Heart and Hands Raised to Heaven!
Heart and Hands Raised to Heaven!
A Course in Miracles
was given to earth in response to an implicit call for help by two pained and desperate intellectuals, Bill Thetford and Helen Schucman, agreeing "there must be another way!" Here's how Helen Schucman, surprised by her own willingness to receive revelation from Jesus, described herself and the moment that led to the Course:
"Psychologist, educator, conservative in theory and atheistic in belief, I was working in a prestigious and highly academic setting. And then something happened that triggered a chain of events I could never have predicted. The head of my department unexpectedly announced that he was tired of the angry and aggressive feelings our attitudes reflected, and concluded that, 'there must be another way.' As if on cue I agreed to help him find it. Apparently this Course is the other way."
Christians should be rejoicing to the high heavens that Jesus gave an answer to the intellectually and atheistically inclined on earth. Such a revelation proves to even doubters that Christian faith is not in vain. Jesus answers even those who do not believe in Him and who have closed themselves from the experience of an easily accessible spiritual awakening.
These two suffering intellectuals, Helen Schucman and Bill Thetford, psychiatrist and psychologist, atheist and agnostic, could never have brought themselves to answer an altar call or for that matter find their way into a charismatic church. Their ears were deaf to what we normally think of as Christian evangelizing. Their scientific minds probably would have been willing to examine most anything intellectually, but were dead set against the experience of Christ.
Yet they called for help ... and their call was answered.
It would be a good idea for Christians to shout with joy to the high heavens over the advent of the Course. They can raise their hearts and hands to heaven and praise the Lord with their deepest gratitude over the Course being given to earth.
How else would spiritually closed-down intellectuals eventually find their way Home?
The Course which Jesus gave is a course which undoes intellectual habits and relieves the pain of intellectualism. It says clearly over and over again in many ways, "My thoughts do not mean anything. My meaningless thoughts are showing me a meaningless world." (Workbook Lessons 9 & 10) If Senator John Kerry and his advisors would put their campaign on hold and relax with the Course for just a few years they would be freed from the kind of intellectual confusion and anger that turns well-meaning impulses into self-defeating efforts. Jesus answers even politicians and tax collectors.
But using the Course leads to a phenomenon that at first glance appears almost contradictory. Ultimately the Course leads intellectuals to the same experience that less intellectually inclined people are led to by evangelical Christianity. The end result is the same: an unbelievably expanded experience of Christ. Course students who allow their habit of intellectualizing to be undone begin to exhibit happy postures, glowing healthy countenances, and miracles in their wake, much the same as evangelical Christians. They even begin to raise their hands and hearts to heaven in total abandon. There is no difference in the experience.
"But Course students do not feel the need to evangelize."
Don't they? How many copies of the Course have you given to friends in pain? How much love and joy and inner peace have you spread, teaching the value of spiritual life? For that matter, how many minds has your mind entered totally unknowingly simply by the thoughts you think with God?
"But Course students do not believe every word of the Bible is true!"
Really? Course students come to read the Bible with an entirely new mind, a spiritually opened mind that shows them truth where they never before saw truth. One might be tempted to say Course students see even more truth in the Bible than non-Course students, but then where would one ever find a non-Course student if, as Jesus says, His course is universally required?
"But users of the Course do not witness to the saving power of Jesus Christ?"
Is that so? Then how do you explain that the lives of Course students are dramatically and thoroughly changed, and they spontaneously find themselves overflowing with gratitude toward Jesus?
The Course is not different from evangelical Christianity, it is the same course given for seemingly different minds ... minds that have previously trapped themselves in painful intellectualism.
Course students who are still in the early stages of approaching the Course intellectually may still be tempted to talk in their old language with their old habit which wants to make everything complex. Or they might "graduate" to using their newly learned (as the world learns) Course language, which is not much graduation. They would therefore miss the opportunity to join thoroughly in spirit with Christian brothers from other traditions who think in much simpler terms.
But eventually a Course student learns that intellectualizing the Course is the first booby prize and talking in Course language is the second booby prize, actually a hindrance to joining with other Christian brothers. Teachers of God who have entered into the glorious experience Jesus has led them into find themselves so joyously free that they can only teach it is a gift to be simple and talk in the simple language of others.
Advanced Teachers of God who have entered into the out-of-this world experience, who have graduated from such a portal as Endeavor Academy in Wisconsin, should not limit themselves to visiting only Course groups in diverse places. Such teachers have much more in common with evangelical Christians and much more to give to the millions of Christians out there attending all kinds of churches in the hopes of finding the very expanded spiritual experience which advanced Teachers of God have been ordained by the Holy Spirit to facilitate.
A few years ago three graduates of Endeavor Academy felt guided to attend an Assembly of God church where the pastor, unbeknown to them, had prayed with all his heart and soul that his church members be opened to the kind of overwhelming experiences which the news was reporting happening in the Toronto "Laughing Church."
Attending this new church for a moment, these Endeavor graduates had not brought their Course books or their specialized Course language which would have left people fearing them, not accepting them. Rather they humbly raised their arms toward God and loosed all defense against God, allowing their light to expand to the far reaches of the universe in the manner of many Endeavor Academy students. Pretty soon all the church members in this congregation were no longer afraid to raise their hands and hearts to God ... and the spiritual experience of these congregation members began to expand as never before. The pastor was joyously happy that his prayers were being answered before his eyes. The Holy Spirit was happier still.
This kind of giving should be happening everywhere. Endeavor Academy graduates should be phoning ministers all over the United States and saying things like, "Let me come to your church and give a little talk or lead a prayer session. Your congregation members will expand wonderfully into the experience of Jesus Christ."
Such ministers will be skeptical and will ask questions. The answer to every question is an unequivocal "yes!"
"Do you believe the Lord Jesus Christ is your savior?"
Oh, yes! Absolutely! Totally!
"Do you believe the Bible is totally and literally true?"
Yes, without question!
"Do you believe there is an Adversary and a battle going on?
Totally! Yes!
Totally yes ... because there is only one mind and all beliefs are true somewhere in that one mind. Yes, without question ... because joining together at heaven's gate is infinitely more important than closing down over disagreements in the world. Absolutely ... because opening others to light is the assigned task of Teachers of God, whatever it takes.
It is the chosen task of Teachers of God to raise everybody to light, whether these teachers decide to let it happen while their light is under a bushel in a cave in the Himalayan Mountains, or whether they are willing to join with all their Christian brothers everywhere in climbing to the heights of the mountain as a whole congregation.
The world is being opened as never before. A starting point is facilitating the opening of Christians everywhere as they couldn't have thought possible.
All it takes is a little willingness to join in raising heart and hands to heaven!
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MIRACLES HEALING CENTER