Faith, Hope and Love

God completely understands the attitude of your physical mind. He understands that when His children are on earth, blind to the light and the brightness of the Spirit, grey days bring something like a sense of dismay. Those dark days follow on one after another, and the sun; the health-giver, the joy-giver, hides its face, so it seems to you, for ever and ever. The mind grieves and fights and grieves again, and sometimes gives up the contest as altogether too unequal. You must realise that the Christ, your Father and Mother God, understands so well; these thoughts and feelings are understood completely.

But, because you understand the thoughts of another it does not mean that you yourself agree to them; not if you see that they are in a measure harmful to the one you love! That is God’s position exactly. He does understand that the lack of sun and the shutting out of the earth's joys goes hard with those who are in the experimental stages. They go hard, but because they do so, in like measure they shall be the gladness when you step into God's Perfect Day and see what grey days have produced; produced in your spiritual environment because sadness crept a little close and joy seemed far away!

Move on from that to the sunshine which is now your portion, and take that as a simile of what is going on in a much bigger sense than the question of wet or fine days.

There are some who have found the road to God steep and dreary, and almost fearsome in its loneliness. All unconsciously to yourself you have been creating that which no one can take away, because it is of the realms of the Great Hereafter, of the wonderful glorious Eternity, when freedom of soul, freedom of mind and freedom from evil shall be the lot of all!

Never despair; never despair of the dawn! Never despair, for if you try to love God in His own good time that Love shall be shown to you, not in the form of a Cross as those on earth have come to regard the Cross, but as the Crown; the Light that shines behind the Cross!

This is your future and to some that future is close at hand; close at hand because in seeking the lonely way you shall not wait for release from the bonds of the physical. The veil will be drawn aside and you shall enter into the "outer citadel" of the Spirit. That will more than satisfy you because you will see then the meaning of things, the weaving together of God's great plan for humanity and, above all, over all, closing everything in, that Love of God which is beyond the understanding of all.

Each communion with God and the Spirits is an emblem of that Sun of brightness, happiness and peace which is there waiting for you; waiting for you to be ready to grasp it!

So often it seems that the Father does not trust you and so He withholds, or takes away, that which to you represented your heart's desire. So it seems! But the Spirits, looking at things from the God-side, are able to tell you different, and say to all that none of those things which you treasured have been taken from you. They are by your side; they are there in reality, in such abundance, in such security that nothing, nothing could be strong enough to tear them from you.

Throw open the doors of the physical mind and let the Light shine in; let that Light heal up the sore spots and re-create joy and faith once more.

Faith; that much abused word, that sorely misconstrued element which is deep-seated in all who wish to follow in the footsteps of the Master.

You have had much trouble in regard to this same Faith. There are some who wish that they had more faith, and they recall this one or that who, to their mind, rose to those heights to which God has called all. You must remember that people are constituted differently. You have it in your Bible that there are many gifts of the Spirit; there is the gift of wisdom, which is the highest, for it is the gift of understanding the things of the Spirit. Then there is the gift of knowledge, which is of the greatest use to the world in which you find yourself and can be a great spiritualising influence if only used in the way intended by the Creator.

Although you can add to your faith by prayer, by watchfulness and by labour, in many cases those who take on the earthly experience bring with them, for their necessary equipment, the gift of Faith, which halves the troubles and sorrows of the world.

Then take another aspect of Faith. Remember the incident of Peter. There have been some who have said that Peter's faith failed him as he plunged into the waters in order to reach his Master. Yes, but out of the boat-load he was the only one who had sufficient faith to venture, and that is what the world forgets!

Get these things in their right perspective. You torture yourself, you allow the evil to hamper you and to cripple your strength by thoughts of your lack of faith. Your Father does not expect more than that you should go forward in faith, hoping that that faith will be sufficient to sustain you. Those who go forward in the first instance with faith and then find it slipping from them, go forward still without that faith. This shall build up hereafter that which no words can tell!

You get your direction from God. There are times when the forces of evil press so closely around you that God seems very far away, and sometimes you ask yourself; what is the use of going on. Remember this is the testing of the vessel for future use. In that time of trial the Christ is literally holding you up, and the fact that you feel Him only makes Him cling to you all the more closer.

The cause of most of the trouble is the accursed teaching that those who fail, or seem to fail are deserted by the Saviour; that the Christ turns from His children because they find the way too long and too steep! This has done more harm than anything else that has been taught to suffering humanity, and it is harmful to that which is Love Itself in a way impossible to describe.

Hope has a very lovely sound to some, but to the majority it represents quite a different thing to what it is. Hope is as the Light which the master holds in His Hand to draw His children on!

You know how when out in a dark and deserted country you look around longing for direction, but at first there is nothing to be seen and you get that sense of being almost abandoned by humanity. But then, as you look again, way out in the distance a tiny light appears and you know that there is life and so on you go again!

That illustrates in outline something of what Hope was meant to represent. Do not have that aching feeling in your heart, hoping against hope, which is despair itself! That is not God's Hope; it is of the world alone. God stands in the distance, so far as your physical mind is concerned, and because of this He holds up the Lamp of Hope and you know that if you follow on that Light will get bigger. You know that if you follow even upon earth you shall find that it leads you to Life; Life in such a wonderfully comprehensive way that it is best left to your imagination.

That word Love has been changed by humanity to "Charity", but it is unchanged to the Spirits. But because now and again love has been dragged through the mire, Love itself is untouched and untouchable, because it is of God.

Over and over again these little points came up and cause some disputes, and in the discussion of that wonderful quality which the Spirits call Love, there were some who thought it safer to substitute "Charity" instead. But it must appeal to your common-sense that charity is a very poor word to use in place of Love.

In this as in all things, try and get the spiritual view. When you pass over, look as you may, you will find everything has its roots in Love. You may confuse this attribute as much as you like in your own mind while upon earth, but once you are out of the body you will have to recognise Love as Love and nothing else, and this is of Holiness itself.

Think over these few words and do not take them as the last word in any way at all. As you know, you are only given just the briefest outline of this thought and of that. Show what you can do yourself; show how you, in your spiritual mind, can demonstrate God, because all spiritual thinking is that. You cannot think one thought of holiness without demonstrating something of the Father.

Peace is near in a wonderful way. That wonderful peace which is able to push those thick folds of sadness to one side and in so doing reveals the golden glory that is beyond! Let yourself sink into it, certain that God and His Holy Spirit is in command!

That peace is with you now and that peace can be made your own in a way absolutely unimaginable by you; that peace which is God's most precious gift to His children who are struggling through their earthly experiences. That peace is being poured down direct from the Holy Spirit which is gathering up from your heart and mind the wish to do better, that prayer that you might be better! Just because there is in your heart and mind this spiritual longing so God can lift you up, can establish you in security for ever and ever.

That peace, that joy which is of service, that communion with the Spirit, that closeness with Love; all these gifts are yours. The Christ seals you to Him, not with the sign of the cross of sorrow, but with the sign of the cross of power and joy to come!

Do not let your heart be troubled ever again. Seek for the Light and the Light shall come! Pray for guidance, for direction and that shall be given you to in a measure far exceeding your need. Only have confidence in the Fatherhood of God, knowing that you are His child and that He has you under His care. Faith, Hope and Love; the Trinity, one in three and three in one.

This message was first given in 1924 through Winifred Moyes.

© The Greater World Christian Spiritualist Association 2025

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