1. Forgiveness-for-salvation has one form, and only one. ²It does not ask for proof of innocence, nor pay of any kind. ³It does not argue, nor evaluate the errors that it wants to overlook. ⁴It does not offer gifts in treachery, nor promise freedom while it asks for death. ⁵Would God deceive you? ⁶He but asks for trust and willingness to learn how to be free. ⁷He gives His Teacher to whoever asks, and seeks to understand the Will of God. ⁸His readiness to give lies far beyond your understanding and your simple grasp. ⁹Yet He has willed you learn the way to Him, and in His willing there is certainty.
2. You child of God, the gifts of God are yours, not by your plans but by His holy Will. ²His Voice will teach you what forgiveness is, and how to give it as He wills it be. ³Do not, then, seek to understand what is beyond you yet, but let it be a way to draw you up to where the eyes of Christ become the sight you choose. ⁴Give up all else, for there is nothing else. ⁵When someone calls for help in any form, He is the One to answer for you. ⁶All that you need do is to step back and not to interfere. ⁷Forgiveness-for-salvation is His task, and it is He Who will respond for you.
3. Do not establish what the form should be that Christ’s forgiveness takes. ²He knows the way to make of every call a help to you, as you arise in haste to go at last unto your Father’s house. ³Now can He make your footsteps sure, your words sincere; not with your own sincerity, but with His Own. ⁴Let Him take charge of how you would forgive, and each occasion then will be to you another step to Heaven and to peace.
4. Are you not weary of imprisonment? ²God did not choose this sorry path for you. ³What you have chosen still can be undone, for prayer is merciful and God is just. ⁴His is a justice He can understand, but you cannot as yet. ⁵Still will He give the means to you to learn of Him, and know at last that condemnation is not real and makes illusions in its evil name. ⁶And yet it matters not the form that dreams may seem to take. ⁷Illusions are untrue. ⁸God’s Will is truth, and you are one with Him in Will and purpose. ⁹Here all dreams are done.
5. “What should I do for him, Your holy Son?” should be the only thing you ever ask when help is needed and forgiveness sought. ²The form the seeking takes you need not judge. ³And let it not be you who sets the form in which forgiveness comes to save God’s Son. ⁴The light of Christ in him is his release, and it is this that answers to his call. ⁵Forgive him as the Christ decides you should, and be His eyes through which you look on him, and speak for Him as well. ⁶He knows the need; the question and the answer. ⁷He will say exactly what to do, in words that you can understand and you can also use. ⁸Do not confuse His function with your own. ⁹He is the Answer. ¹⁰You the one who hears.
6. And what is it He speaks to you about? ²About salvation and the gift of peace. ³About the end of sin and guilt and death. ⁴About the role forgiveness has in Him. ⁵Do you but listen. ⁶For He will be heard by anyone who calls upon His Name, and places his forgiveness in His hands. ⁷Forgiveness has been given Him to teach, to save it from destruction and to make the means for separation, sin and death become again the holy gift of God. ⁸Prayer is His Own right Hand, made free to save as true forgiveness is allowed to come from His eternal vigilance and Love. ⁹Listen and learn, and do not judge. ¹⁰It is to God you turn to hear what you should do. ¹¹His answer will be clear as morning, nor is His forgiveness what you think it is.
7. Still does He know, and that should be enough. ²Forgiveness has a Teacher Who will fail in nothing. ³Rest a while in this; do not attempt to judge forgiveness, nor to set it in an earthly frame. ⁴Let it arise to Christ, Who welcomes it as gift to Him. ⁵He will not leave you comfortless, nor fail to send His angels down to answer you in His Own Name. ⁶He stands beside the door to which forgiveness is the only key. ⁷Give it to Him to use instead of you, and you will see the door swing silently open upon the shining face of Christ. ⁸Behold your brother there beyond the door; the Son of God as He created him.
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