CIM Lessons 355-365

Lesson 355—“There is no end to all the peace and joy, and all the miracles that I will give when I accept God’s Word. Why not today?” I am here to extend God’s love. I am here to see innocence. I am here to bless my brothers and, thereby, to bless myself. I can continue to resist What I Am, but What I Am can never be changed, so why not accept the glory of my reality TODAY?

Lesson 356—“Sickness is but another name for sin. Healing is but another name for God. The miracle is thus a call to Him.” Being sick is not a sin. There is no such thing as sin. Sickness is a manifestation of the mind’s belief in the reality of sin. Our mistaken thoughts do cause sickness, but they are simply mistakes, not sin. When we choose to be sick, at some level we are choosing to identify ourselves as a body rather than as a spirit. The truth we are defending against is the realization that we are spirit and one with God. When I “see” sickness in myself or in another, it “proves” the body is real and separate from God. To heal is to recognize the truth— that I share God’s infallible nature.

Lesson 357—“Truth answers every call to God, responding first with miracles, and then returning us to be Itself.” The two stages are 1) miracles, or changed perception, and 2) the apprehension of truth. We find our way to God through others. We see Christ first in our brothers, and then in ourselves (1:2). First we see the face of Christ and then we remember God.

Lesson 358—“No call to God can be unheard nor left unanswered. And of this I can be sure; His answer is the one I really want.” The ego wants us to believe we want many different things, things that often compete and conflict with each other. Since I am so confused about what I want, it’s best to leave that choice to Spirit. I believe that God wants happiness for me, but I still want to dictate the form in which it comes to me. I need to take it a step further: I want what God wants, and whether I can see it or not at the moment, I want it in just the form Spirit chooses to give it and not in the form I think it should take. I will trust Holy Spirit’s wisdom.

Lesson 359—“God’s answer is some form of peace. All pain is healed; all misery replaced with joy. All prison doors are opened. And all sin is understood as merely a mistake.” Here we are told that when God answers, the answer “is some form of peace.” So the answer I want is peace—in every situation. When I make peace my goal above all else, I will learn forgiveness. When I begin to realize that what I want is not things, but rather the peace I think these things will bring me, then I can start to ask for peace directly and remain entirely open to the form. Once I let go of my insistence that the answer come in a certain form, I will much more quickly become aware of God’s answer and of the fact that God always answers my call.

Lesson 360—“Peace be to me, the holy Son of God. Peace to my brother, who is one with me. Let all the world be blessed with peace through us.” This is, for all practical purposes, the last “lesson” of the Workbook. The last five days of the year will be spent on a single lesson, which gives us an idea of how every day can be spent by a Course “graduate.” This lesson summarizes what CIM is all about: finding the peace of innocence within ourselves, sharing that peace with another, and together sharing it with all the world. Finding innocence within ourselves is the basis. The message of Course is one of radical innocence, radical forgiveness. All are innocent, and no one must be condemned for all to be free. Sharing the peace of innocence with another confirms it within us, and the relationship gives us a microcosm in which to learn to extend that peace.  Having learned to share together, we can then extend the peace of innocence to all the world.

Lessons 361-365—“This is holy instant would I give to You. Be You in charge. For I would follow You, certain that Your direction gives me peace.”. If the idea of giving our lives to God sounds unappealing, we can consider the alternative. It is the notion that we want something other than God that generates all our misery and pain. Try not to let the words “the only way” scare you off. This isn’t saying CIM is the only way to God, Whom, by the way, we’ve never left. It’s saying that the route of forgiveness, the truth that we are all innocent before God, is the only way, no matter what form it may take. God created us all to be His expression, and His Will will be done in the end. As it says in the Introduction to CIM, we don’t have any choice about the content of the curriculum, just about when we choose to learn it.

Let’s take a closer look at the words of this last lesson.

This holy instant would I give to You. I set my past beliefs aside and give this moment to You, so that it may become a holy instant.

Be You in charge. I don’t know what anything is for. I set my thoughts and words aside and place You in full charge of this moment.

For I would follow You, certain that Your direction gives me peace. I do this because then You can come in and lead me along Your way of love. And only on that way will I find peace.

Assignment/Practical Application: Read the Epilogue, Workbook, pp.487-488. Reflect and meditate on what you have taken away from this year’s course of study and how you can more effectively apply what you have learned to your daily life experience. Remember daily, hourly, that YOU are God’s beloved, in Whom He is well pleased. Roll back your shoulders, lift the corners of your mouth in a smile of acknowledgement and appreciation, and LIVE as if You Are That!