Lesson 356:

Sickness is but another name for sin. Healing is but another name for God. The miracles is thus a call t Him…

Sickness, like scarcity, loss, and well, pretty much anything else we resist in this world, have a few central themes. Our experience of them depends upon an opposite to give reality to it. They are time and outcomes bound, and require a separate identity to experience them… Yet in reality, they have but one thing in common; they are nothing…

And yet, for the purpose of Atonement, they are the means fro recognizing where the mind is falsely identified and the opportunity to solicit a miracle to replace the error called forth in mind… So, all things, being nothing in truth, can be seen as blessings in a unified purpose of forgiveness; clearing the way to recognize eternal creation behind and beyond.

When we recognize our eternality, we see what happens on the screen, yet we remember that trust will settle every situation, circumstance or relationship through the Holy Spirit for the best possible good for all. We place our faith in the unified outcome, which is as certain as God. So, miracles and healing and abundance and oneness are all mere alternate ‘labels’ for the experience of God in our lives...

It’s all Good! ~ It’s all God!

Lesson 355:

There is no end to all the peace and joy, and all the miracles that I will give, when I accept God’s Word. Why not today?

Why not today, indeed?

Do I have something ‘better’ to do? In actuality this is not only the only business on the calendar of my so-called life, but all I am interested in… I have utterly defrauded all opposing thought forms as having any substance or significance what-so- ever, through the inquiry forgiveness offers… All that remains is the alive experience of ‘love-now’, which Holy Spirit within my mind held already, saving it for but my decision to place my faith in love instead of fear; the true only….

God/Self replaces the self-concept and I see the face of Christ reflected in shining stars; the light my brothers are and share with me…

~Christ-mas is the season of now; the answer always Yes! Today’s inquiry ‘why not today’~ unequivocally, YES! ~

~There is no end to all the peace and joy, and all the miracles that I will give, when I accept God’s Word: I AM AS GOD CREATED ME~ And only that is TRUE…

Please join me in remembering the beautiful prayer of truth at the beginning of this section: What Am I?

“I am God’s Son, complete and healed and whole, shining in the reflection of His Love. In me is His creation sanctified and guaranteed eternal life. in me is love perfected, fear impossible, and joy established without opposite. I am the holy home of God Himself. I am the Heaven where His Love resides. I am His holy Sinlessness Itself, for in my purity abides His Own…”

Lesson 276:

The Word of God is given me to speak…

“My Son is pure and holy as Myself...”

Ok, so God’s Son (you and me) is pure and holy as God Himself… in other words, ‘I am as God created me… pure and holy and eternally unchangeable in nature due to Source Itself… Which is to say that what is Love; whole and innocent and eternal cannot be something else…tainted by imagination’s concepts and falsehoods…

Now, in terms of daily application, this really simplifies things. If I am experiencing anything that did not spring forth from this initial idea (God’s Son is pure and holy as Himself) as the fundamental cornerstone of my perception, then I need to stop and ask “What is the meaning of what I behold?” Then be still and listen…

Forgiveness will serve its meaning up to me in purified form and as I see you as myself, I know exactly what to do and say, for it is the present we now share…

Here, now, all I see is that you are my one Self in the holy exchange of the false for the true; the call for Love ~ Love answering…

We are as God created… this is the only message worth of sharing in this so-called world of for-getting and re-membering and for-giving and re-cognizing and real-izing…

YOU, my Christ brothers, are my holy relationship in this world as eternally in God… His Son is pure and holy as Himself…

And as messengers of God (which ultimately we all are), the word of God is given us to speak…

Lesson 233:

I give my life to God to guide today…

Who is the ‘I’ that gives my life? God is my life. I have no life but His. So the ‘I that gives’ is the part of the mind that is associated with the belief in decision. What we are addressing in ‘giving our life to God to guide today, is the part of mind that thought it could do something else; the part of mind which, in that ‘tiny tick of time’, spun out every possibility of the impossible idea that one could separate from oneself and father a life aside from His…

I have my being in God. Yet, there is a part of mind which dreams it makes decisions and today it decides for waking to the truth. Humility is for us. We pray in grateful appreciation for the truth. We pray to remember… we pray to forget this little self, dissolving into the grand chorus of God’s Love which is creation’s song... We are the Grandeur of our Father’s Love. And when we are not in touch with that simple fact, as our complete being, seeming steps for its remembrance are a built-in part of God’s plan for salvation, returning mind to Mind.

I have always loved the poetic poignancy of this particular prayer; have used it daily for long stretches of time, and could often be heard to say to brothers that if you still seem to be ‘suckin’ air in a body’, this prayer is for you… Please join me in reviewing it now:

“Father, I give you all my thoughts today. I would have none of mine. In place of them, give me Your Own. I give You all my acts as well, that I may do You Will instead of seeking goals which cannot be obtained, and wasting time in vain imagining. Today I come to You. I will step back and merely follow You. Be You the Guide, and I the follower who questions not the wisdom of the Infinite, nor Love whose tenderness I cannot comprehend, but which is yet Your perfect gift to me”.

The body’s ears cannot hear, nor lips sing the glorious song of creation, yet when we still our minds, in a holy instant of release, it is there feeling like love, and we realize it has always been there; our true voice singing hallelujah to our Father and our Self…

I give my life to God to guide today, to return the mind to its up-right position for the remembrance that there could be no other way than God’s Will… which is perfect happiness….

PART II Introduction:

Today, we begin the final part of this year's lesson's; this year that we have given to devoted to know the experience of God the Father and of our Self; His Son..."For now we seek direct experience of truth alone. The lessons that remain are merely introductions to the times in which we leave the world of pain, and go to enter peace. Now we begin to reach the goal this course has set, and find the end toward which our practicing was always geared...we wait in quiet expectation for our God and Father....Now do we come to Him with but His Word upon our minds and hearts, and wait for Him to take the step to us that He has told us, through His Voice, He would not fail to take when we invited Him. He has not left His Son in all his madness, nor betrayed His trust in Him. Has not His faithfulness earned Him the invitation that He seeks to make us happy? We will offer it, and it will be accepted. So our times with Him will now be spent. We say the words of invitation that His Voice suggests, and then we wait for Him to come to us"…

I love this section of the lessons, Part II. I love the format; with a key idea heading a series of ten pertinent lessons for integration of the idea, speaking to the truth within us. Each has a prayer, which alone would be enough to bring one home… They are marvelously simple, astonishingly salient and beautifully poetic. I always find myself singing the great chorus of “Y E S” in the background of my mind while I read and contemplate them. I am so pleased to have you join me this time around. ~Truth rests in constant presence, with assured joy, gratitude and love ~

WHAT IS FORGIVENESS?:

Lesson 221:

Peace to my mind. Let all my thoughts be still…Y.E.S...This is what matters now… the stillness... where the voice for God becomes my own, where clarity is no longer in question and choice has been answered with the certainty of the love of God, which is His holy Son, expressed as my Self. Here, I know what I am…

And from here, this being takes her place ~her function within the world... I know her well, she is in everywhere... She has a face, that face is Christ. Vision is her sight and her eyes but serve to witness to her holy face in every projected person, place and circumstance. And but for one purpose only... that her holy function of forgiveness be fulfilled in you my brothers, as myself...

Where are conflict and competition and hierarchies and ordering of thoughts when the mind has stepped back allowing each unforgiving construct to slip gently into the appropriate place to turn the cogs of the great mechanism of the forgiven world?

God’s perfect plan for salvation has carefully taken all that I made to forget my Self, my Creator and you; the replacement team I made within my mind to pose for what was not, and denying what was true. But, alas, God's placement of the Holy Spirit as His Voice within my mind, then used these skills and abilities designed for this denial to teach me to deny the denial of truth, instead.

Only the truth is left standing in my mind. And the stillness beating in my heart inspires all movement of all seeming actions and decisions. The comforting awareness of knowing that it is all, already done; rests and stabilizes experience. Everything is sure….

Yes, a happy outcome is indeed sure… and all worry and planning has ceased… Ah, yes. It is here… now… peace… all has been answered, forgiven, set back to freedom; the natural state of love… ummm yummy… Join me in this prayer of engagement offered as a beacon for the mind attempting weariness, which revives and reminds and connects…

“Father, I come to You today to seek the peace that You alone can give. I come in silence. In the quiet of my heart, the deep recesses of my mind, I wait and listen for Your Voice. My Father, speak to me today. I come to hear Your Voice in silence and in certainty and love, sure You will hear my call and answer me.”

We are in this together, you and I… There really are no separate parts. And while we might pretend a little longer that there just might be, and that 'whole' forgiveness may be served upon this world made to separate; we gather each other, to each other. Each time we allow forgiveness to serve its purpose as designed by God; our hearts swell with the Love that is our Self, impelling Spirit reality to become visible and increasingly substantial as ‘reality’. Our physical-ness begins to fade as presence in our mind for truth has been allowed to be…

Lesson 203:

I am not a body. I am free.

For I am still as God created me.

I call upon God’s Name and on my own…

I am not a body. I am free.

For I am still as God created me…

Today, as we slip back, beyond the mind, into the pull of the Great Love; (the very possibility of mind and consciousness where the dance plays out) let us allow ourselves to feel and receive the deliverance this lesson is truly brings. We will, if we want it truly, and nothing else. Yes must mean not no. We lay all judgment, not just aside, but in the Holy Spirit’s hands; give it fully unto Him whose job it is to transform the ‘special’ into the sacred. Let us immerge from this sacred time devoted to the truth, not only refreshed and renewed, but as the ministers of the message of deliverance we receive.

We call upon God Name and on our own.

Everything we look upon, we see with vision or the body’s eyes (which is not really seeing, but projecting the program from the brain of its dictator). When we truly call upon God’s Name, we are deciding for vision. It is all or nothing. We either choose to hostage to the ego or host to God.

We have taken the leap of faith. We have accepted we are what reason tells us could only be: WE ARE AS GOD CREATED US. This is the Word of God. We have heard His call; and we have answered. And we are no longer alone. We are among the ministers of His Word and we accept the Atonement for ourselves…

In deepest gratitude and great abiding joy, we thank everyone in every situation we encounter, for the holy encounter with our Namesake. For the chance to forgive and see differently. For the chance remember who we are through accepting them as they are: not a body, but free, with us, as God created it to be.

And I thank you, forever and ever, now…

Lesson 162:

I am as God created me…

Holy indeed are we who make these words our own; arising with them in our mind, recalling them through the day, at night bringing them with us as we go to sleep… This is all that is asked of us today in practicing our lesson for the day. We begin aright by bringing our minds to the Holy Spirit‘s guidance with these simple words, the word of God: I AM AS GOD CREATED ME.

The lesson says that these are the words God’s gave in answer to the world we made and that by them it disappears; that all things seen within its misty clouds and vaporous illusions vanish as these words are spoken. For they come from God… Now that is some kind of declaration!

I am as God created me…. Just repeating the words brings peace to mind. Contemplating the apparent truth of them truly dispels the petty insecurities of the self-concept in favor of the Self; the Son God created always as Himself.

I am as God created me~ This is the one truth. It is a statement I am wholly connected to in meaning, dependent on for reality, and holy in my value. I honor life with this truth. Whenever anything seems to tilt off-kilter, this statement is a sure restorative to peace and to right-minded thinking and to the vision of my brothers as myself.

It stands to reason that developing the habit of engaging with God through the means provided by Him; from first waking till sleeping with our true identity in mind, is an important habit to develop.

I’ll tell you how it is for me. This practice has become a fixed part of mind. Whenever I experience any disturbance to my peace of mind, I immediately think, “What I am seeing cannot be who I am or who you are. We are as God created us. What I am seeing must be within an illusive mind I have mistakenly identified with, which I give now to the Holy Spirit for correction and restoration to truth”. The disturbance, without fail, dissolves back into the emptiness from which it came.

Making these words; I am as God created me, and indelible habit of mind is crucial. They are the word of God, the short-cut Home, connecting us instantly to the one truth available in this world. It is, simply, why we are here.

We practice simply today, honoring our Father, our brothers and Self with our holiness till we recognize our right to perfect holiness and offer it habitually to everyone… The light dawns today and blesses all, for we recognize we the Son of God: I am as God created me…