Lesson 334 – Today I claim the gifts forgiveness gives.

Commentary (full lesson beneath commentary)

I seek but the eternal and the eternal is the antidote to my bewildered mind and frightened heart.  A quiet comes upon me just from making that statement.  And that is my claim today, right now, to the gifts forgiveness gives.

LESSON 334

Today I claim the gifts forgiveness gives.

I will not wait another day to find the treasures that my Father offers me.  Illusions are all vain, and dreams are gone even while they are woven out of thoughts that rest on false perceptions.  Let me not accept such meager gifts again today.  God’s Voice is offering the peace of God to all who hear and choose to follow Him.  This is my choice today.  And so I go to find the treasures God has given me.

I seek but the eternal.  For Your Son can be content with nothing less than this.  What, then, can be his solace but what You are offering to his bewildered mind and frightened heart, to give him certainty and bring him peace?  Today I would behold my brother sinless.  This Your Will for me, for so will I behold my sinlessness.

Let’s practice together!  Click here for more information and to sign-up for Workin’ the Workbook, my online class which supports the ACIM Workbook practice.  

Lesson 333 – Forgiveness ends the dream of conflict here.

Commentary (full lesson beneath commentary)

Conflict must be looked upon and seen for what it is: my choice to think a thought that said I was separate from my brothers and from my Source.  When I look, it is like discovering the Wizard of Oz behind the curtain — the ego is just a mouse that roars.  Seeing that for ourselves invites the Truth, which blazes Its Light and darkness is instantly melted away.

LESSON 333

Forgiveness ends the dream of conflict here.

Conflict must be resolved.  It cannot be evaded, set aside, denied, disguised, seen somewhere else, called by another name, or hidden by deceit of any kind, if it would be escaped.  It must be seen exactly as it is, where it is thought to be, in the reality which has been given it, and with the purpose that the mind accepted it.  For only then are its defenses lifted, and the truth can shine upon it as it disappears.

Father, forgiveness is the light You chose to shine away all conflict and all doubt, and light the way for our return to You.  No light but this can end our evil dream.  No light but this can save the world.  For this alone will never fail in anything, being Your gift to Your beloved Son.

Let’s practice together!  Click here for more information and to sign-up for Workin’ the Workbook, my online class which supports the ACIM Workbook practice.  

Lesson 332 – Fear binds the world. Forgiveness sets it free.

Commentary (full lesson beneath commentary)
Father, I am fully committed to letting Your Light shine through this dream of darkness.  I accept my inheritance, the one you give me now, because I understand nothing happens in the past, and when I allow the Present to Be All That Is, Your legacy is Our Reality.  Amen.

LESSON 332

Fear binds the world.  Forgiveness sets it free.

The ego makes illusions.  Truth undoes its evil dreams by shining them away.  Truth never makes attack.  It merely is.  And by its presence is the mind recalled from fantasies, awaking to the real.  Forgiveness bids this presence enter in, and take its rightful place within the mind.  Without forgiveness is the mind in chains, believing in its own futility.  Yet with forgiveness does the light shine through the dream of darkness, offering it hope, and giving it the means to realize the freedom that is its inheritance.

We would not bind the world again today.  Fear holds it prisoner.  And yet YourLove has given us the means to set it free.  Father, we would release it now.  For as we offer freedom, it is given us.  And we would not remain as prisoners, while You are holding freedom out to us.

Let’s practice together!  Click here for more information and to sign-up for Workin’ the Workbook, my online class which supports the ACIM Workbook practice.  

Lesson 331 – There is no conflict, for my will is Yours.

Commentary (full lesson beneath commentary)

I’m having a make-believe argument with myself, for argument’s sake.  I’m “enjoying” a game of pretend where I am “me” and you are “you” so that I can blame “you” for being “me.”  In other words, the ego mind projected out an idea that there could be an “I” other than God and then added a “you” so we could fight and keep ourselves distracted from the Truth.  The Truth is there is only One and that can never change.  Willingness to know the Truth permits forgiveness to enter our repertoire of human choices and leave the arena of good and bad, right and wrong altogether.  Now we can use this life as classroom to awaken to our natural Unity which is All That Is.  In that lies Comfort and Peace and Everything Love.  As we undo our attachment to believing we are separate, we rediscover our no-person Unified Loving Source.

LESSON 331

There is no conflict, for my will is Yours.

How foolish, Father, to believe Your Son could cause himself to suffer!  Could he make a plan for his damnation, and be left without a certain way to his release?  You love me, Father.  You could never leave me desolate, to die within a world of pain and cruelty.  How could I think that Love has left Itself?  There is no will except the Will of Love.  Fear is a dream, and has no will that can conflict with Yours.  Conflict is sleep, and peace awakening.  Death is illusion; life, eternal truth.  There is no opposition to Your Will.  There is no conflict, for my will is Yours.

Forgiveness shows us that God’s Will is One, and that we share it.  Let us look upon the holy sights forgiveness shows today, that we may find the peace of God.  Amen.

Let’s practice together!  Click here for more information and to sign-up for Workin’ the Workbook, my online class which supports the ACIM Workbook practice.  

Lesson 330 – I will not hurt myself again today.

Commentary (full lesson beneath commentary)

We are literally giving ourselves images of pain.  We made up duality, separation, fear, shame and cruelty.  Then we mixed in some good stuff to further deceive ourselves that there is meaning and purpose to the dream.  The undoing process A Course in Miracles offers us unwinds the knotted thoughts we think we think and releases us from all beliefs through the Holy Spirit’s Direction.  I will not hurt myself again today.  I can operate just fine without knowing anything.  In fact, that is what opens me as a conduit for Spiritual guidance.  Father, save me from what I thought was, and I will see the Truth in all my brothers.

LESSON 330

I will not hurt myself again today.

 Let us this day accept forgiveness as our only function.  Why should we attack our minds, and give them images of pain?  Why should we teach them they are powerless, when God holds out His power and His Love, and bids them take what is already theirs? The mind that is made willing to accept God’s gifts has been restored to spirit, and extends its freedom and its joy, as is the Will of God united with its own. The Self which God created cannot sin, and therefore cannot suffer.  Let us choose today that He be our Identity, and thus escape forever from all things the dream of fear appears to offer us.

Father, Your Son can not be hurt.  And if we think we suffer, we but fail to know our one Identity we share with You.  We would return to It today, to be made free forever from all our mistakes, and to be saved from what we thought we were.

Let’s practice together!  Click here for more information and to sign-up for Workin’ the Workbook, my online class which supports the ACIM Workbook practice.  

Lesson 329 – I have already chosen what You will.

Commentary (full lesson beneath commentary)

” … what I am in truth is but Your Will, extended and extending.”  If I am my Father’s Will, and His Will is ever-extending Love, Peace and Joy, then I am Love, Peace and Joy.  Since Love, Peace and Joy never come in separate parcels, “I” am inextricably joined with my brothers.  This Innocent Union we share is What We Are … and when we recognize that we have already chosen what God Wills then there will be no more to learn or say or do.  Beingness will Be without senseless distractions that aren’t really there.

LESSON 329

I have already chosen what You will.

Father, I thought I wandered from Your Will, defied it, broke its laws, and interposed a second will more powerful than Yours. Yet what I am in truth is but Your Will, extended and extending. This am I, and this will never change. As You are One, so am I one with You. And this I chose in my creation, where my will became forever one with Yours. That choice was made for all eternity. It cannot change, and be in opposition to itself. Father, my will is Yours. And I am safe, untroubled and serene, in endless joy, because it is Your Will that it be so.

Today we will accept our union with each other and our Source. We have no will apart from His, and all of us are one because His Will is shared by all of us. Through it we recognize that we are one. Through it we find our way at last to God.

Let’s practice together!  Click here for more information and to sign-up for Workin’ the Workbook, my online class which supports the ACIM Workbook practice.  

Lesson 328 – I choose the second place to gain the first.

Commentary (full lesson beneath commentary)

Feeling separate and alone are merely wild imaginings.  Separate and alone is not possible.  Mistaken thoughts can lead to strong beliefs, but that does not make these beliefs true.  It is my Father’s Will that I be safe and eternally at peace and so I am.  It is my will that I connect with my Father’s Will to know that this is so.  Despite upside down perceptions, I am still joined with my brothers and safe at Home with my Father because there is no second place, only First.

LESSON 328

I choose the second place to gain the first.

What seems to be the second place is first, for all things we perceive are upside down until we listen to the Voice for God.  It seems that we will gain autonomy but by our striving to be separate, and that our independence from the rest of God’s creation is the way in which salvation is obtained.  Yet all we find is sickness, suffering and loss and death.  This is  not what our Father wills for us, nor is there any second to His Will.  To join with His is but to find our own.  And since our will is His, it is to Him that we must go to recognize our will.

There is no will but Yours.  And I am glad that nothing I imagine contradicts what You would have me be.  It is Your Will that I be wholly safe, eternally at peace.  And happily I share that Will which You, my Father, gave as part of me.

Let’s practice together!  Click here for more information and to sign-up for Workin’ the Workbook, my online class which supports the ACIM Workbook practice.  

Lesson 327 – I need but call and You will answer me.

Commentary (full lesson beneath commentary)

When I use the practices A Course in Miracles gives me, Spirit is experience within the body, and the body is experienced as a vehicle of Spirit.  This experience is inarguable, incontrovertible, intangible and utterly convincing.  I call, He Answers.  One Answer of Loving Peace.  One Answer of Unified Stillness.  One Answer of Infinite Eternal Joy.  One Answer to a non-problem which I imagined, bought into, and played out … until I began to remember the Truth: I am not a body, I am free, for I am still as God created me. I am Spirit.  I am Living Loving Light.  When I forget, all I need do is call and He will answer me every time.  Amen.

LESSON 327

I need but call and You will answer me.

I am not asked to take salvation on the basis of an unsupported faith.  For God has promised He will hear my call, and answer me Himself.  Let me but learn from my experience that this is true, and faith in Him must surely come to me.  This is the faith that will endure, and take me farther and still farther on the road that leads to Him.  For thus I will be sure that He has not abandoned me and loves me still, awaiting but my call to give me all the help I need to come to Him.

Father, I thank You that Your promises will never fail in my experience, if I but test them out.  Let me attempt therefore to try them, and to judge them not.  Your Word is one with You.  You give the means whereby conviction comes, and surety of Your abiding Love is gained at last.

Let’s practice together!  Click here for more information and to sign-up for Workin’ the Workbook, my online class which supports the ACIM Workbook practice.  

Lesson 326 – I am forever an effect of God.

Commentary (full lesson beneath commentary)

With God, cause and effect are the same: Love. Without God, we seem to be at the mercy of random causes with tragic effects (and sometimes seemingly lucky causes with seemingly happy outcomes).  God gives us blessings.  The ego “gives us” luck.  I am committed to beholding the earth disappear, at first transformed by the Holy Spirit’s guidance and the reflection of God’s Love in all that I see and do, and then, forgiven, fade entirely into God’s holy Will.

LESSON 326

I am forever an Effect of God.

Father, I was created in Your Mind, a holy Thought that never left its home. I am forever Your Effect, and You forever and forever are my Cause. As You created me I have remained. Where You established me I still abide. And all Your attributes abide in me, because it is Your Will to have a Son so like his Cause that Cause and Its Effect are indistinguishable. Let me know that I am an Effect of God, and so I have the power to create like You. And as it is in Heaven, so on earth. Your plan I follow here, and at the end I know that You will gather Your effects into the tranquil Heaven of Your Love, where earth will vanish, and all separate thoughts unite in glory as the Son of God.

Let us today behold earth disappear, at first transformed, and then, forgiven, fade entirely into God’s holy Will.

Let’s practice together!  Click here for more information and to sign-up for Workin’ the Workbook, my online class which supports the ACIM Workbook practice.  

Lesson 325 – All things I think I see reflect ideas.

Commentary (full lesson beneath commentary)

My personal thinking is faulty. It is based on a wish which led to an image which I as ego projected outwards and view on the screen of the world as if it is real.  All things I think I see reflect ideas.  Now I know I can choose between the ideas of separation the ego proffers, or the Unity of Heaven the Holy Spirit offers.  It’s a no-brainer — this time I choose Heaven.

LESSON 325

All things I think I see reflect ideas.

This is salvation’s keynote: What I see reflects a process in my mind, which starts with my idea of what I want. From there, the mind makes up an image of the thing the mind desires, judges valuable, and therefore seeks to find. These images are then projected outward, looked upon, esteemed as real and guarded as one’s own. From insane wishes comes an insane world. From judgment comes a world condemned. And from forgiving thoughts a gentle world comes forth, with mercy for the holy Son of God, to offer him a kindly home where he can rest a while before he journeys on, and help his brothers walk ahead with him, and find the way to Heaven and to God.

Our Father, Your ideas reflect the truth, and mine apart from Yours but make up dreams. Let me behold what only Yours reflect, for Yours and Yours alone establish truth.

Let’s practice together!  Click here for more information and to sign-up for Workin’ the Workbook, my online class which supports the ACIM Workbook practice.