Daily Inspiration for Living A Course in Miracles

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Claiming God’s Strength as Ours

The idea for today [there is nothing to fear] simply states a fact. It is not a fact to those who believe in illusions, but illusions are not facts. In truth there is nothing to fear. It is very easy to recognize this. But it is very difficult to recognize it for those who want illusions to be true.

The presence of fear is a sure sign that you are trusting in your own strength. The awareness that there is nothing to fear shows that somewhere in your mind, though not necessarily in a place you recognize as yet, you have remembered God, and let His strength take the place of your weakness. The instant you are willing to [let His strength take the place of your weakness] there is indeed nothing to fear. (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 48, W-pI.48:1;3. See also ACIM Lesson 48 Insights.)

The ego is weak because it denies the strength of God. Because God is all that is real, the ego cannot be real. To believe in the ego thought system is to believe in illusions and deny Reality.

Fear is a warning flag, not that we are in danger, but that we are believing in an illusion. It is not the illusion that needs to be defended against or fixed. It is the belief in the false idea that needs to be corrected. The practice of bringing all our fear thoughts, all our uncertainty and sense of weakness, to the Holy Spirit with willingness to receive His loving correction is the path to freedom from fear.

The Holy Spirit’s purpose is to remind us that the strength of God is ours. As we accept His help, we learn that there is nothing that can harm the truth of What we are. Our true Self remains eternally safe in God’s strength. The belief that we are something else that is vulnerable and weak will fade away as the Holy Spirit reminds us that we remain as God created us, with all His strength and all His Love.

© 2017, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Learning Lessons of Peace and Happiness

All things are lessons God would have me learn.

A lesson is a miracle which God offers to me, in place of thoughts I made that hurt me. What I learn of Him becomes the way I am set free. And so I choose to learn His lessons and forget my own.

I am not a body. I am free.
For I am still as God created me. (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 213, W-pI.213. See also ACIM Lesson 213 Insights.)

The ego believes in guilt and punishment. It projects this belief onto God. When bad things seem to happen to us, the ego interprets this as God’s punishing lesson. But this is the lesson the ego wants us to learn to justify the illusion of guilt and punishment.

God cannot conceive of punishment because Love sees only innocence. God’s lesson is that what we perceive as hurt, fear or guilt is based on a false idea that could never be true. His lesson would teach us to see our eternal harmlessness. God’s lesson always teaches that only Love is real. The perception of anything other than Love, peace and joy is nothing more than a mistaken belief that needs to be let go. What is not true does not exist and cannot affect God’s Son.

With this idea in mind, every perception that is less than peaceful and happy is a lesson that God would have us learn — to overlook the false that could never be true. If we are willing to accept the Holy Spirit’s help, we will learn the lesson presented to us by the false perception. Any pain associated with God’s lessons come from the ego’s misinterpretation. God’s lessons always lead to deeper peace and greater happiness.

© 2017, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Now Is the Time to Join with Love

There is no escape from fear in the ego’s use of time. For time, according to its teaching, is nothing but a teaching device for compounding guilt until it becomes all-encompassing, demanding vengeance forever.

The Holy Spirit would undo all of this now. Fear is not of the present, but only of the past and future, which do not exist. There is no fear in the present when each instant stands clear and separated from the past, without its shadow reaching out into the future. Each instant is a clean, untarnished birth, in which the Son of God emerges from the past into the present. And the present extends forever. It is so beautiful and so clean and free of guilt that nothing but happiness is there. No darkness is remembered, and immortality and joy are now.

Begin to practice the Holy Spirit’s use of time as a teaching aid to happiness and peace. Take this very instant, now, and think of it as all there is of time. Nothing can reach you here out of the past, and it is here that you are completely absolved, completely free and wholly without condemnation. From this holy instant wherein holiness was born again you will go forth in time without fear, and with no sense of change with time. (A Course in Miracles, T-15.I.7:6-8:7;9:4-7. See also ACIM Text Q & A.)

In every instant we choose between guilt and innocence, hell and Heaven. There is no in-between, though we may vacillate between identifying with our true Self or with the image the ego has made as our identity. With the Holy Spirit’s help we can train ourselves to identify with our true Self. Our true Self is always present, now, but it is hidden while we bring the ego’s images of the past and overlay them on the present.

Pause for a moment and notice the thoughts that pass through your mind. If you are honest with yourself, you will see that these thoughts are always based on the past. While we identify with the ego, we will always perceive the present based on our memories of the past. Our true Self’s only memory is of the eternal, changeless Love of God.

The Holy Spirit was given us to teach us to identify with our true Self. In each now moment we can choose the Holy Spirit as our Teacher. He will teach us how to let go of the past and all its fear and guilt. As we accept the Holy Spirit’s lessons, we free ourselves to experience now in the brilliant Light of Love, free of the ego’s dark shadows of hate and guilt. Now is the time to join with the true Self we share with all our brothers.

© 2017, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Seeing Past Guilt to Innocence

This course has explicitly stated that its goal for you is happiness and peace. Yet you are afraid of it. You have been told again and again that [the course] will set you free, yet you sometimes react as if it is trying to imprison you. You often dismiss it more readily than you dismiss the ego’s thought system. To some extent, then, you must believe that by not learning the course you are protecting yourself. And you do not realize that it is only your guiltlessness that can protect you.

In the extreme, you are afraid of redemption and you believe it will kill you. Make no mistake about the depth of this fear. For you believe that, in the presence of truth, you might turn on yourself and destroy yourself.

Little child, this is not so. Your “guilty secret” is nothing, and if you will but bring it to the light, the light will dispel it. And then no dark cloud will remain between you and the remembrance of your Father, for you will remember His guiltless Son, who did not die because he is immortal. And you will see that you were redeemed with him, and have never been separated from him. In this understanding lies your remembering, for it is the recognition of love without fear. There will be great joy in Heaven on your homecoming, and the joy will be yours. For the redeemed son of man is the guiltless Son of God, and to recognize him is your redemption. (A Course in Miracles, T-13.II.7;8:4-9:7. See also ACIM Text Q & A.)

It is always a happy day in God’s neighborhood because His Will is to be happy. If we are not experiencing happiness, we must believe in the ego thought system of separation from happiness and Love. We believe we have left God’s neighborhood. We have accepted a false identity as our reality. This false identity seems to be capable of harm and must therefore be guilty.

The ego is on constant alert for signs of guilt in others. Its judgments condemn the world as an attempt to hide the guilt it associates with our identity as a body. Thus it maintains the illusion that guilt is justified while seeming to maintain its own innocence. Yet the source of perceived guilt cannot claim innocence.

It is time to choose to learn from our inner Teacher Who will show us the truth of What we are. The Holy Spirit will teach us that we are still Love as Love created us. Love’s innocence is ours. As we let go of believing the ego thought system, we see the truth of Love’s innocence in our brother’s. And the innocence we see in our brothers we learn is true about us. This is the Course’s lesson of redemption. This is how we remember the Self God created one with Him.

© 2017, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Our Only Purpose

This world of light, this circle of brightness is the real world, where guilt meets with forgiveness. Here the world outside is seen anew, without the shadow of guilt upon it. Here are you forgiven, for here you have forgiven everyone. Here is the new perception, where everything is bright and shining with innocence, washed in the waters of forgiveness, and cleansed of every evil thought you laid upon it. Here there is no attack upon the Son of God, and you are welcome. Here is your innocence, waiting to clothe you and protect you, and make you ready for the final step in the journey inward. Here are the dark and heavy garments of guilt laid by, and gently replaced by purity and love.

Your relationship with your brother has been uprooted from the world of shadows, and its unholy purpose has been safely brought through the barriers of guilt, washed with forgiveness, and set shining and firmly rooted in the world of light. From there it calls to you to follow the course it took, lifted high above the darkness and gently placed before the gates of Heaven. The holy instant in which you and your brother were united is but the messenger of love, sent from beyond forgiveness to remind you of all that lies beyond it. Yet it is through forgiveness that it will be remembered.

Forgiveness removes only the untrue, lifting the shadows from the world and carrying it, safe and sure within its gentleness, to the bright world of new and clean perception. There is your purpose now. And it is there that peace awaits you. (A Course in Miracles, T-18.IX.9;13;14:3-5. See also ACIM Text Q & A.)

The Love of God has never left us. It is our true Self, forever connected with our Creator. We cannot be without Love, but we can be unaware of His presence. Belief in the ego thought system of separation makes Love unknown to us. As long as we hang on to this belief, we are self-condemned to a seemingly eternal search for Love, though we are surrounded by It.

A change of mind, a release of the false belief, is all that is required for us to return to full awareness that we dwell in the Light of Love. All of God’s Love is ours, never to be withdrawn nor limited. Forgiveness removes the shadows of the false belief in separation.

As we commit to forgiveness as our only meaningful purpose now, we walk on a journey to Light. Every upset, every fearful or judgmental thought, all feelings of guilt offer another opportunity to forgive or let go of barriers to Love. This is our only purpose now. It will bring us to the gates of Heaven, where God’s eternal Love welcomes us in joy and peace.

© 2017, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Transforming Fear Thoughts to Love’s Extension

Everything you see is the result of your thoughts. There is no exception to this fact. Thoughts are not big or little; powerful or weak. They are merely true or false. Those that are true create their own likeness. Those that are false make [there own likeness].

Besides your recognizing that thoughts are never idle, salvation requires that you also recognize that every thought you have brings either peace or war; either love or fear. A neutral result is impossible because a neutral thought is impossible. There is such a temptation to dismiss fear thoughts as unimportant, trivial and not worth bothering about that it is essential you recognize them all as equally destructive, but equally unreal. (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 16, W-pI.16.1:2-7;3:1-3. See also ACIM Lesson 16 Insights.)

Our true thoughts are the thoughts we think with God. They are thoughts of Love, which create extensions of Love. Our false thoughts come from the ego thought system of separation. They make illusionary images that reinforce the seeming reality of separation. Because the ego thought system is the belief in being separate from Love, the ego’s thoughts always foster fear, the absence of Love.

Our true thoughts always extend (create) peace and Love. Any thought that disturbs our perfect peace is a false thought. A sigh, a feeling of impatience, a feeling of unworthiness, a need to defend or even rage are all the effects of a false thought. No matter the intensity of these feelings, they all demonstrate that we are believing in separation and therefore are the effect of false thoughts. They are equally destructive to our awareness of the Love we share with God.

This is why it is important that we pay attention to anything that disturbs our peace. As we practice taking these thoughts to the Holy Spirit and receive His help to learn they are based on a false belief, we are able to release the false thoughts and return to the true thoughts of Love we share with God. It is this practice that will return us to our Home, where we abide in perfect peace, joy and eternal Love.

© 2017, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Being Messengers of Love

I will there be light. I will use the power of my will today. It is not my will to grope about in darkness, fearful of shadows and afraid of things unseen and unreal. Light shall be my guide today. I will follow it where it leads me, and I will look only on what it shows me. This day I will experience the peace of true perception.

These forms of this idea would be helpful for specific applications:

This cannot hide the light I will to see.
You stand with me in light, [name].
In the light this will look different. (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 87, W-pI.87.1-2. See also ACIM Lesson 87 Insights.)

Light is an attribute of Love. Light is seen through the vision of Love. The ego, which denies Love, cannot see Light. The body is a mechanism made to see made-up images in darkness. Yet the body can be given a new purpose by the Holy Spirit. If we are willing to join with the Holy Spirit’s purpose, the body becomes a means to bring the Light of Love into the dream of a dark and loveless world.

The Holy Spirit will guide us to respond with Love to every call for Love. When a brother is perceived as acting lovelessly — fearful, hateful, guilty — Love will guide us to offer Love in a form that is truly helpful. Each time we allow the Holy Spirit to guide us to extend Love, we teach ourselves about the Love we are. We learn of the power of Love in us. We learn that we are invulnerable in the certainty of changeless Love that is always given us. Under Holy Spirit’s guidance, we become messenger’s of Love. We bring healing and we are healed.

© 2017, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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