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Teach Us To Pray
Intensified Zeal
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[Charles Fillmore's Works] [Unity on the Web Home Page]
The zeal of God quickens, vivifies, and vitalizes both mind
and body and makes me every whit whole.
My zeal for spiritual things increases, and I am abundantly
prospered, praise God!
PERSONS with poise and purpose, holding themselves well in
hand, regard with some suspicion those who are unduly
zealous. When zeal runs away with judgment, energy is
wasted and confidence blasted. The fires of zeal are soon
burned out and the cause of its champion may be slightingly
referred to as "flashes in the pan." Nevertheless, zeal,
intensity, enthusiasm, is essential to the achievement of
any and every great purpose.
We usually judge zeal by the noise it makes. But noise is
not characteristic of the zeal that overcomes seemingly
insurmountable obstacles and wheels them into line with its
quiet yet mighty energy of purpose. When you see men and
women working steadily and unselfishly toward some
cherished goal, do not conclude that they are moved by some
selfish
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motive, the attainment of which will give them personal
pleasure. They are fired by an impulse of soul that boils
with an inward flame and urges them onward, regardless of
the outer mind of caution and conservatism.
The trait of man named variously zeal, enthusiasm,
intensity of soul, is a prime faculty of spiritual man. It
is found in one of the disciples of the type man Jesus, and
its character is revealed in his name, Simon the Zealot.
Zeal's throne or center of activity in the body is at the
base of the brain, in the medulla. It is the seat of the
animal soul, and its office is to vaporize the fine nerve
fluid and distribute it to the senses. The medulla performs
in the body the work of the carburetor in a motorcar.
An intense desire to carry out some idea forces the nerve
fluid into the medulla, where it is atomized with
inspiration (air) and then flared through the optic nerve
to the eye, where the Spirit ignites it, and it flashes
into light. "It is the Spirit that giveth life."
When the Spirit moves a man from within to the
accomplishment of some cherished ideal and the intellect
steps in and says it can't be done, a conflict ensues and
the natural flow of the volatile body is impeded.
Congestions and clots form in the circulation, the man
gradually slows down, and what are called the marks of old
age appear. This is why man should never give up the quest
for greater and better expression of God-given abilities.
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The hop, skip, and jump, the buoyancy and joy of youth,
should be cultivated and continued more enthusiastically as
the years advance. The idea that man grows feeble with
years is a foolish fallacy. The longer one lives the better
one should know how to live.
The attention of the followers of Jesus in the regeneration
is called to the many lessons and warnings that He gave
regarding man's zeal for commercialism. He rebuked Satan,
the adverse mind, for suggesting that He demonstrate how to
turn stones into bread. He warned, "Lay not up for
yourselves treasures upon the earth." One of His earliest
works was putting the commercial activities out of His body
temple. "Take these things hence; make not my Father's
house a house of merchandise."
Then His disciples remembered that it was written, "Zeal
for thy house shall eat me up." Jesus explained that the
"house" He referred to was His body. He was cleansing His
body of a dominant race thought, the desire to accumulate
money.
The people of the world today are so zealous for the
solution of economic problems that they have forgotten God.
They do not ask for wisdom to guide them in the nation's
industrial affairs, but they plan and scheme and wrangle
and get deeper and deeper in debt; that is, into the
clutches of the beast of greed that puts its mark of
slavery upon all who worship it.
Be zealous for spiritual realities. Lay up for yourselves
treasures in the heavens.
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[Charles Fillmore's Works] [Unity on the Web Home Page]
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