Daily Inspiration for Living A Course in Miracles

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Forgiveness Is Our Only Function

[God’s] gentle Voice is calling from the known to the unknowing. He would comfort you, although He knows no sorrow. He would make a restitution, though He is complete; a gift to you, although He knows that you have everything already. He has Thoughts which answer every need His Son perceives, although He sees them not. For Love must give, and what is given in His Name takes on the form most useful in a world of form.

These are the forms which never can deceive, because they come from Formlessness Itself. Forgiveness is an earthly form of love, which as it is in Heaven has no form. Yet what is needed here is given here as it is needed. In this form [forgiveness] you can fulfill your function even here, although what love will mean to you when formlessness has been restored to you is greater still. Salvation of the world depends on you who can forgive. Such is your function here.” (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 186, W-pI.186.13-14. See also ACIM Lesson 186 Insights.)

Everyone in this world is seeking peace and happiness. We seek salvation from the conflict and emptiness that seems to dominate our experience in the world. But if we follow the direction of the ego, we will seek to find salvation in the forms of the world. They never satisfy because forms of themselves have no meaning nor substance.

God’s Voice offers us a form that is not based on the ego’s denial of Love’s oneness. It is the means through which we can learn where our true happiness and peace lie. Through forgiveness we learn that the peace of God is already in us. We learn that we already have God’s gift of joy. We let go of the mistaken search for peace and happiness where they cannot be found.

Forgiveness frees us from the ego’s false image of What we are. We were created as Love’s extension with all the attributes of Love as ours eternally. All that stands between the experience of the Love we are and our awareness of It is belief in the ego’s false images.

As we let God’s Voice teach us true forgiveness, we let go of the false and accept the vision of the Holy Spirit, which shows us our true Self, the Son of God. Forgiveness is the one function in this world that frees us to be the Love, peace and joy of God.

© 2018, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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The Justice of Love

The Holy Spirit can use all that you give to Him for your salvation. But He cannot use what you withhold, for He cannot take it from you without your willingness. For if He did, you would believe He wrested it from you against your will. And so you would not learn it is your will to be without it. You need not give it to Him wholly willingly, for if you could you had no need of Him. But this He needs; that you prefer He take it than that you keep it for yourself alone, and [you] recognize that what brings loss to no one you would not know. This much is necessary to add to the idea no one can lose for you to gain. And nothing more.

You who know not of justice still can ask, and learn the answer. Justice looks on all in the same way. It is not just that one should lack for what another has. For that is vengeance in whatever form it takes. Justice demands no sacrifice….

It is impossible for you to share the Holy Spirit’s justice with a mind that can conceive of specialness at all.

In God’s Own justice does [the Holy Spirit] recognize all you deserve, but understands as well that you cannot accept it for yourself. It is His special function to hold out to you the gifts the innocent deserve. And every [gift] that you accept brings joy to Him as well as you. He knows that Heaven is richer made by each one you accept. And God rejoices as His Son receives what loving justice knows to be his due. For love and justice are not different. Because they are the same does mercy stand at God’s right Hand, and gives the Son of God the power to forgive himself of sin. (A Course in Miracles, T-25.VIII.1;4:1-5;5:8;9:5-11. See also ACIM Text Made Simple.)

The practice of asking, “What would Love see, say or do in this situation?” is a way of allowing Holy Spirit to bring the justice of Love to our mind. While we identify with the ego, we do not know Love’s justice because we are denying the oneness of Love. But we can learn by asking for the Holy Spirit’s help. When we are willing to be taught, we can learn to see the innocence of Love beyond the ego’s projections of guilt and fear.

Each time we accept the Holy Spirit’s help, we experience the blessing of recognizing the eternal presence of Love. As we see It in another, we accept It for ourself. Today we practice asking, “What would Love do?”

© 2018, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Welcoming God’s Gifts in Daily Life

My thoughts are images that I have made. Whatever I see reflects my thoughts. It is my thoughts that tell me where I am and what I am. The fact that I see a world in which there is suffering and loss and death shows me that I am seeing only the representation of my insane thoughts, and am not allowing my real thoughts to cast their beneficent light on what I see. Yet God’s way is sure. The images I have made cannot prevail against Him because it is not my will that they do so. My will is His, and I will place no other gods before Him. (, A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 53, W-pI.53.5. See also ACIM Lesson 53 Insights.)

Our real thoughts are the thoughts we share with God. Because God is only Love, our real thoughts are thoughts of Love.

By allowing ourselves to tune in to peace, remember peace, we reconnect with our real thoughts to see the real world. When we disconnect from reality, we are out of peace, in chaos. We are fearful because nothing is dependable and we feel vulnerable. We can pull ourselves out of fear by tuning in to peace and reconnecting with our real thoughts, the Thoughts of the Holy Spirit. We remember that we are in the Mind of Source, and that our will is His Will. We determined to maintain our awareness of Who we are — the Son of God in the Mind of God.

Maintaining a consistent attitude of gratitude helps us open the door to peace. It keeps us out of the defense mode. As we are grateful for God’s gifts of Love, peace and joy, we welcome them into our daily experience.

© 2018, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Finding the Peace of God

The peace of God is everything I want. The peace of God is
my one goal; the aim of all my living here, the end I seek,
my purpose and my function and my life, while I abide
where I am not at home.

I will be still, and let the earth be still along with me. And
in that stillness we will find the peace of God. It is within
my heart, which witnesses to God Himself. (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 205 & 208, W-pII.205:2-3;208:2-4. See also ACIM Lesson 205 & 208 Insights.)

The world we seem to live in is not our Home. Peace cannot be found in the world we perceive. But peace is already in us because it is a attribute of our true Self, the Son of God. When we declare that peace is our one goal, the aim of all our living here, we are affirming our focus on identifying with our one Self instead of the image of a separate self made by the ego.

The search for peace is inevitable in the dream of a world of separation and conflict. The ego answers that search with directions that lead nowhere, for its goal is always to seek and not find.

We find the peace we seek by following the Holy Spirit’s direction. He guides us to recognize that the world offers nothing we really want. With that recognition we become willing to be still and let the peace that is already ours be shown to us. The only meaningful purpose we have in the world is to let go of our identification with the images of the world and accept the one Self we share with everyone as God’s one Son.

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Revealing the Light of Our True Self

Today we are considering the will you share with God. This is not the same as the ego’s idle wishes, out of which darkness and nothingness arise. The will you share with God has all the power of creation in it. The ego’s idle wishes are unshared, and therefore have no power at all. Its wishes are not idle in the sense that they can make a world of illusions in which your belief can be very strong. But they are idle indeed in terms of creation. [Idle wishes] make nothing that is real.

Idle wishes and grievances are partners or co-makers in picturing the world you see. The wishes of the ego gave rise to it, and the ego’s need for grievances, which are necessary to maintain [the world], peoples it with figures that seem to attack you and call for “righteous” judgment. These figures become the middlemen the ego employs to traffic in grievances. [Grievances] stand between your awareness and your brothers’ reality. Beholding them, you do not know your brothers or your Self.

Your picture of the world can only mirror what is within. The source of neither light nor darkness can be found without. Grievances darken your mind, and you look out on a darkened world. Forgiveness lifts the darkness, reasserts your will, and lets you look upon a world of light. (, A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 73, W-pI.73.1-2;5:1-4. See also ACIM Lesson 73 Insights.)

The ego is the wish to have its own domain separate from Creation. But because Creation is one and encompasses all of Reality, the ego’s private domain cannot be real. All that the wish for a private domain can produce is illusions that picture the wish to be separate.

The source of this wish is the grievance against God, Whose Will is the unity of Love. Love could not grant the ego’s wish for a private domain because that would be the denial of God’s Love. That makes the ego’s domain loveless.

The wishes of the ego people its domain with loveless images held in place by grievances. The judgments spawned by grievances declare that images of separation are real, capable of having an effect. But these “effects” seem real only because we believe they are real. Grievances are the foundation of every belief in the ego’s world of separation. Withdraw the belief and the images disappear.

If we are willing to question the reality of what we perceive and ask the Holy Spirit for His true perception, we will see the Light of our true Self revealed. Each time we release a false belief, we welcome the Light of Love. We welcome our true Will, which is the Will we share with God. Here we find the Love, peace and happiness that cannot be found in the ego’s private domain.

© 2018, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Forgiveness Sets Us Free

Forgiveness is acquired. It is not inherent in the mind, which cannot sin. As sin is an idea you taught yourself, forgiveness must be learned by you as well, but from a Teacher other than yourself, Who represents the other Self in you. Through Him you learn how to forgive the self you think you made, and let it disappear. Thus you return your mind as one to Him Who is your Self, and Who can never sin.

Each unforgiving mind presents you with an opportunity to teach your own [mind] how to forgive itself. Each [unforgiving mind] awaits release from hell through you, and turns to you imploringly for Heaven here and now. It has no hope, but you become its hope. And as its hope, do you become your own. The unforgiving mind must learn through your forgiveness that it has been saved from hell. And as you teach salvation, you will learn. Yet all your teaching and your learning will be not of you, but of the Teacher Who was given you to show the way to you.”

The unforgiving mind does not believe that giving and receiving are the same. Yet we will try to learn today that [giving and receiving] are one through practicing forgiveness toward one whom you think of as an enemy, and one whom you consider as a friend. And as you learn to see them both as one, we will extend the lesson to yourself, and see that their escape included yours. (, A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 121,W-pI.121.6-7;9. See also ACIM Lesson 121 Insights.)

Sin (separation) is an idea we taught ourselves to believe is true. Belief does not make real but it makes appearances seem real. If we believe an appearance is real, we react to it as if it were real. It is this self-taught belief that must be undone.

Only the Holy Spirit can teach us to recognize what is untrue and let it go. The ego is invested in making us believe that what could never be true is real. Its seeming existence depends upon our accepting this belief. As we let the Holy Spirit use our perceptions of others to teach us how to forgive, we learn that we ourselves are forgiven. What we learn is untrue disappears because belief no longer seems to keep it in place.

Forgiveness sets us free to remember that everyone is Love and nothing else.

© 2018, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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The Lessons God Would Have Us Learn

God does not know of learning. Yet His Will extends to what He does not understand, in that He wills the happiness His Son inherited of Him be undisturbed; eternal and forever gaining scope, eternally expanding in the joy of full creation, and eternally open and wholly limitless in Him. That is His Will. And thus His Will provides the means to guarantee that it is done.

God sees no contradictions. Yet His Son believes he sees [contradictions]. Thus [His Son] has a need for One Who can correct his erring sight, and give him vision that will lead him back to where perception ceases. God does not perceive at all. Yet it is He Who gives the means by which perception is made true and beautiful enough to let the light of Heaven shine upon it. It is He Who answers what His Son would contradict, and keeps his sinlessness forever safe.

These are the lessons God would have you learn. …They are the same in fundamental content. It is this:

Forgive, and you will see this differently. (, A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 193,W-pI.193.1-2;3:1,5-7, A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 193,)

The lesson that will relieve us of fear, guilt, pain and suffering is very simple. We must learn to forgive or let go of the belief that we could be separate from our Creator, from Love. Though God cannot conceive of lovelessness, He recognizes that we believe a world where Love is absent is possible and real.

He has given us the remedy for this mistaken belief. It is the Holy Spirit Who knows the oneness of Love and can see our mistaken perceptions without believing in them. This is how He is able to guide us past our mistaken perceptions. He can teach us to recognize our mistaken perceptions as untrue and therefore unreal. This is the core lesson we must learn. This lesson frees us from the self-imposed limitation of the ego thought system.

As we accept the Holy Spirit’s purification of our perception, we learn that only Love is real. We come to the gates of Heaven where we are welcomed into the Heart of Love, our Source. We have seen the world of ego differently and have recognized it as unreal. We have learned that God’s joy, peace and Love are ours now. Our mistaken perceptions have been transformed to true perception.

© 2018, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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