No Bad

When we're living here in our earthly world, it's easy for us to get caught up in worry, fear and anguish.  We focus on everything that's wrong with us, all our mistakes, everything we've done wrong.  We convince ourselves we're "bad".

And we convince ourselves that the other people in our life are "bad", too.  They're bad drivers because they cut us off in traffic, bad husbands because they don't cherish and adore us the way we'd always hoped to be loved, bad children because they don't pick up their rooms, bad bosses because they are impatient and sharp-tongued...and on and on it goes.

Bad Baby

None of this is true.  We are all exactly as God created us.  He created us in his own exact image and God is only Good.  In this earthly world of dreams, we've created pain, hurt and fear.  But in the "real world" where the bigger part of us is always with God, there is only good.  One self is true, the other is not.

 "Try to experience the unity of your one Self.  Try to appreciate Its Holiness and the love from which it was created.  Try not to interfere with the Self which God created as you, by hiding Its majesty behind the tiny idols of evil and sinfulness you have made to replace It." --Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 93

We are all exactly as God created us.  When we see and know this for the people in our lives, we are forgiving, overlooking the silly things they do here in this dream world where they have forgotten their true identity.  We accept their flaws knowing the real truth behind them.  This is what true forgiveness is all about.

"Your sinlessness is guaranteed by God.  Over and over this must be repeated, until it is accepted.  It is true.  Your sinlessness is guaranteed by God.  Nothing can touch it, or change what God created as eternal.  The self you made, evil and full of sin, is meaningless.  Your sinlessness is guaranteed by God and light and joy and peace abide in you."  --Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 93

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God is the Love in Which I Forgive--Workbook Lesson 46

Many of us were brought up believing that we must ask God to forgive us.  However, God doesn't forgive!!  Does this idea surprise you?

God never judges and therefore he never finds it necessary to forgive.  I find this message to be of great comfort. 

"God does not forgive because He has never condemned. And there must be condemnation before forgiveness is necessary. Forgiveness is the great need of this world, but that is because it is a world of illusions. Those who forgive are thus releasing themselves from illusions, while those who withhold forgiveness are binding themselves to them. As you condemn only yourself, so do you forgive only yourself." --A Course in Miracles, Workbook, Lesson 46

 As our creator, God always knows his own truth about each of us.  We are perfect.  We are only good. We are love always and everywhere. 

Since God made us exactly in his own image, we can only be these things.  If we judge ourselves to be anything other than this, it is only our own self-created illusion.  We perceive that we are not perfect and therefore need God's forgiveness.

When we forgive others, we are actually acknowledging their truth--that there is nothing to judge them for, because they are also created in perfection.  They are only good.  They are love always and everywhere. 

The reason why it is so essential that we forgive others and see their truth is that as we see their truth, we actually begin to convince ourselves of our own truth.  If they are perfect, then we must be too.

"Yet although God does not forgive, His Love is nevertheless the basis of forgiveness. Fear condemns and love forgives. Forgiveness thus undoes what fear has produced, returning the mind to the awareness of God. For this reason, forgiveness can truly be called salvation. It is the means by which illusions disappear."  --Lesson 46 

Lesson 46 is the first place in the workbook that the concept of forgiveness is explored in any depth. Personally, I love the beautiful safety of knowing that I never need feel that I must ask for God's forgiveness.  Asking implies that it is possible that forgiveness might be withheld. 

Our fear of exactly that is the root of all of our problems.  We all live with deep and massive unconscious fear and guilt.  Our worry that God may disapprove of us, withhold his love from us, or feel angry toward us, causes tremendous and constant anxiety in our minds.  Here, in this very first Workbook message about forgiveness, we are being reassured that we need not worry about being judged by God.  God has only love and support to offer us. 

"I cannot be guilty because I am a Son of God.
I have already been forgiven.
No fear is possible in a mind beloved of God.
There is no need to attack because love has forgiven me."--Lesson 46