The Christ/Self Avoids Bargains with God

“Rejoice that there is something in this world that you will not bargain with, something you hold sacrosanct.  This is your Self.  Yet this Self that you hold so dear that you will never let it go is precisely what you must be willing to freely give away.  This is the only Self that holds the light of who you are in truth, the Self that is joined with the Christ in you.  (A Course of Love, 7.7)”

Affirmation:  “May I freely ‘give away’ my Self today.”

Reflections:

1 – Human / Divine

We are meant to be both giving and receiving human beings, human and divine in one in our Self.  This Self is the Christ within.  We need to be careful, lest our ego, still present, has a field day with this idea.  We can easily slip into grandiosity, inflated notions of ourselves, and that would only strength the egoic notions that we have held for eons.

2 – Give the Self Away

There is something better for us.  We can give ourselves away to others, constantly, because we are receiving constantly.  This is the way that our union of the human and the divine in the Christ within is supposed to work.  And in the giving and receiving with our brothers and sisters, we will know joy, for we will be accomplishing what God has ordained that we do.

3 – Christ/Self Is Not Blasphemy

This Self does take some understanding.  We are not accustomed to thinking in these terms.  We think that to say that Christ is within us, the Self is within us, is the height of blasphemy.  Yet it is not.  Jesus indicated while on earth that he had nothing that we did not also.  Yet he had walked the whole pathway, and we are just beginning.  Yes, our egos have been weakened, but not dispelled, and we would do well to depend mightily upon the power of God to do for us what we cannot accomplish for ourselves.  Jesus will be with us also, in some ineffable way that we ourselves cannot understand, but which I take as a promise.  Jesus said in A Course in Miracles that he would come with “one unequivocal call” and he recommended that, if it would help us, we imagine that he is holding our hand, saying that this will be no “idle fantasy.”

4 – The Self Is Inexhaustible

Let us take Jesus at his word as we seek to give to our brothers and sisters today.  We can give and give, because the Self is inexhaustible.  We do not have to worry that we will burn ourselves out, for this is no sacrifice being asked of us.  This is pure love.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

May I give myself away today, certain that I am inexhaustible–as I give, I receive.  And may I think it not blasphemy to know that the Self is the Christ within.  May I see glimpses of this Self today.

Be with me all day long, as I try to walk the path that You would have me walk.  Help me to own my power, and to cooperate with You in guidance.  You do not mean for me to be a passive creature, pushed around as a puppet.  We are partners in guidance, and I seek and am certain that You will see that I find.

Thank You for this glorious day.  May all of us find You, but each in his/her own time.

Amen.

Wholly Human / Wholly Divine

“The Christ in you is wholly human and wholly divine.  As the wholly divine, nothing is unknown.  As the wholly human, everything has been forgotten.  Thus we begin to relearn the known as the One who already possesses all.  It is this joining of the human and divine that ushers in love’s presence, as all that caused you fear and pain falls away and you recognize again what love is.  It is this joining of the human and divine that is your purpose here, the only purpose worthy of your thought.  (A Course of Love, 5.1)”

Affirmation:  “Let’s join the human and the divine.”

Reflections:

1 – Christ Is Within

This passage is packed with meaning.  We are the Christ within, but we often do not recognize this, and we do not act on it.  Elsewhere this Christ within is called simply the “Self,” and perhaps this latter term is more acceptable to us.  Later on, in the remaining volumes of A Course of Love, we will hear a great deal of the sustainability of the “elevated Self of form.”  This is where we are headed, a Self that is physically present in this work, in a recognizable physical form–our body.

2 – What We Can Do

In joining the human and the divine, we have made of ourselves what we can do in this world.  It is not unlike what Jesus is credited with doing, and we ought not to feel that we are taking from him when we assert this truth.  Jesus has indicated that there is nothing that he has that cannot also be ours.  We are meant to be equals with Jesus, when we touch the divine within us, within what is actually physical form.

3 – Jesus

Of course, we don’t live in a ethereal body, as I believe that Jesus did in his appearances after the crucifixion (a personal belief, not a tenet of either A Course in Miracles or A Course of Love).  We live in a very physical body, and this body is holy (an ACIM tenet).  We do not have to apologize for being physical, in physical form.  This choice is all part of God’s plan for us.  And His plan was mutually chosen by us and Him, and so we do not have to feel guilty that we fell from grace.  We are as God created us (an ACIM tenet).  The separation has happened only in illusion.

4 – What God Wills

When we join the human and the divine, we will know the love that God wills for us in this world.  We will not put heavy expectations on others to fulfill our longings for love, especially romantic.  We will not make an idol of our beloved.  We will know that only God’s love is that which we actually seek.  And God will be there for us.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I ask that You help me to recognize that the human and the divine are One within me, and that I exemplify this union in my relationships to others.  Be with us today as we travel throughout this world.  Help us to exhibit the love that You would have us to show.

Amen.