THE GIFTS OF GOD — Sondra Ray and Markus Ray on A Course in Miracles

What are we waiting for? Heaven is held out to us NOW, and by a decision we make in our holy mind, we can be fully immersed in it. Do we not trust this is true? Are we still attached to thinking the "hell" we made up is equally real? There is a lot of "evidence" out there we use to "prove" our self-projected hell is real. From the level of the body, this is almost impossible to avoid. Yet, can we stop projecting it? Can we just as easily be in Heaven? That is the "decision" this Lesson #138 is here to help us make. We MUST make it (sooner or later). Why not today. Heaven is here now, ready to greet us. Let us enter into it.

The TRUTH is that God's Peace and Joy are mine. When we defend "against this truth" we can identify with the body's pain and suffering and make up a "sickness." "Sickness" does not just "happen to us" without our "thoughts" that brought on these conditions. Sickness is a "defense" against the truth of God's Peace and Joy. When we hold Grievances, Attack Thoughts, Judgments, and Personal Lies, they gather forces to make us sick (pain and suffering in the body that started in the mind). These prayers are essential to correcting this dilemma: Sickness is a defense against the truth. I will accept the truth of what I am, and let my mind be wholly healed today. and...I have forgotten what I really am, for I mistook my body for myself. Sickness is a defense against the truth. But I am not a body. And my mind cannot attack. So I can not be sick."

What are the "plans" we make? What is the end to which these plans are applied? Are these goals of our plans designed to allay our fear of the future? And why do we fear the future? Mostly our plans are to "guard against death" (which we fear) of our life "as a body." The world is based on defense, and our plans are defenses against the "threat of death." Why? Who are we as God created us? We have a SELF that God created who has no need of defenses. It is the SELF that God created us to be—immortal in its nature. If we defend "the body" with our mind, there will be a fear that brings about "death." This Lesson liberates us from planning from the ego's perspective. God has a plan for us to "resurrect" into our Reality—💥 into a Life Immortal, which is our inheritance. We have a Spiritual Connection this plan is designed to Strengthen.

This Lesson sorts out our understanding of true forgiveness. It clarifies that forgiveness is applied to what is untrue and false. It does not "forgive the true." Peace and Joy are not the problems. The self-projected errors in perception that produce suffering are what we need to forgive. And we are 100% responsibile for these errors in ourselves. This is what we apply forgiveness to. Our perception can be false. The acting out of this may seem very "real," as in the drama actually happened. But we have to rise above appearances of physical "form" and undo their cause- which will always be a "thought" that is false. Forgiveness must be practiced. The ego does not see it properly and will resist it. So we have to overcome our unwillingness to forgive. This Lessons makes true forgiveness clear.

What do we value that does not last forever? What do we value that produces anything but pure joy in us? What do we value that gives us a "tinge of guilt?" What do we value that takes something away from another. Whatever that may be, this lesson says, it is "valueless." We need to let it go. There is a place in us where the immortal beauty of Life pulsates and guides us in our Holy Vision. Let find this place within ourselves in which the stillness of the Peace of God is ours. And the Gifts of God are valued above all else. We can easily awaken this awareness in ourselves when we are determined to do so. The "Doorway to Heaven" is wide open now for us to enter. We can and will go through it together.

Can we change the "Source" of our thinking? Can we "think with the Mind of God" instead of the "source" of our limited ego thinking? The past is part of this limitation. Can we liberate ourselves from even the "source of death," our ego? We have to give up this "world" we thought up. This "world" is a projection of our thoughts that do not really exist. Therefore, the "world" does not exist beyond our own projections of it. Can all of this projection come to an end? The real Source of Peace and Joy is in us too, but we first have to let go of the "source" of our suffering, conflict and death. This is our "thought" of meaninglessness that "makes a world" that does not really exist. The Beauty of Creation is held out to us. Let us "loose the world" from all we thought it was, and choose our own Reality instead."

What would the Truth be? God's Love and Peace and Joy created a Cosmos and that Love is the Only Reality. Everything else not love, coming from fear, and the "hell" that we made up, is a projection, an illusion of some complex of "thoughts" that are not in alignment with this Absolute Reality. A hard "pill" to swallow at first, until one sees this is a "declaration of release" from all the painful dramas the ego made up. When we "seek to reach the Truth" of this Ultimate Reality, we will have it. No one can fail who really seeks this Absolute Truth. All the universe guides us toward this "doorway into heaven."

Does this world satisfy you? The world is merely a projection of the thoughts and feelings that you maintain within yourself. The conflicts of the world are "inside of us," just as the beauty and peace are as well. But to come to this world of Heaven we must first see the “hell" is what we made of the world, and we must be totally willing to give that world up. That would also mean a total forgiveness of ourselves for "making up a hell" in the first place. God did not make a hell. We did. Then we blamed it on "god" to avoid taking responsibility for our inner mistakes. But all is not lost. The Real World was protected and maintained by the Grace of God, and this Heaven on Earth is being held out to us today. "Beyond this world (of the hell I made) is the Real World I want (the Heaven God created for me). Take a BREATH! HUGS

Love in the Absolute sense of the word, or the truth of the word, associates Love with the changeless Oneness of Reality. It associates Love with God, and the state of Being that is Unlimited and given Life by its Creator. The larger vision of Love is what this lesson is about. This lesson can be applied to any brother toward whom you may have held grievances. There is a Prayer to correct this: "I bless you, brother, with the Love of God, which I would share with you. For I would learn the joyous lesson that there is no love but God's and yours and mine and everyone's."

Can we be quiet within? Are we willing to shut off the "chatter?" All of us have noticed the activity of our "thinking" all too often is racked with concern, negativity, judgments, and a litany of attack thoughts directed toward ourselves and others. This is what we need to silence. When we are in "quiet" we can actually receive a happy state of being (God's Word) that replaces our "unhappy state" of ego preoccupations. Stop the "to do list" and receive the Energy of God's Word that undoes all that chatter. Our minds are going on and on with all its troubles. In this Lesson we can turn our attention to the "quiet place within the Mind where He [God] abides forever." This is one of Pure Peace and Joy. Our world needs this Peace. Can we make contact with it today? It is our responsibility to do so. THANK YOU