Got Any Ideas?
1. There is no order of difficulty among miracles. One is not "harder" or "bigger" than another. They are all the same. All expressions of love are maximal.2. Miracles as such do not matter. The only thing that matters is their Source, Which is far beyond human evaluation.
3. Miracles occur naturally as expressions of love. The real miracle is the love that inspires them. In this sense, everything that comes from love is a miracle.
4. All miracles mean life, and God is the Giver of life. His Voice will direct you very specifically. You will be told all you need to know.
5. Miracles are habits and should be involuntary. They should not be under conscious control. Consciously selected miracles can be misguided.
6. Miracles are natural. When they do NOT occur something has gone wrong.
7. Miracles are everyone's right, but purification is necessary first.
8. Miracles are healing because they supply a lack in that they are performed by those who temporarily have more for those who temporarily have less.
9. Miracles are a kind of exchange. Like all expressions of love, which are ALWAYS miraculous in the true sense, the exchange reverses the physical laws. They bring MORE love both to the giver AND the receiver.
10. The use of miracles as spectacles to INDUCE belief is wrong; or, better, is a misunderstanding of their purpose. They are really used FOR and BY believers.
11. Prayer is the medium of miracles. Prayer is the natural communication of the created with the Creator. Through prayer love is received, and through miracles love is expressed.
12. Miracles are thoughts. Thoughts can represent lower-order or higher-order reality. This is the basic distinction between intellectualizing and thinking. One makes the physical and the other creates the spiritual, and we believe in what we make or create.
13. Miracles are both beginnings and endings. They thus alter the temporal order. They are always affirmations of rebirth, which seem to go back, but really go forward. They undo the past in the present, and thus release the future.
14. Miracles bear witness to truth. They are convincing because they arise from conviction. Without conviction they deteriorate into magic, which is mindless, and therefore destructive; or rather, the uncreative use of mind.
15. Each day should be devoted to miracles. The purpose of time is to enable man to learn to use it constructively. Time is thus a teaching device, and a means to an end. It will cease when it is no longer useful in facilitating learning.
16. Miracles are teaching devices for demonstrating that it is more blessed to give than to receive. They simultaneously increase the strength of the giver and supply strength to the receiver.
17. Miracles are the transcendence of the body. They are sudden shifts into invisibility, away from a sense of lower-order reality. That is why they heal.
18. A miracle is a service. It is the maximum service an individual can render another. It is a way of loving your neighbor as yourself. The doer recognizes his own and his neighbor’s inestimable worth simultaneously.
19. Miracles make minds one in God. They depend on cooperation, because the Sonship is the sum of all the Souls God created. Miracles therefore rest on the laws of eternity, not of time.
20. Miracles reawaken the awareness that the Spirit, not the body, is the altar of truth. This is the recognition that leads to the healing power of the miracle.
21. Miracles are natural expressions of total forgiveness. Through miracles, man accepts God’s forgiveness by extending it to others.
22. Miracles are associated with fear only because of the fallacious belief that darkness can HIDE. Man believes that what he cannot see does not exist, and his physical eyes cannot see in the dark. This is a very primitive solution, and has led to a denial of the Spiritual eye. * The escape from darkness involves two stages:
A. The recognition that darkness CANNOT hide. This step usually entails fear.
B. The recognition that there is nothing you WANT to hide, even if you COULD. This step brings ESCAPE from fear. (*The term "Spiritual eye" is later replaced by the Holy Spirit and the physical eye becomes the ego. The emphasis on the two ways of seeing, however, remains throughout.)
23. Miracles rearrange perception, and place the levels of perception in true perspective. This heals at ALL levels, because sickness comes from confusing the levels. When you have become willing to hide nothing, you will not only be willing to enter into communion, but will also understand peace and joy. Your commitment is not yet total, and that is why you still have more to learn than to teach. When your equilibrium stabilizes, you will be able to teach as much as you learn, which will give you the proper balance. Meanwhile, remember that no effort is wasted, for unless you remember this, you cannot avail yourselves of MY efforts, which ARE limitless. Only eternity is real. Why not use the illusion of time constructively?
That's all for the first 23
I don't know that I believe in Miracles. That doesn't mean I think anyone else should or shouldn't. I don't know so much it's ridiculous. I did read and attempt to practice the course in miracles and I can say nothing bad came of it. So, I'm putting the PDF file for the course in miracles here for those who want to take a closer look. Read A Course In Miracles
If this is to much biblical God for you, you can try The Insight Course. At the time of this writing I'm just getting started with it. There's a good reason for following along with some course in that we stay focused do things - some type of positive activity. Okay, have fun, use the forum to comment, Doug.