Library of Christ Mind Teachings
ACIM Original Edition
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1 Today’s idea takes another step toward quick salvation, and
a giant stride it is indeed! So great the distance is that it
encompasses, it sets you down just short of Heaven, with the goal in
sight and obstacles behind. Your foot has reached the lawns that welcome
you to Heaven’s gate, the quiet place of peace where you await with
certainty the final step of God. How far are we progressing now from
earth! How close are we approaching to our goal! How short the journey
still to be pursued!
2 Accept today’s idea, and you have passed all anxiety, all
pits of hell, all blackness of depression, thoughts of sin, and
devastation brought about by guilt. Accept today’s idea, and you have
released the world from all imprisonment by loosening the heavy chains
that locked the door to freedom on it. You are saved, and your salvation
thus becomes the gift you give the world because you have received.
3 In no one instant is depression felt or pain experienced or
loss perceived. In no one instant sorrow can be set upon a throne and
worshiped faithfully. In no one instant can one even die. And so each
instant given unto God in passing, with the next one given Him already,
is a time of your release from sadness, pain and even death itself.
4 God holds your future as He holds your past and present.
They are one to Him, and so they should be one to you. Yet in this world
the temporal progression still seems real. And so you are not asked to
understand the lack of sequence really found in time. You are but asked
to let the future go and place it in God’s hands. And you will see by
your experience that you have laid the past and present in His hands as
well because the past will punish you no more and future dread will now
be meaningless.
5 Release the future. For the past is gone, and what is
present, freed from its bequest of grief and misery, of pain and loss,
becomes the instant in which time escapes the bondage of illusions where
it runs its pitiless, inevitable course. Then is each instant, which was
slave to time, transformed into a holy instant when the light that was
kept hidden in God’s Son is freed to bless the world. Now is he free,
and all his glory shines upon a world made free with him to share his
holiness.
6 If you can see the lesson for today as the deliverance it
really is, you will not hesitate to give as much consistent effort as
you can to make it be a part of you. As it becomes a thought which rules
your mind, a habit in your problem-solving repertoire, a way of quick
reaction to temptation, you extend your learning to the world. And as
you learn to see salvation in all things, so will the world perceive
that it is saved.
7 What worry can beset the one who gives his future to the
loving hands of God? What can he suffer? What can cause him pain or
bring experience of loss to him? What can he fear? And what can he
regard except with love? For he who has escaped all fear of future pain
has found his way to present peace and certainty of care the world can
never threaten. He is sure that his perception may be faulty but will
never lack correction. He is free to choose again when he has been
deceived, to change his mind when he has made mistakes.
8 Place, then, your future in the hands of God. For thus you
call the memory of Him to come again, replacing all your thoughts of sin
and evil with the truth of love. Think you the world could fail to gain
thereby and every living creature not respond with healed perception?
Who entrusts himself to God has also placed the world within the hands
to which he has himself appealed for comfort and security. He lays aside
the sick illusions of the world along with his and offers peace to both.
9 Now are we saved indeed. For in God’s hands we rest
untroubled, sure that only good can come to us. If we forget, we will be
gently reassured. If we accept an unforgiving thought, it will be soon
replaced by love’s reflection. And if we are tempted to attack, we will
appeal to Him Who guards our rest to make the choice for us that leaves
temptation far behind. No longer is the world our enemy, for we have
chosen that we be its friends.