My thoughts* on ACIM Workbook Lesson 199, for July 17, 2024. “I am not a body. I am free.” I have given my story to the Holy Spirit.
I am not a body. I am free.
* I am not a body in the full context of what I am as an eternal being in God, the Father but for the moment I am able to embrace the role and form that I have taken.
1. Freedom must be impossible as long as you perceive a body as yourself.
* True that. The body does not rule. And God is found in our thinking processes, within.
²The body is a limit.
* A limit whose form can be used by the Holy Spirit to teach of truth.
³Who would seek for freedom in a body looks for it where it can not be found.
* Freedom is only found in knowing Who is found within the innermost parts of our heart and mind. This might be better understood if I said “THOUGHTS.”
⁴The mind can be made free when it no longer sees itself as in a body, firmly tied to it and sheltered by its presence.
⁵If this were the truth, the mind were vulnerable indeed!
2. The mind that serves the Holy Spirit is unlimited forever, in all ways, beyond the laws of time and space, unbound by any preconceptions, and with strength and power to do whatever it is asked.
²Attack thoughts cannot enter such a mind, because it has been given to the Source of love, and fear can never enter in a mind that has attached itself to love.
³It rests in God.
* Yet, do not assume that you are going to jump out of existence here when you find God or you will never find Him Here where He is and has always been with you.
⁴And who can be afraid who lives in Innocence, and only loves?
3. It is essential for your progress in this course that you accept today’s idea, and hold it very dear.
²Be not concerned that to the ego it is quite insane.
³The ego holds the body dear because it dwells in it, and lives united with the home that it has made.
* DO NOT take this as permission to disrespect the body.
⁴It is a part of the illusion that has sheltered it from being found illusory itself.
4. Here does it hide, and here it can be seen as what it is.
²Declare your innocence and you are free.
³The body disappears, because you have no need of it except the need the Holy Spirit sees.
* NOTE that the Holy Spirit has use for the body in the Universal Plan of Salvation.
⁴For this, the body will appear as useful form for what the mind must do.
⁵It thus becomes a vehicle which helps forgiveness be extended to the all-inclusive goal that it must reach, according to God’s plan.
5. Cherish today’s idea, and practice it today and every day.
²Make it a part of every practice period you take.
³There is no thought that will not gain thereby in power to help the world, and none which will not gain in added gifts to you as well.
* Take this in the context that it was given in that you have given the use of the body and the mind within it to the service of the Holy Spirit to bless the Son of God as a Whole.
⁴We sound the call of freedom round the world with this idea.
⁵And would you be exempt from the acceptance of the gifts you give?
6. The Holy Spirit is the home of minds that seek for freedom.
* I like this idea. Home of the minds that seek for freedom resides within the Holy Spirit. Yes, because therein God, the Father embodies the WHOLE of His Son.
²In Him they have found what they have sought.
³The body’s purpose now is unambiguous.
* The body’s purpose is no longer in question. It is for the use of the Holy Spirit.
⁴And it becomes perfect in the ability to serve an undivided goal.
* Which would be the restoration of the Mind of the Son of God Fully to the Father.
⁵In conflict-free and unequivocal response to mind with but the thought of freedom as its goal, the body serves, and serves its purpose well.
⁶Without the power to enslave, it is a worthy servant of the freedom which the mind within the Holy Spirit seeks.
7. Be free today.
* This happens ONLY in the acceptance of the Atonement.
²And carry freedom as your gift to those who still believe they are enslaved within a body.
* This is what I am learning how to do within the realm of form.
³Be you free, so that the Holy Spirit can make use of your escape from bondage, to set free the many who perceive themselves as bound and helpless and afraid.
⁴Let love replace their fears through you.
* I can ONLY BE LOVE and I know this but that does not mean that others do. That is part of freedom, we each choose what we see.
⁵Accept salvation now, and give your mind to Him Who calls to you to make this gift to Him.
* Your mind (or thoughts) are the gift we make to the Holy Spirit allowing Him interpretation of all that we witness moment by moment. ~ This happens to be how time ends, by the way.
⁶For He would give you perfect freedom, perfect joy, and hope that finds its full accomplishment in God.
* I have this inside of me. Five years in the Atonement and a daily student of A Course in Miracles.
8. You are God’s Son.
²In immortality you live forever.
³Would you not return your mind to this?
⁴Then practice well the thought the Holy Spirit gives you for today.
⁵Your brothers stand released with you in it; the world is blessed along with you, God’s Son will weep no more, and Heaven offers thanks for the increase of joy your practice brings even to it.
* This will all be given to you inside as you walk in the Holy Spirit’s Guidance.
⁶And God Himself extends His Love and happiness each time you say:
⁷I am not a body.
⁸I am free.
⁹I hear the Voice that God has given me, and it is only this my mind obeys.
* Amen and thank you, Father.
(ACIM, W-199.1:1–8:9)
* Free stock photo: We are “free” to give our body over to the Holy Spirit to be used for the awakening of the Son of God. And there is no sweeter place to be. One might even call it Heaven.
Till next time, God bless, debi.
