith in the power of getting back to business.

I’ll start again tomorrow

In a famous fire on December 9, 1914 Thomas Edison experienced a tremendous set back. He and his wife watched as flames engulfed his laboratory. It caused $7 million in damages which is equal to about $100 million today. He is famous for announcing, as he watched the burning building,

“Although I am over 67 years old, I’ll start again tomorrow.”

Not only did he start again but the disaster opened his eyes to a new idea. He saw the firefighters struggling in the dark to save the building and within 2 days had designed a powerful, battery operated flashlight. He tested it out in a park at night and people were awed at seeing a light, unconnected to a visible source.

Despite this incredible setback, his commitment to his original purpose didn’t waiver because he was passionately invested in seeing it fulfilled. His passion is a reflection of God’s nature which is to never give up. We have to find that determination within ourselves so that we can hold onto our hope for “love, life and the ideal” just as God holds onto his hope for the same things.

I think that perhaps God also has a love poem tucked deep inside His heart that keeps him going, just like that brave World War II spy who was captured and tortured, but never gave up.

When hope enters a room, a heart, or a home it brings with it new possibilities. When you feel like giving up think about God’s hope for you – for you to realize love, life and the ideal – and hang in there because God is hanging in there too, anticipating the day when these things will be realized in every life. He has hope for you!