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Study of the Text, Chapter 9, I. The Acceptance of the Atonement, P 5. 12-3-14

I. The Acceptance of Reality, P 5
5 I have emphasized many times that the Holy Spirit will never call upon you to sacrifice anything. But if you ask the sacrifice of reality of yourself, the Holy Spirit must remind you that this is not God’s Will because it is not yours. There is no difference between your will and God’s. If you did not have a split mind, you would recognize that willing is salvation because it is communication.

I’m going to consider the idea of willing is communication when I look at the next paragraph where Jesus says more about it. Right now my mind is focused on the idea of sacrifice and the idea of my will and God’s Will being the same.

I have always thought that God was asking me to sacrifice. This has been going on all my life. Sacrificing for God was strongly emphasized when I was a Catholic, not that I needed any encouragement to believe in sacrifice, but through Catholicism sacrifice became confused with love of God in my mind. In reality, sacrifice is related not to love of God, but to the fear of God.

Slowly, through the study of ACIM, I have learned that God does not want my sacrifice. The idea of sacrifice is a sticky mess in my mind though, and I still notice the belief cropping up so it is still there, though not as strongly believed as before, and denied as truth when I notice it. If God wanted my sacrifice, He would not be Love.

The belief that is hardest to release is the belief the Holy Spirit is asking me to sacrifice the world and my own self in order to be saved. The confusion occurs because, while He does encourage me to give up the world and the ego self, He is also teaching me that this is no sacrifice, and up until now I just wasn’t buying it. There was still this corner of my mind where insanity reigns, and I think it is better to rule the asylum than to be one with God. Well, it is still there but it is a shrinking space.

In this part of the mind, the ego insists that with just a little more time the world can be improved upon and I will finally get what I want. No matter that it has been saying this for eons, and no matter that it can’t articulate exactly what it is I want or how that task will be accomplished. The ego mind is insistent that giving up on the separation idea is loss.

As a concept, I have already given up on the separation idea, and now I am just looking at the many forms of the idea in my mind and life, and realizing that I don’t want it anymore. I am learning through contrast that it is no sacrifice to let it all go. I have been doing this a thought at a time, a situation at a time, a relationship at a time, but the lesson is being generalized and I am much closer to letting go of the idea that I am ever being asked to sacrifice. I am finally realizing that there is nothing here worth keeping so how could it be that letting it go would be a sacrifice.

Which brings me naturally to the next idea; God’s Will is my will. We share the same will, God and I. This separate ego will is a toy I have played with, not what I am. I am one with God and so I am one with His Will. That is the only will I have, and as I let go of the belief I am being asked to sacrifice my own will for God’s, I become more eager for the truth.

I have become less protective of the ego will, and more willing to accept my own true will. Now the idea of my will being overcome by God’s Will no longer frightens me because I realize that is not what is happening. I am, instead, simply returning to my own will, which is returning to God’s Will. I’m still allowing this to be untangled in my mind, but it will go faster now that I am no longer afraid of it.

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