Lesson 117
For morning and evening review:
1. (103) **God, being Love, is also happiness.**
²Let me remember love is happiness, and nothing else brings joy. ³And so I choose to entertain no substitutes for love.
2. (104) **I seek but what belongs to me in truth.**
²Love is my heritage, and with it joy. ³These are the gifts my Father gave to me. ⁴I would accept all that is mine in truth.
3. On the hour:
²**God, being Love, is also happiness.**
³On the half hour:
⁴**I seek but what belongs to me in truth.**
Lesson 116
For morning and evening review:
1. (101) **God’s Will for me is perfect happiness.**
²God’s Will is perfect happiness for me. ³And I can suffer but from the belief there is another will apart from His.
2. (102) **I share God’s Will for happiness for me.**
²I share my Father’s Will for me, His Son. ³What He has given me is all I want. ⁴What He has given me is all there is.
3. On the hour:
²**God’s Will for me is perfect happiness.**
³On the half hour:
⁴**I share God’s Will for happiness for me.**
Lesson 115
For morning and evening review:
1. (99) **Salvation is my only function here.**
²My function here is to forgive the world for all the errors I have made. ³For thus am I released from them with all the world.
2. (100) **My part is essential to God’s plan for salvation.**
²I am essential to the plan of God for the salvation of the world. ³For He gave me His plan that I might save the world.
3. On the hour:
²**Salvation is my only function here.**
³On the half hour:
⁴**My part is essential to God’s plan for salvation.**
Lesson 114
For morning and evening review:
1. (97) **I am spirit.**
²I am the Son of God. ³No body can contain my spirit, nor impose on me a limitation God created not.
2. (98) **I will accept my part in God’s plan for salvation.**
²What can my function be but to accept the Word of God, Who has created me for what I am and will forever be?
3. On the hour:
²**I am spirit.**
³On the half hour:
⁴**I will accept my part in God’s plan for salvation.**
Lesson 113
For morning and evening review:
1. (95) **I am one Self, united with my Creator.**
²Serenity and perfect peace are mine, because I am one Self, completely whole, at one with all creation and with God.
2. (96) **Salvation comes from my one Self.**
²From my one Self, Whose knowledge still remains within my mind, I see God’s perfect plan for my salvation perfectly fulfilled.
3. On the hour:
²**I am one Self, united with my Creator.**
³On the half hour:
⁴**Salvation comes from my one Self.**
Lesson 112
For morning and evening review:
1. (93) **Light and joy and peace abide in me.**
²I am the home of light and joy and peace. ³I welcome them into the home I share with God, because I am a part of Him.
2. (94) **I am as God created me.**
²I will remain forever as I was, created by the Changeless like Himself. ³And I am one with Him, and He with me.
3. On the hour:
²**Light and joy and peace abide in me.**
³On the half hour:
⁴**I am as God created me.**
Lesson 111
For morning and evening review:
1. (91) **Miracles are seen in light.**
²I cannot see in darkness. ³Let the light of holiness and truth light up my mind, and let me see the innocence within.
2. (92) **Miracles are seen in light, and light and strength are one.**
²I see through strength, the gift of God to me. ³My weakness is the dark His gift dispels, by giving me His strength to take its place.
3. On the hour:
²**Miracles are seen in light.**
³On the half hour:
⁴**Miracles are seen in light, and light and strength are one.**
Lesson 110
I am as God created me.
1. We will repeat today’s idea from time to time. ²For this one thought would be enough to save you and the world, if you believed that it is true. ³Its truth would mean that you have made no changes in yourself that have reality, nor changed the universe so that what God created was replaced by fear and evil, misery and death. ⁴If you remain as God created you fear has no meaning, evil is not real, and misery and death do not exist.
2. Today’s idea is therefore all you need to let complete correction heal your mind, and give you perfect vision that will heal all the mistakes that any mind has made at any time or place. ²It is enough to heal the past and make the future free. ³It is enough to let the present be accepted as it is. ⁴It is enough to let time be the means for all the world to learn escape from time, and every change that time appears to bring in passing by.
3. If you remain as God created you, appearances cannot replace the truth, health cannot turn to sickness, nor can death be substitute for life, or fear for love. ²All this has not occurred, if you remain as God created you. ³You need no thought but just this one, to let redemption come to light the world and free it from the past.
4. In this one thought is all the past undone; the present saved to quietly extend into a timeless future. ²If you are as God created you, then there has been no separation of your mind from His, no split between your mind and other minds, and only unity within your own.
5. The healing power of today’s idea is limitless. ²It is the birthplace of all miracles, the great restorer of the truth to the awareness of the world. ³Practice today’s idea with gratitude. ⁴This is the truth that comes to set you free. ⁵This is the truth that God has promised you. ⁶This is the Word in which all sorrow ends.
6. For your five-minute practice periods, begin with this quotation from the text:
²I am as God created me. ³His Son can suffer nothing. ⁴And I **am** His Son.
7. Then, with this statement firmly in your mind, try to discover in your mind the Self Who is the holy Son of God Himself.
8. Seek Him within you Who is Christ in you, the Son of God and brother to the world; the Savior Who has been forever saved, with power to save whoever touches Him, however lightly, asking for the Word that tells him he is brother unto Him.
9. You are as God created you. ²Today honor your Self. ³Let graven images you made to be the Son of God instead of what he is be worshipped not today. ⁴Deep in your mind the holy Christ in you is waiting your acknowledgment as you. ⁵And you are lost and do not know yourself while He is unacknowledged and unknown.
10. Seek Him today, and find Him. ²He will be your Savior from all idols you have made. ³For when you find Him, you will understand how worthless are your idols, and how false the images which you believed were you. ⁴Today we make a great advance to truth by letting idols go, and opening our hands and hearts and minds to God today.
11. We will remember Him throughout the day with thankful hearts and loving thoughts for all who meet with us today. ²For it is thus that we remember Him. ³And we will say, that we may be reminded of His Son, our holy Self, the Christ in each of us:
⁴I am as God created me.
⁵Let us declare this truth as often as we can. ⁶This is the Word of God that sets you free. ⁷This is the key that opens up the gate of Heaven, and that lets you enter in the peace of God and His eternity.
https://acim.org/acim/lesson-110/i-am-as-god-created-me/en/s/514
Lesson 109
I rest in God.
1. We ask for rest today, and quietness unshaken by the world’s appearances. ²We ask for peace and stillness, in the midst of all the turmoil born of clashing dreams. ³We ask for safety and for happiness, although we seem to look on danger and on sorrow. ⁴And we have the thought that will answer our asking with what we request.
2. “I rest in God.” ²This thought will bring to you the rest and quiet, peace and stillness, and the safety and the happiness you seek. ³“I rest in God.” ⁴This thought has power to wake the sleeping truth in you, whose vision sees beyond appearances to that same truth in everyone and everything there is. ⁵Here is the end of suffering for all the world, and everyone who ever came and yet will come to linger for a while. ⁶Here is the thought in which the Son of God is born again, to recognize himself.
3. “I rest in God.” ²Completely undismayed, this thought will carry you through storms and strife, past misery and pain, past loss and death, and onward to the certainty of God. ³There is no suffering it cannot heal. ⁴There is no problem that it cannot solve. ⁵And no appearance but will turn to truth before the eyes of you who rest in God.
4. This is the day of peace. ²You rest in God, and while the world is torn by winds of hate your rest remains completely undisturbed. ³Yours is the rest of truth. ⁴Appearances cannot intrude on you. ⁵You call to all to join you in your rest, and they will hear and come to you because you rest in God. ⁶They will not hear another voice than yours because you gave your voice to God, and now you rest in Him and let Him speak through you.
5. In Him you have no cares and no concerns, no burdens, no anxiety, no pain, no fear of future and no past regrets. ²In timelessness you rest, while time goes by without its touch upon you, for your rest can never change in any way at all. ³You rest today. ⁴And as you close your eyes, sink into stillness. ⁵Let these periods of rest and respite reassure your mind that all its frantic fantasies were but the dreams of fever that has passed away. ⁶Let it be still and thankfully accept its healing. ⁷No more fearful dreams will come, now that you rest in God. ⁸Take time today to slip away from dreams and into peace.
6. Each hour that you take your rest today, a tired mind is suddenly made glad, a bird with broken wings begins to sing, a stream long dry begins to flow again. ²The world is born again each time you rest, and hourly remember that you came to bring the peace of God into the world, that it might take its rest along with you.
7. With each five minutes that you rest today, the world is nearer waking. ²And the time when rest will be the only thing there is comes closer to all worn and tired minds, too weary now to go their way alone. ³And they will hear the bird begin to sing and see the stream begin to flow again, with hope reborn and energy restored to walk with lightened steps along the road that suddenly seems easy as they go.
8. You rest within the peace of God today, and call upon your brothers from your rest to draw them to their rest, along with you. ²You will be faithful to your trust today, forgetting no one, bringing everyone into the boundless circle of your peace, the holy sanctuary where you rest. ³Open the temple doors and let them come from far across the world, and near as well; your distant brothers and your closest friends; bid them all enter here and rest with you.
9. You rest within the peace of God today, quiet and unafraid. ²Each brother comes to take his rest, and offer it to you. ³We rest together here, for thus our rest is made complete, and what we give today we have received already. ⁴Time is not the guardian of what we give today. ⁵We give to those unborn and those passed by, to every Thought of God, and to the Mind in which these Thoughts were born and where they rest. ⁶And we remind them of their resting place each time we tell ourselves, “I rest in God.”
Lesson 108
To give and to receive are one in truth.
1. Vision depends upon today’s idea. ²The light is in it, for it reconciles all seeming opposites. ³And what is light except the resolution, born of peace, of all your conflicts and mistaken thoughts into one concept which is wholly true? ⁴Even that one will disappear, because the Thought behind it will appear instead to take its place. ⁵And now you are at peace forever, for the dream is over then.
2. True light that makes true vision possible is not the light the body’s eyes behold. ²It is a state of mind that has become so unified that darkness cannot be perceived at all. ³And thus what is the same is seen as one, while what is not the same remains unnoticed, for it is not there.
3. This is the light that shows no opposites, and vision, being healed, has power to heal. ²This is the light that brings your peace of mind to other minds, to share it and be glad that they are one with you and with themselves. ³This is the light that heals because it brings single perception, based upon one frame of reference, from which one meaning comes.
4. Here are both giving and receiving seen as different aspects of one Thought whose truth does not depend on which is seen as first, nor which appears to be in second place. ²Here it is understood that both occur together, that the Thought remain complete. ³And in this understanding is the base on which all opposites are reconciled, because they are perceived from the same frame of reference which unifies this Thought.
5. One thought, completely unified, will serve to unify all thought. ²This is the same as saying one correction will suffice for all correction, or that to forgive one brother wholly is enough to bring salvation to all minds. ³For these are but some special cases of one law which holds for every kind of learning, if it be directed by the One Who knows the truth.
6. To learn that giving and receiving are the same has special usefulness, because it can be tried so easily and seen as true. ²And when this special case has proved it always works, in every circumstance where it is tried, the thought behind it can be generalized to other areas of doubt and double vision. ³And from there it will extend, and finally arrive at the one Thought which underlies them all.
7. Today we practice with the special case of giving and receiving. ²We will use this simple lesson in the obvious because it has results we cannot miss. ³To give is to receive. ⁴Today we will attempt to offer peace to everyone, and see how quickly peace returns to us. ⁵Light is tranquility, and in that peace is vision given us, and we can see.
8. So we begin the practice periods with the instruction for today, and say:
²To give and to receive are one in truth.
³I will receive what I am giving now.
⁴Then close your eyes, and for five minutes think of what you would hold out to everyone, to have it yours. ⁵You might, for instance, say:
⁶To everyone I offer quietness.
⁷To everyone I offer peace of mind.
⁸To everyone I offer gentleness.
9. Say each one slowly and then pause a while, expecting to receive the gift you gave. ²And it will come to you in the amount in which you gave it. ³You will find you have exact return, for that is what you asked. ⁴It might be helpful, too, to think of one to whom to give your gifts. ⁵He represents the others, and through him you give to all.
10. Our very simple lesson for today will teach you much. ²Effect and cause will be far better understood from this time on, and we will make much faster progress now. ³Think of the exercises for today as quick advances in your learning, made still faster and more sure each time you say, “To give and to receive are one in truth.”
https://acim.org/acim/lesson-108/to-give-and-to-receive-are-one-in-truth/en/s/512
Lesson 107
Truth will correct all errors in my mind.
1. What can correct illusions but the truth? ²And what are errors but illusions that remain unrecognized for what they are? ³Where truth has entered errors disappear. ⁴They merely vanish, leaving not a trace by which to be remembered. ⁵They are gone because, without belief, they have no life. ⁶And so they disappear to nothingness, returning whence they came. ⁷From dust to dust they come and go, for only truth remains.
2. Can you imagine what a state of mind without illusions is? ²How it would feel? ³Try to remember when there was a time,—perhaps a minute, maybe even less—when nothing came to interrupt your peace; when you were certain you were loved and safe. ⁴Then try to picture what it would be like to have that moment be extended to the end of time and to eternity. ⁵Then let the sense of quiet that you felt be multiplied a hundred times, and then be multiplied another hundred more.
3. And now you have a hint, not more than just the faintest intimation of the state your mind will rest in when the truth has come. ²Without illusions there could be no fear, no doubt and no attack. ³When truth has come all pain is over, for there is no room for transitory thoughts and dead ideas to linger in your mind. ⁴Truth occupies your mind completely, liberating you from all beliefs in the ephemeral. ⁵They have no place because the truth has come, and they are nowhere. ⁶They can not be found, for truth is everywhere forever, now.
4. When truth has come it does not stay a while, to disappear or change to something else. ²It does not shift and alter in its form, nor come and go and go and come again. ³It stays exactly as it always was, to be depended on in every need, and trusted with a perfect trust in all the seeming difficulties and the doubts that the appearances the world presents engender. ⁴They will merely blow away, when truth corrects the errors in your mind.
5. When truth has come it harbors in its wings the gift of perfect constancy, and love which does not falter in the face of pain, but looks beyond it, steadily and sure. ²Here is the gift of healing, for the truth needs no defense, and therefore no attack is possible. ³Illusions can be brought to truth to be corrected. ⁴But the truth stands far beyond illusions, and can not be brought to them to turn them into truth.
6. Truth does not come and go nor shift nor change, in this appearance now and then in that, evading capture and escaping grasp. ²It does not hide. ³It stands in open light, in obvious accessibility. ⁴It is impossible that anyone could seek it truly, and would not succeed. ⁵Today belongs to truth. ⁶Give truth its due, and it will give you yours. ⁷You were not meant to suffer and to die. ⁸Your Father wills these dreams be gone. ⁹Let truth correct them all.
7. We do not ask for what we do not have. ²We merely ask for what belongs to us, that we may recognize it as our own. ³Today we practice on the happy note of certainty that has been born of truth. ⁴The shaky and unsteady footsteps of illusion are not our approach today. ⁵We are as certain of success as we are sure we live and hope and breathe and think. ⁶We do not doubt we walk with truth today, and count on it to enter into all the exercises that we do this day.
8. Begin by asking Him Who goes with you upon this undertaking that He be in your awareness as you go with Him. ²You are not made of flesh and blood and bone, but were created by the selfsame Thought which gave the gift of life to Him as well. ³He is your Brother, and so like to you your Father knows that You are both the same. ⁴It is your Self you ask to go with you, and how could He be absent where you are?
9. Truth will correct all errors in your mind which tell you you could be apart from Him. ²You speak to Him today, and make your pledge to let His function be fulfilled through you. ³To share His function is to share His joy. ⁴His confidence is with you, as you say:
⁵Truth will correct all errors in my mind, and I will rest in Him Who is my Self.
⁶Then let Him lead you gently to the truth, which will envelop you and give you peace so deep and tranquil that you will return to the familiar world reluctantly.
10. And yet you will be glad to look again upon this world. ²For you will bring with you the promise of the changes which the truth that goes with you will carry to the world. ³They will increase with every gift you give of five small minutes, and the errors that surround the world will be corrected as you let them be corrected in your mind.
11. Do not forget your function for today. ²Each time you tell yourself with confidence, “Truth will correct all errors in my mind,” you speak for all the world and Him Who would release the world, as He would set you free.
https://acim.org/acim/lesson-107/truth-will-correct-all-errors-in-my-mind/en/s/511
Lesson 106
Let me be still and listen to the truth.
1. If you will lay aside the ego’s voice, however loudly it may seem to call; if you will not accept its petty gifts that give you nothing that you really want; if you will listen with an open mind, that has not told you what salvation is; then you will hear the mighty Voice of truth, quiet in power, strong in stillness, and completely certain in Its messages.
2. Listen, and hear your Father speak to you through His appointed Voice, which silences the thunder of the meaningless, and shows the way to peace to those who cannot see. ²Be still today and listen to the truth. ³Be not deceived by voices of the dead, which tell you they have found the source of life and offer it to you for your belief. ⁴Attend them not, but listen to the truth.
3. Be not afraid today to circumvent the voices of the world. ²Walk lightly past their meaningless persuasion. ³Hear them not. ⁴Be still today and listen to the truth. ⁵Go past all things which do not speak of Him Who holds your happiness within His Hand, held out to you in welcome and in love. ⁶Hear only Him today, and do not wait to reach Him longer. ⁷Hear one Voice today.
4. Today the promise of God’s Word is kept. ²Hear and be silent. ³He would speak to you. ⁴He comes with miracles a thousand times as happy and as wonderful as those you ever dreamed or wished for in your dreams. ⁵His miracles are true. ⁶They will not fade when dreaming ends. ⁷They end the dream instead; and last forever, for they come from God to His dear Son, whose other name is you. ⁸Prepare yourself for miracles today. ⁹Today allow your Father’s ancient pledge to you and all your brothers to be kept.
5. Hear Him today, and listen to the Word which lifts the veil that lies upon the earth, and wakes all those who sleep and cannot see. ²God calls to them through you. ³He needs your voice to speak to them, for who could reach God’s Son except his Father, calling through your Self? ⁴Hear Him today, and offer Him your voice to speak to all the multitude who wait to hear the Word that He will speak today.
6. Be ready for salvation. ²It is here, and will today be given unto you. ³And you will learn your function from the One Who chose it in your Father’s Name for you. ⁴Listen today, and you will hear a Voice which will resound throughout the world through you. ⁵The bringer of all miracles has need that you receive them first, and thus become the joyous giver of what you received.
7. Thus does salvation start and thus it ends; when everything is yours and everything is given away, it will remain with you forever. ²And the lesson has been learned. ³Today we practice giving, not the way you understand it now, but as it is. ⁴Each hour’s exercises should begin with this request for your enlightenment:
⁵I will be still and listen to the truth.
⁶What does it mean to give and to receive?
8. Ask and expect an answer. ²Your request is one whose answer has been waiting long to be received by you. ³It will begin the ministry for which you came, and which will free the world from thinking giving is a way to lose. ⁴And so the world becomes ready to understand and to receive.
9. Be still and listen to the truth today. ²For each five minutes spent in listening, a thousand minds are opened to the truth and they will hear the holy Word you hear. ³And when the hour is past, you will again release a thousand more who pause to ask that truth be given them, along with you.
10. Today the holy Word of God is kept through your receiving it to give away, so you can teach the world what giving means by listening and learning it of Him. ²Do not forget today to reinforce your choice to hear and to receive the Word by this reminder, given to yourself as often as is possible today:
³Let me be still and listen to the truth.
⁴I am the messenger of God today, my voice is His, to give what I receive.
https://acim.org/acim/lesson-106/let-me-be-still-and-listen-to-the-truth/en/s/510
Lesson 105
God’s peace and joy are mine.
1. God’s peace and joy are yours. ²Today we will accept them, knowing they belong to us. ³And we will try to understand these gifts increase as we receive them. ⁴They are not like to the gifts the world can give, in which the giver loses as he gives the gift; the taker is the richer by his loss. ⁵Such are not gifts, but bargains made with guilt. ⁶The truly given gift entails no loss. ⁷It is impossible that one can gain because another loses. ⁸This implies a limit and an insufficiency.
2. No gift is given thus. ²Such “gifts” are but a bid for a more valuable return; a loan with interest to be paid in full; a temporary lending, meant to be a pledge of debt to be repaid with more than was received by him who took the gift. ³This strange distortion of what giving means pervades all levels of the world you see. ⁴It strips all meaning from the gifts you give, and leaves you nothing in the ones you take.
3. A major learning goal this course has set is to reverse your view of giving, so you can receive. ²For giving has become a source of fear, and so you would avoid the only means by which you can receive. ³Accept God’s peace and joy, and you will learn a different way of looking at a gift. ⁴God’s gifts will never lessen when they are given away. ⁵They but increase thereby.
4. As Heaven’s peace and joy intensify when you accept them as God’s gift to you, so does the joy of your Creator grow when you accept His joy and peace as yours. ²True giving is creation. ³It extends the limitless to the unlimited, eternity to timelessness, and love unto itself. ⁴It adds to all that is complete already, not in simple terms of adding more, for that implies that it was less before. ⁵It adds by letting what cannot contain itself fulfill its aim of giving everything it has away, securing it forever for itself.
5. Today accept God’s peace and joy as yours. ²Let Him complete Himself as He defines completion. ³You will understand that what completes Him must complete His Son as well. ⁴He cannot give through loss. ⁵No more can you. ⁶Receive His gift of joy and peace today, and He will thank you for your gift to Him.
6. Today our practice periods will start a little differently. ²Begin today by thinking of those brothers who have been denied by you the peace and joy that are their right under the equal laws of God. ³Here you denied them to yourself. ⁴And here you must return to claim them as your own.
7. Think of your “enemies” a little while, and tell each one, as he occurs to you:
²My brother, peace and joy I offer you, that I may have God’s peace and joy as mine.
³Thus you prepare yourself to recognize God’s gifts to you, and let your mind be free of all that would prevent success today. ⁴Now are you ready to accept the gift of peace and joy that God has given you. ⁵Now are you ready to experience the joy and peace you have denied yourself. ⁶Now you can say, “God’s peace and joy are mine,” for you have given what you would receive.
8. You must succeed today, if you prepare your mind as we suggest. ²For you have let all bars to peace and joy be lifted up, and what is yours can come to you at last. ³So tell yourself, “God’s peace and joy are mine,” and close your eyes a while, and let His Voice assure you that the words you speak are true.
9. Spend your five minutes thus with Him each time you can today, but do not think that less is worthless when you cannot give Him more. ²At least remember hourly to say the words which call to Him to give you what He wills to give, and wills you to receive. ³Determine not to interfere today with what He wills. ⁴And if a brother seems to tempt you to deny God’s gift to him, see it as but another chance to let yourself receive the gifts of God as yours. ⁵Then bless your brother thankfully, and say:
⁶My brother, peace and joy I offer you, that I may have God’s peace and joy as mine.
https://acim.org/acim/lesson-105/gods-peace-and-joy-are-mine/en/s/509
Lesson 104
I seek but what belongs to me in truth.
1. Today’s idea continues with the thought that joy and peace are not but idle dreams. ²They are your right, because of what you are. ³They come to you from God, Who cannot fail to give you what He wills. ⁴Yet must there be a place made ready to receive His gifts. ⁵They are not welcomed gladly by a mind that has instead received the gifts it made where His belong, as substitutes for them.
2. Today we would remove all meaningless and self-made gifts which we have placed upon the holy altar where God’s gifts belong. ²His are the gifts that are our own in truth. ³His are the gifts that we inherited before time was, and that will still be ours when time has passed into eternity. ⁴His are the gifts that are within us now, for they are timeless. ⁵And we need not wait to have them. ⁶They belong to us today.
3. Therefore, we choose to have them now, and know, in choosing them in place of what we made, we but unite our will with what God wills, and recognize the same as being one. ²Our longer practice periods today, the hourly five minutes given truth for your salvation, should begin with this:
³I seek but what belongs to me in truth, and joy and peace are my inheritance.
⁴Then lay aside the conflicts of the world that offer other gifts and other goals made of illusions, witnessed to by them, and sought for only in a world of dreams.
4. All this we lay aside, and seek instead that which is truly ours, as we ask to recognize what God has given us. ²We clear a holy place within our minds before His altar, where His gifts of peace and joy are welcome, and to which we come to find what has been given us by Him. ³We come in confidence today, aware that what belongs to us in truth is what He gives. ⁴And we would wish for nothing else, for nothing else belongs to us in truth.
5. So do we clear the way for Him today by simply recognizing that His Will is done already, and that joy and peace belong to us as His eternal gifts. ²We will not let ourselves lose sight of them between the times we come to seek for them where He has laid them. ³This reminder will we bring to mind as often as we can:
⁴I seek but what belongs to me in truth.
⁵God’s gifts of joy and peace are all I want.
https://acim.org/acim/lesson-104/i-seek-but-what-belongs-to-me-in-truth/en/s/508
Lesson 103
God, being Love, is also happiness.
1. Happiness is an attribute of love. ²It cannot be apart from it. ³Nor can it be experienced where love is not. ⁴Love has no limits, being everywhere. ⁵And therefore joy is everywhere as well. ⁶Yet can the mind deny that this is so, believing there are gaps in love where sin can enter, bringing pain instead of joy. ⁷This strange belief would limit happiness by redefining love as limited, and introducing opposition in what has no limit and no opposite.
2. Fear is associated then with love, and its results become the heritage of minds that think what they have made is real. ²These images, with no reality in truth, bear witness to the fear of God, forgetting being Love, He must be joy. ³This basic error we will try again to bring to truth today, and teach ourselves:
⁴God, being Love, is also happiness.
⁵To fear Him is to be afraid of joy.
⁶Begin your periods of practicing today with this association, which corrects the false belief that God is fear. ⁷It also emphasizes happiness belongs to you, because of what He is.
3. Allow this one correction to be placed within your mind each waking hour today. ²Then welcome all the happiness it brings as truth replaces fear, and joy becomes what you expect to take the place of pain. ³God, being Love, it will be given you. ⁴Bolster this expectation frequently throughout the day, and quiet all your fears with this assurance, kind and wholly true:
⁵God, being Love, is also happiness.
⁶And it is happiness I seek today.
⁷I cannot fail, because I seek the truth.
Lesson 103
God, being Love, is also happiness.
1. Happiness is an attribute of love. ²It cannot be apart from it. ³Nor can it be experienced where love is not. ⁴Love has no limits, being everywhere. ⁵And therefore joy is everywhere as well. ⁶Yet can the mind deny that this is so, believing there are gaps in love where sin can enter, bringing pain instead of joy. ⁷This strange belief would limit happiness by redefining love as limited, and introducing opposition in what has no limit and no opposite.
2. Fear is associated then with love, and its results become the heritage of minds that think what they have made is real. ²These images, with no reality in truth, bear witness to the fear of God, forgetting being Love, He must be joy. ³This basic error we will try again to bring to truth today, and teach ourselves:
⁴God, being Love, is also happiness.
⁵To fear Him is to be afraid of joy.
⁶Begin your periods of practicing today with this association, which corrects the false belief that God is fear. ⁷It also emphasizes happiness belongs to you, because of what He is.
3. Allow this one correction to be placed within your mind each waking hour today. ²Then welcome all the happiness it brings as truth replaces fear, and joy becomes what you expect to take the place of pain. ³God, being Love, it will be given you. ⁴Bolster this expectation frequently throughout the day, and quiet all your fears with this assurance, kind and wholly true:
⁵God, being Love, is also happiness.
⁶And it is happiness I seek today.
⁷I cannot fail, because I seek the truth.
(https://acim.org/acim/en/s/507#1:1-3:7 | W-103.1:1–3:7)
Lesson 102
I share God’s Will for happiness for me.
1. You do not want to suffer. ²You may think it buys you something, and may still believe a little that it buys you what you want. ³Yet this belief is surely shaken now, at least enough to let you question it, and to suspect it really makes no sense. ⁴It has not gone as yet, but lacks the roots that once secured it tightly to the dark and hidden secret places of your mind.
2. Today we try to loose its weakened hold still further, and to realize that pain is purposeless, without a cause and with no power to accomplish anything. ²It cannot purchase anything at all. ³It offers nothing, and does not exist. ⁴And everything you think it offers you is lacking in existence, like itself. ⁵You have been slave to nothing. ⁶Be you free today to join the happy Will of God.
3. For several days we will continue to devote our periods of practicing to exercises planned to help you reach the happiness God’s Will has placed in you. ²Here is your home, and here your safety is. ³Here is your peace, and here there is no fear. ⁴Here is salvation. ⁵Here is rest at last.
4. Begin your practice periods today with this acceptance of God’s Will for you:
²I share God’s Will for happiness for me, and I accept it as my function now.
³Then seek this function deep within your mind, for it is there, awaiting but your choice. ⁴You cannot fail to find it when you learn it is your choice, and that you share God’s Will.
5. Be happy, for your only function here is happiness. ²You have no need to be less loving to God’s Son than He Whose Love created him as loving as Himself. ³Besides these hourly five-minute rests, pause frequently today, to tell yourself that you have now accepted happiness as your one function. ⁴And be sure that you are joining with God’s Will in doing this.
https://acim.org/acim/lesson-102/i-share-gods-will-for-happiness-for-me/en/s/506
Lesson 101
God’s Will for me is perfect happiness.
1. Today we will continue with the theme of happiness. ²This is a key idea in understanding what salvation means. ³You still believe it asks for suffering as penance for your “sins.” ⁴This is not so. ⁵Yet you must think it so while you believe that sin is real, and that God’s Son can sin.
2. If sin is real, then punishment is just and cannot be escaped. ²Salvation thus cannot be purchased but through suffering. ³If sin is real, then happiness must be illusion, for they cannot both be true. ⁴The sinful warrant only death and pain, and it is this they ask for. ⁵For they know it waits for them, and it will seek them out and find them somewhere, sometime, in some form that evens the account they owe to God. ⁶They would escape Him in their fear. ⁷And yet He will pursue, and they can not escape.
3. If sin is real, salvation must be pain. ²Pain is the cost of sin, and suffering can never be escaped, if sin is real. ³Salvation must be feared, for it will kill, but slowly, taking everything away before it grants the welcome boon of death to victims who are little more than bones before salvation is appeased. ⁴Its wrath is boundless, merciless, but wholly just.
4. Who would seek out such savage punishment? ²Who would not flee salvation, and attempt in every way he can to drown the Voice which offers it to him? ³Why would he try to listen and accept Its offering? ⁴If sin is real, its offering is death, and meted out in cruel form to match the vicious wishes in which sin is born. ⁵If sin is real, salvation has become your bitter enemy, the curse of God upon you who have crucified His Son.
5. You need the practice periods today. ²The exercises teach sin is not real, and all that you believe must come from sin will never happen, for it has no cause. ³Accept Atonement with an open mind, which cherishes no lingering belief that you have made a devil of God’s Son. ⁴There is no sin. ⁵We practice with this thought as often as we can today, because it is the basis for today’s idea.
6. God’s Will for you is perfect happiness because there is no sin, and suffering is causeless. ²Joy is just, and pain is but the sign you have misunderstood yourself. ³Fear not the Will of God. ⁴But turn to it in confidence that it will set you free from all the consequences sin has wrought in feverish imagination. ⁵Say:
⁶God’s Will for me is perfect happiness.
⁷There is no sin; it has no consequence.
⁸So should you start your practice periods, and then attempt again to find the joy these thoughts will introduce into your mind.
7. Give these five minutes gladly, to remove the heavy load you lay upon yourself with the insane belief that sin is real. ²Today escape from madness. ³You are set on freedom’s road, and now today’s idea brings wings to speed you on, and hope to go still faster to the waiting goal of peace. ⁴There is no sin. ⁵Remember this today, and tell yourself as often as you can:
⁶God’s Will for me is perfect happiness.
⁷This is the truth, because there is no sin.
https://acim.org/acim/lesson-101/gods-will-for-me-is-perfect-happiness/en/s/505
Lesson 100
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. 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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. 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.
https://acim.org/acim/lesson-100/my-part-is-essential-to-gods-plan-for-salvation/en/s/504
Lesson 99
Salvation is my only function here.
1. Salvation and forgiveness are the same. ²They both imply that something has gone wrong; something to be saved from, forgiven for; something amiss that needs corrective change; something apart or different from the Will of God. ³Thus do both terms imply a thing impossible but yet which has occurred, resulting in a state of conflict seen between what is and what could never be.
2. Truth and illusions both are equal now, for both have happened. ²The impossible becomes the thing you need forgiveness for, salvation from. ³Salvation now becomes the borderland between the truth and the illusion. ⁴It reflects the truth because it is the means by which you can escape illusions. ⁵Yet it is not yet the truth because it undoes what was never done.
3. How could there be a meeting place at all where earth and Heaven can be reconciled within a mind where both of them exist? ²The mind that sees illusions thinks them real. ³They have existence in that they are thoughts. ⁴And yet they are not real, because the mind that thinks these thoughts is separate from God.
4. What joins the separated mind and thoughts with Mind and Thought which are forever one? ²What plan could hold the truth inviolate, yet recognize the need illusions bring, and offer means by which they are undone without attack and with no touch of pain? ³What but a Thought of God could be this plan, by which the never done is overlooked, and sins forgotten which were never real?
5. The Holy Spirit holds this plan of God exactly as it was received of Him within the Mind of God and in your own. ²It is apart from time in that its Source is timeless. ³Yet it operates in time, because of your belief that time is real. ⁴Unshaken does the Holy Spirit look on what you see; on sin and pain and death, on grief and separation and on loss. ⁵Yet does He know one thing must still be true; God is still Love, and this is not His Will.
6. This is the Thought that brings illusions to the truth, and sees them as appearances behind which is the changeless and the sure. ²This is the Thought that saves and that forgives, because it lays no faith in what is not created by the only Source it knows. ³This is the Thought whose function is to save by giving you its function as your own. ⁴Salvation is your function, with the One to Whom the plan was given. ⁵Now are you entrusted with this plan, along with Him. ⁶He has one answer to appearances; regardless of their form, their size, their depth or any attribute they seem to have:
⁷Salvation is my only function here.
⁸God still is Love, and this is not His Will.
7. You who will yet work miracles, be sure you practice well the idea for today. ²Try to perceive the strength in what you say, for these are words in which your freedom lies. ³Your Father loves you. ⁴All the world of pain is not His Will. ⁵Forgive yourself the thought He wanted this for you. ⁶Then let the Thought with which He has replaced all your mistakes enter the darkened places of your mind that thought the thoughts that never were His Will.
8. This part belongs to God, as does the rest. ²It does not think its solitary thoughts, and make them real by hiding them from Him. ³Let in the light, and you will look upon no obstacle to what He wills for you. ⁴Open your secrets to His kindly light, and see how bright this light still shines in you.
9. Practice His Thought today, and let His light seek out and lighten up all darkened spots, and shine through them to join them to the rest. ²It is God’s Will your mind be one with His. ³It is God’s Will that He has but one Son. ⁴It is God’s Will that His one Son is you. ⁵Think of these things in practicing today, and start the lesson that we learn today with this instruction in the way of truth:
⁶Salvation is my only function here.
⁷Salvation and forgiveness are the same.
⁸Then turn to Him Who shares your function here, and let Him teach you what you need to learn to lay all fear aside, and know your Self as Love which has no opposite in you.
10. Forgive all thoughts which would oppose the truth of your completion, unity and peace. ²You cannot lose the gifts your Father gave. ³You do not want to be another self. ⁴You have no function that is not of God. ⁵Forgive yourself the one you think you made. ⁶Forgiveness and salvation are the same. ⁷Forgive what you have made and you are saved.
11. There is a special message for today which has the power to remove all forms of doubt and fear forever from your mind. ²If you are tempted to believe them true, remember that appearances can not withstand the truth these mighty words contain:
³Salvation is my only function here.
⁴God still is Love, and this is not His Will.
12. Your only function tells you you are one. ²Remind yourself of this between the times you give five minutes to be shared with Him Who shares God’s plan with you. ³Remind yourself:
⁴Salvation is my only function here.
⁵Thus do you lay forgiveness on your mind and let all fear be gently laid aside, that love may find its rightful place in you and show you that you are the Son of God.
https://acim.org/acim/lesson-99/salvation-is-my-only-function-here/en/s/503
Lesson 98
I will accept my part in God’s plan for salvation.
1. Today is a day of special dedication. ²We take a stand on but one side today. ³We side with truth and let illusions go. ⁴We will not vacillate between the two, but take a firm position with the One. ⁵We dedicate ourselves to truth today, and to salvation as God planned it be. ⁶We will not argue it is something else. ⁷We will not seek for it where it is not. ⁸In gladness we accept it as it is, and take the part assigned to us by God.
2. How happy to be certain! ²All our doubts we lay aside today, and take our stand with certainty of purpose, and with thanks that doubt is gone and surety has come. ³We have a mighty purpose to fulfill, and have been given everything we need with which to reach the goal. ⁴Not one mistake stands in our way. ⁵For we have been absolved from errors. ⁶All our sins are washed away by realizing they were but mistakes.
3. The guiltless have no fear, for they are safe and recognize their safety. ²They do not appeal to magic, nor invent escapes from fancied threats without reality. ³They rest in quiet certainty that they will do what it is given them to do. ⁴They do not doubt their own ability because they know their function will be filled completely in the perfect time and place. ⁵They took the stand which we will take today, that we may share their certainty and thus increase it by accepting it ourselves.
4. They will be with us; all who took the stand we take today will gladly offer us all that they learned and every gain they made. ²Those still uncertain, too, will join with us, and, borrowing our certainty, will make it stronger still. ³While those as yet unborn will hear the call we heard, and answer it when they have come to make their choice again. ⁴We do not choose but for ourselves today.
5. Is it not worth five minutes of your time each hour to be able to accept the happiness that God has given you? ²Is it not worth five minutes hourly to recognize your special function here? ³Is not five minutes but a small request to make in terms of gaining a reward so great it has no measure? ⁴You have made a thousand losing bargains at the least.
6. Here is an offer guaranteeing you your full release from pain of every kind, and joy the world does not contain. ²You can exchange a little of your time for peace of mind and certainty of purpose, with the promise of complete success. ³And since time has no meaning, you are being asked for nothing in return for everything. ⁴Here is a bargain that you cannot lose. ⁵And what you gain is limitless indeed!
7. Each hour today give Him your tiny gift of but five minutes. ²He will give the words you use in practicing today’s idea the deep conviction and the certainty you lack. ³His words will join with yours, and make each repetition of today’s idea a total dedication, made in faith as perfect and as sure as His in you. ⁴His confidence in you will bring the light to all the words you say, and you will go beyond their sound to what they really mean. ⁵Today you practice with Him, as you say:
⁶I will accept my part in God’s plan for salvation.
8. In each five minutes that you spend with Him, He will accept your words and give them back to you all bright with faith and confidence so strong and steady they will light the world with hope and gladness. ²Do not lose one chance to be the glad receiver of His gifts, that you may give them to the world today.
9. Give Him the words, and He will do the rest. ²He will enable you to understand your special function. ³He will open up the way to happiness, and peace and trust will be His gifts; His answer to your words. ⁴He will respond with all His faith and joy and certainty that what you say is true. ⁵And you will have conviction then of Him Who knows the function that you have on earth as well as Heaven. ⁶He will be with you each practice period you share with Him, exchanging every instant of the time you offer Him for timelessness and peace.
10. Throughout the hour, let your time be spent in happy preparation for the next five minutes you will spend again with Him. ²Repeat today’s idea while you wait for the glad time to come to you again. ³Repeat it often, and do not forget each time you do so, you have let your mind be readied for the happy time to come.
11. And when the hour goes and He is there once more to spend a little time with you, be thankful and lay down all earthly tasks, all little thoughts and limited ideas, and spend a happy time again with Him. ²Tell Him once more that you accept the part that He would have you take and help you fill, and He will make you sure you want this choice, which He has made with you and you with Him.
https://acim.org/acim/lesson-98/i-will-accept-my-part-in-gods-plan-for-salvation/en/s/502