Lessons 162-170

There is a silence into which the world can not intrude.  There is an ancient peace you carry in your heart and have not lost.
ACIM-W-164:4:1-2

Lesson 162

I am as God created me. This lesson professes that if we were to repeat these words until we believed them we would be saved; we would be free of fear and we would see who we truly are.

Lesson 163

There is no death.  The son of God is free. In this lesson our varied fear of death is discussed as an object and creation of fear  but also as something that cannot be real.  If we are as the previous lesson suggests, as God created us and if we are creations of  God and God cannot die, how can we? Of course...our perception of death comes with the ending of the physical form.  We do not die when our bodies do.  Again we are going beneath the tip of physicality to an  understanding of the depth of who we really are. (Below the water's surface in the Ice berg analogy)

Lesson 164

Now are we one with Him Who is our Source.  This lesson offers a reminder of the importance of seeing the world in the present moment, not with our eyes but the eyes of Christ (clear vision). It speaks to putting away judgements so we can see and  accept the world and Self for what it really is.  It also speaks to accepting and appreciating the blessings in the here and now, enveloped in the Oneness of all that is.

Lesson 165

Let not my mind deny the Thought of God.  Though we might doubt God's Love and Will for us to have and be all that we can be, the Thought that created us has never left us.  We are encouraged in this lesson to "ask with desire" for Heaven's Grace and Heaven is at our finger tips beneath the illusions of physicality that obscure It. We count on God and not upon ourselves to give us certainty. (8:1)

Lesson 166

I am entrusted with the gifts of God. As long as we see ego's world as the only world we will not recognize or accept the gifts God is constantly offering us. The gifts, however, are always there. We just do not recognize them, so caught up are we in ego's version of things. We have chosen to play the role of the tragic little self rather than embrace the Self we really are.  God wants us to receive these gifts and then by receiving others receive. He wants us to heal from our sick illusions and thereby release the world of  pain through our teaching.

Lesson 167

There is one life, and that I share with God. This lesson explains what death really is beyond our belief that it is restricted to the demise of the body. Death is the thought that you are separate from your creator. (4:1) and death cannot come from Life. 5:1 It is said that what seems to be the opposite of life is merely sleeping.  Life, like truth, just is and it is not how we imagine it...this string of events we label it as. There is only one Life, and as parts of God, we share that with him. There is no separate little lives and separate little deaths.

Lesson 168

Your grace is given me.  I claim it now. The grace that is offered us, is this ability to awaken to the truth of who we really are.  We are specks of God's light and therefore we are Love. Where there is Love there can be no fear. We just have to accept the gift and have faith in the Giver of this gift more so than our acceptance of it. We offer that gift to each other through forgiveness.

Lesson 169

By grace I live.  By grace I am released. I love this explanation of Grace offered in this lesson, Grace is acceptance of the Love of God within a world of seeming hate and fear.  By grace alone the hate and fear are gone....2:1-2 This realization of our Oneness  goes beyond any learning we can do with the conceptual mind. With forgiveness we take special steps in this direction towards the miracle of release from the prison our minds have created.

Lesson 170

There is no cruelty in God and none in me. This lesson speaks to the insanity of defense and attack because of fear. What we really fear is not an enemy outside of us but the Love of God inside of us. It is ego that is afraid of God's love not the Self but as long as we are operating under ego perception we deny what the Self wants.  Ego has convinced us of our need to focus on the dangers of the world.  We then project our fear outside of us.  We need to recognize how we use fear as a god of cruelty to worship when we follow ego's dictates.  We must recognize this deception and put down the fear of fear as well as the fear of God.

Love this: Father we are like You.  No cruelty abides in us, for there is none in You. Your peace is ours.  And we bless the world with what we have received from You alone. 13:1-4

All is well!