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THE GREATER WORLD CHRISTIAN SPIRITUALIST CHURCH
THE ZODIAC MESSAGES
"THE WAGES OF EFFORT"
An address by the celestial messenger 'Zodiac' (the
unnamed scribe of the Bible and a teacher in the Temple
of Jerusalem at the time of Christ), given through
the mediumship of Miss Winifred Moyes
-
"MY children all, when you met together in this little
room, when the hand was clasped, so then if you had
eyes to see you would have witnessed a miracle taking
place. Trivial things, so you think, common to every
day, but when God is in the heart and mind, lo! through
the power of the Holy Spirit links are made and these
shall last throughout eternity. I bring in this point
for one reason alone: I want you to be certain, every
one, that God is ordering your going out and your coming
in, and that when the heart is dedicated to Him then
you can be certain that the guidance is as the Father
wills and the protection is complete.
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"Those of the world bound by the thoughts of others
still less free than themselves, they think: 'Life
is full of chance, we know not what will come tomorrow.'
They know, perchance, that the day may hold sorrow
or joy, but Who is the constructor and controller of
the events of daily life they know not, and they refuse
to learn. But I tell you, speaking under the guidance
of the Master, that the Divine within chooses the sorrows
and the joys, chooses its experiences and the lessons
that must be learned. Long before the body was donned
so the Divine Spirit, with something of the God-power,
aye, from the Creator Himself, the Divine spirit saw
the future, saw the tests, saw the temptations which
lay in front, and out of that purchased through the
stage before, so in the measure of its release it chose
the hard path, or if its release was limited, then,
perforce, it had to take that which - alas and alas!
- showed little of gain when the earthly span was o'er.
So, my children, this explains the measure of effort
which the daily round, which the circumstances of your
life have exacted and will exact; but oh, take from
this the mighty joy that I am bidden to pass on from
Love Himself.
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"The wages of effort! How can I portray to you that
which is of God, that which is of the Holy Spirit?
Oh, little ones, the wages of effort cannot be reckoned
in earthly terms, yet even around you day by day there
are little symbols of the great reality, there are
physical representations of that which is stored for
you and shall be your own when the brief earth life
is o'er. Once more I take you back over the sacred
Record to the prophets of old, to the humble servants
of the Most High, and I ask you to ponder on the wages
of effort that these drew out of the vibrations, their
lot, their portion, and what awaited them when they
were free. Oh, how plain it is. In their own time they
were held by much. It seemed to them that failures
lay behind so thick and successes so few. They sought
to pass on the message of light but the message of
light in a measure was clouded by the density of the
darkness that was around. They spake: 'Thus saith the
Lord God Jehovah'; the few listened but the majority
returned to the god of self and gave their all at this
shrine; and today some still worship at the shrine
of self and the precious years of what was meant to
be freedom have been wasted, cast aside.
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"The messengers of the Most High called to the people,
they passed on warning. But the prophets, for the most
part, suffered as only holy prophets can suffer. For
mark you this, these were that which you name 'sensitives',
and apart from the hostility they met on either side,
at times the gift of vision was theirs. Before them
they saw the nether worlds and something of the anguish
which they held; aye, they suffered as all sensitives
must suffer. Yet forget not that although their fellow
creatures upon the earth plane turned from them when
they did not persecute them, such as these, out of
that which they had sought to do, had proved themselves
friends of God, and the friendship of the mighty Creator
built up around them joys and beauties and strengths
which indeed have to be experienced to be understood.
Oh, think of those of old, for indeed history is repeated
again and again but with this great difference: The
character of the temptation which assails the messenger
of the Christ and the messenger of the Lord God Jehovah
- the character of the temptation differs but the tests
must be the same.
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"My children, as I speak I am thinking of that one
which you name Elijah, his lot; and I am thinking of
that one who sought to wear his mantle and did so in
little part. Ponder over the lives of such as these.
Do you imagine that their gifts, their powers, their
visions, were not bought at a tremendous price. These
things cannot be told. There are those forms of suffering
which cannot be put into words which the instrument
must be willing to endure, but even in this - oh, how
gloriously in this - comes the radiance of the love
of God, and we know, because the Master has told us,
that in our sorrows, in our trials, l0! the holy ones
draw close.
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"Forget not that a man or a woman untempted, untried,
is as a child in their spiritual emancipation. Measure
not spirituality by lack of temptation, but measure
the gift of spiritual release by the multitude of temptations
fought and overcome. For did not the Christ suffer
all things and overcome all things, as direct reassurance
to us? My children, the wages of effort are so great
that I cannot portray them in earthly language, yet
I remind you that those wages are in proportion only
to the effort given forth, to that which the individual
has suffered and is willing to suffer. Yet what is
held out before us? Again your minds go back on the
sacred Record. In reading the narratives, the stories
of the life of this one and that, instinctively you
are conscious as to the degree of effort given forth
by the one portrayed. You see here a mighty strength
and there a weakness; a great, great courage and then
a turning back on the path. But when the desire within
was to rise to the highest and the best so the grace
of God, as it were, swept away the follies and the
frailties, and something was worked in which has brought
to others renewed strength, greater endurance, and
a fount of patience from which they can draw.
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"Because I dwell upon such as these, oh think not that
I am comparing the lives of those in this same day
in terms of disparagement. Far from that. Can you not
realise that the pioneers today, those who are soldiers
of Christ in the sense that they are willing to do
battle themselves, those who are determined to answer
to the call for volunteers, that all these in time
to come will stand out in the pages of history again
as example to others? What they did, what they suffered,
what they tried to accomplish, that will be as a light
to give direction to those who are seeking to find
the way to God.
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"The wages of sin is death! I have told you before
that indeed that which you name 'sin' - which we name
weakness - has the power to kill the Godlike qualities
with which man is endowed. I have explained that there
are countless thousands even as the dead. They know
not what they are or where they are; they lie unconscious
and time goes on. But when there is someone strong
enough in love, patient enough in service, to awaken
them, these, the children of the Most High, who have
bartered their divine heritage for a mess of pottage,
these must take up those same lessons from which they
turned when upon the earth plane, or in a garment less
developed than the physical. The wages of sin is death
- the death of beauty and power; the death of all that
which links man to God. Yet forget not that these are
the children of God, and it is the Father's will that
they should be drawn back into their Divine inheritance,
and be as the angels of heaven.
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"The wages of sin is death; the wages of effort is
life! Oh, think you. You know so little of life, that
which you name life to us is as a sleep, as a 'forgetting',
yet by the tasks well done, by the raising of the heart
and mind to God, by obedience to the Voice, by the
determined will, many, when the earth stage is ended,
pass into a life which is stupendous to them, and they
indeed are glorious to behold. But the question comes
- and come it must to each and every one whether upon
the earth plane or in those conditions more evolved
or less evolved than these - the question: How much
are you prepared to do for the Christ within?
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"Oh, little children, as I stand in your presence in
this way and look back over the past, over to my life
upon the earth plane, what do I see? That so little
more would have made so great a difference! I have
told you that when I taught in the Temple, passing
on the word of God, seeking to train the minds of the
young men of my day, oft as I spoke so the doubts came:
'Where is God?'. 'Is there a God?'. As I looked out
over the city I saw there horror upon horror, I saw
the poor starving for that little which would have
kept life in the physical garment; I saw disease rampant;
I saw the powerful breaking the bodies of their brothers
and sisters; I saw toil in a way inconceivable to the
mind of man today, and out of the anguish within so
I cried: 'Where is God?'. What anguish was mine! I
sought the path laid down by our father Abraham, I
forbade the body and I controlled the mind; but the
enemy was around in forms so numerous that a God seemed
like an idle dream, a fable of the past. And then the
Master came! How can I portray the joy of that sweet
meeting? Out of my sorrow so I stepped into joy, out
of my twilight into the radiance of Love Himself! He
stood before me and in His eyes I read all the promises
of old fulfilled. The Master passed me by yet I held
the Master then and for evermore.
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"These things, dear children, are forgotten again and
again. You today have your Christ, you have that which
you name 'the law' which insists on a measure of protection
over the weak, over the helpless; but in that far off
time earthly power held the reins in a pitiless grip,
and those who had sought to find their God sought and,
so it seemed to the mind of the body, found Him not.
Into those conditions so the Beloved came, and His
lot testifies to all that which man must face if he
would help to cleanse his world. Aye, but have I not
told you before that the little group of followers
drank the cup yet no bitterness was theirs? For drop
by drop so we were linking ourselves to the Master,
and the only ones who had sorrow were those who out
of the weakness within turned back from the cross and
chose the world instead. For forget not this: No man
who has once looked on Love can forget. There were
those amongst us who failed when the test came, but
their anguish was ten thousand times greater than the
anguish of calvary, whatever character or nature 'calvary'
might represent to the individual soul. Those who turned
back on the path suffered in a way you cannot understand,
for they had looked on Love and Love had bought them
at a terrible price.
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"Little ones, I bring you back to the wages of effort.
I come not into your presence and say: 'Take the steep
path and all will be well', in the sense that the world
means 'well'; but I say to you: 'Take the steep path
and whatever may betide, however many the enemies within
and without, if you go on the protection shall be complete'.
Step by step, life in something of its real sense shall
be made your own life and liberty and peace and holiness,
for this is the law of God.
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"So I lead your thoughts away from the prophets of
old, away from my own life, and I focus your attention
on the present, for I say that the call has come for
those with the brave hearts and the determined will
to, as it were, enter the arena of physical life, and
even though the physical garment may be threatened,
to give forth to the idle crowd the message of the
Christ.
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"The message of the Christ is Life Everlasting, the
message of the Christ is one of warning as well as
one of glorious hope; for 'what a man sows that must
he reap'. Oh, think you of your brothers and sisters,
of those around so careless, so unheeding of the tomorrow
of time. What of these? Can you stand aside and see
them piling up agony for the next stage to come! Ah
no, the divine within conquers the mind of the body.
The Christ within - borrowing something of power from
the great Missionary of mankind - will not let you
rest. What of the world? What of man's bonds and snares?
All this is a link with the Master. The hate that you
may draw to you is as nought in comparison to the hate
arraigned against the Christ; and the Master waits
- waits as He has waited over the centuries - for His
representatives to arise and give forth the simple
truth: 'I go to prepare a place for you', 'Where I
am there thou shalt be if thou art faithful, if thou
wilt endure unto the end'.
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"Oh, my children, the responsibility is so terrible
that indeed my heart is well nigh broken over that
which I see in front. There are those men and women
whom the world calls 'good', but many have concentrated
on the saving of their own souls and have forgotten
their fellows. These, when sight is made their own,
will find to their horror not freedom but bondage.
The wages of effort are not forthcoming for them. Aye,
in the measure that they sought God for themselves
and not for others, in that measure so they have denied
the Christ within. Seek for the lost and seek until
they are found. Take no thought of the morrow for yourself
but give out of your gifts, for tomorrow is in God's
most merciful hands.
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"So, my children, I come to you individually and to
all those who will read my words and I say, commanded
by the Christ, that this day once more the call goes
forth: Choose! What is your choice? God needs your
help, the great Controlling Spirit of all life has
bound Himself by His own laws, the chief of which is
service to others; and God works on unceasingly for
man's release. But although within that Fount of Love
there is the illimitable treasure for others, yet we
cannot take unless we are willing. God is controlled
by man in regard to the bestowal of His gifts. Man
in his ignorance cries out: 'God is responsible for
my sorrows and even for my crimes'; and the Father,
out of His unbounded love, sends to the one who regards
Him with hate such grace that even as he denies his
Maker so his Maker is entreating his friendship.
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"This is God! The God of men's minds, ah, that bears
little resemblance to the One so kind. We, out of our
weakness and our littleness, presume to build up a
God with weakness, with the desire for vengeance. The
great eternal Father, because we are His own, He seeks
and seeks for His children, and one day the lost will
be found.
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"The wages of effort! One, aspect alone, dear children,
is this priceless gift of redeeming others; for we
are of God, and the Father delights to give to us of
His own powers. In the measure that we strive, in the
measure that we are willing e to deny the lesser self
for the sake of the stronger self, so we pass among
our fellows and we are saviours of men, redeemers of
those who have wandered far from the one true fold;
and out of the effort, out of the striving, out of
the rising up after temptation and failure, so the
wages - Life - are made our own. Life in the God sense;
Life in some resemblance to the Christ Himself!
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"So, then, hesitate not by the way, but in your new-found
strength draw upon the Fount of Strength; bid your
fears and doubts depart and choose the steep road,
the difficult road, the hard road, the road of temptation
and enemies innumerable, for that was the road the
Master chose Himself. And the wages of effort shall
be passed on to you in a form so glorious, so Godlike,
that the past will not only seem worth while but before
you will be the vista of the future - God's work.
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"Take with you this thought: That only by effort could
we have met together and have had this gift of the
Holy Spirit to draw upon. Then let your thoughts go
on from that to this great and mighty truth: That in
your power it lies to have gifts like unto God. The
way is clear. Only out of that which you give forth
by effort, by stretching out for those things which
are pure and holy, only in the measure that your greater
self controls and guides and uses the lesser self,
can you claim those things which it is the Father's
Will shall be your own for ever and ever. So then commune
within, be practical in the God-sense, hold before
you earth and spirit values, pray that you may see
with unclouded eye, and then make your choice for Christ.
And forget not that in the degree that your road varies
from the Christ road, in that degree must your gifts
be lesser than the gifts of the Master. In the measure
that you follow in His steps so, promised by God, you
shall release within the powers of the Christ, and
demonstrate in this world of sense the Holy Spirit
at work in the hearts and minds of men. For remember
that you cannot strive, you cannot work for God, without
inspiring others. That which you do is built up in
the earth conditions and those who pass your way -
although no word is said - are strengthened by that
which you have given out by effort from yourself. So,
then, my children, with joyful hearts, with a courage
high, take the steep road and reap the blessing that
it brings.
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"I bless you in the name of the Father with illumination,
with consciousness as to your high destiny, and with
a love so great in your heart for Christ that you will
do His work in His sweet way. Farewell!"
©GWCSA
GIFT
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