Daily Inspiration for Living A Course in Miracles

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Exchanging Guilt for Love’s Oneness

³Delay does not matter in eternity, but it is tragic in time. ⁴You have elected to be in time rather than eternity, and therefore believe you are in time. ⁵Yet your election is both free and alterable. ⁶You do not belong in time. ⁷Your place is only in eternity, where God Himself placed you forever.

Guilt feelings are the preservers of time. ²They induce fears of retaliation or abandonment, and thus ensure that the future will be like the past. ³This is the ego’s continuity. ⁴It gives the ego a false sense of security by believing that you cannot escape from it. ⁵But you can and must. ⁶God offers you the continuity of eternity in exchange. ⁷When you choose to make this exchange, you will simultaneously exchange guilt for joy, viciousness for love, and pain for peace. ⁸My role is only to unchain your will and set it free. ⁹Your ego cannot accept this freedom, and will oppose it at every possible moment and in every possible way. ¹⁰And as [the ego’s] maker, you recognize what it can do because you gave it the power to do it.

Remember the Kingdom always, and remember that you who are part of the Kingdom cannot be lost. ²The Mind that was in me is in you, for God creates with perfect fairness. ³Let the Holy Spirit remind you always of His fairness, and let me teach you how to share it with your brothers.” (A Course in Miracles, T-5.VI.1:3–3:3. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

The idea of sin is the ego’s belief that separation is irreversible. Were this true, forgiveness would be impossible and guilt inevitable. By the grace of God, only Love is real. Separation never occurred in truth. This is the basis for all forgiveness. Nothing has happened to change God’s one Son. We need only let go of the mistaken beliefs in separation.

Guilt is always based upon something that occurred in the past. Thus guilt keeps the idea of time in place. In the present moment, the changeless reality of Love’s oneness is recognized as all that is real. When we accept the help of the Holy Spirit, He heals our guilty thoughts and shows us that harm is impossible.

Today we offer all our perceptions to Him for His loving correction. For we would replace fear with Love and awaken to our Home in the heart of God.

© 2023, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Offering Our Perceptions to the Holy Spirit

How does one overcome illusions? ²Surely not by force or anger, nor by opposing them in any way. ³Merely by letting reason tell you that they contradict reality. ⁴They go against what must be true. ⁵The opposition comes from them, and not reality. ⁶Reality opposes nothing. ⁷What merely is needs no defense, and offers none. ⁸Only illusions need defense because of weakness. ⁹And how can it be difficult to walk the way of truth when only weakness interferes? ¹⁰You are the strong one in this seeming conflict. ¹¹And you need no defense. ¹²Everything that needs defense you do not want, for anything that needs defense will weaken you.

⁴In truth you and your brother stand together, with nothing in between. ⁵God holds your hands, and what can separate whom He has joined as one with Him? ⁶It is your Father Whom you would defend against. ⁷Yet it remains impossible to keep love out. ⁸God rests with you in quiet, undefended and wholly undefending, for in this quiet state alone is strength and power. ⁹Here can no weakness enter, for here is no attack and therefore no illusions. ¹⁰Love rests in certainty. ¹¹Only uncertainty can be defensive. ¹²And all uncertainty is doubt about yourself. (A Course in Miracles, T-22.V.1;3:4-12. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

The ego sees itself asl alone, against the world. This is a necessary perspective in order to maintain a sense of specialness. From this perspective, it must constantly defend against what it perceives as external to it.

Our true Self sees Itself as one with all that is real. It perceives no differences. Thus it has nothing that needs to be protected. Knowing Itself as one with everything, Its joy comes with extending Love.

This is the world the Holy Spirit guides us to remember. It does not defend against the ego. The Holy Spirit teaches us, very simply, that the ego is nothing and nowhere. As we learn this important lesson, we remember the peace in which we live.

To welcome this state of mind, we turn over all our perceptions to the Holy Spirit. We are willing to accept His loving correction. We will learn that we share the power of God’s Love. Nothing in truth can disturb our peace.

© 2023, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Deciding for Joy with the Holy Spirit

Before you make any decisions for yourself, remember that you have decided against your function in Heaven, and then consider carefully whether you want to make decisions here. ²Your function here is only to decide against deciding what you want, in recognition that you do not know. ³How, then, can you decide what you should do? ⁴Leave all decisions to the One Who speaks for God, and for your function as He knows it. ⁵So will He teach you to remove the awful burden you have laid upon yourself by loving not the Son of God, and trying to teach him guilt instead of love. ⁶Give up this frantic and insane attempt that cheats you of the joy of living with your God and Father, and of waking gladly to His Love and Holiness that join together as the truth in you, making you one with Him.

When you have learned how to decide with God, all decisions become as easy and as right as breathing. ²There is no effort, and you will be led as gently as if you were being carried down a quiet path in summer. ³Only your own volition seems to make deciding hard. ⁴The Holy Spirit will not delay in answering your every question what to do. ⁵He knows. ⁶And He will tell you, and then do it for you. ⁷You who are tired will find this is more restful than sleep. ⁸For you can bring your guilt into sleeping, but not into this. (A Course in Miracles, T-14.IV.5–6. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

Today is a day to practice asking of everything, “What is this for?” This is a question to be directed to the Teacher within. For most of us, our typical habit is to ask this question of the ego. But it is the ego that has gotten us into this dream of fear and guilt. It is not our friend. As we learn to step back from the ego’s advice and connect with the peace of God within, our best Friend is there to guide us truly in the way of Love.

As we make it a habit to let this Guide decide everything for us, we will find a joy beyond anything this world offers. We will find freedom from guilt and experience peace as we awaken to the Love that unites us with our Creator and every brother.

© 2023, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Gratitude for God’s Gifts

God’s answer is some form of peace. All pain is healed; all misery replaced with joy. All prison doors are opened. And all sin is understood as merely a mistake.

Father, today we will forgive Your world, and let creation be Your Own. ²We have misunderstood all things. ³But we have not made sinners of the holy Sons of God. ⁴What You created sinless so abides forever and forever. ⁵Such are we. ⁶And we rejoice to learn that we have made mistakes which have no real effects on us. ⁷Sin is impossible, and on this fact forgiveness rests upon a certain base more solid than the shadow world we see. ⁸Help us forgive, for we would be redeemed. ⁹Help us forgive, for we would be at peace. (A Course in Miracles, W-359. See also ACIM Lesson 359 Insights.)

We are grateful that our dreams of fear and guilt have not changed our true Self, God’s Son. We remain held forever in His peace and joy. We welcome His gifts by forgiving the world for all we ever thought it was.

With the Holy Spirit’s help, we see the Love that is the reality of every brother. We gratefully join with him to remember that together we are God’s one Son. Here is our joy and our peace.

© 2023, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Learning to Listen to the Voice of Love

The way to recognize your brother is by recognizing the Holy Spirit in him.

The Holy Spirit is the idea of healing. ²Being thought, the idea gains as it is shared. ³Being the Call for God, it is also the idea of God. ⁴Since you are part of God it is also the idea of yourself, as well as of all His creations. ⁵The idea of the Holy Spirit… is strengthened by being given away. ⁷It increases in you as you give it to your brother. ⁸Your brother does not have to be aware of the Holy Spirit in himself or in you for this miracle to occur. ⁹He may have dissociated the Call for God, just as you have. ¹⁰This dissociation is healed in both of you as you become aware of the Call for God in him, and thus acknowledge Its being.

⁴See him through the Holy Spirit in his mind, and you will recognize Him in yours. ⁵What you acknowledge in your brother you are acknowledging in yourself, and what you share you strengthen.

⁵The Holy Spirit has the task of undoing what the ego has made. ⁶He undoes it at the same level on which the ego operates, or the mind would be unable to understand the change. (A Course in Miracles, T-5.III.1:1;2;3:4-5;5:5-6. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

The Holy Spirit calls to us incessantly every moment of the day, through every brother. He represents the Thought of Love, our Creator. As we answer His call, we recognize our unity with every brother and our Creator.

His call goes unheard while we choose the ego’s thought system as our own. The ego is the thought of denying Love’s presence. Its divisive wish for specialness blocks awareness of Love’s oneness.

But His Call remains available to us. It needs only our choice to listen in quietness. As we learn to step back from the ego’s chaos to the quietness within our mind, we will learn of Love’s presence everywhere. We will see the Love in our brother and join with It in perfect harmony. This is our calling today and every day.

© 2023, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Teaching That Only Love Is Real

To teach is to demonstrate. ²There are only two thought systems, and you demonstrate that you believe one or the other is true all the time. ³From your demonstration others learn, and so do you.… ¹⁰Any situation must be to you a chance to teach others what you are, and what they are to you. ¹¹No more than that, but also never less.

⁷Teaching but reinforces what you believe about yourself. ⁸Its fundamental purpose is to diminish self-doubt. ⁹This does not mean that the self you are trying to protect is real. ¹⁰But it does mean that the self you think is real is what you teach.

Except for God’s teachers there would be little hope of salvation, for the world of sin would seem forever real.… ⁴This is a manual for the teachers of God. ⁵They are not perfect, or they would not be here. ⁶Yet it is their mission to become perfect here, and so they teach perfection over and over, in many, many ways, until they have learned it. (A Course in Miracles, M-in.2:1-3,10-11;3:7-10;5:1,4-6)

In every moment we demonstrate what we believe we are. If what we do is based on our judgments about the world, we teach that separation is real. But if we let the Holy Spirit in our mind judge all things on our behalf, our doing will be directed by His Love. We will teach that only Love is real.

This is our calling. To teach Love’s reality requires a change of mind; a willingness to forgive our judgments, our misperceptions. This is a practice. We have long relied on our own judgments as our source of direction. We need to retrain our mind to respond with Love.

We dedicate today to this practice, for we would teach as God would have us teach. We will learn the single lesson that only Love is real.

© 2023, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Choosing to Accept Our Unity with God

³You always choose between your weakness and the strength of Christ in you. ⁴And what you choose is what you think is real. ⁵Simply by never using weakness to direct your actions, you have given it no power. ⁶And the light of Christ in you is given charge of everything you do. ⁷For you have brought your weakness unto Him, and He has given you His strength instead.

Trials are but lessons that you failed to learn presented once again, so where you made a faulty choice before you now can make a better one, and thus escape all pain that what you chose before has brought to you. ²In every difficulty, all distress, and each perplexity Christ calls to you and gently says, “My brother, choose again.” ³He would not leave one source of pain unhealed, nor any image left to veil the truth. ⁴He would remove all misery from you whom God created altar unto joy. ⁵He would not leave you comfortless, alone in dreams of hell, but would release your mind from everything that hides His face from you. ⁶His Holiness is yours because He is the only power that is real in you. ⁷His strength is yours because He is the Self that God created as His only Son.

The images you make cannot prevail against what God Himself would have you be. ²Be never fearful of temptation, then, but see it as it is; another chance to choose again, and let Christ’s strength prevail in every circumstance and every place you raised an image of yourself before. (A Course in Miracles, T-31.VIII.2:3–4:2. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

Today we are grateful that we have the means to awaken to our Reality in the safety of God’s Love. We are grateful that no matter how embedded we have become in the ego thought system, we can always choose again.

The Love of God is always with us. As we are willing to welcome the Christ Mind within, our view of the world is transformed. All distress, unhappiness and guilt can be released as we accept the Love that is our true Reality. No matter how far we wander, God holds us in His Heart as His one Son.

© 2023, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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