My thoughts* on ACIM Urtext Lesson 187, for July 5, 2024. I bless the world because I bless myself.
I bless the world because I bless myself.
* Acknowledge Heaven now and the world will join us.
1. No one can give unless he has.
²In fact, giving is proof of having.
* Do you have Heaven yet? The recognition of Father and Son and their Communion in the Holy Spirit?
³We have made this point before.
⁴What seems to make it hard to credit is not this.
⁵No one can doubt that you must first possess what you would give.
⁶It is the second phase on which the world and true perception differ.
⁷Having had and given, then the world asserts that you have lost what you possessed.
* That is the ego=god world that denies the True and Original Creator.
⁸The truth maintains that giving will increase what you possess.
* Heaven expands God’s Reality Eternally.
2. How is this possible?
²For it is sure that if you give a finite thing away, your body’s eyes will not perceive it yours.
³Yet we have learned that things but represent the thoughts that make them.
⁴And you do not lack for proof that when you give ideas away, you strengthen them in your own mind.
* This might be your conviction that you are a victim or that you are in God’s Care. You decide what you believe and you magnify it.
⁵Perhaps the form in which the thought seems to appear is changed in giving.
* This sentence is important because it says “form” is OKAY, NOT that it is the substance of WHAT you ARE but it is OKAY.
⁶Yet it must return to him who gives.
⁷Nor can the form it takes be less acceptable.
⁸It must be more.
* I sense Jesus, and MORE IMPORTANTLY, FATHER, saying that form (which could be thought of as ritual if it is repeated or becomes a pattern of existence, I.E. even WORSHIP) is not only acceptable, it becomes desirable and never-ending. Who are we to put a cap on what God, the Original Creator can do?
3. Ideas must first belong to you, before you give them.
* You must have freedom to give freedom. This comes from the Atonement.
* You must have Heaven within to express Heaven without. This comes from seeing ONLY the Father and the Son in ALL That Is or EVER may be, seen and unseen.
* And I will tell you that to the ego=god mentality, it looks RUDE AS HELL.
* I wish I had understood this a long time ago. But then, time is not a problem, is it? Not in the REALITY that is God, the FATHER.
²If you are to save the world, you first accept salvation for yourself.
³But you will not believe that this is done until you see the miracles it brings to everyone you look upon.
* These “miracles” are forgiveness, existence, and freedom “TO EVERYONE YOU LOOK UPON.”
⁴Herein is the idea of giving clarified and given meaning.
⁵Now you can perceive that by your giving is your store increased.
* YOUR forgiveness is full, your existence is sustained, and your freedom is recognized.
* “Perfection and love” as the ego=god mentality defines and manipulates it is released under the tutelage of the Holy Spirit. And while it may appear to take “time” while in the state of form, remember that your journey is being witnessed and helps other’s find their Truth in God, as well.
4. Protect all things you value by the act of giving them away, and you are sure that you will never lose them.
* This is what I want: Forgiveness from the belief in separation, Existence as acknowledged by God, Our Original and Eternal Father, and Freedom to express God’s Reality and Voice as I Am Personally Inspired by Him through the Holy Spirit.
* The world of ego=god mentality has nothing that can substitute for what God gives me. NO MATTER what form it comes in.
²What you thought you did not have is thereby proven yours.
³Yet value not its form.
* Hear this, please. Do not let form, however it shows up, break your joy or confidence.
⁴For this will change and grow unrecognizable in time, however much you try to keep it safe.
⁵No form endures.
⁶It is the thought behind the form of things that lives unchangeable.
5. Give gladly.
²You can only gain thereby.
³The thought remains, and grows in strength as it is reinforced by giving.
⁴Thoughts extend as they are shared, for they can not be lost.
⁵There is no giver and receiver in the sense the world conceives of them.
* THIS is ABUNDANCE DEFINED:
⁶There is a giver who retains; another who will give as well.
⁷And both must gain in this exchange, for each will have the thought in form most helpful to him.
⁸What he seems to lose is always something he will value less than what will surely be returned to him.
6. Never forget you give but to yourself.
* Because you are a part of the Christ Who is All That Is or Ever Could Be.
²Who understands what giving means must laugh at the idea of sacrifice.
³Nor can he fail to recognize the many forms which sacrifice may take.
* Did you hear this? You will see what the ego does to the emotions and lives of those who believe it can replace God, the Original Creator, but you will know that it is unreal.
⁴He laughs as well at pain and loss, at sickness and at grief, at poverty, starvation and at death.
* I believe this statement was given to and through Bill as editor/scribe (at least the term “laughs”) because Jesus understood the quirky nature of Bill’s sense of humor. It was not a loud and boisterous resonance but a soft chuckle pointed at the irony of what humanity thinks of itself.
⁵He recognizes sacrifice remains the one idea that stands behind them all, and in his gentle laughter are they healed.
* Note the term “gentle.”
7. Illusion recognized must disappear.
²Accept not suffering, and you remove the thought of suffering.
* That is something worth pondering and putting on sticky notes all around your house till it becomes something that is a part of you.
³Your blessing lies on everyone who suffers, when you choose to see all suffering as what it is.
* Doesn’t the idea of blessing others “feel” better than sharing the burden of the hardships to prove that God cannot exist?
⁴The thought of sacrifice gives rise to all the forms that suffering appears to take.
* Hear that.
⁵And sacrifice is an idea so mad that sanity dismisses it at once.
* This is saying you will hear of it or even think of it perhaps but you will not cling to the concept as true or a reality, or even a possibility.
8. Never believe that you can sacrifice.
* FATHER DID NOT GIVE HIS SON LIFE TO TAKE IT AWAY and ALL are found to be within the Body of Christ.
²There is no place for sacrifice in what has any value.
³If the thought occurs, its very presence proves that error has arisen and correction must be made.
⁴Your blessing will correct it.
* Your blessing is the recognition that God IS and His Son could NEVER offend Him or be separated from Him.
⁵Given first to you, it now is yours to give as well.
⁶No form of sacrifice and suffering can long endure before the face of one who has forgiven and has blessed himself.
9. The lilies that your brother offers you are laid upon your altar, with the ones you offer him beside them.
²Who could fear to look upon such lovely holiness?
³The great illusion of the fear of God diminishes to nothingness before the purity that you will look on here.
⁴Be not afraid to look.
⁵The blessedness you will behold will take away all thought of form, and leave instead the perfect gift forever there, forever to increase, forever yours, forever given away.
10. Now are we one in thought, for fear has gone.
²And here, before the altar to one God, one Father, one Creator and one Thought, we stand together as one Son of God.
³Not separate from Him Who is our Source; not distant from one brother who is part of our one Self Whose innocence has joined us all as one, we stand in blessedness, and give as we receive.
⁴The Name of God is on our lips.
⁵And as we look within, we see the purity of Heaven shine in our reflection of our Father’s Love.
11. Now are we blessed, and now we bless the world.
²What we have looked upon we would extend, for we would see it everywhere.
³We would behold it shining with the grace of God in everyone.
⁴We would not have it be withheld from anything we look upon.
⁵And to ensure this holy sight is ours, we offer it to everything we see.
⁶For where we see it, it will be returned to us in form of lilies we can lay upon our altar, making it a home for Innocence Itself, Who dwells in us and offers us His Holiness as ours.
* Amen.
(ACIM, W-187.1:1–11:6)
Till next time, God bless, debi.
