PART II. SECTION 7. What is the Holy Spirit?
Lesson 283 My True Identity Abides in You
- Father, I made an image of myself, and it is this I call the Son of God. Yet is creation as it always was, for Your creation is unchangeable. Let me not worship idols. I am he my Father loves. My holiness remains the light of Heaven and the Love of God. Is not what is beloved of You secure? Is not the light of Heaven infinite? Is not Your Son my true Identity, when You created everything that is?
- Now are we one in shared Identity, with God our Father as our only Source, and everything created part of us. And so we offer blessing to all things, uniting lovingly with all the world, which our forgiveness has made one with us.[1]
Jesus tells us today that the ego that each one of us makes as a substitute for our holy self is an idol. While we may think of our bodies and our egos as a creation of God, as His Son, the Lord informs us today in no uncertain terms that our bodies and the self-centered, attention-seeking, worried and fragile little ego that we call “myself,” in the world is not God’s Creation. God’s creation is unchangeable. God’s creation is perfect, holy, and whole. The only thing of God about us is our reality in Christ, our Holy Self, our Holy Spirit. Invisible to the flesh eyes, at the core of our very being, is the God in us, His unchanging Kingdom, our reality, our salvation, our truth. Jesus says that we light up heaven, that we are the Love of God, that we are His Son.
Today we are to stop worshiping and bowing down to the images that we made in the separated world to replace the Kingdom of God. Jesus asks us to see ourselves through His eyes. During this time of devotion, we reach beyond our idols – we stop devoting ourselves to them and instead devote this time to God and to the reality of who and what we are in Christ. My reality in Christ is not based on being white or female or going on 62 years old! My reality in Christ is not based on my social security or insecurity. My reality in God is not based upon my handicaps or my health, my poverty or my wealth, my earthly achievements or lack of accomplishment. My reality in God just is – my holiness and your holiness together light up heaven, brother! We are the love of God. Our true identity abides in God.
The Shepherd’s Psalm is easily the most beloved of them all – The Lord is my Shepherd, David writes, I shall not want… What could we possibly want when we are He whom God loves? When we are no longer separate little chards of the whole, lost and adrift and yearning for connection and completeness but as one in Him, we no longer identify with our penises or vaginas, our blackness or whiteness, our fatherland or motherland, our religions or traditions. None of that matters anymore for we know ourselves as spirit and not flesh, as One in Him.
As hard as that may be for us to imagine, Christ teaches us to use our devotional habit to practice the teachings of forgiveness, to offer blessing, to deepen our understanding, and prepare our minds for return to God.
Today practice relating to yourself and to others as Beings who are the love of God. Merrily look beyond the mistakes and egoism that our brothers display and imagine them as perfect Sons of God, holy beings of light, of love, of peace and joy. Go out on a limb and laugh at insults with the freedom of one who knows the truth; give tender thoughts to those who are cruel; be generous to those who are stingy. We forgive and bless them one and all because we are forgiven, we are love, with Christ we are the Son of God.
[1] A Course In Miracles. Workbook for Students. Lesson 283. Foundation for Inner Peace, Second Edition (1992). p. 439.
Audio credit: the friar patch @ http://www.eckiefriar.com
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