URTEXT – GIFTS OF GOD
G 2. A. The Two Gifts
G 2 A 1. How can you be delivered from all gifts the world has offered you? How can you change these little, cruel offerings for those that Heaven gives and God would have you keep? Open your hands, and give all things to me that you have held against your holiness and kept as slander on the Son of God. Practice with every one you recognize as what it is. Give me these worthless things the instant that you see them through my eyes and understand their cost. Then give away these bitter dreams as you perceive them now to be but that, and nothing more than that.
G 2 A 2. I take them from you gladly, laying them beside the gifts of God that He has placed upon the altar to His Son. And these I give to you to take the place of those you gave away in mercy on yourself. These are the gifts I ask, and only these. For as you lay them by you reach to me, and I can come as savior then to you. The gifts of God are in my hands, to give to anyone who would exchange the world for Heaven. You need only call my Name, and ask me to accept the gift of pain from willing hands that would be laid in mine, with thorns laid down and nails long thrown away as one by one the sorry gifts of earth are joyously relinquished. In my hands is everything you want and need and hoped to find among the shabby toys of earth. I take them all from you and they are gone. And shining in the place where once they stood there is a gateway to another world through which we enter in the Name of God.
- T 11 D 9. Long ago we said that God so loved the world that He gave it to His only-begotten Son. (that whosoever believeth on him should never see death). God DOES love the real world, and those who perceive its reality cannot see the world of death. For death is not of the real world, in which everything is eternal. God gave you the real world in exchange for the one you made, out of your split mind, and which IS the symbol of death. For if you could REALLY separate yourselves from the Mind of God, you WOULD die. And the world you perceive IS a world of separation.
- T 11 I 9. The real world was given you by God, in loving exchange for the world YOU made, and which you see. But take it from the hand of Christ, and look upon it. Its reality will make everything else invisible, for beholding it is TOTAL perception. And as you look upon it, you will remember that it was always so. Nothingness will become invisible, for you will at last have seen truly. Redeemed perception is easily translated into knowledge, for ONLY perception is capable of error. And perception has never been. Being corrected, it gives place to knowledge, which is forever the ONLY reality. The Atonement is but the way back to what was never lost. Your Father could not cease to love His Son.
- The theme of holding hands is frequently used in the Text as a metaphor for loving relationship between humans, and between man and God. In particular Jesus and the Holy Spirit are characterized as leading us by the hand. Here are a few examples:
- T 8 E 23. I DO go before you, because I AM beyond the ego. Reach therefore for my hand because you WANT to transcend the ego. My will, will NEVER be wanting, and if you want to share it YOU WILL. I give it willingly and gladly, because I need YOU as much as you need ME.
- T 17 F 11. In your newness, remember that you have started again, TOGETHER. And take each other’s hand, to walk together along a road far more familiar than you now believe. Is it not certain, that you will remember a goal unchanged throughout eternity? For you have chosen but the goal of God, from which your true intent was NEVER absent. Throughout the Sonship is the song of freedom heard, in joyous echo of your choice. You have joined with many, in the holy instant, and THEY have joined with you. Think not your choice will leave YOU comfortless. For God Himself has blessed your special relationship. JOIN in His blessing, and withhold not yours upon it. For all it needs now IS your blessing, that you may see that in it rests salvation.
- T 18 D 5. You who hold each other’s hand also hold mine, for when you joined each other you were not alone. Do you believe that I would leave you in the darkness you agreed to leave with ME? In your relationship is this world’s light. And fear MUST disappear before you now. Be tempted not to snatch away the gift of faith you offered to each other. You will succeed only in frightening yourselves. The gift is given forever, for God Himself received it. You CANNOT take it back. You have accepted God. The holiness of your relationship is established in Heaven. You do not understand what you accepted, but remember that your understanding is not necessary. All that was necessary was merely the WISH to understand. That wish was the desire to be holy. The will of God is granted you. For you desire the only thing you ever had, or ever were.
- T 24 C 7. Here stands your brother with the key to Heaven in his hand, held out to you. Let not the dream of specialness remain between you. What is one IS joined in truth.
- T 31 H 10. Salvation’s song will echo through the world with every choice they make. For we are one in purpose, and the end of hell is near. In joyous welcome is my hand outstretched to every brother who would join with me in reaching past temptation, and who looks with fixed determination toward the light that shines beyond in perfect constancy.
G 2 A 3. Father, we thank You for these gifts that we have found together. Here we are redeemed. For it is here we joined, and from this place of holy joining we will come to You because we recognize the gifts You gave and would have nothing else. Each hand that finds its way to mine will take Your gifts from me, and as we look together on the place whereon I laid your worthless gifts for you, we will see nothing but the gifts of God reflected in the shining round our heads. Holy are we who know our holiness, for it is You Who shine Your light on us, and we are thankful, in our Father’s Name, that You have not forgotten. What we thought we made of You has merely disappeared, and with its going are the images we made of Your creation gone as well. And it is finished. Now into Your Hands we give again the spirit of Your Son who seemed to lose his way a little while but never left the safety of Your Love. The gifts of fear, the dream of death, are done. And we give thanks. And we give thanks, Amen.
- Psalm 31:5 Into thine hand I commend my spirit: thou hast redeemed me, O LORD, thou God of truth.
- Luke 23:46 And Jesus, crying with a loud voice, said, “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit:” and having said this, he gave up the ghost.
