ACIM 5. IV. Teaching and Healing, P 7, 8. The Atonement gives you the power of a healed mind, but the power to create is of God.
ACIM Chapter 5. IV. Teaching and Healing, P 7, 8
IV. Teaching and Healing, P 7
7 The Atonement gives you the power of a healed mind, but the power to create is of God. Therefore, those who have been forgiven must devote themselves first to healing because, having received the idea of healing, they must give it to hold it. The full power of creation cannot be expressed as long as any of God’s ideas is withheld from the Kingdom. The joint will of the Sonship is the only creator that can create like the Father, because only the complete can think completely, and the thinking of God lacks nothing. Everything you think that is not through the Holy Spirit is lacking.
The Atonement gives you the power of a healed mind, but the power to create is of God.
Our first step is to accept the Atonement for ourselves. To accept the Atonement is to forgive. I can forgive another person, a situation, or myself. Anything that seems like an attack on my happiness is something to forgive. I am actually forgiving my projections onto whatever seems like an attack. It took me quite a while to recognize this as what was actually happening. But even before I fully understood it, I accepted this concept as true. I needed it to be true because my mind is the only thing I can control. If I wait for someone else to change before I can be at peace and happy, I will be their victim. And Jesus assures us that we can never be a victim of the world.
Here is an example.
A friend failed to show up for a meeting we had planned. In the past, I would have been upset by this. What kind of friend is she if she just leaves me hanging? After all, I changed my schedule to be at this meeting. She must not value our friendship. She must not value me. I feel unworthy and unloved. Feelings of abandonment and rejection are triggered. I was happy until this happened; now, I am miserable, and it is her fault. I felt attacked, and I felt justified in returning the attack.
The only thing that is true from the previous paragraph is that my friend failed to show up at a planned meeting. Everything else is my judgments and my projections onto her. Because it has been a long time since I fell for this kind of thinking, I know that it is my mind that I need to look at. My belief that I can be abandoned or rejected and that I could be unworthy and unloved are the beliefs I need to forgive. Only those beliefs are robbing me of my peace and happiness. So, I withdraw my projections and let the Holy Spirit heal my mind. Seen from a healed mind, my friend is innocent and someone I love. That is how I accept the Atonement for myself and how my mind is healed.
…having received the idea of healing, they must give it to hold it.
How do I give the idea of healing? Now that I have accepted the Atonement for my thoughts about my friend failing to show up for our meeting, I am free to share this idea of healing. I won’t hold the past against her. That is, I won’t feel like not showing up for her or even consider her past behavior when I decide if I will accept her invitation. And if I say yes and she fails again, I will use that free time to do something I enjoy.
I will enjoy it because there will be no anger or resentment in my mind to interfere with my happiness. To respond otherwise would be to teach her she can hurt me and is, therefore, guilty, and I don’t want to teach what I don’t want to learn. If she continued to make appointments and not keep them, I might decide to say no. But it wouldn’t be in anger or as an attack because my mind is healed of the belief she can hurt me, so why would I be upset with her? Teaching my friend that she is innocent is giving healing and thus making healing stronger in my mind, too.
The joint will of the Sonship is the only creator that can create like the Father…
This is the reason I cannot hold a grievance against anyone. We do not return to our true nature except as one. We don’t create except as one. As one, we, the Sons of God, create as God creates. To return the mind to its natural state of oneness, no one can be left out. We must be complete to be what we are. That is an idea that I live by. I can still separate myself from another through some careless attack thought. But as soon as I notice I have done it, I retract that thought. I usually say to myself, “I cannot enter God’s Presence if I attack his son.” I make no exceptions to this.
As I go through my day, I see people I have had a grievance with, sometimes someone I read about in the paper. Maybe a politician or just an unfriendly clerk at the neighborhood store. It might be someone on Facebook whose posts trigger some unhealed thought in my mind. Sometimes it would just be someone I don’t enjoy talking to. But again, I would remember that I cannot enter God’s presence if I attack this person. My choice to attack and anything that separates me from my brother is an attack, now seems very unimportant. I quickly and sincerely choose to heal. I choose oneness.
8IV. Teaching and Healing, P 8
8 How can you who are so holy suffer? All your past except its beauty is gone, and nothing is left but a blessing. I have saved all your kindnesses and every loving thought you ever had. I have purified them of the errors that hid their light, and kept them for you in their own perfect radiance. They are beyond destruction and beyond guilt. They came from the Holy Spirit within you, and we know what God creates is eternal. You can indeed depart in peace because I have loved you as I loved myself. You go with my blessing and for my blessing. Hold it and share it, that it may always be ours. I place the peace of God in your heart and in your hands, to hold and share. The heart is pure to hold it, and the hands are strong to give it. We cannot lose. My judgment is as strong as the wisdom of God, in Whose Heart and Hands we have our being. His quiet children are His blessed Sons. The Thoughts of God are with you.
What a beautiful blessing this is!
Thank you, Jesus. Indeed, how could we suffer? It must be that we choose to suffer. I have become aware of the many times I do exactly that, and being aware, I have learned to change my mind. I am very holy. My loving thoughts have been purified of all errors and have been kept safe for me. Because they come from the Holy Spirit, they are eternal. As I allow my mind to be healed, they are revealed in all their glory and radiance. Where is guilt now?
Jesus sends me on my way with his blessing. It is for me to hold and to share. He knows that I can do this even when I doubt it myself. Jesus knows me better than I do because he knows himself, and we are the same. He knows my heart, and he knows my strength. While I still remain temporarily confused, I lean on his knowing. I have learned to distrust ego judgment, but Jesus judges truly, and his judgment of me is that I am God’s blessed Son. I am never alone, and I am never abandoned. When I have these ego feelings of separation, I remind myself that the Thoughts of God are with me.
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