Today’s reading begins by reminding us not to judge ourselves. It says:

You can misunderstand My message when you listen through the ears of judgment. You can take my message of freedom and make of it a slave. In this way, My message is lost to you.

I ask you to lay down your judgment and listen to Me with clarity.

A good coach must show us what we are doing wrong so we can improve. Without that helpful guidance, we can’t make progress.

Imagine how useless a golf coach would be if he didn’t point out the error in your golf swing!

The same applies to the spiritual path. In order for a coach or teacher to be truly helpful, that coach must point out our errors. When we see that our mistakes are pointed out to help us improve, we listen with clarity. When we judge ourselves for the mistakes we make, the teacher’s helpfulness is lost to us.

Today’s reading points out that the world is a false god that we make and worship. The purpose of this false god is to tell us that we are separate. It could also be said that the world is made to give us a sense of self or a distinct feeling of “me.” The world does this through people, places and experiences, and through the differences found in each.

The world is an effective false god because it tempers its own message. If the experience of separation were overpowering without any sense of community or communion, we would reject the world entirely and awaken immediately. The reason we linger within illusion is because there is enough community and communion to keep us interested.

In other words, the sense of communion in the world isn’t a sign of an awakening world. The sense of communion is a trick to keep us mesmerized by a world that is made to be different from truth.

Today’s reading references the story of Abraham. Abraham is believed to be the father of both the Arab and Jewish nations.

According to the Bible, God made a covenant with Abraham. He told Abraham in a vision, “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your very great reward.” Abraham was worried because he was childless and did not have an heir. His wife, Sarah, was barren, and both Abraham and Sarah were old. According to Genesis 15, God said to Abraham:

Look up at the heavens and count the stars—if indeed you can count them. So shall your offspring be.

NTI Galatians interprets that story by saying that Abraham represents birth. One definition of “birth” is “the beginning or coming into existence of something.”

According to NTI Galatians, Abraham represents the birth of Light. Light is the symbol for truth realization, so Abraham represents the birth of truth realization.

Comparing Abraham’s offspring to the stars, which cannot be counted, signifies an infinite awakening—a total awakening to truth, with no part of consciousness left out of it.

The total awakening of consciousness is an interesting promise, but the promise becomes more interesting when you realize that Abraham represents willingness.

You see, Abraham was a man who heard the Voice for God and followed it where it led, even though it meant uprooting his family and servants from the place where they lived and leading them into the desert toward an unknown promised land.

Abraham is just like willingness. It is our willingness that listens to inner spiritual wisdom and follows it, even though that means letting go of familiar beliefs and attachments and walking through purification toward an unknown experience called “awakening.”

Willingness is the state of wanting to do something and being mentally, emotionally and/or spiritually ready to do it, even if learning must occur in the process. Our willingness is the birth of awakening.

NTI Galatians comes to us from awake consciousness as the voice of Jesus. It harnesses the essence of his experience as a human who awakened to truth and shares the simplicity of awakening from his point of view. As NTI Galatians 1 said:

I am the Way and the Life. I come to you on this day to clear up your confusion, for there have been many thoughts that have confused you until now. Do not fret over your confusion. It is nothing and can be easily laid aside when you see the simplicity of love as I offer it to you.

Yesterday’s reading spoke of a belief. It said:

I know well of this belief, for I experienced it once myself. But I have been made free by My own choice to release the belief that isn’t true.

Today’s reading tells us what that belief is:

You believe in separation.

It also points out the way to let go of that belief and awaken to truth:

Through acceptance, not judgment, the Light of Heaven is yours.

This isn’t the first time that we’ve been told judgment (or declaration) is the cause of illusion and acceptance (or Loving All) is a means to awaken.

As you contemplate today’s reading:

1. Reference Day 138 and Day 157, and then realize that we are being told that letting go of judgment and accepting what is as it is is the simple way to awaken.
2. Consider how you fall for the deceit that judgment is sometimes justified, a deceit that declares illusion real.
3. Ask yourself if you’d rather feel righteous in a world that is made to be different from truth, or if you prefer to awaken and realize truth as it is.

Speaking of those who have awakened to the First Principle of God, NTI 1 Corinthians 16 said:

One who knows wholeness after experiencing the lack of wholeness knows illusion is no substitute for truth. He shall not choose illusion again.

But, being one mind with all that he thought was separate, he shall remain as a memory to call the mind that sleeps into wakefulness, that all that is whole may know Itself as one and whole again.

When I received NTI Galatians, inner wisdom came to me as the voice of Jesus.

As A Course in Miracles Clarification of Terms  says:

The name of Jesus is the name of one who was a man but saw the face of Christ in all his brothers and remembered God.  So he became identified with Christ, a man no longer, but at one with God.  The man was an illusion, for he seemed to be a separate being, walking by himself, within a body that appeared to hold his self from Self, as all illusions do.  Yet who can save unless he sees illusions and then identifies them as what they are?  Jesus remains a Savior because he saw the false without accepting it as true.  And Christ needed his form that He might appear to men and save them from their own illusions.

Through the Creative Principle, consciousness can appear as the re-enlivened form of a master who no longer exists. It’s as if the breeze of wisdom blows through a memory and temporarily re-envokes a familiar form.

Why?

As the Clarification of Terms  explains:

… time needs symbols, being itself unreal.

Jesus no longer exists, since Jesus was a temporary manifestation in time. However, because awakening occurred through that form, the form continues to be used by consciousness. A personification of reality is helpful for as long as we see ourselves as persons.

NTI Galatians came in Jesus’ voice. When NTI Galatians says “I” or “Me,” it refers us to the memory of Jesus. It directs our attention to one who experienced humanness as fully as we experience it now, and then transcended the beliefs and perceptions that we experience to realize truth without compromise. This memory is helpful, because if one human can awaken to reality, another human can do it too. The human is not limited, because identification with a human is a temporary cloak, and the consciousness that shines through the human is altogether unlimited.

A Course in Miracles Clarification of Terms  says:

There is no need for help to enter Heaven for you have never left.  But there is need for help beyond yourself as you are circumscribed by false beliefs of your Identity, which God alone established in reality.  Helpers are given you in many forms, although upon the altar they are one. …

Is [Jesus] God’s only Helper?  No, indeed.  For Christ takes many forms with different names until their oneness can be recognized.