OrEd-T-23.1-Intro.War Against Myself
1. Can I see that the opposite of sinlessness is weakness and frailty? Innocence is strength, and nothing else is strong. The sinless cannot fear, for sin of any kind is weakness. Attack would use a show of strength to cover frailty, but not conceal it, for how can the unreal be hidden? No one is strong who has an enemy, and no one can attack unless he thinks he has an enemy. The belief in weakness is therefore the belief in enemies, and weakness is not the Will of God. Being opposed to God's Will, weakness is God's "enemy", and God is feared as an opposing will.
2. This war against myself becomes strange indeed! I will believe that everything I use for sin can hurt me, and become my enemy. I will fight against it and try to weaken it because of this. And I will think that I have succeeded and attack again. I will fear what I attack as surely as I will love what I perceive as sinless. He walks in peace who travels sinlessly along the way love shows him. For love walks with him there, protecting him from fear. And he will see only the sinless, who cannot attack.
3. I walk in glory with my head held high, and fear no evil. The innocent are safe because they share their innocence. Nothing they see is harmful. For their awareness of the truth releases everything from the illusion of harmfulness. And what seemed harmful now stands shining in their innocence, released from sin and fear, and happily returned to love. They share the strength of love because they looked on innocence. And every error disappeared because they did not see it. Who looks for glory finds it where it is. Where could it be but in the innocent?
4. I will not let the little interferers pull me to littleness. There can be no attraction of guilt in innocence. I think what a happy world I walk with truth beside me! I would not give up this world of freedom for a little sigh of seeming sin, not for a tiny stirring of guilt's attraction. Would I lay Heaven aside for all these meaningless distractions? My destiny and purpose are far beyond them in the clean place where littleness does not exist. My purpose is at variance with littleness of any kind. And so it is at variance with sin.
5. We will not let littleness lead God's Son into temptation. His glory is beyond temptation, timeless and measureless as eternity. We will not let time intrude upon our sight of God's Son. We do not leave him frightened and alone in his temptation, but help him rise above it and perceive the light of which he is a part. Our innocence will light the way to his innocence, and so ours is protected and kept in our awareness. For who can know his glory and perceive the little and the weak about him? No one can walk trembling, in a fearful world, and realize that Heaven's glory shines on him.
6. Everything around me is part of myself. I look on it lovingly, and see the light of Heaven in it. So I will come to understand all that is given me. In kind forgiveness will the world sparkle and shine and everything I once thought sinful, now will be reinterpreted as part of Heaven. How beautiful it is to walk clean and redeemed and happy through a world in bitter need of the redemption that my innocence bestows upon it! What can I value more than this? For here is my salvation and my freedom. And it must be complete if I would recognize it.
