Chapter Six
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1. The Last Step
2. The Law of the Kingdom
3. The Reality of the Kingdom
4. Healing as the Recognition of Truth
5. Healing and the Changelessness of Mind
6. From Vigilance to Peace
7. The Totality of the Kingdom
8. The Unbelievable Belief
9. The Extension of the Kingdom
10. The Confusion of Pain and Joy
11. The State of Grace
The Last Step
The creative power of God and his creations is limitless, but they are not in reciprocal relationship. You communicate fully with God, as he does with you. This is an ongoing process in which you share, and because you share it, you are inspired to create like God. Yet in creation you are not in a reciprocal relation to God, since he created you but you did not create him. I have already told you that only in this respect your creative power differs from his. Even in this world there is a parallel. Parents give birth to children, but children do not give birth to parents. They do, however, give birth to their children, and thus give birth as their parents do.
If you created God and he created you, the Kingdom could not increase through its own creative thought. Creation would therefore be limited, and you would not be co-creator with God. As God's creative thought proceeds from him to you, so must your creative thought proceed from you to your creations. Only in this way can all creative power extend outward. God's accomplishments are not yours, but yours are like his. He created the Sonship and you increase it. You have the power to add to the Kingdom, though not to add to the Creator of the Kingdom. You claim this power when you become vigilant only for God and his Kingdom. By accepting this power as yours you have learned to remember what you are.
Your creations belong in you, as you belong in God. You are part of God, as your sons are part of his sons. To create is to love. Love extends outward simply because it cannot be contained. Being limitless it does not stop. It creates forever, but not in time. God's creations have always been and you can create only as God creates. Eternity is yours, because he created you eternal.
The ego, on the other hand, always demands reciprocal rights, because it is competitive rather than loving. It is always willing to strike a bargain, but it cannot understand that to be like another means that no bargains are possible. To gain you must give, not bargain. To bargain is to limit giving, and this is not God's Will. To will with God is to create like him. God does not limit his gifts in any way. You are his gifts, and so your gifts must be like his. Your gifts to the Kingdom must be like his gifts to you.
I gave only love to the Kingdom because I believed that was what I was. What you believe you are determines your gifts, and if God created you by extending himself as you, you can only extend yourself as he did. Only joy increases forever, since joy and eternity are inseparable. God extends outward beyond limits and beyond time, and you who are co-creator with him extend his kingdom forever and beyond limit. Eternity is the indelible stamp of creation. The eternal are in peace and joy forever.
To think like God is to share his certainty of what you are, and to create like him is to share the perfect love he shares with you. To this the Holy Spirit leads you, that your joy may be complete because the Kingdom of God is whole. I have said that the last step in the reawakening of knowledge is taken by God. This is true, but it is hard to explain in words because words are symbols, and nothing that is true need be explained. However, the Holy Spirit has the task of translating the useless into the useful, the meaningless into the meaningful, and the temporary into the timeless. He can therefore tell you something about this last step.
God does not take steps, because his accomplishments are not gradual. he does not teach, because his creations are changeless. He does nothing last, because he created first and for always. It must be understood that the word "first" as applied to him is not a time concept. He is first in the sense that he is the first in the Holy Trinity Itself. He is the Prime Creator, because he created his co-creators. Because he did, time applies neither to him nor to what he created. The "last step" that God will take was therefore true in the beginning, is true now, and will be true forever. What is timeless is always there, because its being is eternally changeless. It does not change by increase, because it was forever created to increase. If you perceive it as not increasing you do not know what it is. You also do not know Who created it. God does not reveal this to you because it was never hidden. His light was never obscured, because it is his will to share it. How can what is fully shared be withheld and then revealed?