LESSON 156 I walk with God in perfect holiness.

1. 1Today’s idea but states the simple truth that makes the thought of sin impossible. 2It promises there is no cause for guilt, and being causeless it does not exist. 3It follows surely from the basic thought so often mentioned in the text; ideas leave not their source. 4If this be true, how can you be apart from God? 5How could you walk the world alone and separate from your Source?

2. 1We are not inconsistent in the thoughts that we present in our curriculum. 2Truth must be true throughout, if it be true. 3It cannot contradict itself, nor be in parts uncertain and in others sure. 4You cannot walk the world apart from God, because you could not be without Him. 5He is what your life is. 6Where you are He is. 7There is one life. 8That life you share with Him. 9Nothing can be apart from Him and live.

3. 1Yet where He is, there must be holiness as well as life. 2No attribute of His remains unshared by everything that lives. 3What lives is holy as Himself, because what shares His life is part of Holiness, and could no more be sinful than the sun could choose to be of ice; the sea elect to be apart from water, or the grass to grow with roots suspended in the air.

4. 1There is a light in you which cannot die; whose presence is so holy that the world is sanctified because of you. 2All things that live bring gifts to you, and offer them in gratitude and gladness at your feet. 3The scent of flowers is their gift to you. 4The waves bow down before you, and the trees extend their arms to shield you from the heat, and lay their leaves before you on the ground that you may walk in softness, while the wind sinks to a whisper round your holy head.

5. 1The light in you is what the universe longs to behold. 2All liv­ing things are still before you, for they recognize Who walks with you. 3The light you carry is their own. 4And thus they see in you their holiness, saluting you as savior and as God. 5Accept their reverence, for it is due to Holiness Itself, which walks with you, transforming in Its gentle light all things unto Its likeness and Its purity.

6. 1This is the way salvation works. 2As you step back, the light in you steps forward and encompasses the world. 3It heralds not the end of sin in punishment and death. 4In lightness and in laughter is sin gone, because its quaint absurdity is seen. 5It is a foolish thought, a silly dream, not frightening, ridiculous perhaps, but who would waste an instant in approach to God Himself for such a senseless whim?

7. 1Yet you have wasted many, many years on just this foolish thought. 2The past is gone, with all its fantasies. 3They keep you bound no longer. 4The approach to God is near. 5And in the little interval of doubt that still remains, you may perhaps lose sight of your Companion, and mistake Him for the senseless, ancient dream that now is past.

8. 1“Who walks with me?” 2This question should be asked a thousand times a day, till certainty has ended doubting and estab­lished peace. 3Today let doubting cease. 4God speaks for you in answering your question with these words:

5I walk with God in perfect holiness. 6I light the world, I light my mind and all the minds which God created one with me.