Part 1 Undoing the Way We See Things Now
REVIEW V God is Love, and therefore so am I.
LESSON 180
- (169) By grace I live. By grace I am released. God is but Love, and therefore so am I.
- (170) There is no cruelty in God and none in me. God is but Love, and therefore so am I.[1]
Daily Prayer for Review V:
Steady our feet, our Father. Let our doubts be quiet and our holy minds be still and speak to us. We have no words to give to You. We would but listen to Your Word and make it ours. Lead our practicing as does a father lead a child along a way he does not understand. Yet does he follow, sure that he is safe because his father leads the way for him.
So do we bring our practicing to You. And if we stumble, You will raise us up. If we forget the way, we count upon Your sure remembering. We wander off, but You will not forget to call us back. Quicken our footsteps now, that we may walk more certainly and quickly unto You. And we accept the Word You offer us to unify our practicing, as we review the thoughts that You have given us. In Jesus name. Amen.
Notes and Personal Application: As we say the words in Lesson 169’s lesson idea, realize that it is God’s Grace that has allowed us to leave His Kingdom in a dream state, but continue as we were created. It is His Grace, not the world’s technology, that has simulated the separation so that we can dream and dream again the lessons we must learn from leaving His Kingdom of Love and making a world which grows old in time, a world where nothing lasts, a world of preying upon Creation instead of loving Creation.
It is by God’s grace that the hell we have made is only a simulation, and it is God’s grace that we awaken to find that it is not real, that our lives do not end in death but in life everlasting, that we are released from the hell of our vain imaginings and return to our Father as pure and holy as when He created us.
Be thankful for God’s grace. Jesus tells us in lesson 169 that grace is not something that can be learned. Grace is not the goal of A Course in Miracles. However, the goal of our Course prepares us to accept God’s grace, to awaken from this dream of death and fear, to answer the call of God in our hearts and in our minds. Our Course lessons and the text of A Course in Miracles helps us to become aware of things we do not know about ourselves, readies us to accept another state of being completely different from the experience of our humanity. Our human brains cannot begin to grasp the meaning of oneness with God. And yet it is God’s grace which calls to us, to waken from the dream of separation and specialness in which we made the world. It is grace and the experiences that come from grace that allows us to live in the dream and be released from the dream; it is grace that allows us to share with others and see their release as well.
What better release than to realize the lesson idea presented in Lesson 170 – There is no cruelty in God and none in me. There is no meanness in God. The things we were taught about Him preparing a place of eternal happiness for the goody-goodies of the world and preparing a place of eternal fire and brimstone for the rest of us – are not the least bit true. One of the main reasons that Jesus was crucified on the cross was because He told the truth about God. He is our loving Father, the Good Shepherd, the One who cares about the sparrows. Our Father never ordained that we prey upon each other’s flesh, let alone demand blood and meat sacrifices to appease His rage. There is no cruelty in God and there is no cruelty in us.
If you have been worshipping a cruel god, today Jesus urges us to look at our beliefs with dispassion. Cruelty has no place in the character of God. God is God and nothing can stand against Him. If cruel god’s lips are smeared with blood and fire seems to burst forth from him, this god is an idol. It will never bring you everlasting joy, peace, and love. It cannot give you refuge. It has no real power. Cruel god is not your personal warrior and it will never vanquish your enemies. Gods of cruelty are humanity’s nightmares, made to keep you in fear and bondage and keep you from your Father’s love.
Recognizing this may be a shock to our systems, but it is our release from slavery. For until we see the cruel god for exactly what it is, we can not lay it aside and recognize our true God and His great and abiding love for us. We will continue to believe that cruelty can somehow defend us, save us, and make all our fears go away. We will continue to believe in a god that makes enemies of his creations and does not accept responsibility for the ways in which they went wrong. We will put our trust in fear and fear God instead of love Him.
However, when we see God as Love, we are no longer burdened by the world; we no longer look through its blind eyes, but we see with the vision of Christ. When we choose God instead of the false gods of cruelty and madness that the world’s religions offer us, our hearts and minds are filled with everlasting peace for when God is love, we are love. We can trust in Him. He will not let us to our own devices. He has a plan and Creation is restored.
Our prayer then becomes:
Dear Father, we are like You. We are not cruel because You are not cruel. Your peace is ours. When others point their fingers in accusation of how mean we are, how insensitive, how racist, and sexist and unjust – we are not tempted to agree with them, for we know who we are and what we are in You. We bless the world. We make our brothers one with us. We fulfill our function in Your plan of salvation as we have received it from You. We give thanks for all of Your creation because in Creation we see Your glory, and in Creation we find our peace. We are holy because Your holiness has set us free from the deceptions and temptations of the world and all that would bind us to brutal humanity. Thank you, Father. In Jesus name. Amen.
[1] A Course in Miracles. Workbook for Students. Lesson 180. Foundation for Inner Peace, Second Edition (1992).
Audio credit: http://www.eckiefriar.com
the friar patch 