Daily Inspiration for Living A Course in Miracles

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Forgiveness Reveals God’s Gift of Love

Forgiveness lets me know that minds are joined.

Forgiveness is the means appointed for perception’s ending. Knowledge is restored after perception first is changed, and then gives way entirely to what remains forever past its highest reach. For sights and sounds, at best, can serve but to recall the memory that lies beyond them all. Forgiveness sweeps away distortions, and opens the hidden altar to the truth. Its lilies shine into the mind, and call it to return and look within, to find what it has vainly sought without. For here, and only here, is peace of mind restored, for this the dwelling place of God Himself.

In quiet may forgiveness wipe away my dreams of separation and of sin. Then let me, Father, look within, and find Your promise of my sinlessness is kept; Your Word remains unchanged within my mind, Your Love is still abiding in my heart. (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 336, W-pII.336. See also ACIM Lesson 336 Insights.)

The ego uses perception as a means to make the illusion of separation seem real. This is an important tool in the ego’s bag of tricks to keep our allegiance to its denial of Love’s oneness. Perception makes it appear that we can perceive others as guilty without retaining guilt in ourselves. But this is just a disguise for the ego’s goal to make guilt real and permanent.

The Holy Spirit has another use for perception. Forgiveness, under the Holy Spirit’s direction, shows us a perception beyond the ego’s forms to the innocence of the face of Christ. Christ is in every brother. It is the symbol of our unbreakable unity with God. It is this perception that looks past guilt to the Love that is the truth.

We open to the Holy Spirit’s perception by looking within our mind with willingness to set aside or step back from what we have believed about our world. We step back by pausing to welcome the Presence of Peace in our mind. Peace is our natural state. It is the condition in which our true Self, the Holy Spirit, resides. From this state of peace we understand that only Love is real. We forgive the ego’s barriers to Love. Our heart overflows with God’s Love.

© 2019, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Taking the Path of Return to Love

I am affected only by my thoughts.

It needs but this to let salvation come to all the world. For in this single thought is everyone released at last from fear. Now has he learned that no one frightens him, and nothing can endanger him. He has no enemies, and he is safe from all external things. His thoughts can frighten him, but since these thoughts belong to him alone, he has the power to change them and exchange each fear thought for a happy thought of love. He crucified himself. Yet God has planned that His beloved Son will be redeemed.

Your plan is sure, my Father,—only Yours. All other plans will fail. And I will have thoughts that will frighten me, until I learn that You have given me the only Thought that leads me to salvation. Mine alone will fail, and lead me nowhere. But the Thought You gave me promises to lead me home, because it holds Your promise to Your Son.” (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 339, W-pII.339. See also ACIM Lesson 339 Insights.)

Forgiveness is the Thought that leads to our salvation, to freedom from fear and guilt, and to the remembrance of the changeless Love we were created to be. In reality, nothing but Love exists. Fear and guilt come only from belief in being separate from Love. We chose to accept this belief and we can choose once again to let it go.

Our long established habit of thinking thoughts of fear and guilt keeps us bound to the ego thought system. Today we can take a step to free ourselves from this bondage. With each fearful or guilty thought we practice reminding ourselves:

I have the power to exchange this thought for a happy thought of Love.

This is how we forgive ourselves and our brothers for the mistaken belief that it’s possible to lose our eternal connection with our Creator. This practice sets us on the path of return to Love.

© 2019, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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The Path Leading Us Back to Love

I choose to see my brother’s sinlessness.

Forgiveness is a choice. I never see my brother as he is, for that is far beyond perception. What I see in him is merely what I wish to see, because it stands for what I want to be the truth. It is to this alone that I respond, however much I seem to be impelled by outside happenings. I choose to see what I would look upon, and this I see, and only this. My brother’s sinlessness shows me that I would look upon my own. And I will see it, having chosen to behold my brother in its holy light.

What could restore Your memory to me, except to see my brother’s sinlessness? His holiness reminds me that he was created one with me, and like myself. In him I find my Self, and in Your Son I find the memory of You as well. (W-pII.335)

The body is an instrument for perception. Everything it sees, hears or feels is limited to the dream of separation. Perception cannot reach beyond the world of form. Forgiveness is the means to bring our perceptions to the point that perception is no longer needed or wanted. Forgiveness recognizes the world as having no meaning of its own and lets go of the meaning we have given it through our belief in separation. Forgiveness releases us from the dream of fear and guilt.

Each time we accept the Holy Spirit’s help to see past appearances in the world to the presence of Love’s innocence, we move closer to the end of fear. We take another step in the undoing of the dream and the acceptance of the unity of Love that joins us with our brothers and our Creator.

Today we practice asking for the Holy Spirit’s help to see all things as He sees them. We choose the path that leads us to the remembrance that we remain within the Thought of Love Which created us.

© 2019, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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