 We continue today with Chapter 11, Waking to Redemption. It is impossible not to believe what you see, but it is equally impossible to see what you do not believe. Perceptions are built up on the basis of experience, and experience leads to beliefs. It is not until beliefs are fixed that perceptions stabilize. In effect, then, what you believe you do see. That is what is meant when I said, Blessed are ye who have not seen and still believe, for those who believe in the resurrection will see it. The resurrection is the complete triumph of Christ over the ego, not by attack, but by transcendence. For Christ does rise above the ego and all its works and ascends to the Father and His kingdom. Would you join in the resurrection or the crucifixion? Would you condemn your brothers or free them? Would you transcend your prison and ascend to the Father? These questions are all the same and are answered together. There has been much confusion about what perception means, because the word is used both for awareness and for the interpretation of awareness. Yet you cannot be aware without interpretation for what you perceive is your interpretation. This course is perfectly clear. If you do not see it clearly, it is because you are interpreting against it and therefore do not believe it. And since belief determines perception, you do not perceive what it means and therefore do not accept it. Yet different experiences lead to different beliefs and with them different perceptions. For perceptions are learned with beliefs and experience does teach. I am leading you to a new kind of experience that you will become less and less willing to deny. Learning of Christ is easy, for to perceive with Him involves no strain at all. His perceptions are your natural awareness and it is only the distortions you introduce that tire you. That the Christ in you interpret for you and do not try to limit what you see by narrow little beliefs that are unworthy of God's Son. For until Christ comes into His own, the Son of God will see Himself as fatherless. I am your resurrection and your life. You live in me because you live in God and everyone lives in you as you live in everyone. Can you then perceive unworthiness in a brother and not perceive it in yourself? And can you perceive it in yourself and not perceive it in God? Believe in the resurrection because it has been accomplished and it has been accomplished in you. This is as true now as it will ever be for the resurrection is the will of God which knows no time and no exceptions. But make no exceptions yourself or you will not perceive what has been accomplished for you. For we ascend unto the Father together as it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be for such is the nature of God's Son as His Father created Him. Do not underestimate the power of the devotion of God's Son nor the power the God He worships has over Him. For He places Himself at the altar of His God whether it be the God He made or the God who created Him. That is why His slavery is as complete as His freedom. For He will obey only the God He accepts. The God of crucifixion demands that He crucify and His worshipers obey. In His name they crucify themselves believing that the power of the Son of God is born of sacrifice and pain. The God of resurrection demands nothing for He does not will to take away. He does not require obedience for obedience implies submission. He would only have you learn your will and follow it not in the spirit of sacrifice and submission but in the gladness of freedom. Resurrection must compel your allegiance gladly because it is the symbol of joy. Its whole compelling power lies in the fact that it represents what you want to be. The freedom to leave behind everything that hurts you and humbles you and frightens you cannot be thrust upon you but it can be offered you through the grace of God. And you can accept it by His grace. For God is gracious to His Son accepting Him without question as His own. Who then is your own? The Father has given you all that is His and He Himself is yours with them. Guard them in their resurrection for otherwise you will not awaken God safely surrounded by what is yours forever. You will not find peace until you have removed the nails from the hands of God's Son and taken the last thorn from His forehead. The love of God surrounds His Son whom the God of crucifixion condemns. Teach not that I died in vain. Teach rather that I did not die by demonstrating that I live in you. For the undoing of the crucifixion of God's Son is the work of the redemption in which everyone has a part of equal value. God does not judge His guiltless Son. Having given Himself to Him, how could it be otherwise? You have nailed yourself to a cross and placed a crown of thorns upon your own head that you cannot crucify God's Son for the will of God cannot die. His Son has been redeemed from His own crucifixion and you cannot assign to death whom God has given eternal life. The dream of crucifixion still lies heavy on your eyes, but what you see in dreams is not reality. While you perceive the Son of God as crucified, you are asleep. And as long as you believe that you can crucify Him, you are only having nightmares. You who are beginning to wake are still aware of dreams and have not yet forgotten them. The forgetting of dreams and the awareness of Christ come with the awakening of others to share your redemption. You will awaken to your own call for the call to awake is within you. If I live in you, you are awake. Yet you must see the works I do through you, or you will not perceive that I have done them unto you. Do not set limits on what you believe I can do through you, or you will not accept what I can do for you. Yet it is done already, and unless you give all that you have received, you will not know that you are a redeemer liveth, and that you have awakened with Him. Redemption is recognized only by sharing it. God's Son is saved. Bring only this awareness to the sonship, and you will have a part in the redemption as valuable as mine. For your part must be like mine if you learn it of me. If you believe that yours is limited, you are limiting mine. There is no order of difficulty in miracles, because all of God's sons are of equal value, and their equality is their oneness. The whole power of God is in every part of Him, and nothing contradictory to His will is either great or small. What does not exist has no size and no measure. To God, all things are possible, and to Christ it is given to be like the Father. And from the workbook, Lesson 83. Today, let us review these ideas. My only function is the one God gave me. I have no function but the one God gave me. This recognition releases me from all conflict because it means I cannot have conflicting goals. With one purpose only, I am always certain what to do, what to say, and what to think. All doubt must disappear as I acknowledge that my only function is the one God gave me. More specific applications of this idea might take these forms. My perception of this does not change my function. This does not give me a function other than the one God gave me. Let me not use this to justify a function God did not give me. My happiness and my function are one. All things that come from God are one. They come from oneness and must be received as one. Fulfilling my function is my happiness because both come from the same source. And I must learn to recognize what makes me happy if I would find happiness. Some useful forms for specific applications of this idea are this cannot separate my happiness from my function. The oneness of my happiness and my function remains wholly unaffected by this. Nothing, including this, can justify the illusion of happiness apart from my function. My only function is the one God gave me. My happiness and my function are one. Today we join in accepting our redemption. Today we join in accepting the resurrection of the mind. Happiness and function are the same given to me by the Holy Spirit. Today I remember deeply what perception is. I am reminded by Jesus. It is impossible not to believe what you see, but it is equally impossible to see what you do not believe. My beliefs produce perception. Projection makes perception. Perceptions are built up on the basis of experience. And experience leads to beliefs. It is not until the beliefs are fixed that perception stabilizes. In effect then what you believe you do see. If I see a world of fragmentation, this attests to a belief in separation from God. Yet the resurrection of the mind is the complete triumph of Christ over the ego. Through transcendence Christ does rise above the ego and all its works and ascends to the Father and His Kingdom. Today would I teach resurrection or redemption? Would I teach condemnation or freedom? Would I transcend my prison? Or would I ascend to the Father through forgiveness? Or would it be that I want? What I perceive is my interpretation. Interpretation is not apart from perception. Interpretation is perception. Would I accept the Holy Spirit's perception of the world, the forgiven world, the real world, the happy dream? Or would I hold on to conflict? Do I serve the real God of love and freedom and joy and happiness? Or do I serve the make-believe God of tyranny and conflict, pain and suffering? What is my choice today? For perceptions are learned with beliefs and experience does teach. Jesus reminds us, I am leading you to a new kind of experience that you will become less and less willing to deny. Learning of Christ is easy, for to perceive with Him involves no strain at all. His perceptions are your natural awareness. I am your resurrection and your life. You live in me because you live in God and everyone lives in you as you live in everyone. This is our springboard today. This is our devotion as we review these two glorious ideas that have been given us in the workbook. The only function is the one God gave me. My happiness and my function are one.