My thoughts* on ACIM Urtext Lesson 152, for May 31, 2024. The power of decision is my own. (*By the Power of God.)

The power of decision is my own.

* This may be difficult to believe but please give it a chance. In light of the fact that our unity was broken due to the belief in separation we have had time to contrive stories upon stories of abuse and neglect, fear and guilt.

* It is the idea of separation that has us thinking it is someone else doing it but remember that we ARE ONE and that other person over there is really a part of the WHOLE CHRIST.

* It is the original unified Christ that we are addressing and healing within the Atonement. Then we can trust the Holy Spirit to trust us moment by moment to guide us out of the entanglements that the ego=god mentality has had us addicted to, including the idea of death.

1. No one can suffer loss unless it be his own decision. ²No one suffers pain except his choice elects this state for him. ³No one can grieve nor fear nor think him sick unless these are the outcomes that he wants. ⁴And no one dies without his own consent. ⁵Nothing occurs but represents your wish, and nothing is omitted that you choose. ⁶Here is your world, complete in all details. ⁷Here is its whole reality for you. ⁸And it is only here salvation is.

* Remember, God gave us life. Death or separation is not a part of that. They will eventually fade away and be lost to memory. For the time being, we are ‘loosening’ the grip we have because of that belief system. Be patient with yourself and others. You will be fine and so will everyone else.

2. You may believe that this position is extreme, and too inclusive to be true. ²Yet can truth have exceptions? ³If you have the gift of everything, can loss be real? ⁴Can pain be part of peace, or grief of joy? ⁵Can fear and sickness enter in a mind where love and perfect holiness abide? ⁶Truth must be all-inclusive, if it be the truth at all. ⁷Accept no opposites and no exceptions, for to do so is to contradict the truth entirely.

* Worth repeating: ⁶Truth must be all-inclusive, if it be the truth at all. ⁷Accept no opposites and no exceptions, for to do so is to contradict the truth entirely.

3. Salvation is the recognition that the truth is true, and nothing else is true. ²This you have heard before, but may not yet accept both parts of it. ³Without the first, the second has no meaning. ⁴But without the second, is the first no longer true. ⁵Truth cannot have an opposite. ⁶This can not be too often said and thought about. ⁷For if what is not true is true as well as what is true, then part of truth is false. ⁸And truth has lost its meaning. ⁹Nothing but the truth is true, and what is false is false.

* I want to put this firmly in my thoughts. #7, wow. I know these people are Love and I just want to find a way to tell them how terrific they each are! That is one of the greatest desires of my heart!

4. This is the simplest of distinctions, yet the most obscure. ²But not because it is a difficult distinction to perceive. ³It is concealed behind a vast array of choices that do not appear to be entirely your own. ⁴And thus the truth appears to have some aspects that belie consistency, but do not seem to be but contradictions introduced by you.

5. As God created you, you must remain unchangeable, with transitory states by definition false. ²And that includes all shifts in feeling, alterations in conditions of the body and the mind; in all awareness and in all response. ³This is the all-inclusiveness which sets the truth apart from falsehood, and the false kept separate from the truth, as what it is.

* I want to be clear here that we will be led into this place BY THE HOLY SPIRIT ~ IF ~ that is really what was meant. Not by our imaginations, intellect, or willpower and IN THE MEAN TIME we are meant to enjoy life and existence in its diversity and NOT be afraid of it.

* I would suggest an error because a relationship of any sort has change, or fluency, and the Father and Son have a literal relationship. Jesus states this over and over in the Course.

6. Is it not strange that you believe to think you made the world you see is arrogance? ²God made it not. ³Of this you can be sure. ⁴What can He know of the ephemeral, the sinful and the guilty, the afraid, the suffering and lonely, and the mind that lives within a body that must die? ⁵You but accuse Him of insanity, to think He made a world where such things seem to have reality. ⁶He is not mad. ⁷Yet only madness makes a world like this.

* Please remember that we are also told that behind the world that we think we see IS A WORLD that God gave to His Son. Whether it is a physical thing or not is NOT what is important. What is important is that God brought a truth to replace the confusion the Son thought he had created.

* It can be in statements like these that I question the clarity of the intention of Jesus on behalf of the scribes. Jesus is obviously speaking of ‘the world’ in the confines of the ego=god mentality which does not recognize God at all. Even the “god” of the Old and New Testament is Jesus who was still caught up in the idea that there could be opposition to truth. Which he now understands is impossible.

7. To think that God made chaos, contradicts His Will, invented opposites to truth, and suffers death to triumph over life; all this is arrogance. ²Humility would see at once these things are not of Him. ³And can you see what God created not? ⁴To think you can is merely to believe you can perceive what God willed not to be. ⁵And what could be more arrogant than this?

* I will admit that this aggravates me because it does appear to be saying that all of this is nothing and that is not the case. It isn’t everything either. What is real is what is seen with our spiritual eyes by the witness of the Holy Spirit.

8. Let us today be truly humble, and accept what we have made as what it is. ²The power of decision is our own. ³Decide but to accept your rightful place as co-creator of the universe, and all you think you made will disappear. ⁴What rises to awareness then will be all that there ever was, eternally as it is now. ⁵And it will take the place of self-deceptions made but to usurp the altar to the Father and the Son.

9. Today we practice true humility, abandoning the false pretense by which the ego seeks to prove it arrogant. ²Only the ego can be arrogant. ³But truth is humble in acknowledging its mightiness, its changelessness and its eternal wholeness, all-encompassing, God’s perfect gift to His beloved Son. ⁴We lay aside the arrogance which says that we are sinners, guilty and afraid, ashamed of what we are; and lift our hearts in true humility instead to Him Who has created us immaculate, like to Himself in power and in love.

* I am going to say here that this embodies the physical status we find ourselves in today as well. Whatever that may be. Experience is why the Son exists. That the Father may experience with and through the Son and vice versa through out eternity in a creation that has no ending.

10. The power of decision is our own. ²And we accept of Him that which we are, and humbly recognize the Son of God. ³To recognize God’s Son implies as well that all self-concepts have been laid aside, and recognized as false. ⁴Their arrogance has been perceived. ⁵And in humility the radiance of God’s Son, his gentleness, his perfect sinlessness, his Father’s Love, his right to Heaven and release from hell, are joyously accepted as our own.

* This is all true, yet it has been deceitfully taught so that it misleads people into a place where their very existence is questioned.

* God welcomes your BEING and your expression of existence today. Just as you are! Know that God IS and that you can only be of what God is because ONLY God can be or He is NOT God. Yet in the multitude i.e. creation the Son is manifest or witnessed.

11. Now do we join in glad acknowledgment that lies are false, and only truth is true. ²We think of truth alone as we arise, and spend five minutes practicing its ways, encouraging our frightened minds with this:

³The power of decision is my own. ⁴This day I will accept myself as what my Father’s Will created me to be.

⁵Then will we wait in silence, giving up all self-deceptions, as we humbly ask our Self that He reveal Himself to us. ⁶And He Who never left will come again to our awareness, grateful to restore His home to God, as it was meant to be.

* He created us as His Son to be enjoyed by Him and that His Son might enjoy the Father in Existence. Do NOT exclude the Father from ANYTHING that you believe yourself to be. (Tip: you are NOT your body but your body is yours to be enjoyed and celebrated just as it is right now.)

12. In patience wait for Him throughout the day, and hourly invite Him with the words with which the day began, concluding it with this same invitation to your Self. ²God’s Voice will answer, for He speaks for you and for your Father. ³He will substitute the peace of God for all your frantic thoughts, the truth of God for self-deceptions, and God’s Son for your illusions of yourself.

* These promises are yours upon receiving the Atonement. I HAVE experienced them. Including the peace that passes understanding and cannot be altered by any storyline that presents itself in mind

or body.

(ACIM, W-152.1:1–12:3)

* Free stock photo: In absolute unison with the Father, are all things done and all guidance received. He literally IS OUR POWER and this is something that we want to remember at all times and be grateful for.

Till next time, God bless, debi.

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