Part 1 Undoing the Way We See Things Now

REVIEW V God is Love, and therefore so am I.

LESSON 180

1. (169)  By grace I live. By grace I am released.  God is but Love, and therefore so am I.
2. (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

Part 1 Undoing the Way We See Things Now

REVIEW V God is Love, and therefore so am I.

LESSON 179

1. (167)  There is one life, and that I share with God.  God is but Love, and therefore so am I.
2. (168)  Your grace is given me.  I claim it now.  God is but Love, and therefore so am I.[1]

Daily Prayer for Review:

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.

Personal Notes and Application:  As we review Lesson 167, There is one life and that I share with God, Jesus reminds us that it does not matter that there appears to be death in this world – it simply does not exist.  Nothing in time is real – it passes away into nothingness as soon as it begins – it is impossible for anything to really exist in time because time itself is not real.  Our whole experiences in the world of time then, can be likened to a dream, an imaginary state, a virtual reality where once awakened, the mind, our eternal spirits, continue as we always have – safe in the one life that we share with God. 

Jesus calls upon us to wake up to this fact.  We were created in unity of life, He reminds us, nothing, not even death can separate us from the Source of life from which we came.  As we wake up and accept the truth about ourselves, about God, about our Holiness in Christ we no longer need to be coaxed or persuaded into forsaking death in all its forms – we have no interest in it and we no longer believe in the reality of anything that does not pertain to our life in God.

In Lesson 168, we claim the grace that God gives us.  He is our Father.  He is available to us.  He answers when we call.  We call to Him because we know His Love and are certain of His devotion to us.  No longer do we try to serve a god we fear, someone we must grovel before and chastise our humanity.  There is no god who holds our mistakes against us, who terrorizes us with thoughts of hell and damnation, who would let His Son be tortured throughout eternity.  These are lies that are taught to us to control and manipulate us, to keep us from our true heritage in God, to keep us from knowing and experiencing His grace. 

God’s gift of grace restores the memory of Him to our sleeping minds, God’s gift of grace restores the certainty of the meaning of His love.  Ask Him today to give you the means by which this world will disappear, and vision will come.  And after vision, Jesus promises, we will know.  It is God’s grace that gives us light that covers our world with love.  We can watch every single fear disappear from every face as hearts rise up and take the light as their own. 

God’s grace is ours.  We claim it today. 

We come to you, Father.  And You come to those who ask.  We are the Son You love.  In Jesus name.  Amen.

[1] A Course in Miracles. Workbook for Students. Lesson 179. Foundation for Inner Peace, Second Edition (1992).

Audio credit: http://www.eckiefriar.com

Part 1 Undoing the Way We See Things Now

REVIEW V God is Love, and therefore so am I.

LESSON 178

1. (165)  Let not my mind deny the Thought of God. God is but Love, and therefore so am I.
2. (166)  I am entrusted with the gifts of God.  God is but Love, and therefore so am I.[1]

Daily Prayer for Review:

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.

Personal Notes and Application:  As we review Lesson 165 today, let us remember where our safety and peace, our joy and healing, our peace of mind, our rest, and our calm awakening abide!  In order to have the gifts of God, we must abandon all else as worthless in comparison to them.  To keep our blessings from our Father, we must make sure that we keep our mind focused upon and abiding in the Thought of God. 

All around our physical life in this world are temptations to deny the Thought of God.  On Friday, one of my cousins whom I was so close to as a little girl, was killed instantly in a head-on car crash.  Donnie was one of my best friends as a preschooler.  I can still remember spending the night at his house and getting off the school bus at each other’s houses.  We played for hours in the sandbox and sitting at the kitchen table playing with homemade dough.  In first grade, I got into trouble for helping him with his worksheets – I had been taught to help my neighbors and the teacher had not explained the concept of cheating to either one of us.  Donnie and I grew apart over the years – he had his life and I had mine, but once in a while, when we were outside working, he would stop as he was going by in his dark blue truck just to chat.  Now he has died, suddenly and what would seem like tragically.  His days on earth as a son, father, uncle, cousin, and friend are over and he will be missed greatly by those who loved and depended upon him. 

And yet, Jesus tells us that we are not to let thoughts of death and misery obscure the perfect happiness and eternal life that our Father has for us.  We are not to let the world tempt us to see through the eyes of the stranger, who would have us sob and groan over our dearly departed loved ones, but rather hold fast and be happy because we see with the vision of Christ. 

Heaven is ours for the asking – right now, today.  It comes whether we believe in it or not.  There is no trick to this.  Christ is not holding out Heaven and then taking it back because we do not believe in it enough.  We simply ask and it is given to us.  The faith lies in the asking.  We say to our Father, You are Reality and therefore this world and all that is in it, cannot be real.  The only thing that is real about this world is that it is a simulation, it is a trick to believe in a God we must fear instead of Love.  We want reality, Lord.  We want Heaven because we are tired of living in the lie of fear rather than the truth of love. 

When we accept God’s Heaven there is nothing on earth that can induce us to give it up.  The world has nothing that we want or need.  We see the world of time for what it is.  We are blind to its dark magic!  We know the end of every story here, every desire, every false judgment and harsh condemnation.  Like Christ, we become the saviors of the world.  We live in a state of such abundance that the depravities and the deprivations of this world can no longer trick us into denying thoughts of God. 

Our daily lessons helps us to remove all doubts which we have in God and in our certainty of His care.  We no longer fear our Father, for we know Him, and we love Him, and we know His love and devotion toward us.  We keep our thoughts fixed upon Him for our thoughts are meaningless without Him.  The worries and concerns, the births and the deaths, weddings and funerals, ups and downs and ins and outs of this world can no longer affect our trust in Him. 

As we review the next lesson idea, we realize that we can forego this world, because we have been entrusted with the gifts of God.  God’s trust in us has no limit.  He knows us as we really are.  He is not deceived by what the world has made of us.  He is not tempted to believe the lies of the ego or the ravages of time.  He knows that He is God and God’s Will must be done.  When we realize that He did not make this world, that this world is nothing but a simulation, a perverted dream, an imagined playground for all that can never be of God and therefore never be real – we have uncovered the truth of the matter. 

We know the world is not our home.  We may wander around in it for awhile until we come to our senses and like the Prodigal, head back to the place where we belong, where we are safe, where we are certain, where we know who and what we are now and forever. 

God calls to us.  He walks with us.  He knows who we are and what we are even when we have forgotten.  He knows Who He is in relation to us and knows that we are like Him.

This is the gift of God, and this is the gift we accept and share freely with Creation.  We share that God is Love.  We share that the world and all that is in it is not His Will and this is not His Creation.  We share that our humanity is not salvageable, and we do not want it to be.  We share that our spirits are made in God’s image and that happiness comes to us as we become one with Christ and recognize God’s gifts to us.  We are filled with joy, God’s joy, and now we go to share it with the world. 

[1] A Course in Miracles. Workbook for Students. Lesson 178. Foundation for Inner Peace, Second Edition (1992).

Audio credit: http://www.eckiefriar.com

Part 1 Undoing the Way We See Things Now

REVIEW V God is Love, and therefore so am I.

LESSON 176

1. (161)  Give me your blessing, holy Son of God. God is but Love, and therefore so am I.
2. (162)  I am as God created 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.

Personal Notes and Application:  We are taking a stand against our anger toward others when we ask them for a blessing and refer to them as a holy Son of God.  In this lesson we learned that one brother stands for all brothers, for in God we are one.  In our bodies, we seem separate and distinct; in God’s eyes we are one and we are love.  In bodies, we are colored in different shades of skin, eyes, and hair.  Our body structures are all slightly different.  We are prone to like and trust others who look and smell and share similar traits; to dislike and distrust those who look and smell and have different traits than us.  Politically, people want to deny this, to say that this is a condition that must be learned, but this is simply not so, and we need to be truthful about it in order to face the truth about humanity.  We have evolved to protect and cherish that which is like us and to war against that which is not like us. 

Today Jesus is asking us to go beyond our evolved human forms – our cherished grudges, to step out of the fear and anger toward others whom we have blamed and projected all manner of evil upon.  He requires that we choose one brother in particular to symbolize those who have caused us pain and ask this holy Son of God to bless us.  When we ask this symbol for a blessing, we are asking of him our salvation.  As we picture his face, his hands and feet, his clothing, his gestures we are to recognize that the blame and shame we are imagining about him conceals Christ from us.  We are to say to our symbolic holy brother:  Give me your blessing, O Holy Son of God.  I would behold you with the eyes of Christ and see my perfect sinlessness in you.

There were all these people that I had grudges and resentments toward.  I blamed my mother for ruining me as a child with her madness and inappropriate practices and teachings. I blamed my sister for spreading discord in the family, holding me accountable for her own failings to love and to accept certain people.  I blamed my first husband for abandoning me and leaving me with a child to raise; I blamed my beloved niece for running off with her jailbird lover when my daughter died, leaving me worried, while beside myself with grief; I blamed an ex-boyfriend for misleading me with his vows of eternal love while all the while he was consorting with a couple of married women on the side!  There were countless others who paraded about in my mind as my sworn enemies, friends who had lied to me, family members who had mocked my efforts to become something, coworkers who took credit for my work, people who seemed intent on keeping me in a place where they could control and manipulate me.  There were those who had snubbed me, clubbed me, or dubbed me as less than.   It was difficult to find one person to symbolize them all, but I finally settled upon one and she became my savior, she turned from devil into Christ simply by performing this exercise.  When we see another with the vision of Christ, we realize that we are all the Son of God, at one with Christ, that salvation does not separate us, but rather unites us. 

So lesson idea 162, “I am as God created me,” naturally follows.  If those who have caused me to be angry and fearful are one with Christ, I am also as God created me – holy, pure, sinless, and good.  I am not my human form.  I am not the character that my human form became.  I am not the role that it performed.  Me and the stranger that would usurp my identity are not one!  I am innocent, not because I allowed the stranger to convince me to forget who I am or because I let the stranger’s wrong ideas lead me astray.  I am innocent because it is a simulation, God made time as a means for us to learn the lessons of separation without it affecting our eternal Selves.

Nothing can change the fact that I am as God created me.  These words dispel the dark night; dawn has come to bless the world.  When I recognize who I am in Christ, you recognize who you are.  When you recognize who you are in Christ, the world recognizes it as well.  This is how salvation works.  Let the words of today’s lesson ring through our minds and hearts – dispelling the dark dream and welcoming the light. 

[1] A Course in Miracles. Workbook for Students. Lesson 176. Foundation for Inner Peace, Second Edition (1992).

Audio credit: http://www.eckiefriar.com

Part 1 Undoing the Way We See Things Now

REVIEW V God is Love, and therefore so am I.

LESSON 175

1. (159)  I give the miracles I have received.  God is but Love, and therefore so am I.
2. (160) I am at home. Fear is the stranger here.  God is but Love, and therefore so am I.[1]

Daily Prayer for Review:

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.

Personal Notes and Application:  This morning when I woke up, there were all the thoughts from dreams, the past, and all the chores waiting me for the day all in a jumble.  The aches and pains from yesterday still with me, the tired muscles, the sore back… Garden, they say.  It is so healthful, they say, but didn’t I go and get carried away with it?  Now coupled with all the other projects we have going on around this place, I am barely able to move without something hurting.

Yet beyond the pain is such happiness and joy and excitement.  There is this love of life, this deep forgiveness for all the taxes and levies against it, the respect and awe of the miracle of it all, the joy of the green sprouts pushing up through the dirt, the wilted leaves coming alive with a drink of water, the sweet green marbles tucked all in a row within a pod. 

In lesson 159, Jesus says that the only way we can understand that we are healed is when we heal others; the only way we accept forgiveness is when we forgive others, that miracles can only be experienced when we give them to others. 

The vision of Christ is the miracle in which all miracles are born.  Jesus tells us that the vision of Christ is the bond where giver and receiver are united here on earth as they are in Heaven.  When we look upon Creation, including ourselves, with the eyes of Christ, we are sinless.  There is no grudge. There is nothing but love and forgiveness.  This has been the most difficult thing for my mind to wrap itself around, but once I got it, I am free from the grudges, resentments, and stress that had plagued me for years. 

I knew that I wanted to love and to be loved, but I did not know how to love people – including myself.  I liked others when they behaved themselves and were nice to me; I did not like them when they misbehaved and disappointed me.  Simple and uncomplicated, it was the only way I could manage relationships.  To love people was to be in a constant state of forgiveness toward them, and try as I might, it seemed impossible; I could not cope.

The vision of Christ changes this completely.  We no longer require ourselves to go through the ups and downs of special relationships designed to keep us trapped in forms and fictionalized versions of “love.”  As we free ourselves of the tentacles of what poses for love in this world, we are free to love Creation in a state of forgiveness, for with the vision of Christ, we know that this world means nothing.  All of its “likes” and “dislikes,” its little hatreds, its wars and its peace, its marriages and divorces, its mean girls and bad boys, its high priests and lowly prophetesses, its dichotomies and opposites, its justice and injustice is only a distorted, perverted echo of what is real and holy and forever. 

As we ask for and receive the vision of Christ, the world can no longer get to us.  Oh, we might flare up now and again to drive the moneychangers out of the temple, but the aches and pains, the trials, and tribulations of a dream, stay in the dream.  We know it is not real.  We know that it is our desire for specialness and spite which is responsible for all this.  We know that giving up that desire and exchanging it for the vision of Christ is the wake-up call.  This is the source of all miracles.  This is what we share in order to experience.  Share this vision with someone today!

In reviewing lesson 160 we are reminded that fear is no longer the meaning of our being.  We are no longer driven to survive in the dog-eat-dog world of humanity, snapping and snarling over the limited resources, forming tribes and clans to war against those who are different from us.  When we give up fear, we give up our defenses against the world.  When we give up our defenses against the world, we forgive it for its idea of separateness, its desire to be special, to hoard, to form cliques and clubs, to love this one and despise that one.  We forgive it everything because it was all a mistake, a bad idea, a little wrinkle in eternity that evolved in time and will end in time.

In our minds then, fear is a stranger.  We are no longer afraid.  The shortages, the injustices, the struggles for dominance and power, the blacks against the whites and the whites against the blacks, the males against the females and the females against the males, the poor against the rich and the rich against the poor – none of it matters – it is a dream of death, and it ends when we open our eyes and see it for what it is. 

While our forms may be in the world, our minds are at home, at one with God.  At home with God, we begin to understand our experience in the separation through the eyes of Christ who has awakened us.  Our stint in the madhouse of opposites is over!  For now we know who and what we are in Him.   

[1] A Course in Miracles. Workbook for Students. Lesson 175. Foundation for Inner Peace, Second Edition (1992).

Audio credit: http://www.eckiefriar.com

Part 1 Undoing the Way We See Things Now

REVIEW V God is Love, and therefore so am I.

LESSON 174

1. (157)  Into His Presence would I enter now.  God is but Love, and therefore so am I.
2. (158) Today I learn to give as I receive.  God is but Love, and therefore so am I.[1]

Daily Prayer for Review:

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.

Personal Notes and Application:  Today we teach this lesson to learn this lesson.  Lesson 157 reminds us that it is in quietness and trust that we experience the light of Heaven and hear the echoes of eternity.  In the clamor and glamour of the world our mind is beset by celebrations that end in death, but it is the joy of life we learn to feel in our silent practice, our sacred devotion, our love, and desire for God. 

Lesson 157 reminds us to clear the inner altar of our mind of all the cluttered thoughts and distractions that the world fills it with.  Our minds become a place of serenity and peace as we sweep its altar clear of the world’s senseless distractions. Its junky trinkets and false charms no longer hold any meaning to our quiet, holy minds and Christ’s presence becomes real to us; His face smiles upon us and does not fade away from our vision. He reveals to us, here in the world of form and fiction, that which transcends and goes beyond all words and vision.  These foretastes of Heaven cannot be shared – they were not taught to us, for they are our memories of the place from which we came before our earthly exile.  There we have no questions about who and what we are because we know our Maker.  We have no question of where we came from for we are home where we belong, no longer sifting through the shifting sands of human striving and conniving.  There the theme of Review V is a given:  God is Love and therefore so am I!

In review of Lesson 158, we learn to give as we receive.  When we receive God’s love, we give God’s love.  No longer are we who we thought we were, a blighted, bloated ego, an overripe fruit rotting on the vine, twisted with pain and sorrow, spite and vengeance.  We are the Sons of God, united with Christ. We are as God created us, our humanity is but a spell, an illusion of splintered brotherhood, unholy sonship at war with one another and ourselves.  When we recognize our true identity, we can no longer look to humanity for our answer, for the cure, to make right of all its wrongs.  We can no longer hold ourselves or others accountable for what we have done and what we continue to do in darkness – for we are groping about doing the best we can to survive another day in a world designed to grind our bones to make its bread.  With this understanding of the world forgiveness comes naturally and graciously.  We can say with certainty, “It is forgiven.  It never happened.  It never was,” because what happens in a dream stays in a dream and does not affect reality one iota. 

When we remember who we are and what we are, we remind others of who they are and what they are.  When we wake up; others wake up.  We do not have to shake them awake.  We have no need to scream in their ear, preach endless sermons, quote scriptures, or get down on our knees and grovel before God for their salvation.  Our salvation is a given; God never abandons His Creations, or He would not be Love. Our only choice in the matter is how long we choose to spend spinning our wheels in time, trying to find another way than Love’s way. 

We give as we receive, with grace and love and forbearance.  God is love, and therefore so are we. 

[1] A Course in Miracles. Workbook for Students. Lesson 174. Foundation for Inner Peace, Second Edition (1992).

Audio credit: http://www.eckiefriar.com

Part 1 Undoing the Way We See Things Now

REVIEW V God is Love, and therefore so am I.

LESSON 173

1. (155)  I will step back and let Him lead the way.  God is but Love, and therefore so am I.
2. (156) I walk with God in perfect holiness.  God is but Love, and therefore so am I.[1]

Daily Prayer for Review:

Personal Notes and Application:  Dear Father, we thank you for showing us to step back and let You lead the way.  We cannot do this apart from You.  We know nothing except through You.  Thank you for showing us the way through this human experience, of being born into a physical form, of learning the ropes of a game that is not holy because it is not based upon love.  Thank You, Father, for reminding us of our identity in You.  Here we are as You created us; here Your love has never left our consciousness; here we are united with You and all Creation; here we walk with You in perfect holiness.  Christ leads the way to our return to You.  

[1] A Course in Miracles. Workbook for Students. Lesson 173. Foundation for Inner Peace, Second Edition (1992).

Audio credit: http://www.eckiefriar.com

Part 1 Undoing the Way We See Things Now

REVIEW V God is Love, and therefore so am I.

LESSON 172

1. (153)  In my defenselessness my safety lies.  God is but Love, and therefore so am I.
2. (154)  I am among the ministers of God.  God is but Love, and therefore so am I.[1]

Daily Prayer for Review:

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.

Personal Notes and Application:  In Lesson 153, Jesus told us that it is in our defenseless where our safety lies.  In our study group recently we were talking about the defenses of the world.  When we come in to the world, vulnerable and at the mercy of our parents and all the older, stronger people around us, we must learn the ropes, the rules, the ways things roll in this confusing, upside-down version of the place from which we came.  Some of us learn the lessons of this world earlier than others, but we all must learn them because our very survival depends upon them.  Our defenses ensure that we are kept safe and feel secure in the face of those who would keep us unsafe and insecure.  We learn to play the game, we learn the perimeters, we learn skills and maneuvers, manipulations and techniques that help us to get what we want and need from the world. 

And then Jesus comes along and tells us that indeed it is our defenseless that saves us.  Salvation is a game that happy children play.  A game designed by a Creator who loves His Creations and who replaces all their guilts, fears, shame, and blame with a joyous game which bring an end to all their need of defense.  Everyone who plays the game of salvation wins and all who win ensures the gain to all.  Nobody who plays the happy game of salvation has any desire to play any other game – fear is gone, defenses are seen as needlessly cumbersome, and we realize that this world and all its disappointments, contradictions, lies, and shortcomings is nothing but a farce, a place where the Sons of God come until they remember who and what they really are.  The sea of humanity is but a mistaken dream, a simulated reality in which that which was and is and always will be one could be splintered, separated, and severed.   

Christ gives us our salvation; defenselessness is all we give in return.  We lay aside our need to protect that which we never were, to look on Christ and become one with God.

God is only Love and therefore so am I.

In lesson 154 we accept our function as ministers of God.  We no longer see ourselves as the sinful, shipwrecked fools that the ego would have us be, ashamed and sorrowful, contrite, and unworthy.  We are Sons of God and we are called, each and every one of us, to receive and to give the messages of God.  Jesus tells us in this lesson that we do not know that we have received the messages from God until we share them.  Many times we cause the time of sorrow and suffering to extend needlessly because we are fooled into thinking that we are not worthy to call ourselves ministers of God.  Who would listen to us after the mess we have made of things?  We may feel ourselves ill educated, unprepared, too worldly, selfish, and ruined to believe that God would have any use of us.  And yet none of that matters.  Our human experience does not define us.  There is nothing anybody could say or do to earn more or be meted less of God’s love.  God created our holy Selves and our holy Selves are in His safekeeping – nothing that we experience in the world can change this fact.  The world does its best to keep this fact from our awareness.  The world will tell us all kinds of lies about ourselves; the world will teach us perverted gospels and distorted holy books that promote God as a god of ill-intent, who would create a suffering world full of craven, fleshy creatures intent upon preying upon each other’s meat.  Many of our spiritual paths, intentionally or unintentionally, lead us down this same path – emphasizing our humanity, obscuring our true and godly Selves. 

We cannot be true ministers of God until we recognize that we are free of our humanity, our sinful natures, our lusty drives, our craven hungers, and thirsts that pose as pleasures and yet hold us captive to that which is doomed to decay.  In paragraph 13 of our lesson, we learn that our lesson is stated this way:

“I am among the ministers of God, and I am grateful that I have the means by which to recognize that I am free.” 

We have changed our mind about who and what we really are.  We will accept our only real function in the world and gladly share the gospel of Christ.  We are not flesh and blood; we are spirit and we are one with God. 

[1] A Course in Miracles. Workbook for Students. Lesson 172. Foundation for Inner Peace, Second Edition (1992).

Audio credit: http://www.eckiefriar.com