5 steps to lovingly change the world

We all live in a sugarcoated reality of a hard life, one seems to be better than before, one seems to be repeating the past.

What ways could help to lead out from the feeling of lost and vanity?

Here are my points, ones anyone can start to work with in the everydays:

1. Love unconditionally
2. Respect without prejudice
3. Act without expecting anything in return
4. Recognize others before yourself
5. Be real with own needs and never take out more from the common good (Nature) than actually necessary

Might sound simple and “too simple”.

Everything is measured and counted when we do not feel to do, we are busy, anxious and under burdens. What and how we act matters the most then.

Love, respect, real unselfishness, true care and actual humbleness are holding the key for our own salvation and for a better world.

Joshua Dragon

Is Christmas your light?

Are you riding on the shopping tide
now
this time in your life
buying and consuming
taking and possessing
longing and needing
some extraordinary
long-desired
miniscule thing
wasting and ridiculing
the very one
who is supposed to hear
the one
who is supposed to speak
act and stand up
give and not want
the brave and long forgotten
true light-filled
conscious
steward of God
or
are you fighting for the lost ones
now
giving them true love
carrying them for an extra mile
in your life
is Christmas your light?

 

Joshua Dragon

SMM Quotes – 246

“To become a friend and someone who is loved, one has to understand the other person’s sorrow and pain and comfort them. Only then can one become the other person’s friend. If you connect to someone’s heart and build a relationship of love, then you can move that person as you wish, and you will also do as he wants.” – Reverend Sun Myung Moon

The standard of love that Jesus established

What did Jesus do to realize the value of such a cosmic life? He elevated love. In other words, he propagated new words of the gospel to complete the value of cosmic life in heaven and earth. The central point of that gospel was love.

What would be the most important thing for an individual to be able to connect his own private life to the standard of eternal value? As Jesus said, he must have such love that he can sacrifice his life for the sake of others. In fact, Jesus established the standard of value of life by loving others more than himself.

Similarly, Jesus, who appeared representing the value of heavenly life, taught humankind to possess such love that they can sacrifice their lives for the sake of others’ salvation. You must understand clearly that the man who appeared with such a loving heart, who loved his colleagues more than himself, who loved the world more than he loved his colleagues, and who loved God and the thousands upon thousands of saints more than he loved the world was Jesus Christ.

Jesus did not live with an individualistic ideology to find the value of his own individual life or with individualistic love. Even when he loved a friend, his love transcended the relationship of loving friendship. Jesus had the perspective that he loved the friend representing the world. He also loved that friend with the heart that represented God.

Likewise, Jesus did not practice love on a one-to-one basis. When Jesus loved a certain individual, it was with God’s love, with cosmic love, and then with individual love. You must be able to experience this. Only when you do so can you rightly comprehend the value of Jesus’ life.

Up to what level did Jesus raise the standard of his own life? He envisioned himself existing for the sake of the world. Even when he loved a friend of his, forsaking himself, he kept the perspective that he loved him for the sake of the world. This was Jesus’ standard.

Jesus could establish the standard of love of worldwide salvation on the cross because he had the heart of love and sacrifice with which he could die for the sake of an individual and for the whole simultaneously. You must know that Jesus was the hero of love, life and character. That was not all. Jesus then prayed toward Heaven, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as You will.” (Matthew 26:39) Because Jesus wished to live only according to the will of the Father, he could demonstrate God’s love to humankind beyond the valley of death. Similarly, we must know that the entire course of Jesus’ life was filled with such remarkable love.

Next, what did Jesus Christ, who came with the mission to restore the cosmic life, raise to find the value of life? That, too, was love. This love was not meant for individual human beings but for the world, God and the eternal world — the spiritual beings who are in the spirit world.

In order for us, in our daily lives, to realize the value of the life of Jesus, who represented God’s love, we who must take responsibility for the restoration of the whole life must not deal with whichever matter we face with transient emotions. We must deal with all things with the resolution and determination that we will model ourselves after Jesus’ character, who represented the whole on the cosmic level. Only after we pass through such a day-to-day life can we complete the worldwide life and make a connection with eternal life.

In other words, if your day-to-day lives have a transient value that affects only you, you cannot make a connection with eternity. That is the reason you must lead a life in which you can make a connection with God’s eternal love. Only when you do that will the eternal God be with you. Because Jesus lived making daily connections with God throughout his life, though Jesus is dead, the Will of God, who wished it to be completed by Jesus, has been continuously carried on toward its completion.
(…)

 

 

Jesus’ view of life for the sake of the restoration
Reverend Sun Myung Moon
January 6, 1957

Equality Is Peace

“To shorten the way to heaven, the Messiah, a specific people or individual must take responsibility through self-sacrifice. Many saints have given up their lives for this cause. The rise and fall of many nations was to fill the valleys and level the hills. History to this day has consisted of people making themselves merry, thus it is a history of ups and downs. It goes on a spree, rising and falling. Equality like that of the present was established in this manner. Equality is peace.” – Reverend Sun Myung Moon

If a true individual comes who will eliminate this world’s sorrow…

“If a true individual comes who will eliminate this world’s sorrow, liberate Heavenly Father’s sorrow, and bring forth an ideology capable of establishing a peaceful nation on this earth, that individual will have to pass through every difficulty and experience desperation, starting from the sorrow of personal tribulation, all the way to the sorrow of the tribulations of humanity. Furthermore, he would have to delve into the whole sorrowful and desperate heart of Heaven to come out with something that can resolve it. If that is not achieved, the world of humanity cannot push aside the sorrowful and miserable history to establish the world of peace, the world of happiness, and the garden of freedom inviolable by sorrow.” – Reverend Sun Myung Moon

Loving One Another

“Most of you often talk about loving, serving and sacrificing for each other. That is great. Loving one another means fervently giving to, not taking or requesting love from the other party. The basis of peace emerges in an environment where people serve one another. Flames of revival blaze up when people sacrifice themselves for the benefit of others. Where people mutually serve each other, flowers bloom and spread their fragrance.” – Reverend Sun Myung Moon

You are a gift to this world

Though the world around is doing its best to keep all of us down, to cage us in the treadmill of our daily routines, to numb us just enough not to see how large portion of our efforts are only in the pursuit of vanities there is one thing what can never be taken away, what can never be denied:

You are a gift to this world.

There is a chance you might not have realized it or you’ve forgotten it, maybe you are among us, who’s started to doubt in it. Don’t.

You are so unique that you are the only one to have that particular universal truth in the world that is not known and can not be shown by any others. Just you can manifest that kind of greatness based on your true potential, just you can give that goodness to the world what God gave you as His Blessing at your birth.

Live up to your true potential, don’t shy away from the growing, being more mature and completed: that is the only way to leave this broken history for a better one.

Written by you, as one of the torchbearers.

Heavenly Parent loves you compassionately because He can see you all the magic, mystery and benevolence you are capable of to show His Blessing.

You are a gift to this world.

 

 

Joshua Dragon

What does it mean to be a pastor?

It’s been 6 years by now since this blog started. With around 1200 posts, ups and downs, tremendous changes in life, there is this question to raise: what does it mean to be a pastor?

Actually, this should also include what it takes to be a pastor.

 

What is a pastor, anyway?

 

First, there are the easy answers: caretaker, soulfinder, listener, advisor, friend.

The one who is always there for you even if you don’t show up and never call back – just when you are in need to feel better in your self-made personal hell.

 

Was Jesus a pastor? Of course, He wasn’t.

Yet He was, indeed.

 

There is this unceasing need deep down in all of us to get better, to feel happy and be less miserable – to get at least a little grasp of joy when it seems dark.

Overachievers obviously want to save the world, to shape it to Heaven or at least start the process on their own way and understanding.

Now, I’m an overachiever here, it seems.

 

There are the other answers for being a pastor, the ones making me uneasy almost all the time: immaculate, clear, spotless, a growing child of God, our Heavenly Parent. Somebody who always smiles, wise and stays in a tranquil place.

It took me a longer while to admit it to myself: I’m not always immaculate nor clear, I have stains and although I really long for helping God, mostly I’m challenged and can be shattered easier than it would be convenient.

How selfish, I know…

 

Though I’m dedicated and persevering, these that’s for sure I’ve inherited and learned the hard way from my Father, Reverend Moon. Yes, He is my spiritual Father, feels closer than my real one ever. Actually, He had me have brighter understanding of my trapped biological parents.

I’ve always felt Jesus, Yeshua is my brother, the real one.

The same goes to my children as they frequently can meet and talk to Him.

 

Honesty is also a part of being a pastor, the bare truth to be told and shown with nothing to hide or hold back.

Actually, I’m always saying the truth, I’m unable to lie or hold back. Tricky thing with when it comes to gifts and surprises.

 

Uncompromised.

That’s a treat once I thought worth to give up and will lead to personal salvation and liberation, so that would affect to whole world, or at least a larger part of it, faster and greater, more efficient.

How wrong I was…!

 

God had me live a various life to gain a large skilset, now I know in order to utilize those skills for helping the world, helping Him better.

And that’s not a one way street, more comes always back when the giving is absolute, unconditional.

 

Humble?

Putting myself low in order to have others feel better and greater is never the way – though I used to have this practice.

However, each and every one of us has a unique, unprecedent value, a special truth in ourselves that nobody else has ever had nor ever will have. We are all one of a kind representatives of the very same Heavenly Parent.

We are all the same in our differences and together we make a whole.

 

There are several ways of guiding others, being a mediator in between God and the ones who do not even know they are lost. Sacrifice, is a major thing in it.

Although none of us will ever have to bear what Jesus had to, yet, emotionally we are going through our Golgothas all the time, we are on the cross voluntarily. This is the way to experience the suffering and aching heart of our Heavenly Parent. And it is not about us – we can say no anytime.

 

We are free.

But with free will comes responsibility.

The greater the knowledge, the greater the stake.

Everybody is responsible according to his/her understanding.

And I like knowing more and more…

 

Ultimately, everything comes to this: loving the world -and here it means actions without expecting anything in return- must be more important than loving our own children and family, ourselves. Of course, there must be a balance in a way, but the focus should be on those, who are further from the ideal.

That’s something we have been taught by Jesus and God a lot…

 

I’m sure I need to find a right balance in between self-care and living for the sake of others, too. At least sometimes treat of refreshing sleep and more regular meals are ways to do even more.

I am not omnipotent, and I tend to forget it.

So, this one is also true: being a pastor means paving a way in finding internal-external balance, too.

 

Prayers must be actions and anything can be a prayer in this aspect.

 

Let’s pray-act together!

 

 

Blessings!

 

 

Joshua Dragon

 

 

Before you judge people ask yourself

Before you judge people ask yourself

If I were to teach you, how could I do it?

If I were to help you, how should I do it?

If I were to ask you, how would I do it?

If I were to walk in your shoes, could I do it?

 

Each and every person we meet is carrying a unique, eternal seed from God.

 

If we were to focus on what we can learn from each other, instead of hate

If we were to embrace love in its absoluteness

If we were to manifest the actual goodness where we give without expectations

 

We would have eyes to see no colours

We would have hands to help the poor

We would have lips to give comfort for the broken ones

We would have legs to walk the extra mile to reach out

We would have a heart to embrace everyone.

 

God has never created boundaries among nations, people, families, classes.

 

The rest is up to each and every one of us now.

 

 

Joshua Dragon