View source for 14.5 Your Function in the Atonement

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When you [[accept]] a brother's [[guiltlessness]] you will see the [[Atonement]] in him. For by proclaiming it in him you make it yours, and you will see what you sought. You will not see the [[symbol]] of your brother's guiltlessness shining within him while you still [[believe]] it is not there. His guiltlessness is your Atonement. Grant it to him, and you will see the [[truth]] of what you have acknowledged. Yet truth is offered first to be [[received]], even as God gave it first to his Son. The first in time means nothing, but the First in [[eternity]] is [[God the Father]], Who is both First and One. Beyond the First there is no other, for there is no order, no second or third, and nothing but the First.

You who belong to the [[First Cause]], created by him like unto himself and part of him, are more than merely guiltless. The state of [[guiltlessness]] is only the condition in which what is not there has been removed from the disordered [[mind]] that thought it was. This state, and only this, must you [[attain]], with God beside you. For until you do, you will still [[think]] that you are [[separate]] from him. You can perhaps feel his [[presence]] next to you, but cannot know that you are one with him. This cannot be taught. Learning applies only to the condition in which it happens of itself.

When you have let all that obscured the [[truth]] in your most holy [[mind]] be undone for you, and therefore stand in [[grace]] before [[your Father]], he will give himself to you as he has always done. Giving himself is all he knows, and so it is all [[knowledge]]. For what he knows not cannot be, and therefore cannot be given. Ask not to be [[forgiven]], for this has already been accomplished. Ask, rather, to learn how to forgive, and to restore what always was to your [[unforgiving mind]]. [[Atonement]] becomes real and visible to those who use it. On earth this is your only [[function]], and you must learn that it is all you want to learn. You will feel [[guilty]] till you learn this. For in the end, whatever form it takes, your guilt arises from your [[failure]] to fulfill your function in God's Mind with all of yours. Can you [[escape]] this guilt by failing to fulfill your function here?

You need not [[understand]] creation to do what must be done before that [[knowledge]] would be meaningful to you. God breaks no [[barriers]]; neither did he make them. When you release them they are gone. God will not fail, nor ever has in anything. [[Decide]] that God is right and you are wrong about yourself. he created you out of himself, but still within him. He knows what you are. [[Remember]] that there is no second to him. There cannot, therefore, be anyone without his [[holiness]], nor anyone unworthy of his [[perfect]] [[love]]. Fail not in your function of loving in a loveless place made out of [[darkness]] and [[deceit]], for thus are darkness and deceit undone. Fail not yourself, but instead offer to God and you his blameless Son. For this small gift of [[appreciation]] for his love, God will himself exchange your gift for his.

Before you make any [[decisions]] for yourself, remember that you have decided against your [[function]] in [[Heaven]], and then consider carefully whether you want to make decisions here. Your function here is only to decide against deciding what you want, in [[recognition]] that you do not know. How, then, can you decide what you should do? Leave all decisions to the [[Ta|One Who speaks for God]], and for your function as he knows it. So will he teach you to remove the awful [[burden]] you have laid upon yourself by loving not the Son of God, and trying to teach him guilt instead of love. Give up this frantic and [[insane]] attempt that cheats you of the [[joy]] of living with your God and Father, and of [[waking]] gladly to his love and holiness that join [[together]] as the [[truth]] in you, making you one with him.

When you have learned how to [[decide]] with [[God]], all decisions become as easy and as right as [[breathing]]. There is no [[effort]], and you will be led as gently as if you were being carried down a quiet [[path]] in [[summer]]. Only your own volition seems to make deciding hard. The [[Holy Spirit]] will not [[delay]] in answering your every question what to do. He knows. And he will tell you, and then do it for you. You who are tired will find this is more restful than [[sleep]]. For you can bring your guilt into sleeping, but not into this.

Unless you are [[guiltless]] you cannot know [[God]], Whose Will is that you know him. Therefore, you must be guiltless. Yet if you do not [[accept]] the necessary conditions for knowing him, you have denied him and do not recognize him, though he is all around you. He cannot be known without his Son, whose guiltlessness is the condition for knowing him. Accepting his Son as [[guilty]] is denial of [[the Father]] so complete, that [[knowledge]] is swept away from recognition in the very [[mind]] where God himself has placed it. If you would but [[listen]], and learn how impossible this is! Do not endow him with [[attributes]] you understand. You made him not, and anything you understand is not of him.

Your task is not to make [[reality]]. It is here without your making, but not without you. You who have tried to throw yourself away and valued God so little, hear me speak for him and for yourself. You cannot [[understand]] how much [[your Father]] loves you, for there is no [[parallel]] in your [[experience]] of the world to help you understand it. There is nothing on earth with which it can [[compare]], and nothing you have ever felt apart from him resembles it ever so faintly. You cannot even give a [[blessing]] in perfect [[gentleness]]. Would you know of One Who gives forever, and Who knows of nothing except giving?

The children of Heaven live in the [[light]] of the [[blessing]] of their Father, because they know that they are sinless. The [[Atonement]] was established as the means of restoring [[guiltlessness]] to [[minds]] that have denied it, and thus denied [[Heaven]] to itself. Atonement teaches you the true condition of the Son of God. It does not teach you what you are, or what your Father is. The [[Holy Spirit]], Who remembers this for you, merely teaches you how to remove the blocks that stand between you and what you know. His [[memory]] is yours. If you remember what you have made, you are remembering nothing. Remembrance of reality is in him, and therefore in you.

The [[guiltless]] and the [[guilty]] are totally incapable of [[understanding]] one another. Each [[perceives]] the other as like himself, making both unable to [[communicate]], because each sees the other unlike the way he sees himself. God can communicate only to the [[Holy Spirit]] in [[your mind]], because only he shares the [[knowledge]] of what you are with God. And only the Holy Spirit can answer God for you, for only he knows what God is. [[Everything]] else that you have placed within your mind cannot exist, for what is not in communication with the [[Mind of God]] has never been. Communication with God is [[life]]. Nothing without it is at all. 




[[Category: Chapter 14 - Teaching for Truth]]
[[Category: Decision]]
[[Category: Function]]
[[Category: Atonement]]