X. The Time of Rebirth

T-15.X.1. It is in your power, in time, to delay the perfect union of the Father and the Son. ² For in this world, the attraction of guilt does stand between them. ³ Neither time nor season means anything in eternity. ⁴ But here it is the Holy Spirit's function to use them both, though not as the ego uses them. ⁵ This is the season when you would celebrate my birth into the world. ⁶ Yet you know not how to do it. ⁷ Let the Holy Spirit teach you, and let me celebrate your birth through Him. ⁸ The only gift I can accept of you is the gift I gave to you. ⁹ Release me as I choose your own release. ¹⁰ The time of Christ we celebrate together, for it has no meaning if we are apart.

T-15.X.2. The holy instant is truly the time of Christ. ² For in this liberating instant no guilt is laid upon the Son of God, and his unlimited power is thus restored to him. ³ What other gift can you offer me, when only this I choose to offer you? ⁴ And to see me is to see me in everyone, and offer everyone the gift you offer me. ⁵ I am as incapable of receiving sacrifice as God is, and every sacrifice you ask of yourself you ask of me. ⁶ Learn now that sacrifice of any kind is nothing but a limitation imposed on giving. ⁷ And by this limitation you have limited acceptance of the gift I offer you.

T-15.X.3. We who are one cannot give separately. ² When you are willing to accept our relationship as real, guilt will hold no attraction for you. ³ For in our union you will accept all of our brothers. ⁴ The gift of union is the only gift that I was born to give. ⁵ Give it to me, that you may have it. ⁶ The time of Christ is the time appointed for the gift of freedom, offered to everyone. ⁷ And by your acceptance of it, you offer it to everyone.

T-15.X.4. It is in your power to make this season holy, for it is in your power to make the time of Christ be now. ² It is possible to do this all at once because there is but one shift in perception that is necessary, for you made but one mistake. ³ It seems like many, but it is all the same. ⁴ For though the ego takes many forms, it is always the same idea. ⁵ What is not love is always fear, and nothing else.

T-15.X.5. It is not necessary to follow fear through all the circuitous routes by which it burrows underground and hides in darkness, to emerge in forms quite different from what it is. ² Yet it is necessary to examine each one as long as you would retain the principle that governs all of them. ³ When you are willing to regard them, not as separate, but as different manifestations of the same idea, and one you do not want, they go together. ⁴ The idea is simply this: You believe it is possible to be host to the ego or hostage to God. ⁵ This is the choice you think you have, and the decision you believe that you must make. ⁶ You see no other alternatives, for you cannot accept the fact that sacrifice gets nothing. ⁷ Sacrifice is so essential to your thought system that salvation apart from sacrifice means nothing to you. ⁸ Your confusion of sacrifice and love is so profound that you cannot conceive of love without sacrifice. ⁹ And it is this that you must look upon; sacrifice is attack, not love. ¹⁰ If you would accept but this one idea, your fear of love would vanish. ¹¹ Guilt cannot last when the idea of sacrifice has been removed. ¹² For if there is sacrifice, someone must pay and someone must get. ¹³ And the only question that remains is how much is the price, and for getting what.

T-15.X.6. As host to the ego, you believe that you can give all your guilt away whenever you want, and thereby purchase peace. ² And the payment does not seem to be yours. ³ While it is obvious that the ego does demand payment it never seems to be demanding it of you. ⁴ You are unwilling to recognize that the ego, which you invited, is treacherous only to those who think they are its host. ⁵ The ego will never let you perceive this, since this recognition would make it homeless. ⁶ For when the recognition dawns clearly, you will not be deceived by any form the ego takes to protect itself from your sight. ⁷ Each form will be recognized as but a cover for the one idea that hides behind them all; that love demands sacrifice, and is therefore inseparable from attack and fear. ⁸ And that guilt is the price of love, which must be paid by fear.

T-15.X.7. How fearful, then, has God become to you, and how great a sacrifice do you believe His Love demands! ² For total love would demand total sacrifice. ³ And so the ego seems to demand less of you than God, and of the two is judged as the lesser of two evils, one to be feared a little, perhaps, but the other to be destroyed. ⁴ For you see love as destructive, and your only question is who is to be destroyed, you or another? ⁵ You seek to answer this question in your special relationships, in which you seem to be both destroyer and destroyed in part, but able to be neither completely. ⁶ And this you think saves you from God, Whose total Love would completely destroy you.

T-15.X.8. You think that everyone outside yourself demands your sacrifice, but you do not see that only you demand sacrifice, and only of yourself. ² Yet the demand of sacrifice is so savage and so fearful that you cannot accept it where it is. ³ The real price of not accepting this has been so great that you have given God away rather than look at it. ⁴ For if God would demand total sacrifice of you, it seems safer to project Him outward and away from you, and not be host to Him. ⁵ To Him you ascribed the ego's treachery, inviting it to take His place to protect you from Him. ⁶ And you do not recognize that it is what you invited in that would destroy you, and does demand total sacrifice of you. ⁷ No partial sacrifice will appease this savage guest, for it is an invader who but seems to offer kindness, but always to make the sacrifice complete.

T-15.X.9. You will not succeed in being partial hostage to the ego, for it keeps no bargains and would leave you nothing. ² Nor can you be partial host to it. ³ You must choose between total freedom and total bondage, for there are no alternatives but these. ⁴ You have tried many compromises in the attempt to avoid recognizing the one decision you must make. ⁵ And yet it is the recognition of the decision, just as it is, that makes the decision so easy. ⁶ Salvation is simple, being of God, and therefore very easy to understand. ⁷ Do not try to project it from you and see it outside yourself. ⁸ In you are both the question and the answer; the demand for sacrifice and the peace of God.