Library of Christ Mind Teachings
ACIM Original Edition
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4 The ego demands reciprocal rights because it is competitive rather
than loving. It is always willing to make a “deal,” but it cannot
understand that to be like another means that no deals are possible.
To gain you must give, not bargain. To bargain is to limit giving, and
this is not God’s Will. To will with God is to create like Him. God does
not limit His gifts in any way. You are His gifts, and so your gifts
must be like His. Your gifts to the Kingdom must be like His gifts to
you.
5 I gave only love to the Kingdom because I believed that was what I
was. What you believe you are determines your gifts, and if God
created you by extending Himself as you, you can only extend
yourself as He did. Only joy increases forever, since joy and eternity
are inseparable. God extends outward beyond limits and beyond time, and
you who are co-creators with Him extend His Kingdom forever and beyond
limit. Eternity is the indelible stamp of creation. The eternal are in
peace and joy forever.
6 To think like God is to share His certainty of what you are and to
create like Him is to share the perfect love He shares with you. To
this the Holy Spirit leads you that your joy may be complete, because
the Kingdom of God is whole. We have said that the last step in the
reawakening of knowledge is taken by God. This is true, but it is hard
to explain in words because words are symbols, and nothing that is true
needs to be explained. However, the Holy Spirit has the task of
translating the useless into the useful, the meaningless into the
meaningful, and the temporary into the timeless. He can therefore
tell you something about this last step, although this one you must know
yourself, since by it you know what you are. This is your being.
7 God does not take steps, because His accomplishments are not
gradual. He does not teach, because His creations are changeless. He
does nothing last, because He created first and for always. It
must be understood that the word “first” as applied to Him is not a
time concept. He is first in the sense that He is the first in the Holy
Trinity itself. He is the Prime Creator, because He created His
co-creators. Because He did, time applies neither to Him nor to what
He created. The “last step” that God [was said to] take was therefore
true in the beginning, is true now, and will be true forever.
8 What is timeless is always there, because its being is eternally
changeless. It does not change by increase, because it was forever
created to increase. If you perceive it as not increasing, you do
not know what it is. You also do not know what created it or Who He
is. God does not reveal this to you, because it was never hidden. His
light was never obscured, because it is His Will to share it. How can
what is fully shared be withheld and then revealed?
9 To heal is the only kind of thinking in this world that resembles the
Thought of God, and because of the elements which they share, can
transfer to it. When a brother perceives himself as sick, he is
perceiving himself as not whole and therefore in need. If you too
see him this way, you are seeing him as if he were absent from the
Kingdom or separated from it, thus making the Kingdom itself obscure to
both of you. Sickness and separation are not of God, but the Kingdom
is. If you obscure the Kingdom, you are perceiving what is not of God.