My comments* on ACIM Lesson 169 within the full lesson.
“By grace I live. By grace I am released.”
This is perhaps my most controversial post on the lessons and I stand by what I have said this day for this is my understanding at this time.
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“By grace I live. By grace I am released.”
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1. Grace is an aspect of the Love of God which is most like the state prevailing in the unity of truth. ²It is the world’s most lofty aspiration, for it leads beyond the world entirely. ³It is past learning, yet the goal of learning, for grace cannot come until the mind prepares itself for true acceptance. ⁴Grace becomes inevitable instantly in those who have prepared a table where it can be gently laid and willingly received; an altar clean and holy for the gift.
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2. Grace is acceptance of the Love of God within a world of seeming hate and fear. ²By grace alone the hate and fear are gone, for grace presents a state so opposite to everything the world contains, that those whose minds are lighted by the gift of grace can not believe the world of fear is real.
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* Grace is a gift that we need do nothing for. it comes from God.
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3. Grace is not learned. ²The final step must go beyond all learning. ³Grace is not the goal this course aspires to attain. ⁴Yet we prepare for grace in that an open mind can hear the Call to waken. ⁵It is not shut tight against God’s Voice. ⁶It has become aware that there are things it does not know, and thus is ready to accept a state completely different from experience with which it is familiarly at home.
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* “⁶It has become aware that there are things it does not know, and thus is ready to accept a state completely different from experience with which it is familiarly at home.” I have come to understand that we can be in grace even in our thoughts and be convinced that we are not. This does not change our experience but releases the doubt that we have about where we are truly and what we have accepted.
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4. We have perhaps appeared to contradict our statement that the revelation of the Father and the Son as one has been already set. ²But we have also said the mind determines when that time will be, and has determined it. ³And yet we urge you to bear witness to the Word of God to hasten the experience of truth, and speed its advent into every mind that recognizes truth’s effects on you.
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5. Oneness is simply the idea God is. ²And in His Being, He encompasses all things. ³No mind holds anything but Him. ⁴We say “God is,” and then we cease to speak, for in that knowledge words are meaningless. ⁵There are no lips to speak them, and no part of mind sufficiently distinct to feel that it is now aware of something not itself. ⁶It has united with its Source. ⁷And like its Source Itself, it merely is.
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* “5. Oneness is simply the idea God is.” Now that is significant! But IS IT TRUE OR IS IT THE INTERPRETATION OF KEN AND BELIEF IN THE TRINITY which the rest of the Course DOES NOT support. I propose that liberties were taken with this message.
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* “⁵There are no lips to speak them, and no part of mind sufficiently distinct to feel that it is now aware of something not itself. ⁶It has united with its Source. ⁷And like its Source Itself, it merely is.” I can accept this without taking it to mean that I do nothing in the illusion to bring these truths to light. I wish to follow the promptings of the Holy Spirit that will move me according to the gifts, talents, and limitations (story) that I have at this time.
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6. We cannot speak nor write nor even think of this at all. ²It comes to every mind when total recognition that its will is God’s has been completely given and received completely. ³It returns the mind into the endless present, where the past and future cannot be conceived. ⁴It lies beyond salvation; past all thought of time, forgiveness and the holy face of Christ. ⁵The Son of God has merely disappeared into his Father, as his Father has in him. ⁶The world has never been at all. ⁷Eternity remains a constant state.
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* “³It returns the mind into the endless present, where the past and future cannot be conceived.” (*And where humanity cannot be within the essence of the illusion. Even though one may be in eternity with God in Heaven while on earth one still sees and remembers one’s purpose here and now in the flesh.)
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⁴It lies beyond salvation; past all thought of time, forgiveness and the holy face of Christ. (*Nothing lies beyond the Holy Face of Christ because God Willed it so by giving His ALL to His Son.)
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⁵The Son of God has merely disappeared into his Father, as his Father has in him. (*So not only has the sugar dissolved but so has the water it was poured into and the air that absorbed the water and the Creator who established the air as a place for the Son to heal. Nonsense!)
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⁶The world has never been at all. (*For a person who did not like the world he happened to be in Ken did a very good job putting that interpretation into the Course and the way it would be distributed around the world. You will note that we have no access to the original scribal notes of the Workbook but we do have a witness from Ken himself that he went through the whole Course with Helen “word by word”.)
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⁷Eternity remains a constant state.” (*Constant state or constant creation? Can it be both? Hardly!)
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* That statement DOES NOT Ring true!!! That does not align with the rest of the Course material! It says that the Son of God is gone and that cannot be for what God creates is ETERNAL. And the Course is all about that God created the Son and the Son did not create Himself. ~~~I hear impressions of the Trinity and Ken’s influence here. I will not turn from what I know to be true.
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7. This is beyond experience we try to hasten. ²Yet forgiveness, taught and learned, brings with it the experiences which bear witness that the time the mind itself determined to abandon all but this is now at hand. ³We do not hasten it, in that what you will offer was concealed from Him Who teaches what forgiveness means.
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* This paragraph is nonsensical. The Holy Spirit who teaches forgiveness has NOTHING concealed from Him. He sees both the illusion and the truth as God determines it.
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8. All learning was already in His Mind, accomplished and complete. ²He recognized all that time holds, and gave it to all minds that each one might determine, from a point where time was ended, when it is released to revelation and eternity. ³We have repeated several times before that you but make a journey that is done.
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* It is curious that the FIP’s Web Edition of ACIM has “journey that is done” noted only one time. Though 108 references to the journey back to God are noted as seen here: ⁶The journey to God is merely the reawakening of the knowledge of where you are always, and what you are forever. ⁷It is a journey without distance to a goal that has never changed. (ACIM, T-8.VI.9:6–7)
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* This is the denial and destruction of all that God decreed was to be. God gave His Son to have life and experience and nothing less.
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9. For oneness must be here. ²Whatever time the mind has set for revelation is entirely irrelevant to what must be a constant state, forever as it always was; forever to remain as it is now. ³We merely take the part assigned long since, and fully recognized as perfectly fulfilled by Him Who wrote salvation’s script in His Creator’s Name, and in the Name of His Creator’s Son.
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* The wording of that last sentence makes me nervous. It is making the Holy Spirit more real than God the Father or the Son. Which basically cancels them both out along with the Holy Spirit.
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* By Judy’s accounts we know that Bill and Ken had strong disagreements over the Course material and how it was interpreted by Ken to whom Helen had given the right to publish and teach the Course material. Ken’s distaste for both Bill and Helen are evident in his mannerisms in historical recordings that I have seen.
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10. There is no need to further clarify what no one in the world can understand. ²When revelation of your oneness comes, it will be known and fully understood. ³Now we have work to do, for those in time can speak of things beyond, and listen to words which explain what is to come is past already. ⁴Yet what meaning can the words convey to those who count the hours still, and rise and work and go to sleep by them?
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*God does not give to His Son what He cannot understand and He sends the Holy Spirit to guide Him step by step. All that this paragraph says is that humanity is too ignorant to comprehend what is being taught and that is not the teaching of Jesus anywhere and I would lay anything that it is purely false conjecture on Ken’s part.
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*It embodies the very elements of fear and guilt that the Course teaches that the ego will misconstrue all truth into so as to confuse the Son of God and keep Him from His Father for fear that He, the ego, will be destroyed. And then you can tell me that Ken served humanity? I dare say, NO, he has not beyond showing just how the ego comes to play when we seek to be with God and do not trust our own selves.
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11. Suffice it, then, that you have work to do to play your part. ²The ending must remain obscure to you until your part is done. ³It does not matter. ⁴For your part is still what all the rest depends on. ⁵As you take the role assigned to you, salvation comes a little nearer each uncertain heart that does not beat as yet in tune with God.
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*WORK??? I declare NO! Why do we have work when it is by grace we are healed? It is acceptance of the Atonement and that God is our Father that is required!
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12. Forgiveness is the central theme that runs throughout salvation, holding all its parts in meaningful relationships, the course it runs directed and its outcome sure. ²And now we ask for grace, the final gift salvation can bestow. ³Experience that grace provides will end in time, for grace foreshadows Heaven, yet does not replace the thought of time but for a little while.
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* Forgiveness is the key, yes! We are able to be in Heaven now. Delay is not necessary!
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13. The interval suffices. ²It is here that miracles are laid; to be returned by you from holy instants you receive, through grace in your experience, to all who see the light that lingers in your face. ³What is the face of Christ but his who went a moment into timelessness, and brought a clear reflection of the unity he felt an instant back to bless the world? ⁴How could you finally attain to it forever, while a part of you remains outside, unknowing, unawakened, and in need of you as witness to the truth?
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* “³What is the face of Christ but his who went a moment into timelessness, and brought a clear reflection of the unity he felt an instant back to bless the world?” This seems to be the Holy Instant we are told we may have for always.
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* “How could you finally attain to it forever, while a part of you remains outside, unknowing, unawakened, and in need of you as witness to the truth?” THIS is the oneness that Jesus speaks of that we must have in the Sonship.
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14. Be grateful to return, as you were glad to go an instant, and accept the gifts that grace provided you. (*I hear this as be glad that you are still in the world of illusion so that you can bring the light of what you understand to the rest of existence.)
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²You carry them back to yourself. ³And revelation stands not far behind. ⁴Its coming is ensured. ⁵We ask for grace, and for experience that comes from grace. (*We recognize we are in grace as are all other parts of the Sonship. Experience does not come from grace. Grace simply is.)
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⁶We welcome the release it offers everyone. ⁷We do not ask for the unaskable. ⁸We do not look beyond what grace can give. (*Forgiveness is sufficient for the illusion.)
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⁹For this we can give in the grace that has been given us. (*We do not give grace it simply IS because God IS and our denying that does not make it otherwise.)
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* We accept the gift of God today which is His Grace (Note the duality here.). The Son has been released because God IS. Acknowledge that and receive it!
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15. Our learning goal today does not exceed this prayer. ²Yet in the world, what could be more than what we ask this day of Him Who gives the grace we ask, as it was given Him? (NO ONE GIVES GRACE ACCEPT GOD.)
³By grace I live. ⁴By grace I am released.
⁵By grace I give. ⁶By grace I will release.
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* By the power of God I live. By the power of God I am released. By the power of God I give. By the power of God I will release. This is how I understand this prayer. Grace is the power of God on earth from what I understand.
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Thank you for reading, till next time, God bless, debi.
