1. Original Value
Points to Ponder:
Where does our original value come from?
Divine eternal value comes from our origin – God, our Creator. It doesn’t depend on your behavior, actions, or the results you produce; it comes from your identity as a child of God. Your value is eternal, unchanging, and unique because it comes from an eternal, unchanging, and unique Parent.
Your value comes from your purpose for being created. God had your value in mind when He created the universe, holding nothing back for the sake of His children. Likewise, He poured His heart into creating you: “God either projected the full value of Himself in His object, or He created nothing at all (God’s Hope for Man).”
However, we lost our connection to and understanding of our original value. Thus, it’s often a struggle to fully feel and experience it in our lives. Our work with True Parents can be understood as a process to recover our original value by reconnecting to its source.
Although our value comes from God, it can be expressed/shown through God centered, purpose driven, relationships with people. For example, a friend of faith is someone with whom you share God’s point of view of your value and essential qualities, and who sees and reminds you of your original value.
Why is it important to know my original value?
We make choices and decisions in our lives based on the values that we have or the value that we practice. If we know our own original value, who we are, and to whom we belong, it directly shapes and guides us in making the right choices and decisions in our lives. If we always base our value on something that changes all the time, it prevents us from being able to experience unchanging love and true happiness.
In our lives, we can ask ourselves, “Who/what is my subject?” “Who/what am I allowing to determine my own value? Is it people around me or God?” If I let others determine my value, it means I am no longer the subject of myself, they are.
Discussion questions for before/after the reading:
- What’s your best experience of feeling and connecting to your unique original value?
- Can you identify what/who you attach your value to in your life? (For example, grades, your income, status of your job, how many friends on Facebook, “likes” to a post, whether people want to spend time with me, etc)
- How does what you’re revolving around in your life right now affect your sense of value?
- What do you think it means to revolve around the heart of God? What does it look like in real life?
Quotes:
4.1 The Process and Standard for the Determination of Original Value
“How is a being’s original created value determined? The value of an entity may be determined by the relationship between its purpose of existence and the desire that a human being has for it. To be more precise, the value of an entity intended at its creation is not fixed as an inherent attribute. Rather, it is established through the mutual relationship between the purpose of the entity according to God’s ideal of creation, and people’s original desire to treasure it and bring out its true worth. It finds its true value when it participates as an object partner in a God-centered four position foundation by relating with a person through give and take action and by their union becoming the third object partner to God.
What sets the standard by which the original value of an entity is determined? Since its original value is determined when it participates in a four position foundation, and since the center of this four position foundation is God, it is God who sets the standard for its value. Since God is absolute, the original value of an object partner determined in relation to this standard set by God must also be absolute.
Until now, no object partner’s value could become absolute; it has remained relative because its relationship with fallen people was not based on God’s ideal of Creation but was based on Satanic purpose and desire.” -Divine Principle, pg. 37
“God is the God of love. Where is it that God truly loves human beings? It is in the place where people would most wish to be, and God too surely loves that place. That place, where God’s heart and the human heart are bonded in unity, is the parent-child relationship. The parent-child relationship is the root of the universe. It is the relationship between the absolute God, who created heaven and earth, and unfallen, original human beings. The place of original value, where we are meant to arrive, is the place where God stands as the Father and we stand as His children.” -CSG, Book 1 (053-286, 1972.03.04)
“Human beings are to restore this magnificent original value, which they all have. Since God is the subject partner of true love, and since He is eternal, then His partners of true love also have to be eternal.” – CSG, Book 4 (298-315, 1999.01.17)
“To capture God’s heart, the heart that existed before the creation and will remain forever, is the condition required for us to earn our value as lords of creation. Once you possess God’s heart, you are ahead of everything. Our value is determined by our relationship with the center, the root, the heart. This has been God’s heart from the very beginning. … So why are God and all things of creation sorrowful? It is because this relationship of heart was cut off. The history of restoration and the history of resurrection have progressed to re-establish this severed relationship of heart. Once we own God’s heart, no one can oppose us when we say, “You are our Father, and we are your sons and daughters.” No one will deny it. There is no way to deny the relationship of heart between parent and child.” CSG, Book 6 (011-320, 1962.03.23)
“Our path of life is such that we leave this world where we received our parents’ love and we seek out the place of the love of God, our infinite and eternal Parent. Embraced in God’s bosom, we form bonds of infinite life and love and return to the original homeland where we can live eternally. There we breathe love, just as we breathe air now. We originated from God, and by achieving this real authority of love we incarnate God. In love, our value is equal.” CSG, Book 7 (298-295, 1999.01.16)
“We need to experience profoundly, in our heart and in daily life, the countless efforts God has made to build a parent-child relationship with us. What is our last remaining hope? On what basis can we stand in front of God, in His grace? This depends on how much we succeed in building the parent-child relationship, which is God’s ideal of creation. We discover our value based on how much we put this into practice in daily life.” CSG, Book 8 (3-028, 1957.09.15)
“We have to define God as the standard of Value. He never changes and that makes Him valuable. God has many attributes and they will never change. Therefore he is in the center pulling the whole world around an axis. We can safely say that this is the quality that makes him valuable.” – Way of Tradition II, 216
“Value is derived from unchanging quality.” -The Way of Tradition. Vol 2. P 218
“Man’s value becomes limitless and without price when he is united with God.” -The Way of tradition II, 218
“Your faith, your truth, your divine light is not dependent on a pastor or a religious leader; it is in your divine connection with Heavenly Parents’ True Love. If you experience doubt or you lose your way, just return to the origin, the root, the word, your true heart, conscience, and center, and you will find your way back on the path of True Love. Even though we are going through a time in our movement when there are voices of confusion and discord, we must not lose sight of our center which resides in True Parents, in the Word, and in our own conscience. They serve as our compass so that we can navigate with an even hand, while sailing on stormy shores.” – Sun Jin Nim
Video of Q&A sharing with Sun Jin Nim. The entire video is really moving, but from 30:30 – 40:00 Sun Jin shares about her experience of feeling no value growing up as a child, and her journey to find and connect to her value as God’s daughter.
Application:
We invite you to take some time away from your daily routine – leave your phone behind, disconnect from the city/music/people and go find a spot in nature. Give yourself a 40 minute walk with God and reflect on some of the following points:
- “Where do I experience my value coming from?”
- “What do I place as the source/subject of my value?”
- “What’s been one of my best experiences (even a few moments) feeling/experiencing my value as God’s child?”
- “How do I experience feeling my value while in a giving position? While in a receiving position?”
Bonus: In the role of a friend of faith, express God’s sense of appreciation for someone in your life.