It takes great learning both to realize and to accept the fact that the world has nothing to give. …There is no sacrifice in the world’s terms that does not involve the body. Think a while about what the world calls sacrifice. Power, fame, money, physical pleasure; who is the “hero” to whom all these things belong? Could they mean anything except to a body? Yet a body cannot evaluate. By seeking after such things the mind associates itself with the body, obscuring its Identity and losing sight of what it really is.
Once this confusion [of the mind with the body] has occurred, it becomes impossible for the mind to understand that all the “pleasures” of the world are nothing.
God’s teachers can have no regret on giving up the pleasures of the world. Is it a sacrifice to give up pain? Does an adult resent the giving up of children’s toys? Does one whose vision has already glimpsed the face of Christ look back with longing on a slaughter house? No one who has escaped the world and all its ills looks back on it with condemnation. Yet he must rejoice that he is free of all the sacrifice its values would demand of him. …Who in his sane mind chooses nothing as a substitute for everything?
Decide for God, and everything is given you at no cost at all. (A Course in Miracles, M-13.2:1,4-9;3:1;4:1-6,10;8:2)
Our belief that our body is our identity is the cause of our resistance to accepting the idea that the world is an illusion. If we accept the idea that we are not a body, it seems to leave us with nothing. And so we must be carefully taught that beyond the body we believe is our identity is our true Identity, which is so magnificent, so inclusive that it contains all of God. Our Identity includes all His Love, His joy and peace.
The Course takes us gently by the hand and shows us that what we have valued so highly is like the light of a firefly compared to the Sun. In truth the body and the world offer us nothing of value. Our true value is God’s Love.
Every moment of every day we choose between our false identity as a body and our Identity as God’s Son. We choose between a “life” of uncertainty, limitation, lack, loss, fear and guilt or the Life we live in God’s Love, limitless, all encompassing and eternal.
The teaching of the Course is to help us make the decision to be free from the sacrifice of Love the world demands of us. Only our mistaken beliefs stand as a barrier to our awakening to Love. We decide for Love by letting the Holy Spirit show us the truth in place of our misperceptions. Today we will step back and let Him lead the way.
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