ACIM Chapter 7.VII. The Totality of the Kingdom, P 5-7

ACIM Chapter 7.VII. The Totality of the Kingdom, P 5-7. The gift of life is yours to give, because it was given you.

VII. The Totality of the Kingdom, P 5

⁵ The gift of life is yours to give, because it was given you. You are unaware of your gift because you do not give it. You cannot make nothing live, since nothing cannot be enlivened. Therefore, you are not extending the gift you both have and are, and so you do not know your being. All confusion comes from not extending life, because that is not the Will of your Creator. You can do nothing apart from Him, and you do do nothing apart from Him. Keep His way to remember yourself, and teach His way lest you forget yourself. Give only honor to the Sons of the living God, and count yourself among them gladly.

Whatever is not of God is not life. This thing I call my life is nothing because it is unlike God in every way, and so, though I made it, I cannot enliven it. This is why I am not joyful and at peace. It is why I live with a sense of loss and why I believe I can suffer and die. In my deepest heart, I know that I am not what I seem, and I feel that lack. I feel like something is wrong, even though I have done all this to hide that fact from myself. To enliven is my true will because it is God’s Will, and not to extend life is painful.

How do I amend this error?

First, I recognize that I am not actually creating anything at all. I am only pretending to create. Next, I recognize that what I call creativity is just a shadow of what I do when I acknowledge my true nature. The world with its bodies and its wonders seems amazing to me, so amazing I can hardly believe I have anything to do with it, and yet, it is nothing. I did, indeed, make this world with my brothers, and yet, it pales into nothingness when seen next to my true creations. And since it was made outside creation, it is nothing.

All of the depression, rage, suffering, and death that we know as our lives are the result of not allowing the memory of our Selves to surface in our minds. We miss who we are. We long to be with our Creator and our creations. It is our nature to enliven as God enlivens, so we miss that. We seem to rage against the world, but we are really raging against our self-imposed limitations because they are not natural to us.

When I read in the Course that I am among the Sons of the living God, it never fails to bring tears to my eyes. These tears are partly because I am so happy to be reminded, but they are also tears of frustration and grief because I don’t remember what that is like. I am told the way to remember, though, and in remembering, I will naturally turn away from the illusion.

“Give only honor to the Sons of the living God, and count yourself among them gladly.”

I will remember to honor my brothers for what they are today because this is how I return to reality and know myself as the Son of the living God. I look forward to the many opportunities to honor each of us.

“Holy Spirit, please help me remember this when I am tempted to judge and let my mind wander to illusions. When I look at a brother and see only a body I don’t know or care about, help me remember who stands before me so that I might honor this Son of the living God. When I am tempted to see my transgressions in time as if they could change me in defiance of my Creator, help me surrender to the Truth and my holy Self as defined by God.”

VII. The Totality of the Kingdom, 6

⁶ Only honor is a fitting gift for those whom God Himself created worthy of honor, and whom He honors. Give them the appreciation God accords them always, because they are His beloved Sons in whom He is well pleased. You cannot be apart from them because you are not apart from Him. Rest in His Love and protect your rest by loving. But love everything He created, of which you are a part, or you cannot learn of His peace and accept His gift for yourself and as yourself. You cannot know your own perfection until you have honored all those who were created like you.

I don’t know why it took me so long to understand that I am one with everyone, that we are worthy, and that God loves us unconditionally and without exception. It should be evident since this is what the Course is teaching us. But we won’t know this other than as a concept unless we honor each other and love each other in the same way that God does. This means that our love must be universal.

Universal love flows to everyone equally, blessing none less than another. There must be no boundaries. My love cannot stop at one body and skip over another. It must have no conditions, no secret bargains in which love is given in the hopes that, in return, the other will fill some perceived need. I must love all without exception if I am to know myself as love.

This is some pretty lofty stuff.

How do we do this? My path has been one of noticing when I do the opposite and recognizing that it is not making me happy and not waking me up. Then, I ask the Holy Spirit to heal me. I ask for the Atonement, I accept the Atonement, I receive the Atonement. Love then flows to and through me without my further assistance.

*I want to know who I am. I want to know myself as perfect love. So, I continue to love as perfectly as possible and give my willingness to be taught how to love more perfectly.

VII. The Totality of the Kingdom, P 7

⁷ One child of God is the only teacher sufficiently worthy to teach another. One Teacher is in all minds and He teaches the same lesson to all. He always teaches you the inestimable worth of every Son of God, teaching it with infinite patience born of the infinite Love for which He speaks. Every attack is a call for His patience, since His patience can translate attack into blessing. Those who attack do not know they are blessed. They attack because they believe they are deprived. Give, therefore, of your abundance, and teach your brothers theirs. Do not share their illusions of scarcity, or you will perceive yourself as lacking.

If my brother attacks because he feels deprived, then it must be that I defend myself because I feel vulnerable. This is a cycle that I am ready to break. It is unworthy of God’s Son. It keeps me in hell when I could be in the Kingdom. Jesus shows us the simple way to end this sad state of affairs. The following is from an earlier journal and describes a situation where I learned to respond from love rather than fear.

When my brother attacks me, I have a choice about how I respond.

The choice I make depends on my vision of myself. The Holy Spirit will correct my thinking and clear my vision if I ask Him to. Here is an example of how this is working for me right now. A person at work has persistently caused me problems because he won’t listen. He thinks he already knows, so he ignores what he is told.

My first response to his latest error was anger and frustration. I cannot get him to listen to me, and his own judgment is flawed. I am the one who suffers for his errors, so I resented him and wanted him to change. He seemed to be the problem, and I didn’t have influence over him, so there seemed to be no solution.

I want to wake up. I want to wake up more than I want to solve this problem. And I know that waking up depends on forgiveness, so I want to forgive him, the situation, and myself. I want to accept the Atonement in this situation because that is the only thing that will bring me closer to God. My way of handling it in the past has only brought me more deeply into the ego illusion. I asked the Holy Spirit to heal my mind.

In healing my mind, He showed me a picture of two children.

The little boy wants to win the game. He wants to be the hero, and in his mind, the hero makes all the decisions himself, and they are the right decisions. It’s hard to be the hero because he doesn’t have all the tools yet to make those decisions, but it is really important to him to do so. He needs to appear the hero, so he stubbornly persists in doing whatever he needs to do to maintain this image of himself.

The little girl has an end goal in mind for her game. She has decided what needs to be done to win, and since she has played this game often, she is certain she knows the steps to take to win. Winning is important to her because losing would be scary. She sees losing the game as losing everything she values. So, when the little boy takes chances with the game and stubbornly fights against her plan, her fear turns into rage.

Seeing us as frightened and stubborn children helped me to diffuse the situation.

There are things that must be done, and I will do them in love rather than fear. But what matters is that I remember my purpose. What I feel now is different than it was before. I feel more understanding and compassionate to both players, both myself and this co-worker.

I have invited the Holy Spirit into the situation, and I trust He will direct it, so I am no longer afraid. This opens me to love, which feels more natural. I am reminded that everyone is innocent. I am reminded that my purpose is forgiveness. My only function is to accept the Atonement for myself. I know what I am supposed to be doing, and I do it. I am at peace about the whole thing.

To read from Pathways of Light Minister’s Healing Journals, CLICK HERE.