ACIM 14. What Am I? I am God’s Son, complete and healed and whole, shining in the reflection of His Love.
I am the holy home of God Himself. I am the Heaven where His Love resides.
What Am I?
W-pII.14.1. I am God’s Son, complete and healed and whole, shining in the reflection of His Love. 2 In me is His creation sanctified and guaranteed eternal life. 3 In me is love perfected, fear impossible, and joy established without opposite. 4 I am the holy home of God Himself. 5 I am the Heaven where His Love resides. 6 I am His holy Sinlessness Itself, for in my purity abides His Own.
I love that paragraph so much. I often use it at the beginning of my ACIM group. This is the truth about us. This story in the world is just a passing fancy. Think of the world as our playground, where we come to express crazy, fanciful ideas. Our reality is so glorious that from here it is hard to imagine much less believe. But that’s the purpose of our world, to give us a place where we can be fully immersed in fantasy. It can never make it true, though, and within each of us is an alarm that goes off at just the right time to start us on our journey home. How wonderful that for us that time is now.
A Single Purpose We Share
2. Our use for words is almost over now. ²Yet in the final days of this one year we gave to God together, you and I, we found a single purpose that we shared. ³And thus you joined with me, so what I am are you as well. ⁴The truth of what we are is not for words to speak of nor describe. ⁵Yet we can realize our function here, and words can speak of this and teach it, too, if we exemplify the words in us.
There are no words that adequately describe what we are but there are words we can use as we fulfill our function. And when we live these words, we teach what we are. We can talk about awakening, but when we live an awakened life, we teach what we have learned. Words can help but action speaks louder, doesn’t it?
Bringers of Salvation
3. We are the bringers of salvation. ²We accept our part as saviors of the world, which through our joint forgiveness is redeemed. ³And this, our gift, is therefore given us. ⁴We look on everyone as brother, and perceive all things as kindly and as good. ⁵We do not seek a function that is past the gate of Heaven. ⁶Knowledge will return when we have done our part. ⁷We are concerned only with giving welcome to the truth.
We do this in many little ways. When someone offends us and instead of lashing out in defense and making the other guilty, we look within for the root cause of our upset. In this way, we let it be healed and we are the bringers of salvation. When we remember that guilt is not real, even if we remember it for only this particular circumstance, we have brought salvation to the world.
As we accept the miracle of a changed mind we shift as we will do many times as we continue our practice. And so we are the bringers of salvation. When we awaken, we are the bringers of salvation. As we look at a brother in distress and in confusion and we love him we are bringers of salvation. And as we are grateful to him knowing the world is hard and we are all here doing our best, we are the bringers of salvation.
A Call to Our Brothers
4. Ours are the eyes through which Christ’s vision sees a world redeemed from every thought of sin. ²Ours are the ears that hear the Voice for God proclaim the world as sinless. ³Ours the minds that join together as we bless the world. ⁴And from the oneness that we have attained we call to all our brothers, asking them to share our peace and consummate our joy.
I am grateful to those who have gone before me and have helped me move forward. There are those who have recorded their experience even when they are far ahead of me and I am grateful. I may have the same difficult experiences they did but now I know what to expect and so shock will not be added to fear. These teachers have given me a clear path to follow.
But the work I do, my focus, is on releasing the remaining ego thoughts and then I will shift my focus to the next step. In the same way, I don’t know what happens past the gates of Heaven. It does me no good to speculate and there is no way to prepare. So, I continue to open my heart to the truth by releasing all that is not true. That is my only part right now.
Each of us is witness to miracles. As we accept the healing of our mind, we see the world differently than we did before. Instead of seeing guilt, we see confused minds and we become so very grateful to them for showing up and doing their part. Where once we saw sick bodies, we see brothers facing challenges that will bring them to a healed mind and thus uplift us all. We see reason to be grateful everywhere we look. How brave and strong we all are, how could we be anything but grateful to our brothers?
Gate of Heaven
5. We are the holy messengers of God who speak for Him, and carrying His Word to everyone whom He has sent to us, we learn that it is written on our hearts. ²And thus our minds are changed about the aim for which we came, and which we seek to serve. ³We bring glad tidings to the Son of God, who thought he suffered. ⁴Now is he redeemed. ⁵And as he sees the gate of Heaven stand open before him, he will enter in and disappear into the Heart of God.
I didn’t remember why I came, not for a very long time. I thought I came to survive, to win, to prosper. Then I learned that I came to save the world. That was a switch! I had thought it was all about me and now I am discovering that the “me” I was so wrapped up in doesn’t even exist. She is a character, like in a video game except that I thought I was my character. Crazy, right?
Now that I know who I am, at least most of the time I know, I see that I came to help others remember what I have remembered. I didn’t come to win or to overcome others, but to serve. If I had known this before I would have felt let down like I was being asked to suffer. Now I feel so much love and gratitude for everyone that I feel honored to serve in any way I can. As I am redeemed, I bring redemption to any who are ready for it.
Thank you, God, that I am not the self I created, but am still only as You created me. God, in the face of this truth, any of the petty behaviors stemming from separation beliefs seem insignificant, trifling. Today I will not condemn the Son of God for his meaningless thoughts and acts. I will not judge but offer only love. Holy Spirit, please live me today that I might experience myself as I truly am, and that all my messages be only Your messages.
And then finally, as we see the gate of Heaven stand open before us, he will enter in and disappear into the Heart of God.