I: The Last Step
- The creative power of God and His creations is limitless, but they are not in reciprocal relationship. You communicate fully with God, as He does with you. This is an ongoing process in which you share, and because you share it you are inspired to create like God. Yet in creation you are not in a reciprocal relation to God, since He created you, but you did not create Him. I have already told you that only in this respect your creative power differs from His. Even in this world there is a parallel. Parents give birth to children, but the children do not give birth to parents. They do, however, give birth to their children, and thus give birth as their parents do.
- If you created God and He created you, the Kingdom could not increase through its own creative thought. Creation would therefore be limited, and you would not be co-creators with God. As God’s creative thought proceeds from Him to you, so creative thought proceed from you to your creations. Only in this way can all creative power extend outward. God’s accomplishments are not yours. But yours are like His. He created the Sonship, and you increase it. You have the power to add to the Kingdom, though not to add to the Creator of the Kingdom. You claim this power when you become vigilant only for God and His Kingdom. By accepting this power is yours you have learned to remember what you are.
- Your creations belong in you, as you belong in God. You are part of God, as your sons are part of His Sons. To create is to love. Love extends outward simply because it cannot be contained. Being limitless it does not stop. It creates forever, but not in time. God’s creations have always been because He has always been. Your creations have always been because you can create only as God creates. Eternity is yours because He created you eternal.
- The ego, on the other hand, always demands reciprocal rights, because it is competitive rather than loving. It is always willing to strike a bargain, but it cannot understand that to be like another means that no bargains are possible. To gain you must give, not bargain. To bargain is to limit giving, and this is not God’s will. To will with God is to create like Him. God does not limit His gifts in any way. You are His gifts, and so your gifts must be like His. Your gifts to the Kingdom must be like His gifts to you.
- I gave only love to the Kingdom because I believed that was what I was. What you believe you are determines your gifts, and if God created you by extending Himself as you, you can only extend yourself as He did. Only joy increases forever since joy and eternity are inseparable. God extends outward beyond limits and beyond time, and you who are co-creator with Him extend His Kingdom forever and beyond limit. Eternity is the indelible stamp of creation. The eternal are in peace and joy forever.
- To think like God is to share His certainty of what you are, and to create like Him is to share the perfect love He shares with you. To this the Holy Spirit leads you, that your joy may be complete because the Kingdom of God is whole. I have said that the last step in the reawakening of knowledge is taken by God. This is true, but it is hard to explain in words because words are symbols, and nothing that is true need be explained. However, the Holy Spirit has the task of translating the useless into the useful, the meaningless into the meaningful, and the temporary into the timeless. He can therefore tell you something about this last step.
- God does not take steps, because His accomplishments are not gradual. He does not teach, because His creations are changeless. He does nothing last because He created first and for always. It must be understood that the word “first” as applied to Him is not a time concept. He is first in the sense that He is the first in the Holy Trinity Itself. He is the Prime Creator because He created His co-creators. Because He did, time applies neither to Him nor to what He created. The “last step” that God will take was therefore true in the beginning, is true now, and will be true forever. What is timeless is always there, because its being is eternally changeless. It does not change by increase, because it was forever created to increase. If you perceive it as not increasing you do not know what it is. You also do not know Who created it. God does not reveal this to you because it was never hidden. His light was never obscured because it is His Will to share it. How can what is fully shared be withheld and then revealed?[1]
Our ability to create is limitless, Jesus teaches for we are created by God and for God. God’s Voice is in us meaning that we can communicate fully with God as He does with us. Because of this communication, whether we are aware of it or not, we are inspired to be creators, we appreciate creative endeavors, we are, in our spiritual forms and in our human forms, both the contributors and recipients of God’s creation and ours. The only difference between us and God is that He created us, and we did not create Him. We might make up different versions of God, but we did not create God!
If we fall prey to the idea that we created God and He created us and we are in some kind of back and forth creating each other in a weird time loop, creation would be limited, we would not be co-creators with God. God’s creativity flows from Him to us, and this creative inspiration thus flows from us to our creations. Creative power extends and expands outward, it does not keep looping back upon itself. Likewise, God’s accomplishments are not ours but ours are like His. He created the Sonship; we increase it. When we become vigilant only for God and His Kingdom, we claim the power to increase His Kingdom; but of course we could never add to God, for God is everything and all there is. In our vigilance, we accept the creative thoughts of God and in so doing, we learn to remember what we really are.
In paragraph three, Jesus takes us beyond the confines of time. Our creations are like God’s creations, He tells us. Just as God’s creations have always been and ever will be, so are our creations – we are eternal creations just as our creations are eternal. Our creations, like God’s creations, belong in us as we belong in God.
What we create extends outward because loving thoughts cannot be contained – loving thoughts are limitless, they never stop, loving thoughts are not only the created, but they are also imbued with creativity, continuing to create throughout eternity. Fearful thoughts do not create. They tear apart and divide and splinter. They are bound in time because they do not meet the conditions of eternity.
We can always tell the difference between creativity and ego because ego will always demand reciprocation. Ego is competitive rather than loving. Ego does not realize the equality of being like one another – it will try to use even the gifts of God as bargaining tools. Jesus tells us that to truly gain, we must give, not make bargains. When we use the gifts of God to make bargains this will limit our giving. It is not God’s Will that we charge people for the message of Love. It is not God’s Will that we gather people around us and set ourselves up as a guru or master teacher to create a worshipful following for ourselves. As tempting as it may be that we use the gifts of God as a way to get famous, rich, or get our picture in the paper, making bargains with the ego would have us put a price tag on our teaching, making it available to some and not to others. It would make us feel “special,” and we would think it would be okay to charge people for our insights or think that we were more “intellectual” or spiritual than our brothers.
God does not limit His gifts in any way. We are His gifts, and our gifts must be like His. Our vigilance is for God and His Kingdom, not for ourselves, our church, our little study group, or our sacred texts. This means we share the gifts of God freely and without judgment.
What we believe we are will determine our gifts and we can only extend ourselves as God extended Himself to us. Jesus shared only love, for He believed He was love. Only when we begin to understand the love and devotion, the peace and the joy that God has and takes in creation, can we begin to extend His gifts to us to others. We are co-creators with God, and we extend His Kingdom forever – beyond the limits of time, flesh, and ego. We cannot extend condemnation. We cannot extend fear and hatred and loathing. We cannot extend flesh and blood and bone and gristle. We can only extend the eternal virtues of God – this is the stamp of creation. We must never teach or learn other versions of God than one of perfect love and devotion, undying patience and mercy toward those of us who dream a fearful dream, for fearful dreams are not creative, they are destructive, and they cannot last except in time.
When we think like God we share God’s certainty about what we are. We share the perfect love He shares with us. Holy Spirit teaches and leads us to this awareness and truth so that our joy may be complete even as the Kingdom of God is complete. As difficult as it may be to put the last step of our reawakening into words, it is the function of Holy Spirit within each one of us to find a way to tell us what we need to know about this last step, to prepare our hearts and minds, so that we may recognize the shift in consciousness that takes place right before we are taken beyond belief and beyond question, into the certainty and wholeness of God’s Kingdom.
In the last paragraph of today’s text reading, Jesus again expands our minds by speaking of the attributes of God. Outside the bounds of time, there are no steps, accomplishments are not gradual, there is no teaching – because God and His creations are changeless, knowing and having all. The changelessness of God does not change by increase because it was created to increase and if we do not see God as increasing, we do not yet fathom the concept of eternity nor do we yet know our Creator.
This needs no revelation – we have no need of any special light, awakening, or vision because God hides nothing from us. It is God’s Will to share His Will, His attributes, His Kingdom, His All. It is entirely up to us to decide when to put down all that would deceive us about Him. It is entirely up to us how much time we take to reach the conditions of the Kingdom – our consciousnesses beyond belief and ready to take the Last Step.
[1] A Course in Miracles. Chapter 7 The gifts of the kingdom I. The last step. Foundation for Inner Peace, Second Edition (1992).
For daily 2021 Workbook lessons visit www.i-choose-love.com courtesy of Linda R.
Audio credit: www.eckiefriar.com
the friar patch 