II. SECTION 10. What is the Last Judgment?
Lesson 313. Now let a new perception come to me.
- Father, there is a vision which beholds all things as sinless, so that fear has gone, and where it was is love invited in. And love will come whenever it is asked. This vision is Your gift. The eyes of Christ look on a world forgiven. In His sight are all its sins forgiven, for He sees no sin in anything He looks upon. Now let His true perception come to me, that I may waken from the dream of sin and look within upon my sinlessness, which You have kept completely undefiled upon the altar to Your holy Son, the Self with Which I would identify.
- Let us today behold each other in the sight of Christ. How beautiful we are! How holy and how loving! Brother, come and join with me today. We save the world when we have joined. For in our vision it becomes as holy as the light in us.[1]
Today we pray for a new perception, we ask Love to come. Jesus assures us that Love is keenly responsive to our invitation and always responds to our call. In our lives where hateful, dishonest relationships have wreaked their jabs upon us, leaving us afraid and alone, spiteful and resentful, we instead invite Love to come with a new vision, the vision that Christ has for the world.
When we take our rightful place in the return of Christ, we look beyond the darkness and we see His vision for the world. In Christ’s vision we walk in peace and harmony. We love one another. We tell the truth. We depend upon each other in perfect trust and trustworthiness. In ego world, we see relationships fraught with the meanness of inequality, the abuse of power and control, the poor who hate the rich and the rich who despise the poor. Christ is not asking us to deny the darkness; He takes us through the shadow to teach us of the futility and meaningless, the big zero of the separation. Keep our eyes open and learn all we can – and yet call upon Love to give us Christ’s vision for the world so that we do not get caught up in the nightmare and sink into the blackhole of its despair.
Let us use our holy imaginations to get past the world we see with our eyes and hear with our ears. Let us get past the petty grudges and longstanding grievances that would hide our loveliness and goodwill. We can put our jealousies, greed, and sense of injustice down and ask Holy Spirit to translate them into love for our brothers. We refuse to judge Creation because this is not Creation, this is miscreation, and it is not for us to judge or condemn. We are asked only to let a new perception come to us and ask for Christ’s vision to come alive in our minds, hearts, and lives.
How beautiful are my enemies in the sight of Christ. How wholesome and loving, holy and pure are their eternal souls. We can join with our enemies when we accept the vision of Christ and get past the world, the ego, the dark, disturbed personality quirks and practices that define us here. The boasters and show-offs, the liars and thieves, the cheaters and wife-beaters – all have their place in ego world. There is nothing beautiful or pure to set our gaze upon. it seems only natural that we should despise them and cast them off as beyond redemption. And yet we don’t know the whole story, Jesus says. We have judged before we perceived. We have condemned because we chose not to see with the vision of Christ. We have set ourselves up as judge and jury, God and the all-seeing Holy Spirit and would therefore condemn them and ourselves to hell.
We ask that Christ gives us His vision. Let no harsh and mean judgments toward this
one or that one fill our mind but let us see our enemies and frenemies with a
new perception – the sight of Christ.
[1] A Course In Miracles, Workbook for Students, 313. Now let a new…Foundation for Inner Peace, Second Edition, p. 457
