Your Worth Is Not Established by Teaching or Learning. Your Worth Is Established by God.

1 – Worth

To those of us who have been perfectionists in growing up and continuing throughout adulthood, the assertion that our worth is not tied up with achievement is welcome indeed. Let’s look at the whole passage:

“Your worth is not established by teaching or learning. Your worth is established by God. As long as you dispute this everything you do will be fearful, particularly any situation that lends itself to the belief in superiority and inferiority. (T-4.I.8)”

2 – Achievement

It is easy for us now to recognize that the will to achieve is associated intimately with the ego, at least in many cases, perhaps most. We may feel, additionally, that we are superior to others because of those achievements, and, indeed, the reason for the achievement initially was to set one’s self apart from others, to see one’s self as superior.

3 – Inferiority Complexes

Actually, though, psychologists tell us that there is no such thing as a “superiority complex,” that this idea is just a manifestation of an underlying sense of inferiority, an inferiority complex. Certainly when one says internally or outwardly that he is better than another because of some accomplishment, it is now easy for us to see the ego in action. It isn’t hiding from us this time, as it frequently does. So we are wise to see the fallacy of our assertion of being better in any way than another.

4 – Temporary Differences

Any differences in talent are just temporary:

“When the Atonement has been completed, all talents will be shared by all the Sons of God. God is not partial. All His children have His total Love, and all His gifts are freely given to everyone alike. (T-1.V.3)”

5 – Time Does Not Really Exist

So it is quite possible, and not an ego orientation, to recognize that right now we have some talents that others do not share. But only time separates, and time does not really exist. Time is an illusion. The ones who temporarily have more are bidden to share with others out of their bounty, but not to feel superior because of this wholly temporary discrepancy.

6 – Repeating Lessons

Jesus continues:

“Teachers must be patient and repeat their lessons until they are learned. . . .Again,–nothing you do or think or wish or make is necessary to establish your worth. This point is not debatable except in delusions. (T-4.I.7)”

7 – No Delusions

And we would not be lost in delusions. The ego has always been illusory, not made by God but made by us as a part of our belief about ourselves. Our spirit, though, was created by God, and is therefore never at stake in this illusory world. That is the ultimate reason that our worth is established by God and does not have to be “deserved” by anything that we do.

8 – Conditional Love

Children who were raised by conditional love have a particularly hard time with believing that they are worthy in and of themselves. And so those of us who share that background (and we all do to some extent) can be particularly warmed by the passage for today. We don’t have to achieve to be loved! God loves us, even with all of our lazy ways. Even when we make mistakes. Even when we don’t achieve anything much at all. We don’t have to accomplish to “merit” love. Love is part of our inheritance from God.

9 – Take Words to Heart

If we can take these words of Jesus to heart, our lives will never be the same again. We will stand tall, knowing that we are children of the Almighty, and that he does not love us conditionally, but unconditionally. We are still innocent, regardless of how many mistakes we have made. He doesn’t pardon us for those mistakes, because he has never condemned us (from A Course in Miracles). What a joy to finally put to rest the thought that we had to achieve to merit love!

Affirmation: “My worth is established by God.”

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I would remember today that I do not have to “do” anything to merit Your love. You love me unconditionally. You do not have an ego that is enlarged by identification with my achievements. You love me just as I am.

Be with me today as I seek to make these words my own. May I no more feel that achievement is the way to Your grace, for it is not. Your grace is granted to me, day by day, in an undying affirmation of my place in Your heart.

Thank You.

Amen.

Your Worth Is Not Established by Teaching or Learning

“Your worth is not established by teaching or learning. Your worth is established by God. As long as you dispute this everything you do will be fearful, particularly any situation that lends itself to the belief in superiority and inferiority. Teachers must be patient and repeat their lessons until they are learned. I am willing to do this, because I have no right to set your learning limits for you. Again,–nothing you do or think or wish or make is necessary to establish your worth. (T-4.1.7)”.

Affirmation: “My worth is sure, established by God.”

Reflections:

1 – Conditional Love

Children who have been subjected to conditional love, and that includes most people (young and old), are not likely to grow up to have a sense of worth that is recognized as separate from achievement. Only children and first born children are especially susceptible to the false idea that they must “do” to establish their worth. Indeed, many feel that they will not be loved if they do not measure up to the ideal that their parents have inculcated in them. If good grades are encouraged, a child may feel that he/she will not be loved unless those good grades are brought home. And there are many variations on this theme of unworthiness, or of worth that has to be proved by deeds.

2 – Do / Think / Wish / Make

What a welcome change the passage for today can make in the minds of those who first come to A Course in Miracles, and especially for those who read the Text first. (Note: There is not prescribed order in reading the three volumes of ACIM.) “Nothing you do or think or wish or make is necessary to establish your worth.” Jesus uses four verbs in this sense, as though he wishes to cover all the territory of our false thinking about worth.

3 – Fear

Farther on, Jesus indicates that if we cling to trying to measure up to be worthy of God, everything that we do will be fearful. And fear is of the ego. Here he is beginning to set down the limits of what the ego can do for us. And the limits are enormous; in fact, innumerable. The ego has led us down a false path, and we will be the better for it only if we learn how to turn aside from the ego. The ego is here defined as a part of our belief about ourselves (from the Text), but it is the coalition of false values. The ego is constantly being undone, because we cannot have both Awakening (toward which we are headed) and listen to the ego. The ego will always mislead.

4 – Emphasis

Jesus repeats these words about worth to emphasize, I think, their importance to the undoing of our thought system. To my way of thinking, this particular passage is one of the more important in all of ACIM, because it goes to the heart of our self-image. We are children of God, and we are already worthy because of that status.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

Thank You so much for this lovely, lovely passage. It is one of the most helpful, for me, in all of A Course in Miracles. I learned that I don’t have to achieve to be loved. I learned that You accept me just as I am, Your child. Thank You for the knowledge of this great blessing.

May I fret no more about conditional love. That is all in the past, and the conditional love was from individuals who only meant well, wanting me to live up to my potential. May I forgive completely and totally.

Be with my brothers and sisters who are struggle under conditional love. You love all of us, completely unconditionally. We don’t have to “measure up.” We are alright. You are transforming the mistakes into the pathway that You would have us walk.

Thank You.

Amen.

Your Worth Is Not Established by Teaching or Learning

“Your worth is not established by teaching or learning.  Your worth is established by God. . . .Again,–nothing you do or think or wish or make is necessary to establish your worth.  This point is not debatable except in delusions  Your ego is never at stake because God did not create it.  Your spirit is never at stake because He did. (T54)”

Affirmation:  “My worth is established by God alone.”

Reflections:

1 – Conditional Love

This is a passage for those of us who were reared in conditional love, particularly achievement in the eyes of the world.  This achievement may have been good grades, more money, “success.”  It really doesn’t matter what form the conditional love took.

2 – An Insane World

This is an insane world, and so it stands to reason that we were reared with many errors being made.  Because we were young and vulnerable, we believed that we had to play by the rules that our elders made up.  And, of course, they too had been victims of faulty upbringing.

3 – Jesus’s Healing

The good news of ACIM is that Jesus can heal a neurotic.  We do not have to look back with lament to our past, thinking that there is no better for us because our childhood was so flawed by faulty reasoning.  We can overcome, with God’s help and the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

4 – We Are Acceptable to God

In this passage, Jesus tells us that our worth is not established by teaching or learning.  And he goes on to repeat the idea in the same paragraph.  Indeed, we are acceptable to God just as we are.  Of course, the point of A Course in Miracles is to bring us closer to God and to happiness.  And forgiveness of our brother, in the context of a relationship to him, is the way.

5 – God Loves Us Just as We Are

Keep in mind that our achievements will never be good enough, but they are not needed.
We may feel a great sense of reassurance at this point.  God loves me just as I am!  What a blessed thought, but have we ever believed it before?

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

You know that I was reared in conditional love, though I always tried to please my family, and I knew that they were happy with me.  They wanted me to achieve so that they could be proud of me.  But none of them had the joy of studying A Course in Miracles, and so the mistakes are easily forgiven.  I would not love anyone with conditional love.  Help me to reach out, always, with unconditional love.

May I be for my closest family what they do need in me.  May I eliminate the stress that gives me difficult times, and may I reach out with the love that You have shown me.  May I always remember to thank You.

Amen.