© 1974 Emma L. Christensen
© 1982 The Urantia Book Fellowship (formerly Urantia Brotherhood)
A message to the triennial delegate assembly | April 1982 Issue — Index | Message to the general conference of Urantia Brotherhood |
We Urantians, as we traverse life day by day, may often have been concerned with our progress in bringing the Kingdom of God into our hearts and into the hearts of our fellow man. We may have been concerned with whether we are promoting the living gospel of the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man wisely, and well. But if we do question our service, then we must, in fact, be questioning the roots of that service which are loyalty and love. We must learn to make necessary daily adjustment between our personal convictions and our duty toward family and associates. We must achieve the satisfaction of effecting an increasingly harmonious blending of personal convictions and family obligations into a masterful concept of group solidarity based upon loyalty, fairness, tolerance, and love as Jesus did so magnificently.
“What is loyalty? It is the fruit of an intelligent appreciation of universe brotherhood; one could not take so much and give nothing. As you ascend the personality scale, first you learn to be loyal, then to love, then to be filial, and then may you be free; but not until you are a finaliter, not until you have attained perfection of loyalty, can you self-realize finality of liberty.” (UB 39:4.11) And this perfection of loyalty is the first manner in which we attain perfection, indeed the only way we have gained perfection at the time we are mustered into the Corps of Finality.
The URANTIA Book tells us how loyalty evolves in our world: “As religion evolves, ethics becomes the philosophy of morals, and morality becomes the discipline of self by the standards of highest meanings and supreme values — divine and spiritual ideals. And thus religion becomes a spontaneous and exquisite devotion, the living experience of the loyalty of love.” (UB 92:7.5) We further know that the fruit of love is service.
The test of loyalty is truly one of the supreme tests of our mortal existence. The importance and value of loyalty is a recurrent theme in the URANTIA teachings, particularly loyalty in the face of tribulation. Throughout the universe, broadcasts go forth pronouncing the news of manifestations of loyalty in the face of hardship. Our own planet was the site of one of the most amazing exhibitions of loyalty by Van and Amadon. “Caligastia, with a maximum of intelligence and a vast experience in universe affairs, went astray — embraced sin. Amadon, with a minimum of intelligence and utterly devoid of universe experience, remained steadfast in the service of the universe and in loyalty to his associate. Van utilized both mind and spirit in a magnificent and effective combination of intellectual determination and spiritual insight, thereby achieving an experiential level of personality realization of the highest attainable order.” (UB 67:3.9)
One of the distinguishing factors about the mortal ascension scheme seems to be the loyalty shown by mortals who have experienced survival. Again in conjunction with Lucifer rebellion, we read that “not a single Jerusem citizen was lost,” a group numbering over 187 million. Vast numbers of other personalities were lost. (UB 53:7.10)
Loyalty is well rewarded, “All through the Paradise career, reward follows effort as the result of causes. Such rewards set off the individual from the average, provide a differential of creature experience, and contribute to the versatility of ultimate performances in the collective body of the finaliters.” (UB 50:7.3)
Loyalty implies many things. First, the relationship between loyalty, love, and service is a very close interassociation. It cannot be stressed too much that first we learn to be loyal, then to love, and genuine love brings with it a concomitant desire to serve. Loyalty also implies growth, dynamic life, progress. And, finally, loyalty implies patience, the patience of a tadpole becoming a frog. In the biologic world, we do not observe growth in a single day; growth is slow, unconscious. Nature has that perennial lesson to teach us.
We must endeavor to retain a sound awareness and keen understanding and perspective on the relationships of these virtues, We are admonished that “If you would share the Master’s joy, you must share his love. And to share his love means that you have shared his service. Such an experience of love does not deliver you from the difficulties of this world; it does not create a new world, but it most certainly does make the old world new.” (UB 180:1.5)
One thing we must remember is that today we are still tadpoles — and that the URANTIA movement is a tadpole. Let us accept this fact and live loyally today as tadpoles. Tomorrow is going to attend to itself. We can and will bring “the greatest truths mortal man can ever hear” into the hearts of men. And we need not be too anxious about it. We can be sure of serving well and wisely so long as we preserve a supreme loyalty and devotion to our heavenly Father, ever learning more how to become like him. We will serve and serve in the true spirit which motivates service. We are very lucky today! We all have many friends with a common purpose. The URANTIA Book tells us, “The presence of a friend enhances all beauty and exalts every goodness. By intelligent symbols man is able to quicken and enlarge the appreciative capacities of his friends. One of the crowning glories of human friendship is this power and possibility of the mutual stimulation of the imagination. Great spiritual power is inherent in the consciousness of wholehearted devotion to a common cause, mutual loyalty to a cosmic Deity.” (UB 160:2.8)
“… human loyalties, once mobilized, are hard to change." (UB 134:5.8) So we must be certain, not only that we have loyalty, but that we have the right kind of loyalty, and intelligent, far-reaching, and supreme loyalty. And we must be aware that the cost of loyalty can be high. And then we must determine if we are ready to proclaim our loyalty. I would like to read the words of the Master as he talked to his apostles concerning this: “Pointing out each of the twenty-four and calling them by name, Jesus said: ‘And now, which one of you would prefer to take this easy path of conformity to an established and fossilized religion, as defended by the Pharisees at Jerusalem, rather than to suffer the difficulties and persecutions attendant upon the mission of proclaiming a better way of salvation to men while you realize the satisfaction of discovering for yourselves the beauties of the realities of a living and personal experience in the eternal truths and supreme grandeurs of the kingdom of heaven? Are you fearful, soft, and ease-seeking? Are you afraid to trust your future in the hands of the God of truth, whose sons you are? Are you distrustful of the Father, whose children you are? Will you go back to the easy path of the certainty and intellectual settledness of the religion of traditional authority, or will you gird yourselves to go forward with me into that uncertain and troublous future of proclaiming the new truths of the religion of the spirit, the kingdom of heaven in the hearts of men?’” (UB 155:5.13) Then Jesus closed this emotional appeal by saying, “Go now apart by yourselves, each man alone with the Father, and there find the unemotional answer to my question, and having found such a true and sincere attitude of soul, speak that answer freely and boldly to my Father and your Father, whose infinite life of love is the very spirit of the religion we proclaim!” (UB 155:5.14)
And now, let us who are here today ask Jesus’ question of ourselves, and when the opportunity is upon us, let us go apart by oursclves, each man alone with the Father, and there find the unemotional answer to Jesus’ question, and having found such a true and sincere attitude of soul, speak that answer freely and boldy to our Father, whose infinite life of love is the very spirit of the religion we proclaim.
July 26, 1974
A message to the triennial delegate assembly | April 1982 Issue — Index | Message to the general conference of Urantia Brotherhood |