It can be but my gratitude I earn.
* I do not accept this scribal writing because it is too blasé’ and leaves out our relationship to God in this process which is a REQUIREMENT if we are to know who we are.
* I show gratitude to God for the witness that I have that He IS and that He is taking care of His Son and Bringing Him back to remembrance of His Father and His Home.
1. Here is the second step we take to free your mind from the belief in outside force pitted against your own.
* Basically, we think our will is not God’s and that God’s Will therefore must not be ours. Neither is the TRUTH. God’s Will and the Son’s (a part of which YOU ARE) is the SAME.
²You make attempts at kindness and forgiveness.
* From within the multitude of stories your soul has made up over many lifetimes and that you come together with others who have done the same thing and made up multitudes of stories here.
* There is no truth to forgiveness in the “pretend world” that ego has you believing in.
³Yet you turn them to attack again, unless you find external gratitude and lavish thanks.
* “Kindness and forgiveness” can only be smoke and mirrors when the ego does it because the ego is not a god but a figment of your imagination.
* This “attack” is residual of the belief that you have the power to judge. This in and of itself is a denial of God, the Father.
⁴Your gifts must be received with honor, lest they be withdrawn.
* It is like saying that the gifts of your kindness and forgiveness must meet with the RESPECT that you deserve as being one who was so kind as to bestow these blessings on another and if this is not recognized (your generosity, of course) then you are JUSTIFIED in withdrawing your gifts.
* THIS is exactly how my “cough” fella has been treating me.
* He has no right to judge me or my worthiness of respectful interactions because I am but a Child of God, as he is.
* I never “win” or get ahead on his “score card” because with each kindness and forgiveness offered his ego grows, and my value or worthiness diminishes. Even when we stay apart long enough for his ego to calm down the amount of “discontent” with me is shorter and his feelings of justification enhanced so my “punishments” increase. He is not a verbal or physical abuser but an emotional/spiritual one because he withdraws his gifts and support and totally feels justified and exhonorated when I mess up which in his mind he sees me do often.
* Sooner or later I will walk away, however that may look, and he will feel justified to beat himself up at the same time that he crucifies me the guilt spreading thickly over us both in his “story.”
⁵And so you think God’s gifts are loans at best; at worst, deceptions which would cheat you of defenses, to ensure that when He strikes He will not fail to kill.
* We have been taught by ego, clergy, and society that God is like us and we need to prove our worthiness to accept His Gifts which come with attachments and demands.
2. How easily are God and guilt confused by those who know not what their thoughts can do.
* In other words, we have convinced ourselves that we must be guilty because there is a part of OURSELVES that KNOWS that we are JUST LIKE GOD, the Father.
²Deny your strength, and weakness must become salvation to you.
* Deny God (Remember we were told a few lessons ago that He is our strength.), and weakness, or more correctly NON-EXISTENCE, must become salvation to you.
* This is how the ego interpreted the Course as it was processed by the ego of Kenneth Wapnick.
³See yourself as bound, and bars become your home.
* Will yourself to not exist and there will be a psychological application found for you by your ego EVEN in the words presented by Jesus that were meant to show you Heaven and Eternal Life.
⁴Nor will you leave the prison house, or claim your strength, until guilt and salvation are not seen as one, and freedom and salvation are perceived as joined, with strength beside them, to be sought and claimed, and found and fully recognized.
* Only God through the witness of the Holy Spirit after receiving the Atonement can give you this: Freedom and salvation perceived as joined, with strength (God) beside them, to be sought and claimed, and found and fully recognized.
3. The world must thank you when you offer it release from your illusions.
²Yet your thanks belong to you as well, for its release can only mirror yours.
* You will have the Peace, Joy, and Happiness that only this can bring but understand that you will “ride solo” -if only psychologically- for a while until others are willing to receive the Light/Understanding that you have.
³Your gratitude is all your gifts require, that they be a lasting offering of a thankful heart, released from hell forever.
* Kindness and forgiveness are the gifts being spoken of.
* The truthful reality of these gifts will only be expressed when God, the Father, our Strength, and Creator are acknowledged.
* Then we will be released from the stories and the hell that they keep us “spinning” in.
⁴Is it this you would undo by taking back your gifts, because they were not honored?
* Do you want to stay in ego-mode and defy God’s Existence so that you can feel justified in your grievances and judgments of others? (I translated 4 because this is what it meant.)
⁵It is you who honor them and give them fitting thanks, for it is you who have received the gifts.
* (Again I will translate.) YOU accept the gifts of KINDNESS and FORGIVENESS of YOUR BELIEF IN SEPARATION when you let go of the ego and receive God’s DEFINITION of you as a part of His Son.
4. It does not matter if another thinks your gifts unworthy.
* Do not expect accolades from others once you understand these truths.
²In his mind there is a part that joins with yours in thanking you.
* Because somewhere within our minds and hearts we know that we are One with Father and All That Is as His Son others will feel this truth even if they are not aware of it.
³It does not matter if your gifts seem lost and ineffectual.
⁴They are received where they are given.
* And they should only be given (truthfully, they can only be given) to one and all within your heart and understanding of God’s Existence.
⁵In your gratitude are they accepted universally, and thankfully acknowledged by the Heart of God Himself.
* Isn’t it really insane how this precious teaching got so mangled by the egos that brought it to us!
* YOUR gratitude to God, the Father, for the Atonement and what it means to the Son of God fills us ALL up so that our “cups runneth over.”
⁶And would you take them back, when He has gratefully accepted them?
* Again, the cat-and-mouse game of the ego. Yes, it is distasteful to me.
5. God blesses every gift you give to Him, and every gift is given Him, because it can be given only to yourself.
* Okay, how does kindness and forgiveness fit into this sentence? Kindness and forgiveness embody the sentiment with which one would receive the Atonement and offer forgiveness to the Son of God for ever believing that the possibility of separation from God was possible.
²And what belongs to God must be His Own.
* This is simply acknowledging what is and what must always have been.
³Yet you will never realize His gifts are sure, eternal, changeless, limitless, forever giving out, extending love and adding to your never-ending joy while you forgive but to attack again.
* In other words, while you insist on staying in ego mentality.
6. Withdraw the gifts you give, and you will think that what is given you has been withdrawn.
* The “ego dance” again. Psychological mumbo jumbo-ed wording to make you think this is not a once-and-done deal.
²But learn to let forgiveness take away the sins you think you see outside yourself, and you can never think the gifts of God are lent but for a little while, before He snatches them away again in death.
* Translation: IF you believe that sins (which are something outside the Will of God) are REAL you will still believe in the need of death because anything outside the Will of God WOULD be worthy of death. THIS WOULD MEAN THAT YOU ARE STILL IN EGO STATE. Because ONLY EGO BELIEVES THAT THERE COULD BE ANYTHING OUTSIDE OF GOD’S WILL.
³For death will have no meaning for you then.
* No, not once you let go of ego and accept God, NOT Jesus, Yashua, or even Christ as all that is, but God, Father into your consciousness as a REALITY.
7. And with the end of this belief is fear forever over.
* Only belief in a Universal, Original Creator has the capacity to give us faith in the denial of death which amounts to Eternal Life.
²Thank your Self for this, for He is grateful only unto God, and He gives thanks for you unto Himself.
* THAT is ego mumbo jumbo. And it leads to confusion.
³To everyone who lives will Christ yet come, for everyone must live and move in Him.
* YOU are a PART of the Body of Christ, period.
⁴His Being in His Father is secure, because Their Will is One.
* THIS is speaking of YOU.
⁵Their gratitude to all They have created has no end, for gratitude remains a part of love.
* The Father has the Son and the Son has the Father for which BOTH are grateful and this is a part of Love.
8. Thanks be to you, the holy Son of God.
²For as you were created, you contain all things within your Self.
* Within we are each able to access a witness of our wholeness or have faith in the testimony of another who knows this to be true.
³And you are still as God created you.
* As a PART of His Son Who without any part is not Whole.
⁴Nor can you dim the light of your perfection.
⁵In your heart the Heart of God is laid.
* You can be OF nothing but God.
⁶He holds you dear, because you are Himself.
* Yet, only with the Whole of Christ are you Equal to God, the Father.
⁷All gratitude belongs to you, because of what you are.
* Be careful with that one. Without ego, you know this is true. In ego, it becomes a monster.
9. Give thanks as you receive it.
* Fully and IN God’s Witness and Being.
²Be you free of all ingratitude to anyone who makes your Self complete.
* In other words, acknowledge ALL as the Christ.
³And from this Self is no one left outside.
* True, though this term is often misrepresented in the Course.
⁴Give thanks for all the countless channels which extend this Self.
* Is this akin to the idea of channeling? Yes, there are countless “channels” that are a part of the Body/Consciousness of Christ.
⁵All that you do is given unto Him.
⁶All that you think can only be His Thoughts, sharing with Him the holy Thoughts of God.
* You become more and more aware of this once you are out of ego.
⁷Earn now the gratitude you have denied yourself when you forgot the function God has given you.
* “LEARN” would have been closer than “earn” I wonder if that was not a typo?
* Learn the gratitude you lost when you accepted the belief in the possibility of separation from God.
⁸But never think that He has ever ceased to offer thanks to you.
(ACIM, W-197.1:1–9:8)
Till next time, God bless, debi.
Freedom Principles; At-One-Meant Now 
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