ACIM ~ Lesson 225. God is my Father, and His Son loves Him.

(1) Father, I must return Your Love for me, for giving and receiving are the
same, and You have given all Your Love to me. I must return it, for I want it
mine in full awareness, blazing in my mind and keeping it within its kindly
light, inviolate, beloved, with fear behind and only peace ahead. How still the
way Your loving Son is led along to You!

(2) Brother, we find that stillness now. The way is open. Now we follow it in
peace together. You have reached your hand to me, and I will never leave you. We
are one, and it is but this oneness that we seek, as we accomplish these few
final steps which end a journey that was not begun.

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Below, is from Kenneth Wapnick's commentaries on this lesson from

"Journey Through the Workbook of A Course in Miracles" 
http://www.facim.org ~ M. Street
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"God is my Father, and His Son loves Him."

*Since God's Oneness meant my separate identity would disappear, He was the
enemy. How could I possibly love Him, Whose Love represented my ego's
non-existence? Thus my Father had to be killed to preserve my self, and the ego
becomes my father instead. Yet recognizing my insane mistake I happily choose
again, and welcome the truth of my Identity as the Son God loves, and Whom I
love as the Father Who created me one with Him.*

(1) "Father, I must return Your Love for me, for giving and receiving are the
same, and You have given all Your Love to me. I must return it, for I want it
mine in full awareness, blazing in my mind and keeping it within its kindly
light, inviolate, beloved, with fear behind and only peace ahead. How still the
way Your loving Son is led along to You!"

*The theme that giving and receiving are the same returns. I have received love
from God, and therefore can only give love to Him in return. Indeed, in my right
mind there is nothing else. The love I give is the love I receive, which now
blazes in my mind that has never left the loving Mind that created it. This love
is unlimited, for it embraces all my eyes survey. As the Sonship is one with me,
I naturally extend that love to everyone else, causing it to shine ever more
brightly in my dream. No one is excluded from the love I have received from my
Source and my God, for I would not keep it from myself.

"God has given you a place in His Mind that is yours forever. Yet you can keep
it only by giving it, as it was given you. ... Love does not limit, and what it
creates is not limited. To give without limit is God's Will for you, because
only this can bring you the joy that is His and that He wills to share with you.
Your love is as boundless as His because it is His."
(T-11.I.6:1-2, 6-8).*

(2) "Brother, we find that stillness now. The way is open. Now we follow it in
peace together. You have reached your hand to me, and I will never leave you. We
are one, and it is but this oneness that we seek, as we accomplish these few
final steps which end a journey that was not begun."

*This journey we take with Jesus, not alone, and with him we take all our
brothers, with not one left behind for God's Son is one, reflected in the
forgiveness of our special relationships. Yet it remains a journey without
distance, because in truth we never left our Father's house. Jesus here reflects
to us the thought we reached out to him, dropping the ego's hand as we say: "I
come with empty hands, asking you to fill them with gifts." Thus we gladly and
gratefully take his hand, and with it, again, the hands of the Sonship. The
illusion of strength in separation and attack has been replaced by the strength
of all-inclusive love. This love of Father and Son is thus reflected in the
healing truth of Jesus' forgiveness, which we happily accept as we offer it to
the sleeping world.

"The ego's way is not mine, but it is also not yours. ... Leave all
illusions behind, and reach beyond all attempts of the ego to hold you back. I
go before you because I am beyond the ego. Reach, therefore, for my hand because
you want to transcend the ego. My strength will never be wanting, and if you
choose to share it you will do so. I give it willingly and gladly, because I
need you as much as you need me." (T-8.V.6:1,6-9).*

1. What is Forgiveness?

Forgiveness recognizes what you thought your brother did to you has not occurred. It does not pardon sins and make them real. It sees there was no sin. And in that view are all your sins forgiven. What is sin, except a false idea about God's Son? Forgiveness merely sees its falsity, and therefore lets it go. What then is free to take its place is now the Will of God.

An unforgiving thought is one which makes a judgment that it will not raise to doubt, although it is not true. The mind is closed, and will not be released. The thought protects projection, tightening its chains, so that distortions are more veiled and more obscure; less easily accessible to doubt, and further kept from reason. What can come between a fixed projection and the aim that it has chosen as its wanted goal?

An unforgiving thought does many things. In frantic action it pursues its goal, twisting and overturning what it sees as interfering with its chosen path. Distortion is its purpose, and the means by which it would accomplish it as well. It sets about its furious attempts to smash reality, without concern for anything that would appear to pose a contradiction to its point of view.

Forgiveness, on the other hand, is still, and quietly does nothing. It offends no aspect of reality, nor seeks to twist it to appearances it likes. It merely looks, and waits, and judges not. He who would not forgive must judge, for he must justify his failure to forgive. But he who would forgive himself must learn to welcome truth exactly as it is.

Do nothing, then, and let forgiveness show you what to do, through Him Who is your Guide, your Savior and Protector, strong in hope, and certain of your ultimate success. He has forgiven you already, for such is His function, given Him by God. Now must you share His function, and forgive whom He has saved, whose sinlessness He sees, and whom He honors as the Son of God.