- Caution here. I feel this Lesson’s wording is a bit gaslighting insomuch that it acknowledges God within us as His Son and then denies God’s existence and says we ARE God. That will take us on a track that is far from who we are.
My part is essential to God’s plan for salvation.
1. Just as God’s Son completes his Father, so your part in it completes your Father’s plan.
* Exactly, because you are a part of the Father’s Son.
²Salvation must reverse the mad belief in separate thoughts and separate bodies, which lead separate lives and go their separate ways.
³One function shared by separate minds unites them in one purpose, for each one of them is equally essential to them all.
* THIS may be our ONLY alignment in unity.
* God’s Expansion, which would be His Son is built on diversity because this the Father delights in. Always in Love and Benevolence but wouldn’t ‘creation’ suggest something new and diverse eternally?
* God will show us by the Holy Spirit, step by step, what this is beyond our function but for NOW we need to focus on our function which is Salvation and let God handle the rest.
2. God’s Will for you is perfect happiness. ²Why should you choose to go against His Will? ³The part that He has saved for you to take in working out His plan is given you that you might be restored to what He wills. ⁴This part is as essential to His plan as to your happiness. ⁵Your joy must be complete to let His plan be understood by those to whom He sends you. ⁶They will see their function in your shining face, and hear God calling to them in your happy laugh.
* Think about that! My perfect happiness comes from the fact that I KNOW that you are each a part of the Sonship that is Christ and have always been as God created us innocent and pure despite our illusions that we could be otherwise.
3. You are indeed essential to God’s plan. ²Without your joy, His joy is incomplete. ³Without your smile, the world cannot be saved. ⁴While you are sad, the light that God Himself appointed as the means to save the world is dim and lusterless, and no one laughs because all laughter can but echo yours.
* God does not ‘shine’ in the world if I could think I am sad. From the Atonement, even if the story line suggests I might be sad, I know better because I KNOW WHAT is REAL and what si NOT.
* That is why I can have a smile on my face and joy in my heart when I am really upset about something and the Holy Spirit is instructing me.
4. You are indeed essential to God’s plan. ²Just as your light increases every light that shines in Heaven, so your joy on earth calls to all minds to let their sorrows go, and take their place beside you in God’s plan. ³God’s messengers are joyous, and their joy heals sorrow and despair. ⁴They are the proof that God wills perfect happiness for all who will accept their Father’s gifts as theirs.
5. We will not let ourselves be sad today. ²For if we do, we fail to take the part that is essential to God’s plan, as well as to our vision. ³Sadness is the sign that you would play another part, instead of what has been assigned to you by God. ⁴Thus do you fail to show the world how great the happiness He wills for you. ⁵And so you do not recognize that it is yours.
* This sounds like the root of the “Put on a Happy Face” campaign. I never did like that. ‘Phony’ does not suit me very well. I wonder if the wording is not a bit off given that the scribes were not willing to accept the Atonement for themselves and allow the existence of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
* Even the ones who taught the “happy face theme” had no real association to the Atonement because their motto is “it’s all good” and quite frankly, why would it be all good if there is a Right Mind and one that is in illusion. It would stand to reason that one might be a bit out of sorts when one is dealing with illusion and going through a learning curve.
* It is the SMILE INSIDE that the Atonement gives that makes all the difference.
6. Today we will attempt to understand joy is our function here. ²If you are sad, your part is unfulfilled, and all the world is thus deprived of joy, along with you. ³God asks you to be happy, so the world can see how much He loves His Son, and wills no sorrow rises to abate his joy; no fear besets him to disturb his peace. ⁴You are God’s messenger today. ⁵You bring His happiness to all you look upon; His peace to everyone who looks on you and sees His message in your happy face.
* I am sorry but this sounds like ‘pure Ken’ AND fearful ego because it places the responsibility on you to put on a ‘face’ and not to be true to yourself.
* Do you see how it focuses on ‘form?’ That is not how Jesus would teach. It is what is understood inside that matters.
7. We will prepare ourselves for this today, in our five-minute practice periods, by feeling happiness arise in us according to our Father’s Will and ours. ²Begin the exercises with the thought today’s idea contains. ³Then realize your part is to be happy. ⁴Only this is asked of you or anyone who wants to take his place among God’s messengers. ⁵Think what this means. ⁶You have indeed been wrong in your belief that sacrifice is asked. ⁷You but receive according to God’s plan, and never lose or sacrifice or die.
* It is only in true forgiveness of the Whole of Christ for everything that brings happiness and that when you know that everyone and everything is a part of Christ and only the belief in separation from God has brought about occurrences of grief and despair.
8. Now let us try to find that joy that proves to us and all the world God’s Will for us. ²It is your function that you find it here, and that you find it now. ³For this you came. ⁴Let this one be the day that you succeed! ⁵Look deep within you, undismayed by all the little thoughts and foolish goals you pass as you ascend to meet the Christ in you.
*Christ IS IN YOU, 100%, Christ is You, along with All That Is, seen and unseen.
9. He will be there. ²And you can reach Him now. ³What could you rather look upon in place of Him Who waits that you may look on Him? ⁴What little thought has power to hold you back? ⁵What foolish goal can keep you from success when He Who calls to you is God Himself?
10. He will be there. ²You are essential to His plan. ³You are His messenger today. ⁴And you must find what He would have you give.
* This is asking you to find yourself as part of the Sonship of Christ.
⁵Do not forget the idea for today between your hourly practice periods. ⁶It is your Self Who calls to you today. ⁷And it is Him you answer, every time you tell yourself you are essential to God’s plan for the salvation of the world.
* Here again, I feel ‘Ken’s hand’ because the Self is not God the Self is a part of the Sonship of Christ and God is the Father of All That Ever Could or Will Be.
(ACIM, W-100.1:1–10:7)
Till next time, God bless, debi.
Freedom Principles; At-One-Meant Now 
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