Lesson 67 Love Created Me Like Itself

Part 1 Undoing the Way We See Things Now

Lesson 67 Love created me like Itself.

1. Today’s idea is a complete and accurate statement of what you are. This is why you are the light of the world. This is why God appointed you as the world’s savior. This is why the Son of God looks to you for His Salvation. He is saved by what you are. We will make every effort today to reach this truth about you, and to realize fully, if only for a moment, that it is the truth.
2. In the longer practice, we will think about your reality, and it’s wholly unchanged and unchangeable nature. We will begin by repeating this truth about you, and then spend a few minutes adding some relevant thoughts, such as: Holiness created me holy; Kindness created me kind; Helpfulness created me helpful; Perfection created me perfect. Any attribute which is in accord with God as He defines Himself is appropriate for use. We are trying today to undo your definition of God and replace it with His Own. We are also trying to emphasize that you are part of His definition of Himself.
3. After you have gone over several such related thoughts, try to let all thoughts drop away for a brief preparatory interval, and then try to reach past all your images and preconceptions about yourself to the truth in you. If Love created you like Itself, this Self must be in you. And somewhere in your mind, It is there for you to find.
4. You may find it necessary to repeat the idea for today from time to time to replace distracting thoughts. You may also find that this is not sufficient and that you need to continue adding other thoughts related to the truth about yourself. Yet perhaps you will succeed in going past that, and through the interval of thoughtlessness to the awareness of a blazing light in which you recognize yourself as Love created you. Be confident that you will do much today to bring that awareness nearer, whether you feel you have succeeded or not.
5. It will be particularly helpful today to practice the idea for the day as often as you can. You need to hear the truth about yourself as frequently as possible, because your mind is so preoccupied with false self-images. Four or five times an hour, and perhaps even more, it would be most beneficial to remind yourself that Love created you like Itself. Hear the truth about yourself in this.
6. Try to realize in the shorter practice periods that this is not your tiny, solitary voice that tells you this.  This is the Voice for God, reminding you of your Father and of yourself.  This is the Voice of truth, replacing everything that the ego tells you about yourself with this simple truth about the Son of God.  You were created by Love like Itself.  

Notes and Personal Application (2020):  This morning, Zachary joined us for our devotions.  James opened with prayer, and as I was reading the lesson and my application notes from last year, James said that he did not believe that we were created by Love like Itself.  He said that he was not going to do the practice because there were evil people in the world and to pretend otherwise was just ridiculous.  Also, he felt uncomfortable calling himself love when he was not all love, that he had to work too hard to be even passably decent, and it was going too far to say that he was love.

There is no reason at all that I did not take kindly to his resistance to the ideas.  I have already completed all 365 workbook lessons, and I still have resistance.  There are times that I feel as if I am listening to the wrong voice.  The ego’s version of me is so much easier to believe.  I am a body; I am going to die; it is much better to try to squeeze as much pleasure as I can out of my remaining days and not travel the path of salvation because how do I really know that there is a way out of this go-round?  How do I know it is Holy Spirit guiding and directing me?  So what if the course rings true to me and others throughout the world, it doesn’t mean that it is true.  I am studying it and giving it a chance.  If it is right, I will not have to defend it; it will stand on its own.  If it is not true, it was a very interesting journey, and I enjoyed studying it and applying the principles.  It certainly has expanded my mind and cemented a loving perception of God in my life – and finally, I have come to know and love Jesus as my personal Savior.  Loving God and accepting Jesus as my Savior can hardly lead me astray!

However, I felt myself growing very impatient with him.  I scolded him and told him in a bossy voice that we were on Lesson 67, and if he had not learned and accepted the basic premises of the Course by this time, then perhaps the course wasn’t for him.  It is, after all, a path of spiritual discovery, not the only one by far.  I chastised him for wasting our time!  I gave him a dissertation on the delineation between Mind and body.  I resented him for voicing his unbelief in front of Zachary – even though Zachary has heard me voice my resistance and doubts and concerns about the teachings.  I was also afraid because if James is not on board with me and the call that God has placed on my life, we will not be happy together.  And though the call of God goes far beyond A Course in Miracles, the foundation of everything I believe and experience spiritually in my mind and heart can be found written within its pages. 

We ended up finishing our devotional, ending with prayer, and having our breakfast.  But I was shaken and did not write the blog or talk to James about what had transpired between us.  Zachary sort of chuckled over it to me in private because it is so rare we flare up at each other.  He found it a bit amusing that we had exchanged heated words over what for him was a very positive lesson concept – “Love created me like Itself.” 

In reality, I thought it was funny, too, but during the day I would catch my ego thinking mean thoughts toward James – that he may be smarter than me in a lot of ways, but spiritually he just failed to really get what the Course was about, and it wasn’t my fault.  Why I have people from all over the world reading my blog, the ego spouted off in my head, and appreciating it, telling me how I bring it alive for them, and there he is, my own husband, opposing the truth!  I did my best to choose loving thoughts, but it was a real trial to shut down the voice of the ego. I was alternating between attack thoughts and defense thoughts, and in that mode, James was the enemy who was opposing the truth.

It was an incredible lesson in exactly what I had always vowed I would never do – go to war to defend a belief system, try to force a belief system on someone else, or let another’s belief system cause me unrest.  And yet here I was allowing the ego to huff me up over what it judged as my husband’s lack of spiritual progress! 

Jumping ahead, the final paragraph of Lesson 153 of our workbook, tells us that the ministers of God can never fail because the love and strength and peace that shine from them to all their brothers come from Him.  This is God’s gift to us.  Defenselessness is all we need to offer God in return for this assurance.  We never have any cause to get our panties in a knot over our brother’s opposition!  We share the message which has liberated us, and we trust in God for the result.  When I start getting huffed up, I am not offering God defenselessness.  I am letting my ego interfere with its judgments, condemnations, and vengeance.  

Jesus tells us that defenses cost us more than all the other dangers of the ego.  He says that the sense of threat the world encourages is so much deeper and so far beyond the frenzy and intensity of what we can imagine that we have no idea the devastation it wreaks.  When we go into defense against imagined fears, we are slaves to the ego and unaware of the havoc and suffering we bring about. 

Today, I had enough sense to listen to the Voice for God and not allow the ego to ruin my love and ultimate trust in my husband.  I was aware of how the ego wanted me to feel toward him, but I knew it was wrong. I was vigilant against the spiritually superior thoughts that the ego would have tricked me into entertaining.  The vision of Christ would never allow me to think more highly of myself than I think of James or anybody else for that matter.  I do not study the course to defend it or to use it for attack; I study it to be a light unto my path.

Love created me like Itself.  First Corinthians 13:4-7 reads:  Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.  Let Love be our guide!