Lesson 164

“Now are we One with Him Who is our Source.”

What time but now can truth be recognized? The present is the only
time there is. And so today, this instant, now, we come to look upon
what is forever there; not in our sight, but in the eyes of Christ. He
looks past time and sees eternity as represented there. He hears the
sounds the senseless busy world engenders, yet He hears them faintly,
for beyond them all He hears the song of Heaven and the Voice of
God more clear, more meaningful, more near.

The world fades easily away before His sight. Its sounds grow dim.
A melody from far beyond the world increasingly is more and more
distinct; an ancient Call to Which He gives an ancient answer. You will
recognize them both. For they are but your answer to your Father’s
Call to you. Christ answers for you, echoing your Self, using your
voice to give His glad consent; accepting your deliverance for you.

How holy is your practicing today, as He gives you His sight and
hears for you, and answers in your name the Call He hears. How
quiet is the time you give to spend with Him beyond the world.
How easily are all your seeming sins forgot and all your sorrows
unremembered. On this day is grief laid by, for sights and sounds
which come from nearer than the world made clear to you who will
today accept the gifts He gives.

There is a silence into which the world can not intrude. There is
an ancient peace you carry in your heart and have not lost. There is a
sense of holiness in you the thought of sin has never touched. All this
today you will remember. Faithfulness in practicing today will bring
rewards so great and so completely different from all things you
sought before, that you will know that here your treasure is, and here
your rest.

This is the day when vain imaginings part like a curtain, to
reveal what lies beyond them. Here is what is really here made
visible, while all the shadows which appeared to hide it sink to
obscurity. Now is the balance righted, and the scales of judgment
left to Him Who judges true. And in His judgment will a world
unfold in perfect innocence before your eyes. Now will you see it
with the eyes of Christ. Now is its transformation clear to you.

Brothers, this day is sacred to the world. Your vision, given you
from far beyond all things within the world looks back on them in a
new light. And what you see becomes the healing and salvation of
the world. The valuable and valueless are both perceived and
recognized for what they are. And what is worthy of your love
receives your love, while nothing to be feared remains.

We will not judge today. We will receive but what is given us
from Judgment made beyond the world. Our practicing today
becomes our gifts of thankfulness for our release from blindness and
from misery. All that we see will but increase our joy, because its
holiness reflects our own. We stand forgiven in the sight of Christ,
with all the world forgiven in our own.

We bless the world as we behold it in the light in which our
Savior looks on us, and offer it the freedom given us through His
forgiving vision, not our own. Open the curtain in your practicing
by merely letting go all things you think you want. Your trifling
treasures put away, and leave a clean and open space within your
mind where Christ can come, and offer you the treasure of salvation.
He has need of your most holy mind to save the world.

Is not this purpose worthy to be yours? Is not Christ’s vision to
be sought above the world’s unsatisfying goals? Let not today slip by
without the gifts it holds for you receiving your consent and your
acceptance. We can change the world if you acknowledge them. You
may not see the value your acceptance gives the world. But this you
surely want; you can exchange all suffering for joy this very day.

Practice in earnest and the gift is yours. Would God deceive you?
Can His promise fail? Can you withhold so little when His Hand
holds out complete salvation to His Son?

Britney Shawley added:

"What time but now can truth be recognized? The present is the only time there is. And so today, this instant, now, we come to look upon what is forever there; not in our sight, but in the eyes of Christ. He looks past time, and sees eternity as represented there. He hears the sounds the senseless, busy world engenders, yet He hears them faintly. For beyond them all He hears the song of Heaven, and the Voice for God more clear, more meaningful, more near."