 2024 on the 16th day of the year, so we're ready to do work lesson number 16. Jesus is helping us release all limitations from our mind. He's helping us go from a condition of fear to a condition of love, which is natural as a creation of God. Love is natural. It's a natural attitude. It's a natural emotion of the kingdom of heaven. And so our destiny is to remember our natural state of love and how beautiful that we have instructions from the master. Jesus is helping us just take our mind back, the power of our mind back from the misuse of the mind, which we can call ego in psychological terms or you could call it Satan in Christian terms, but it's reclaiming, restoring the power of the mind. So today's lesson is really the first real strong instruction from Jesus about the mind, about thoughts, about thinking and also that our thoughts are powerful and therefore they're not just neutral. They are not to be dismissed. This is the realm of causation. Mind is the realm of causation. So when you're looking at the world and you feel frustrated about the things of the world or the happenings of the world or the events that seem to occur in the world, it's important to realize the power of the mind and to come back to the realm of thought, to the realm of cognition. And that's where we can start to make a fundamental shift and change. You know, my mind can only be hurt by what I think and that's only if I give my mind over to ego thoughts. The thoughts that I think with God, my real thoughts are purely loving and simply radiate eternal love to everything and everyone, so to speak, because it's all the oneness of God's love and the oneness of Christ, which is a pure idea in the mind of God and the mind of love. So here we go. Let's jump into lesson 16. I have no neutral thoughts. The idea for today is a beginning step in dispelling the belief that your thoughts have no effect. Everything you see is the result of your thoughts. There is no exception to this fact. Thoughts are not big or little, powerful or weak. They are merely true or false. Those that are true create in their own likeness. Those that are false make theirs. There is no more contradictory concept, self-contradictory concept than that of idle thoughts. What gives rise to the perception of a whole world can hardly be called idle. Every thought you have contributes to truth or to illusion. Either it extends the truth or it multiplies illusions. You can indeed multiply nothing, but you will not extend it by doing so. Besides your recognizing that thoughts are never idle, salvation requires that you also recognize that every thought you have brings either peace or war, either love or fear. A neutral result is impossible because a neutral thought is impossible. There is such a temptation to dismiss fear thoughts as unimportant, trivial, and not worth bothering about, that it is essential you recognize them all as equally destructive but equally unreal. We will practice this idea in many forms before you really understand it. In applying the idea for today, search your mind for a minute or so with eyes closed and actively seek not to overlook any little thought that may tend to elude the search. This is quite difficult until you get used to it. You will find that it is still hard for you not to make artificial distinctions. Every thought that occurs to you, regardless of the qualities that you assign to it, it is a suitable subject for applying today's idea. In the practice periods, first repeat the idea to yourself and then as each one crosses your mind, hold it in awareness while you tell yourself this thought about, fill in the blank, is not a neutral thought. That thought about is not a neutral thought. As usual, use today's idea whenever you are aware of a particular thought that arouses uneasiness. The following form is suggested for this purpose. This thought about is not a neutral thought because I have no neutral thoughts. Four or five practice periods are recommended if you find them relatively effortless. If strain is experienced, three will be enough. The length of the exercise period should also be reduced if there is discomfort. Lesson number 16, I have no neutral thoughts. So today when we dip into the text to help support our practice of this beautiful thought, I have no neutral thoughts, let's jump into chapter two, the function of the miracle worker. And let's drop down to sentence seven here in paragraph one. It is essential to remember that only the mind can create and that correction belongs at the thought level. To amplify an earlier statement, spirit is already perfect and therefore does not require correction. The body does not exist except as a learning device for the mind. This learning device is not subject to errors of its own because it cannot create. It is obvious then that inducing the mind to give up its miscreations is the only application of creativity that is truly meaningful. That's profound. It is obvious then that inducing the mind to give up its miscreations is the only application of creative ability that is truly meaningful. Magic is the mindless or the miscreative use of the mind. Physical medications are forms of spells, but if you are afraid to use the mind to heal, you should not attempt to do so. The very fact that you are afraid makes your mind vulnerable to miscreation. You are therefore likely to misunderstand any healing that might occur and because egocentricity and fear usually occur together, you may be unable to accept the real source of the healing. Under these conditions it is safer for you to rely temporarily on physical healing devices because you cannot misperceive them as your own creations. As long as your sense of vulnerability persists, you should not attempt to perform miracles. I've already said that miracles are expressions of miracle-mindedness and miracle-mindedness means right-mindedness. The right-minded neither exalt nor depreciate the mind of the miracle worker or the miracle receiver. Okay, that's good. That gives us a good start and then let's jump to the next chapter, chapter 3. We'll drop down here in section 7 down to the first paragraph and the seventh sentence. Nothing made by a child of God is without power. It is essential to realize this because otherwise you will be unable to escape from the prison you have made. Oh, that's worth repeating. Nothing made by a child of God is without power. It is essential to realize this because otherwise you will be unable to escape from the prison you have made. You cannot resolve the authority problem by depreciating the power of your mind. To do so is to deceive yourself and this will hurt you because you really understand the strength of the mind. You also realize that you cannot weaken it any more than you can weaken God. The devil is a frightening concept because he seems to be extremely powerful and extremely active. He is perceived as a force in combat with God, battling him for possession of his creations. The devil deceives by lies and builds kingdoms in which everything is in direct opposition to God yet he attracts men rather than repels them and they are willing to quote sell him their souls in return for gifts of no real worth. This makes absolutely no sense. Okay, so in this sense the devil is in quotes because it's a concept and if you give a very powerful mind to such a ridiculous concept then you seem to experience something other than heaven and we're starting to see that in order to forgive the concept of the devil you really have to realize the power of your mind and you have to really start to understand that you made it up. You believed in the ego. The ego can be dispelled if you withdraw your belief from the ego but you gave it the power by believing in it and you can dispel it by withdrawing your belief from it. So that's nice. Those are all beautiful support ideas today. Again, I have no neutral thoughts and we are dispelling the belief today that these neutral these thoughts that we think have no effect. These ego thoughts that we think have no effect. Everything he says you see is the result of your thoughts. There is no exception to this fact. So beautiful. What a beautiful way to roll into the day and what a beautiful thought to have on our mind as we go through the day as we start to pay more close attention to the thoughts that cross our mind and remembering that the ones that are true the ones that are inspired by God you know you know create in their own likeness our thoughts of love create love and our thoughts of falsity project projection makes perception project an unreal world that we're not going to be at the mercy of any longer. Thank you Jesus for leading us with these beautiful lessons. Okay lots and lots of love. Have a beautiful day.