ACIM Chapter 11. IV. The Inheritance of God’s Son P 1-3

ACIM Chapter 11. IV. The Inheritance of God’s Son P 1-3

IV. The Inheritance of God’s Son P 1

1 Never forget that the Sonship is your salvation, for the Sonship is your Self. As God’s creation It is yours, and belonging to you It is His. Your Self does not need salvation, but your mind needs to learn what salvation is. You are not saved from anything, but you are saved for glory. Glory is your inheritance, given you by your Creator that you might extend it. Yet if you hate part of your Self all your understanding is lost, because you are looking on what God created as yourself without love. And since what He created is part of Him, you are denying Him His place in His Own altar.

So many places in the Course tell us we are in this together.

We, the Sons of God, must remember our unity and learn to see each other as we were created. We are all part of a whole, but we cannot know this if we remain in competition and judgment. In this first sentence, Jesus tells us again that the Sonship is our salvation because the Sonship is our Self.

In the second sentence, “As God’s creation It is yours, and belonging to you It is His,” Jesus is helping us to understand something we have forgotten. God created the Self, the Sonship, and so it is ours. Then he says that because it is ours, it is God’s. God and we are so inextricably joined that we are part of each other. Because this is so, there is nothing true about us that is not also true about God. And there is nothing true about God that is not also true about us.

There is no separation between God and us, no small gap where there is something that is not God and us. I am belaboring this point because I know these words, but I don’t know myself as part of God. I am trying to let this sink in on some deeper level, so it is no longer a concept I am willing to believe but a knowing that is certain and forever mine once again.

There is a solution.

As I practice knowing my brother as myself, letting go of judgment and competition, the truth of our Self will become awake in me. Jesus reminds me that I will not have this awakening if I hate any part of the Self. People I don’t want to love pop into my mind as I write this. I look at their ego-personality, and I believe what I see and what our ego mind tells me about them. 

Since they are part of me, if I condemn them, I condemn myself, and since we are all part of God, if I condemn them or myself, I condemn God. No wonder we have so much unconscious guilt and are so afraid of God. It is time to end this farce and open our hearts to the truth. Let the day be a day of forgiveness and unity. Let the Holy Spirit heal the mind and awaken us to our glorious reality.

IV. The Inheritance of God’s Son P 2

2 Could you try to make God homeless and know that you are at home? Can the Son deny the Father without believing that the Father has denied him? God’s laws hold only for your protection, and they never hold in vain. What you experience when you deny your Father is still for your protection, for the power of your will cannot be lessened without the intervention of God against it, and any limitation on your power is not the Will of God. Therefore, look only to the power that God gave to save you, remembering that it is yours because it is His, and join with your brothers in His peace.

My decision to be without God makes me feel homeless.

My denial of God makes me feel like God is denying me. All of this can be undone the moment I stop making that decision. I am powerful because I was created powerful, an extension of God. I can end this sham any time I want to because I have been given the means to do so and created with the power to use the means. That I am still living a dream is the result of my desire to do so, not because I can’t wake up.

Probably most Course students have thought that they just wish God would pluck them out of this nightmare; He is all-powerful, and certainly, He could do this, so why doesn’t He? The answer to that question is that for God to intervene to get us out of something we choose to experience would be to lessen the power of our will. Jesus says that any limitation of our power is not God’s Will.

This does not leave us lost in our dreams because we do have the power to undo what we have done. We also have the means to do so because it is God’s Will that we have it. That awakening is so simple causes us to doubt its effectiveness, because we are so accustomed to thinking with the ego mind that depends on complexity to hide its unreality. The truth is we only need to desire awakening to set in motion the means to awaken. From that desire flows the process of awareness of what is not God in our mind and the release of the untrue beliefs to the Holy Spirit.

IV. The Inheritance of God’s Son P 3

3 Your peace lies in its limitlessness. Limit the peace you share, and your Self must be unknown to you. Every altar to God is part of you, because the light He created is one with Him. Would you cut off a brother from the light that is yours? You would not do so if you realized that you can darken only your own mind. As you bring him back, so will you return. That is the law of God, for the protection of the Wholeness of His Son.

Oh my gosh! I think of the woman that I kept demonizing, and I realize what I was doing to my own mind, and I am dismayed. In making her the guilty party, I was limiting peace and leaving myself in darkness. I cannot deny a brother light and not experience the darkness myself because we are created whole. If I could do this, I would destroy the Wholeness of God’s Son and so destroy God. Because I am trying to do this, I feel like I have destroyed the Son and the Father, and that is why I am afraid of God and why I stay here in the story even though I want to return home.

God has protected His creation by giving me a way out of my dilemma.

I made a choice to experience separation and I retain the power of choice. I can choose to bring each brother I have cast into darkness back into the light. As I do this I withdraw my projections. This allows me to accept the Atonement for my belief that I need him to be guilty. I do this through the help of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the solution to all suffering. He is the undoer of the ego and the restorer of peace. And all He needs to do this is my permission.

I have done a lot of work with these kinds of thoughts and beliefs, so I had to think of a current grievance to test my sincerity and further heal my mind. Actually, I couldn’t think of anyone who rose to the level of a grievance, so I asked the Holy Spirit to point me to the one that would represent the desire to separate. He brought to mind a politician. I would hope that she doesn’t get voted back into office, but I don’t hate her at all. So, Holy Spirit, why did you point to her?

The answer I got was, “Do you love her with your whole heart?” And no, I don’t. So the next question that showed up in my mind was, why not? What did I think I was protecting by withholding my love? Good question. In my mind she represents the ego desire for separation and winning at all costs. She seems to have little concern for kindness and doing the right thing. The next question I received was this. Why does that upset you?

This is what came into my mind.

⁵But forget not this: When you become disturbed and lose your peace of mind because another is attempting to solve his problems through fantasy, you are refusing to forgive yourself for just this same attempt. ⁶And you are holding both of you away from truth and from salvation. (ACIM, T-17.I.6:5-6)

Dang! I forgot for a moment that I see in others only what is within me. Of course, I do. My interpretation of her actions came from my mind, so it is my mind I must heal in order to love her with my whole heart. In doing so, I am saved, and so is she. I am ready to accept this salvation right now. I feel the ties that bind me to my suffering loosen and fall away. Dear God, I pray she accepts her salvation, too, because I love her and want this for her. Thank you, Holy Spirit, for your guidance and for healing the mind that thinks it needs healing.

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