A Course in Miracles Workbook Daily Lesson 276, Year 2022

ACIM Daily Lesson 276 The Word of God is given me to speak. 1. What is the Word of God? ²“My Son is pure and holy as Myself.”

Lesson 276

The Word of God is given me to speak.

1. What is the Word of God? ²“My Son is pure and holy as Myself.” ³And thus did God become the Father of the Son He loves, for thus was he created. ⁴This the Word His Son did not create with Him, because in this His Son was born. ⁵Let us accept His Fatherhood, and all is given us. ⁶Deny we were created in His Love and we deny our Self, to be unsure of Who we are, of Who our Father is, and for what purpose we have come. ⁷And yet, we need but to acknowledge Him Who gave His Word to us in our creation, to remember Him and so recall our Self.

2. Father, Your Word is mine. ²And it is this that I would speak to all my brothers, who are given me to cherish as my own, as I am loved and blessed and saved by You.

God is not like us; we are like Him.

Jesus has told us before in the Text that the only difference between God and Us is that the Son was created by God, but the Son cannot create God. He is telling us this again here. How odd that we have been so determined to create God in our reduced image of bodies and personalities with all our flaws. You would think that we would be delighted to hear that instead of God being like us, we are like Him. And yet, we cling pathetically to the image we made of ourselves. We try to drag God down to our level, assuming he holds grudges and seeks vengeance against His own creations. We, then, feel justified in behaving in the same way.

Today, I choose to believe Jesus.

This day I accept that God created me by proclaiming that I am as pure and holy as Himself. I know that it looks like I have made of myself a frail and vulnerable body and that I am “only human.” Thus, my strange and awful behaviors seem justified, but I know this is not true. I remain as God created me, and I speak this truth to all my brothers who are as God created them. To most, I don’t speak aloud, but I treat them as the holy and pure Self that they are. I hold that truth in my mind even as they, like me, act as if guilt and fear were His creations.

I don’t do this perfectly… yet. But I practice it daily, and I express my gratitude that it is so despite appearances. I forgive all I see in others and feel in myself that is not the Word of God. I choose to forgive it and let go because it is just a strange illusion and not reality. Thank goodness, I am not the body that I am weirdly attached to, this flawed character, Myron. I am the Son of God, created in His Love, and I will remember who I am and why I came. I will remember my Self. One of the ways I practice the truth is to remind myself often that I am not this body and not in this body.

Today We Could Accept Our True Identity

I am His sleeping Son deciding to wake up now that I am wearied of the dream. I imagine myself existing outside the body of Myron. My Self is behind and to the left, watching and feeling all that happens in this story. Beliefs drive the story, and I see their effects. In this way, I can make decisions as to which beliefs are real and which are unreal. Then I forgive the unreal and let them go. I imagine that everyone I encounter is outside their body image as well. No matter what these images are doing and saying, we look with love on each other and gently smile at the joke. In this way, I am waking up and accepting my true Identity as His Son.

This Lesson describes our creation beautifully. However, one night I woke up briefly and the Course was still playing as it had been when I fell asleep. It was at a passage that encouraged us to accept who we are, and I remember feeling discouraged that I am not doing that. I asked Jesus what is wrong with me that I am not accepting this. Then I fell back to sleep. Maybe the ego is acting out in my sleep what I won’t accept from it in my waking hours. Perhaps this sense of discouragement was in retaliation for the message I received that day reassuring me that all is well.

And it is this that I would speak to all my brothers, who are given me to cherish as my own.

So when someone I am talking to is expressing their own discouragement, I can say something helpful instead of joining them in their suffering. Or maybe just love them through their rough spot. Or maybe all I need to do is to know who it is that surrounds me, these precious aspects of the One. By giving support and encouragement, I receive the benefits as well.

Regina’s Tips on What Is the Christ?

Our special theme says, “Home of the Holy Spirit, and at home in God alone, does Christ remain at peace within the Heaven of your holy mind. This is the only part of you that has reality in truth. The rest is dreams. … The Holy Spirit reaches from the Christ in you to all your dreams, and bids them come to Him, to be translated into truth. He will exchange them for the final dream which God appointed as the end of dreams.”

This excerpt invites us to do two things:

1. Discern between truth and dreams.
2. Discern between the right mind (spiritual intuition) and the wrong mind.

I used to think that the right mind was truth. I used to think that the goal of truth seeking was to learn to listen to only the right mind. However, spiritual intuition is not the goal. Spiritual intuition is the means.

Notice, again, what our special theme says:

“Home of the Holy Spirit, and at home in God alone, does Christ remain at peace within the Heaven of your holy mind. “

Just as the human experience is within Christ-consciousness, Christ-consciousness is within truth, and that truth is still what we are (“your holy mind”).

It’s pretty amazing. We appear to be human. We are awakening to the realization that we are Christ-consciousness. Yet, our absolute nature is that which makes Christ-consciousness possible.

Ultimate truth, then, is indefinable. Yet, because it is what we are, it can be directly known.

My Thoughts

I have been experiencing that I am not the doer in the world, but the observer of the world. That in itself is a big step, accepting that the script is written and that I am not changing things, that for the most part, I have very little effect on this world including the part I think of as my own little story. I fought this idea for so very long. I just couldn’t stand the idea that I am not a mover and shaker here. ~smile~

Now, I notice that this feels so good. I surrender the story, and I focus on how it can direct me to what needs to be healed in the mind. If I can change anything, and I do think that things can change though that is not my goal, it will be done through the healing of my mind, not through my manipulation of the story. I can definitely affect how I experience it, and that, too, is achieved through healing my mind.

As big as this change feels to me, it is not the goal.

I have also experienced a little bit of what it feels like to see the world from the perspective of Self, and yet this too seems personal. My Self. But I know that this Self is part of the Christ Mind or Christ Consciousness even if I haven’t had a direct experience of it. I can, though, and I look forward to that. But that is not the final goal. That goal is not even imaginable to me.

PS: I said that the script is written, and I also said that I can change things.

These statements seem to be in opposition, but here is how I see this. Jesus says that we must undo what we have done. We must go back to our beginning. He says this about the real world.

⁹The real world is all that the Holy Spirit has saved for you out of what you have made, and to perceive only this is salvation, because it is the recognition that reality is only what is true. (ACIM, T-11.VII.4:9)

Every loving thought we have made is still in our minds. We are not aware of the world of love because we see both love and fear. As we forgive the unloving, we will discover the real world of Love. We have the opportunity to do this every day, every moment of every day.

Here is an example of how I do this. Suppose my friend said she would do me a favor and then changed her mind. If my mind is still conflicted, I might be angry and feel abandoned. Depending on the intensity of the emotion, I might say something that can’t be taken back. It could cost me a friendship and regret the loss.

Suppose, on the other hand, it went like this.

My friend said she would do me a favor and then changed her mind. From a clear mind, I would forgive the situation because I don’t believe in fear and guilt. Nor do I believe I can be abandoned. I would appreciate that she offered, and then find a way to get the favor done or just let it go depending on how important it was. Now I have a different ending to my story. I love my friend, and she loves me, and our friendship flourishes.

Two things happened. From a conflicted mind, a friendship was lost, and everything that would have happened with that friend doesn’t happen. From the healed mind, the friendship continues with many happy encounters. No, I didn’t write new script. Every life story is written, and every variation of the story is written. It is our choice that decides which variation we live.

Here is what I have discovered.

The more often I make my decisions in union with the Holy Spirit, the happier my dream is. This practice brings me closer to the real world, where every decision is made with the Holy Spirit. Imagine the world as this the light in our minds spreads across the entire Sonship. We will begin to live in the world that God loves. ²God does love the real world…(ACIM, T-12.III.8:2)

Regina’s Tips on the lesson

Our lesson says, “Let us accept His Fatherhood, and all is given us.”

This sentence points to a shift in our identification. Instead of identifying with the human, who is within Christ-consciousness, we are invited to identify with Christ-consciousness, which is within the source.

Today’s lesson says, “The Word of God is given me to speak.” This is an invitation to speak from Christ-consciousness, to have “I” refer to our consciousness-Self instead of the human-self.

Today, pay attention to what you mean by “I”. Is “I” being used to represent your true Self, or is it being used to represent the false self?

When you notice that “I” in your speaking or thinking points to the false self, silently ask yourself, “What am I?” Look. What is most true about you in your current experience? Are you ready to speak from that truth?

This is from the 2011 journal.

Holy Spirit, this lesson says I am as pure and holy as God Himself, for thus was I created. Maybe it is hard for me to grasp that I cannot change God’s creation because I have made that which does change and eventually decays. To see something, anything, as constant and unchanging is hard to do. Please help me to understand this lesson.

Holy Spirit: Holy Child, what you create is as holy and pure as you are. Your creations are as inviolate as you are. What you see in the world you made is not your creation but only the effects of impossible thoughts. I tell you that God created you like Himself, and this is beyond question and beyond change. You are also created free, and so you are free to imagine something impossible, but your imaginings cannot undo truth. You cannot create yourself, or recreate yourself, or change yourself in any way. Creation proceeds in one direction only. Be glad of this.

Me: Lately, I have been able to see myself as slightly removed from the illusion.

I’ve experienced myself outside of the illusion looking in. This is helpful to me as I am learning that I am not the dream but the maker of the dream. It is still hard for me to hold onto this perspective, and I slip back into the part I’m playing. This morning I had a thought of failure, and this led to doubt. These thoughts were like a tether that kept me bound to the illusion. It was hard even to remember how to ask for help.

Holy Spirit: Yes, but even in this, you are not a victim. There are many such thoughts in the mind yet, but if you choose not to embrace them, they dissolve. They cannot exist without your support. As you give them your attention, they seem to take on weight and life. You infuse them with the power of your belief, then act as if they have power over you. Isn’t that the way it felt to you?

Me: Yes! Exactly like that. It was as if the thoughts in my mind were directing me and binding me as if I were what my thoughts said I was and couldn’t do anything about it.

Holy Spirit: This is why you need this lesson. Read it carefully. It is your salvation from the trap of your mistaken beliefs.

Me: Yes, I see. I will not believe what I see, not even in my own mind, unless it reflects the truth that I am as God created me. I will not believe what I think I see in others unless it reflects that same truth because they are still as God created them.

Contemplation 2025