Living A Course in Miracles — Learning That Only Love Is Real

Opening to the Holy Spirit’s Lead

You are my goal, my Father. Only You.

Where would I go but Heaven? ²What could be a substitute for happiness? ³What gift could I prefer before the peace of God? ⁴What treasure would I seek and find and keep that can compare with my Identity? ⁵And would I rather live with fear than love?

You are my goal, my Father. ²What but You could I desire to have? ³What way but that which leads to You could I desire to walk? ⁴And what except the memory of You could signify to me the end of dreams and futile substitutions for the truth? ⁵You are my only goal. ⁶Your Son would be as You created him. ⁷What way but this could I expect to recognize my Self, and be at one with my Identity? (A Course in Miracles, W-287. See also ACIM Lesson 287 Insights.)

Our experience in this world is the result of our belief in a mistaken identity. This identity wanders alone in a wilderness of images that seem to threaten it or offer occasional moments of happiness. It searches for peace, but never finds a lasting quiet that cannot be disturbed.

God has given us a Guide Who knows our true Identity. His purpose is to help us awaken to the memory of our eternal connection with our Father. He leads us to our Home in the oneness of our Father’s Love. He reminds us of our true Self as God’s Son. Today we open our minds to Holy Spirit’s lead.

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Overlooking the Past to See Love’s Presence

Let me forget my brother’s past today.

This is the thought that leads the way to You, and brings me to my goal. ²I cannot come to You without my brother. ³And to know my Source, I first must recognize what You created one with me. ⁴My brother’s is the hand that leads me on the way to You. ⁵His sins are in the past along with mine, and I am saved because the past is gone. ⁶Let me not cherish it within my heart, or I will lose the way to walk to You. ⁷My brother is my savior. ⁸Let me not attack the savior You have given me. ⁹But let me honor him who bears Your Name, and so remember that It is my own.

Forgive me, then, today. ²And you will know you have forgiven me if you behold your brother in the light of holiness. ³He cannot be less holy than can I, and you can not be holier than he. (A Course in Miracles, W-288. See also ACIM Lesson 288 Insights.)

All our judgments are based on thoughts about the past. In Love’s oneness there is no past. Only the eternal present exists. When we judge anyone, we are really judging our projections from our past on them. What we see in others is a reflection of what we believe we are.

Whether it appears to be the past of a brother or our own past, it is the same illusion based on the false belief that separation is real. Forgiveness frees us from our mistaken beliefs. It sets us free to see the unity of Love that joins us with everyone as God’s one Son, forever united with our Father. Today we ask the Holy Spirit to help us see the reality of Love in all our brothers.

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The Practice That Awakens Us to Love

I can elect to change all thoughts that hurt.

Loss is not loss when properly perceived. ²Pain is impossible. ³There is no grief with any cause at all. ⁴And suffering of any kind is nothing but a dream. ⁵This is the truth, at first to be but said and then repeated many times; and next to be accepted as but partly true, with many reservations. ⁶Then to be considered seriously more and more, and finally accepted as the truth. ⁷I can elect to change all thoughts that hurt. ⁸And I would go beyond these words today, and past all reservations, and arrive at full acceptance of the truth in them.

Father, what You have given cannot hurt, so grief and pain must be impossible. ²Let me not fail to trust in You today, accepting but the joyous as Your gifts; accepting but the joyous as the truth. (A Course in Miracles, W-284. See also ACIM Lesson 284 Insights.)

God’s Will for us is the perfect peace and indescribable joy that come with the eternal gift of His limitless Love. If we experience anything but His Love, it is because we have chosen to believe that we have separated from our Creator. This can only seem to be true in dreams.

We have the means to let go of our mistaken beliefs and accept God’s gift. It seems to take time to achieve this change of mind only because we thoroughly convinced ourselves that we are an identity separate from God. We take the first step by affirming that we are worthy of God’s Love. With practice, the truth of our Self as God’s Son begins to be more fully accepted. As we persist with this practice we will awaken to the fact that we remain at Home in the Heaven of God’s Love.

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Being a Messenger of Life

Death is a thought that takes on many forms, often unrecognized. ²It may appear as sadness, fear, anxiety or doubt; as anger, faithlessness and lack of trust; concern for bodies, envy, and all forms in which the wish to be as you are not may come to tempt you. ³All such thoughts are but reflections of the worshipping of death as savior and as giver of release.

⁵There is no death, and we renounce it now in every form, for their salvation and our own as well. ⁶God made not death. ⁷Whatever form it takes must therefore be illusion. ⁸This the stand we take today. ⁹And it is given us to look past death, and see the life beyond.

Our Father, bless our eyes today. ²We are Your messengers, and we would look upon the glorious reflection of Your Love which shines in everything. ³We live and move in You alone. ⁴We are not separate from Your eternal life. ⁵There is no death, for death is not Your Will. ⁶And we abide where You have placed us, in the life we share with You and with all living things, to be like You and part of You forever. ⁷We accept Your Thoughts as ours, and our will is one with Yours eternally. ⁸Amen. (A Course in Miracles, W-163.1;8:5–9:8) See also ACIM Lesson 163 Insights.

If our peace of mind is disturbed at any time, it is because we have accepted the belief that we are separate from our Creator, our Source of Life. We live in God’s Love. There is no other reality but His Love. It is only our belief that we are excluded from His Reality that leads to our perception of pain, loss, fear and guilt. This perception has no foundation except in dreams.

We choose Life in place of death when we choose to accept our unbroken connection with our Father. Today we would be messengers of Life by expressing Love’s oneness to all our brothers. We live in Love.

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Choosing Love’s Oneness Brings Peace

If you were one with God and recognized this oneness, you would know His power is yours. ²But you will not remember this while you believe attack of any kind means anything.”

¹⁰And therefore it is necessary that you have other experiences, more in line with truth, to teach you what is natural and true.

This is the function of your holy relationship. ²For what one thinks, the other will experience with him. ³What can this mean except your mind and your brother’s are one? ⁴Look not with fear upon this happy fact, and think not that it lays a heavy burden on you. ⁵For when you have accepted it with gladness, you will realize that your relationship is a reflection of the union of the Creator and His Son. ⁶From loving minds there is no separation. ⁷And every thought in one brings gladness to the other because they are the same. ⁸Joy is unlimited, because each shining thought of love extends its being and creates more of itself. ⁹There is no difference anywhere in it, for every thought is like itself.

The light that joins you and your brother shines throughout the universe, and because it joins you and him, so it makes you and him one with your Creator. ²And in Him is all creation joined. ³Would you regret you cannot fear alone, when your relationship can also teach the power of love is there, which makes all fear impossible? ⁴Do not attempt to keep a little of the ego with this gift. ⁵For it was given you to be used, and not obscured. ⁶What teaches you that you cannot separate denies the ego. ⁷Let truth decide if you and your brother be different or the same, and teach you which is true. (A Course in Miracles, T-22.VI.12:1-2;13:10–15:7. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

We are all united as one Self, the Son of God. This fact guarantees that we have the power of Love in us which sees past all appearances of conflict and loss. When we are willing to let Love guide all our thoughts and actions, we become Love’s messengers in the ego’s dream of separation. Love’s light dispels the dark shadows of the ego’s wish for differences. It reveals the limitless peace and joy that are our natural state.

Today we choose peace; we choose happiness; we choose Love’s oneness.

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Accepting the Love That Is Our Identity

God is the only goal I have today.

The way to God is through forgiveness here. ²There is no other way. ³If sin had not been cherished by the mind, what need would there have been to find the way to where you are? ⁴Who would still be uncertain? ⁵Who could be unsure of who he is? ⁶And who would yet remain asleep, in heavy clouds of doubt about the holiness of him whom God created sinless? ⁷Here we can but dream. ⁸But we can dream we have forgiven him in whom all sin remains impossible, and it is this we choose to dream today. ⁹God is our goal; forgiveness is the means by which our minds return to Him at last.

And so, our Father, would we come to You in Your appointed way. ²We have no goal except to hear Your Voice, and find the way Your sacred Word has pointed out to us. (A Course in Miracles, W-256. See also ACIM Lesson 256 Insights.)

Every judgment denies our Identity as God’s Son. Judgement depends on perceiving differences. Yet in the oneness of God’s Love, all is the same. All is united in the joy and peace of God. God is our Home. In Him we live. There is no other life.

There is a way that sets us free from our perceived world of differences. It is the path God has chosen for us to free us from our mistaken beliefs that seem to separate us from our Creator and our one Self.

Forgiveness is the path that clears the way for our return Home to the Love we never left and never left us. Today we are grateful that we can ask the Holy Spirit to help us heal our mistaken beliefs. He will answer with a vision that shows us the Love that keeps us whole in the Heart of God.

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Dwelling in the Safety of God’s Love

This day I choose to spend in perfect peace.

It does not seem to me that I can choose to have but peace today. ²And yet, my God assures me that His Son is like Himself. ³Let me this day have faith in Him Who says I am God’s Son. ⁴And let the peace I choose be mine today bear witness to the truth of what He says. ⁵God’s Son can have no cares, and must remain forever in the peace of Heaven. ⁶In His Name, I give today to finding what my Father wills for me, accepting it as mine, and giving it to all my Father’s Sons, along with me.

And so, my Father, would I pass this day with You. ²Your Son has not forgotten You. ³The peace You gave him still is in his mind, and it is there I choose to spend today. (W-255)

There is no place in the ego’s dream where perfect peace is possible. The ego sends us on countless searches on the quest for peace, certain that it must not be found. The one place where perfect peace exists is denied by the ego. It’s forbidden territory. The ego can only dream and make up illusions that can never be real.

Our true Self, God’s one Son, is untouched by these dreams. Today we remind ourselves to pause and step back from the dream in our mind. We let our focus sink deeply within to the place where God’s certain peace resides. Here is our Home, which we have never left in truth. In gratitude, we accept the Holy Spirit’s help to set these dreams aside. With His vision we will see that we dwell safely in the eternal Love of God.

© 2025, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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