Lesson 110. I am as God created me.
(1) We will repeat today's idea from time to time. For this one thought
would be enough to save you and the world, if you believed that it is
true. Its truth would mean that you have made no changes in yourself
that have reality, nor changed the universe so that what God created was
replaced by fear and evil, misery and death. If you remain as God
created you fear has no meaning, evil is not real, and misery and death
do not exist.
(2) Today's idea is therefore all you need to let complete correction
heal your mind, and give you perfect vision that will heal all the
mistakes that any mind has made at any time or place. It is enough to
heal the past and make the future free. It is enough to let the present
be accepted as it is. It is enough to let time be the means for all the
world to learn escape from time, and every change that time appears to
bring in passing by.
(3) If you remain as God created you, appearances cannot replace the
truth, health cannot turn to sickness, nor can death be substitute for
life, or fear for love. All this has not occurred, if you remain as God
created you. You need no thought but just this one, to let redemption
come to light the world and free it from the past.
(4) In this one thought is all the past undone; the present saved to
quietly extend into a timeless future. If you are as God created you,
then there has been no separation of your mind from His, no split
between your mind and other minds, and only unity within your own.
(5) The healing power of today's idea is limitless. It is the birthplace
of all miracles, the great restorer of the truth to the awareness of the
world.
Practice today's idea with gratitude. This is the truth that comes to
set you free. This is the truth that God has promised you. This is the
Word in which all sorrow ends.
(6) For your five-minute practice periods, begin with this quotation
from the text:
<I am as God created me.
His Son can suffer nothing.
And I am His Son.>
(7) Then, with this statement firmly in your mind, try to discover in
your mind the Self Who is the holy Son of God Himself.
(8) Seek Him within you Who is Christ in you, the Son of God and brother
to the world; the Savior Who has been forever saved, with power to save
whoever touches Him, however lightly, asking for the Word that tells him
he is brother unto Him.
(9) You are as God created you. Today honor your Self. Let graven images
you made to be the Son of God instead of what he is be worshipped not
today. Deep in your mind the holy Christ in you is waiting your
acknowledgment as you. And you are lost and do not know yourself while
He is unacknowledged and unknown.
(10) Seek Him today, and find Him. He will be your Savior from all idols
you have made. For when you find Him, you will understand how worthless
are your idols, and how false the images which you believed were you.
Today we make a great advance to truth by letting idols go, and opening
our hands and hearts and minds to God today.
(11) We will remember Him throughout the day with thankful hearts and
loving thoughts for all who meet with us today. For it is thus that we
remember Him. And we will say, that we may be reminded of His Son, our
holy Self, the Christ in each of us:
<I am as God created me.>
Let us declare this truth as often as we can. This is the Word of God
that sets you free. This is the key that opens up the gate of Heaven,
and that lets you enter in the peace of God and His eternity.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The commentary on this lesson is an excerpt from Kenneth Wapnick's eight volume
series of
books, called: "Journey Through the Workbook of A Course in Miracles," which can
be purchased at the following site:??~ M. Street
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lesson 110. I am as God created me.
*This statement first appeared in Lesson 94, and will appear again in
Lesson 162, and finally in a review lesson that we study for twenty
days. Thus Jesus ends this twenty-lesson series, the purpose of which
was to remind us of the shabbiness of our little self in comparison with
the glory of our true Self that God created one with Him.*
(1:1-3) "We will repeat today's idea from time to time. For this one
thought would be enough to save you and the world, if you believed that
it is true. Its truth would mean that you have made no changes in
yourself that have reality, nor changed the universe so that what God
created was replaced by fear and evil, misery and death."
*The problem is that we believed we changed reality, and our individual
existence is the seeming witness to that change. This is the source of
our guilt, which has to be protected by projecting out a fearful and
evil world in which we say: "Other people did this to me: I am
innocent." To this insanity the Atonement softly whispers: "And God
thinks otherwise" (T-23.1.2:7). God's "thinking" is simply this: My Son
is my Son, and nothing can change this Fact.*
(2:1) "Today's idea is therefore all you need to let complete correction
heal your mind, and give you perfect vision that will heal all the
mistakes that any mind has made at any time or place."
*This is so because, again, one mind is all minds. Remember, time and
space have never left the mind's single thought of separation, undone by
the Atonement's timeless Thought that reflects the oneness of eternity.*
(3) "If you remain as God created you, appearances cannot replace the
truth, health cannot turn to sickness, nor can death be substitute for
life, or fear for love. All this has not occurred, if you remain as God
created you. You need no thought but just this one, to let redemption
come to light the world and free it from the past."
*This marks the end of the ego thought system. Acceptance of the Word of
God reverses our mad course into insanity (T-18.1.8:5), thus undoing its
effects. The impossible did not occur because the impossible could not
occur. To make the point again, you do not "light the world" externally,
for there is no world to illuminate; no world to free, heal, or
enlighten. You enlighten your <mind>, and in that experience the world
is healed and undone, and with it all suffering. The light of the
Atonement has shined away the darkness of fear, sickness, and death.*
(4) "In this one thought is all the past undone; the present saved to
quietly extend into a timeless future. If you are as God created you,
then there has been no separation of your mind from His, no split
between your mind and other minds, and only unity within your own."
*This succinctly summarizes our previous discussion. Choosing against
the ego thought system, of sin, guilt, and fear means choosing for the
holy instant, in which time is undone, separation, too, releasing the
oneness of Christ.*
(5:1-2) "The healing power of today's idea is limitless. It is the
birthplace of all miracles, the great restorer of the truth to the
awareness of the world."
*Miracles undo the ego's thought system, and these corrections have
their birthplace in the Atonement principle that says to our sleeping
minds: "You have not lost your Identity, and nothing your dream has made
real affected truth. Throughout it all, you remain as God created you."
*
(6-7) "For your five-minute practice periods, begin with this quotation
from the text:
<I am as God created me.
His Son can suffer nothing.
And I am His Son.>
Then, with this statement firmly in your mind, try to discover in your
mind the Self Who is the holy Son of God Himself."
*This lesson and series close with the return of the theme that our true
Self is Christ, God's one Son. His memory is not lost to us, but was
buried under layers of illusion born of our fear of the truth. We have
seen the errors of our ways and the suffering they brought us. Thus we
change our minds as we change our perceptions, and remember that we are
as God created us -- the Holy Son of God Himself.*
(8) "Seek Him within you Who is Christ in you, the Son of God and
brother to the world; the Savior Who has been forever saved, with power
to save whoever touches Him, however lightly, asking for the Word that
tells him he is brother unto Him."
*By <seeking> reality, we are assured we will <find>it. We are healed as
we accept salvation, as are all who make the choice we have made.
Indeed, we are already healed, but must yet accept the truth by
rejecting the false. If it is truly Christ we seek in ourselves and our
brothers, it will be the Word of God to which we listen, for that alone
corrects our false self-concepts. Without it we condemn ourselves to
listen to the ego's uncorrected word of separation and self.*
(9:1-2) "You are as God created you. Today honor your Self."
*We honor our Self, not by telling ourselves how wonderful we are, but
by saying no to the ego's self, as we read:*
(9:4 --10:1) "Deep in your mind the holy Christ in you is waiting your
acknowledgment as you. And you are lost and do not know yourself while
He is unacknowledged and unknown."
"Seek Him today, and find Him."
*The problem is that we do not want to seek Him, because we do not want
to find Him. We seek instead to retain this shabby image of Christ's
Self. The purpose of these exercises -- indeed, the purpose of A Course
in Miracles -- is to teach us how lost we are when separated from our
Self. Through letting go of grievances -- against others or ourselves --
we acknowledge our Identity. The memory of Christ dawns on our forgiven
minds and we are found:
"Together we will disappear into the Presence beyond the veil, not to be
lost but found; not to be seen but known. And knowing, nothing in the
plan God has established for salvation will be left
undone."(T-19.IV-D.19:1-2).*
(11:1) "We will remember Him throughout the day with thankful hearts and
loving thoughts for all who meet with us today."
*Before we greet someone with a grateful heart and thankful words, we
first must realize how ungrateful we are. Remember, we find truth by
undoing illusions, so these thoughts should not be used mantras or
affirmations to cover over our specialness. These statements are truth's
reflection, to which we bring our shadowy illusions. We thus need to be
aware of our ego's perceptions, and then go to the truth in our minds
for help.*
(11:7) "This is the key that opens up the gate of Heaven, and that lets
you enter in the peace of God and His eternity."
*The mind locked by guilt and grievances, forgiveness gently opens.
Learning to trust the Voice that speaks the Word of God -- the Atonement
that sets us free -- we reach for Jesus' hand that has never ceased
reaching for ours. When we choose to take our brothers hands along with
his, the door quietly opens and we are home, where God would have us be
(T-31.VIII.12:8). We return now to the clarification of terms and read
its inspiring final words, and thus close the lesson and series with
another beautiful expression of the beautiful truth.
"Let us go out and meet the newborn world, knowing that Christ has been
reborn in it, and that the holiness of this rebirth will last forever.
We had lost our way but He has found it for us. Let us go and bid Him
welcome Who returns to us to celebrate salvation and the end of all we
thought we made. The morning star of this new day looks on a different
world where God is welcomed and His Son with Him. We who complete Him
offer thanks to Him, as He gives thanks to us. The Son is still, and in
the quiet God has given him enters his home and is at peace at last."
(C.ep.5.)*
