Lately I’ve Been Thinking About JOY
If we wish for joy in our lives, we must remember that we were made in the image of God and we are God-like. When you are feeling great and everything is working well and you are getting everything you want, it is easy to feel joy and to love God. But when you don’t feel well and things are not going so great and you are not getting what you want, then it seems very difficult to find joy. And yet, loving God is pure joy. If you could remember to love God at those times when you are low, then you would be uplifted, heal yourself, and things would start working. Here are some excerpts from A Course in Miracles that are helpful.
“Joy is the inevitable result of gentleness. Gentleness means that fear is now impossible, and what could come to interfere with Joy? The open hands of gentleness are always filled. The gentle have no pain. They cannot suffer. Why would they not be joyous? They are sure they are beloved and must be safe. Joy is the song of thanks. And Christ looks down on them in thanks as well. His need of them is just as great as theirs of Him. How joyous is it to share the purpose of salvation!” (Teachers manual p. 8)
“LIVING IS JOY, but death can only weep. You see in death escape from what you made. But this you do not see: that you made death. It is not life in which the problem lies. Life has no opposite, for it is God.” (Teachers manual p.50)
“There is one thought in particular that should be remembered throughout the day. It is a thought of pure joy: a thought of peace, a thought of limitless release. Limitless because all things are freed within it.” (Teachers manual p. 39)
“You will understand peace and Joy when you have become willing to hide nothing.” (p. 12)
“The ego is afraid of Spirit’ Joy, because once you have experienced it, you will withdraw all protection from the ego, and become totally without investment in fear.” (p. 50)
“When your mood tells you that you have chosen wrongly, and this is so whenever you are not joyous, then know this need not be.” (p. 57)
“I am teaching you to associate misery with the ego and Joy with the Spirit. You have taught yourself the opposite. You are still free to chose, but can you really want the rewards of the ego in the presence of the rewards of God?” (p. 62)
“The light that belongs to you is the light of JOY. Radiance is not associated with sorrow. JOY calls forth an integrated willingness to share it. There is no difference between love and joy. Therefore the only possible whole state is the wholly JOYOUS. To heal or to make JOYOUS is therefore the same as to integrate and make one.” (p.68)
The Holy Spirit is the spirit of JOY. When the ego was made, God placed in the mind the healing, the call to JOY. This call is so strong that the ego always dissolves at its sound. To think with God is to think like Him. This engenders JOY, not guilt because it is natural.
“Whenever you are not wholly JOYOUS, it is because you have reacted with a lack of love to one of God’s creations. The decision to react this way is yours and can therefore be undone.
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“The Holy Spirit will always guide you truly, because your JOY is His. This is His Will for everyone because He speaks for the Kingdom of God, which IS JOY. Following Him is therefore the easiest thing in the world, and the only thing that is easy. A Son of God is happy only when he knows he is with God.” (p. 126)
“If God’s Will for you is complete peace and JOY, unless you experience only this you must be refusing to acknowledge His Will. When you are not at peace and not in JOY, it can only be because you do not believe you are in Him. Yet He is ALL IN ALL.” (p. 133)
Only when you see you are guiltless will you be happy. As long as you believe the Son of God is guilty you will walk along the carpet leading to death. And the journey will seem long and cruel and senseless for so it is. But the journey on which his Father sets him is one of release and JOY. You will see as you learn the Son of God is guiltless.
“Swear not to die, you holy Son of God! The Son of Life cannot be killed. He is immortal as his Father. You were not born to die.” (p.572) “Life’s function cannot be to die. Let this be changed. How lovely is the world whose purpose is forgiveness of God’s Son! How free from fear, how filled with blessing and with happiness and what a JOYOUS thing it is to dwell in such a happy place.” (p.573)
Until next week,
Love, Sondra
What have you been thinking about lately? Share with me!
