Fear, Forgiveness, and Freedom

To forgive is an act of love, and, is liberating and healing to both the giver and the receiver. Today's Course Workbook lesson makes this point. So, too, does Swedenborg correlate the doing of good from God and the spiritual practice of loving-kindness with true freedom.


"Fear binds the world. Forgiveness sets it free." (A Course In Miracles, W-332)


"The ego makes illusions. Truth undoes its evil dreams by shining them away. Truth never makes attack. It merely is. And by its presence is the mind recalled from fantasies, awaking to the real. Forgiveness bids this presence enter in, and take its rightful place within the mind. Without forgiveness is the mind in chains, believing in its own futility. Yet with forgiveness does the light shine through the dream of darkness, offering it hope, and giving it the means to realize the freedom that is its inheritance." (A Course In Miracles, W-332.1)


"We would not bind the world again today. Fear holds it prisoner. And yet Your Love has given us the means to set it free. Father, we would release it now. For as we offer freedom, it is given us. And we would not remain as prisoners, while You are holding freedom out to us." (A Course In Miracles, W-332.2)

“When… the internal [part of a person] conquers… then liberty itself and rationality itself are given to a person by the Lord; for the person is then withdrawn by the Lord from infernal freedom, which in itself is slavery, and is brought into heavenly freedom, which in itself is freedom itself…” (Emanuel Swedenborg, Divine Providence 145:4)

“A life of freedom, or freedom, is simply and solely being led by the Lord.…” (Emanuel Swedenborg, Secrets of Heaven 892)

“…In a word, freedom consists in doing good from the Lord; and slavery in doing good from oneself….” (Emanuel Swedenborg, Apocalypse Explained 774:4)

“… there is no other means of loving the Lord than loving-kindness, because the Lord is in it. The affection of loving-kindness is heavenly affection itself, which is from the Lord alone.” (Emanuel Swedenborg, Secrets of Heaven 4776)

Let me attempt therefore to try...

Today's A Course In Miracles Workbook lesson:

"I need but call and You will answer me." (ACIM, W-327)

“I am not asked to take salvation on the basis of an unsupported faith. For God has promised He will hear my call, and answer me Himself. Let me but learn from my experience that this is true, and faith in Him must surely come to me. This is the faith that will endure, and take me farther and still farther on the road that leads to Him. For thus I will be sure that He has not abandoned me and loves me still, awaiting but my call to give me all the help I need to come to Him." (ACIM, W-327.1)

“Father, I thank You that Your promises will never fail in my experience, if I but test them out. Let me attempt therefore to try them, and to judge them not. Your Word is one with You. You give the means whereby conviction comes, and surety of Your abiding Love is gained at last." (ACIM, W-327.2)

Quote from the writings of 18th century mystic Emanuel Swedenborg:

“… faith's sight is like one's seeing a bright cloud, and in the midst of it an angel who invites the person to him, so that he may be raised up into heaven. Thus does the Lord appear to those who have faith in Him…” (Emanuel Swedenborg, True Christian Religion 339)

An Effect of God

Today's A Course In Miracles Workbook lesson:

"I am forever an Effect of God." (ACIM, W-326)


¹ Father, I was created in Your Mind, a holy Thought that never left its home. I am forever Your Effect, and You forever and forever are my Cause. As You created me I have remained. Where You established me I still abide. And all Your attributes abide in me, because it is Your Will to have a Son so like his Cause that Cause and Its Effect are indistinguishable. Let me know that I am an Effect of God, and so I have the power to create like You. And as it is in Heaven, so on earth. Your plan I follow here, and at the end I know that You will gather Your effects into the tranquil Heaven of Your Love, where earth will vanish, and all separate thoughts unite in glory as the Son of God.


² Let us today behold earth disappear, at first transformed, and then, forgiven, fade entirely into God's holy Will.

Quote from the writings of 18th century mystic Emanuel Swedenborg:

“…every created thing, and especially people, and the love and wisdom in them, have reality and are not merely ideas of being. For unless God were Infinite there would be no finite; and unless the Infinite were the All there would be no reality; and unless God had created all things from Himself there would be nothing. In a word, we are because God is.” (Emanuel Swedenborg, Divine Providence 46)