Wednesday, December 9, 2015
Lesson 343: “What is a Miracle?” “I am not asked to make a sacrifice to find the mercy and the peace of God.”
The Course teaches us that God is doing us a favor. God is giving us the very best of options we could ever ask for. God is giving us the happiest outcome we could ever have in the life we live in the world now. God is never taking something from us to in some way pay God for the benefits God is willingly bestowing on us. We are led to believe in the world that God is eager to get paid in some form. The world’s religions often say that God expects our thanks and God expects us to make a move of humility that is convincing enough to demonstrate to God we are serious about our expected repentance.
The world never seems gentle. Our display of gratitude must be just so to keep God appeased. The world thinks that nothing but our sacrifice is the way to get into God’s favored few club. This is always a tragedy when we believe the world’s taunts. The world’s God says if we don’t come through with some spectacular feat as our regular response to our lives then we will simply have missed the mark and our punishment will soon follow. The world always believes in the most extreme example. The world thinks there must be some great gesture that our egos make to get themselves deemed good enough to God. This is always the backward thing.
God says in the Course that we are most definitely the most precious of God’s followers. We are given by God all the abundant peace and joy that is ever possible in this life because God loves us as we are. God says we are all equally worthy and completely worthy of the Love and gifts of God. The problem is always that we don’t believe this. It can seem too easy when we have grown up in the world that claims God is always holding back on the best parts for some chosen few who will never match up to who we are.
The world thinks that God is never generous and kind or perfectly happy with who we are because we learned this false information about God. The reason we got convinced wrongly about God is because of how convincing the world has been. The Course teaches us to dispel this belief. All we have to do is simply listen to God’s truth until it becomes firmly planted in our minds and ever accessible when we need to stand up for something in the world with our truth planted firmly in our awareness.