When Tempted

Remember God…

“this idea reflects the goal of preventing me from accepting my function”  WB65

exchange this ego thought for the thought God would have me have instead.

“My holiness is my salvation from this.”

“I replace this thought with ____”

What is temptation but a wish to make the wrong decision on what you would learn, and have an outcome that you do not want?

Temptation is…the attempt to substitute another will for God’s.

Should you be tempted to become angry with someone, tell him silently: Light and joy and peace abide in you.

Even the faintest hint of your reality is enough to drive the ego away.

Even the most advanced of God’s teachers will give way to temptation in this world. Would it be fair if their pupils were denied healing because of this?

Whenever tempted to feel strongly about anything – good or bad – you have chosen the ego.

Your reactions of judgment, anger, anticipation, anxiety, or concern show you have dropped Jesus’ hand and taken the ego’s instead.

Keep the goal of forgiveness uppermost in our minds. The strength of God’s peace lies in its quietness & calm.

The sleep of forgetfulness is only the unwillingness to remember Your forgiveness & Your Love. Let us not wander into temptation, for the temptation of the Son of God is not Your Will.

By accepting healing he (the teacher of God) can give it. One of the most difficult temptations to recognize is that to doubt a healing because of the appearance of continuing symptoms is a mistake in the form of lack of trust. (Remember how bamboo grows? So slow it appears dormant.)

Yet each temptation to accept magic (powerless illusion within an illusion) as true must be abandoned through his recognition, not that it is fearful, not that it is sinful, nor that it is dangerous, but merely that it is meaningless.

There is, however, a temptation to respond to magic that reinforces it. It is this double wish (concealed beneath a wish to help) that makes the help of little value, & must lead to undesired outcomes. Nor should it be forgotten that the outcome that results will always come to teacher & to pupil alike. How many times has it been emphasized that you give but to yourself?

Lead Us Not into Temptation but Deliver Us from Evil
• As we advance, new and powerful temptations await us.
• It is our sacred duty to deal with all with perfect impartiality.
• We pray that we may not have to meet anything that is not too much for us at our present level of understanding.

“…declare that you will not yield to temptation & put yourself in bondage.”

Let me not wander into temptation. The world obscures your function of forgiveness.  Nothing the body sees can be anything but a form of temptation, since this was the purpose of the body.

See temptation as another chance to let yourself receive the gifts of God as yours.

Reverse the seeing of the world by not looking upon grievances.  May we behold others in a different way.  Temptation falls away.The problem of separation, which is really the only problem, has already been solved. The temptation to regard problems as many is the temptation to keep the problem of separation unsolved.  Ask what the problem is, and what is the answer to it.

Be aware of your lack of discipline. Use this idea as an automatic response to temptation:

I am one Self, united with my Creator.

Be vigilant

If you perceive offense in a brother pluck the offense from your mind, for you are offended by Christ and are deceived in Him. Heal in Christ and be not offended by Him, for there is no offense in Him. If what you perceive offends you, you are offended in yourself and are condemning God’s Son whom God condemneth not. Let the Holy Spirit remove all offenses of God’s Son against himself and perceive no one but through His guidance, for He would save you from all condemnation. Accept His healing power and use it for all He sends you, for He wills to heal the Son of God, in whom He is not deceived.

Let us not let littleness lead God’s Son into temptation. His glory is beyond it, measureless and timeless as eternity. Do not let time intrude upon your sight of him. Leave him not frightened and alone in his temptation, but help him rise above it and perceive the light of which he is a part. Your innocence will light the way to his, and so is yours protected and kept in your awareness.

Invites the Holy Spirit to enter into every relationship & deliver us from the temptation to judge and find fault. We ask Him to save us from our tendency to condemn & reveal to us the innocence within others, that we might see it within ourselves.

“Dear God, let me see this person through your eyes.”

In accepting the Atonement, we are asking to see as God sees, think as God thinks, love as God loves.

What is temptation but the wish to stay in hell and misery? … Whatever form temptation seems to take, it always but reflects a wish to be a self that you are not.

If you are tempted to be dispirited by thinking how long it would take to change your mind so completely, ask yourself, “How long is an instant?” Could you not give so short a time to the Holy Spirit for your salvation? He asks no more, for He has no need of more. It takes far longer to teach you to be willing to give Him this than for Him to use this tiny instant to offer you the whole of Heaven. In exchange for this instant He stands ready to give you the remembrance of eternity.

You will never give this holy instant to the Holy Spirit on behalf of your release while you are unwilling to give it to your brothers on behalf of theirs. For the instant of holiness is shared, and cannot be yours alone. Remember, then, when you are tempted to attack a brother, that his instant of release is yours. Miracles are the instants of release you offer, and will receive. They attest to your willingness to be released, and to offer time to the Holy Spirit for His use of it.

I will not trade miracles for grievances.

There is a simple way to find the door to true forgiveness, and perceive that it is open wide in welcome. When you feel that you are tempted to accuse someone of sin in any form, do not allow your mind to dwell on what you think he did, for that is self-deception. Ask instead, “Would I accuse myself of doing this”?

Throughout the day, increase the freedom sent through your ideas to all the world, and say whenever you are tempted to deny the power of your simple change of mind:

I loose the world from all I thought it was, and choose my own reality instead.

“Protect your mind throughout the day.”

Should you be tempted, say to anyone who seems to pull you back into darkness:

The light has come. I have forgiven you.

Beware of the temptation to perceive yourself unfairly treated. In this view, you seek to find an innocence that is not Theirs but yours alone, and at the cost of someone else’s guilt. Can innocence be purchased by the giving of your guilt to someone else? And is it innocence that your attack on him attempts to get? Is it not retribution for your own attack upon the Son of God you seek? Is it not safer to believe that you are innocent of this, and victimized despite your innocence? Whatever way the game of guilt is played, there must be loss. Someone must lose his innocence that someone else can take it from him, making it his own.

When the temptation to attack rises to make your mind darkened and murderous, remember you can see the battle from above.

Watch your mind for the temptations of the ego, and do not be deceived by it. It offers you nothing.