loyalty

• devotion to highest duty

3:5.127. Is loy­alty—de­vo­tion to high­est duty—de­sir­able? Then must man carry on amid the pos­si­bil­i­ties of be­trayal and de­ser­tion. The valor of de­vo­tion to duty con­sists in the im­plied dan­ger of de­fault.

• devotion to highest duty

3:5.17The crea­tures of Ha­vona are nat­u­rally brave, but they are not coura­geous in the hu­man sense. They are in­nately kind and con­sid­er­ate, but hardly al­tru­is­tic in the hu­man way. They are ex­pec­tant of a pleas­ant fu­ture, but not hope­ful in the ex­qui­site man­ner of the trust­ing mor­tal of the un­cer­tain evo­lu­tion­ary spheres. They have faith in the sta­bil­ity of the uni­verse, but they are ut­ter strangers to that sav­ing faith whereby mor­tal man climbs from the sta­tus of an an­i­mal up to the por­tals of Par­a­dise. They love the truth, but they know noth­ing of its soul-sav­ing qual­i­ties. They are ide­al­ists, but they were born that way; they are wholly ig­no­rant of the ec­stasy of be­com­ing such by ex­hil­a­rat­ing choice. They are loyal, but they have never ex­pe­ri­enced the thrill of whole­hearted and in­tel­li­gent de­vo­tion to duty in the face of temp­ta­tion to de­fault. They are un­selfish, but they never gained such lev­els of ex­pe­ri­ence by the mag­nif­i­cent con­quest of a bel­liger­ent self. They en­joy plea­sure, but they do not com­pre­hend the sweet­ness of the plea­sure es­cape from the pain po­ten­tial.

• Mighty Messengers stood loyal in face of disloyalty of their superiors

22:2.1Mighty Mes­sen­gers be­long to the as­cen­dant group of the Trin­i­tized Sons. They are a class of per­fected mor­tals who have been re­bel­lion tested or oth­er­wise equally proved as to their per­sonal loy­alty; all have passed through some def­i­nite test of uni­verse al­le­giance. At some time in their Par­a­dise as­cent they stood firm and loyal in the face of the dis­loy­alty of their su­pe­ri­ors, and some did ac­tively and loy­ally func­tion in the places of such un­faith­ful lead­ers.

• preventing rebellion is of higher value than resisting

22:2.3Ev­ery as­cen­dant mor­tal of in­sur­rec­tionary ex­pe­ri­ence who func­tions loy­ally in the face of re­bel­lion is even­tu­ally des­tined to be­come a Mighty Mes­sen­ger of the super­uni­verse ser­vice. Like­wise is any as­cen­dant crea­ture who ef­fec­tively pre­vents such up­heavals of er­ror, evil, or sin; for ac­tion de­signed to pre­vent re­bel­lion or to ef­fect higher types of loy­alty in a uni­verse cri­sis is re­garded as of even greater value than loy­alty in the face of ac­tual re­bel­lion.

• fruit of appreciation of brotherhood; first step

39:4.11What 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.

• Michael desires only l. which is voluntary, wholehearted, and sophistry-proof

53:4.6Ga­briel was per­son­ally pres­ent through­out all these dis­loyal pro­ceed­ings and only an­nounced that he would, in due time, speak for Mi­chael, and that all be­ings would be left free and un­mo­lested in their choice; that the “gov­ern­ment of the Sons for the Fa­ther de­sired only that loy­alty and de­vo­tion which was vol­un­tary, whole­hearted, and soph­istry-proof.”

• Adjuster can empower amazing acts of

67:3.7This seven years of wait­ing was a time of heart search­ing and soul dis­ci­pline. Such crises in the af­fairs of a uni­verse demon­strate the tremen­dous in­flu­ence of mind as a fac­tor in spir­i­tual choos­ing. Ed­u­ca­tion, train­ing, and ex­pe­ri­ence are fac­tors in most of the vi­tal de­ci­sions of all evo­lu­tion­ary moral crea­tures. But it is en­tirely pos­si­ble for the in­dwelling spirit to make di­rect con­tact with the de­ci­sion-de­ter­min­ing pow­ers of the hu­man per­son­al­ity so as to em­power the fully con­se­crated will of the crea­ture to per­form amaz­ing acts of loyal de­vo­tion to the will and the way of the Fa­ther in Par­a­dise. And this is just what oc­curred in the ex­pe­ri­ence of Amadon, the mod­i­fied hu­man as­so­ciate of Van.

• degrees of

89:10.2Sin must be re­de­fined as de­lib­er­ate dis­loy­alty to De­ity. There are de­grees of dis­loy­alty: the par­tial loy­alty of in­de­ci­sion; the di­vided loy­alty of con­flic­tion; the dy­ing loy­alty of in­dif­fer­ence; and the death of loy­alty ex­hib­ited in de­vo­tion to god­less ide­als.

• human loyalty › children only permanently impressed by parents’ l.
• living loyally causes growth

100:1.4Chil­dren are per­ma­nently im­pressed only by the loy­al­ties of their adult as­so­ciates; pre­cept or even ex­am­ple is not last­ingly in­flu­en­tial. Loyal per­sons are grow­ing per­sons, and growth is an im­pres­sive and in­spir­ing re­al­ity. Live loy­ally to­day—grow—and to­mor­row will at­tend to it­self. The quick­est way for a tad­pole to be­come a frog is to live loy­ally each mo­ment as a tad­pole.

• human loyalty › to human associations and institutions important

100:2.6The goal of hu­man self-re­al­iza­tion should be spir­i­tual, not ma­te­rial. The only re­al­i­ties worth striv­ing for are di­vine, spir­i­tual, and eter­nal. Mor­tal man is en­ti­tled to the en­joy­ment of phys­i­cal plea­sures and to the sat­is­fac­tion of hu­man af­fec­tions; he is ben­e­fited by loy­alty to hu­man as­so­ci­a­tions and tem­po­ral in­sti­tu­tions; but these are not the eter­nal foun­da­tions upon which to build the im­mor­tal per­son­al­ity which must tran­scend space, van­quish time, and achieve the eter­nal des­tiny of di­vine per­fec­tion and fi­nal­i­ter ser­vice.

• not exercised in behalf of good without a struggle

100:4.2Re­li­gious per­plex­i­ties are in­ev­i­ta­ble; there can be no growth with­out psy­chic con­flict and spir­i­tual ag­i­ta­tion. The or­ga­ni­za­tion of a philo­sophic stan­dard of liv­ing en­tails con­sid­er­able com­mo­tion in the philo­sophic realms of the mind. Loy­al­ties are not ex­er­cised in be­half of the great, the good, the true, and the no­ble with­out a strug­gle. Ef­fort is at­ten­dant upon clar­i­fi­ca­tion of spir­i­tual vi­sion and en­hance­ment of cos­mic in­sight. And the hu­man in­tel­lect protests against be­ing weaned from sub­sist­ing upon the non­spir­i­tual en­er­gies of tem­po­ral ex­is­tence. The sloth­ful an­i­mal mind rebels at the ef­fort re­quired to wres­tle with cos­mic prob­lem solv­ing.

• yield l. to highest dictates of spiritual consciousness

101:9.3True re­li­gion is that sub­lime and pro­found con­vic­tion within the soul which com­pellingly ad­mon­ishes man that it would be wrong for him not to be­lieve in those mor­ontial re­al­i­ties which con­sti­tute his high­est eth­i­cal and moral con­cepts, his high­est in­ter­pre­ta­tion of life’s great­est val­ues and the uni­verse’s deep­est re­al­i­ties. And such a re­li­gion is sim­ply the ex­pe­ri­ence of yield­ing in­tel­lec­tual loy­alty to the high­est dic­tates of spir­i­tual con­scious­ness.

• human loyalty › l. to family is most sacred of human trusts

126:3.5This year Je­sus was much trou­bled with con­fused think­ing. Fam­ily re­spon­si­bil­ity had quite ef­fec­tively re­moved all thought of im­me­di­ately car­ry­ing out any plan for re­spond­ing to the Je­ru­sa­lem vis­i­ta­tion di­rect­ing him to “be about his Fa­ther’s busi­ness.” Je­sus rightly rea­soned that the watch­care of his earthly fa­ther’s fam­ily must take prece­dence of all du­ties; that the sup­port of his fam­ily must be­come his first obli­ga­tion.

• human loyalty › l. to family is most sacred of human trusts

127:5.3Je­sus lis­tened at­ten­tively and sym­pa­thet­i­cally to the recital of these things, first by the fa­ther, then by Re­becca her­self. He made kindly re­ply to the ef­fect that no amount of money could take the place of his obli­ga­tion per­son­ally to rear his fa­ther’s fam­ily, to “ful­fill the most sa­cred of all hu­man trusts—loy­alty to one’s own flesh and blood.” Re­becca’s fa­ther was deeply touched by Je­sus’ words of fam­ily de­vo­tion and re­tired from the con­fer­ence. His only re­mark to Mary, his wife, was: “We can’t have him for a son; he is too no­ble for us.”

• human loyalty › hard to change once mobilized

134:5.8The dif­fi­culty in the evo­lu­tion of po­lit­i­cal sov­er­eignty from the fam­ily to all man­kind, lies in the in­er­tia-re­sis­tance ex­hib­ited on all in­ter­ven­ing lev­els. Fam­i­lies have, on oc­ca­sion, de­fied their clan, while clans and tribes have of­ten been sub­ver­sive of the sov­er­eignty of the ter­ri­to­rial state. Each new and for­ward evo­lu­tion of po­lit­i­cal sov­er­eignty is (and has al­ways been) em­bar­rassed and ham­pered by the “scaf­fold­ing stages” of the pre­vi­ous de­vel­op­ments in po­lit­i­cal or­ga­ni­za­tion. And this is true be­cause hu­man loy­al­ties, once mo­bi­lized, are hard to change. The same loy­alty which makes pos­si­ble the evo­lu­tion of the tribe, makes dif­fi­cult the evo­lu­tion of the super­tribe—the ter­ri­to­rial state. And the same loy­alty (pa­tri­o­tism) which makes pos­si­ble the evo­lu­tion of the ter­ri­to­rial state, vastly com­pli­cates the evo­lu­tion­ary de­vel­op­ment of the gov­ern­ment of all man­kind.

• human loyalty › l. to family is most sacred of human trusts

140:8.14The fam­ily oc­cu­pied the very cen­ter of Je­sus’ phi­los­o­phy of life—here and here­after. He based his teach­ings about God on the fam­ily, while he sought to cor­rect the Jew­ish ten­dency to over­honor an­ces­tors. He ex­alted fam­ily life as the high­est hu­man duty but made it plain that fam­ily re­la­tion­ships must not in­ter­fere with re­li­gious obli­ga­tions. He called at­ten­tion to the fact that the fam­ily is a tem­po­ral in­sti­tu­tion; that it does not sur­vive death. Je­sus did not hes­i­tate to give up his fam­ily when the fam­ily ran counter to the Fa­ther’s will. He taught the new and larger broth­er­hood of man—the sons of God. In Je­sus’ time di­vorce prac­tices were lax in Pales­tine and through­out the Ro­man Em­pire. He re­peat­edly re­fused to lay down laws re­gard­ing mar­riage and di­vorce, but many of Je­sus’ early fol­low­ers had strong opin­ions on di­vorce and did not hes­i­tate to at­trib­ute them to him. All of the New Tes­ta­ment writ­ers held to these more strin­gent and ad­vanced ideas about di­vorce ex­cept John Mark.

• devotion short-lived when truth has no real root

151:2.2Af­ter a mo­ment of si­lence, Pe­ter said: “Mas­ter, we have talked much con­cern­ing the para­ble, and this is the in­ter­pre­ta­tion I have de­cided upon: The sower is the gospel preacher; the seed is the word of God. The seed which fell by the way­side rep­re­sents those who do not un­der­stand the gospel teach­ing. The birds which snatched away the seed that fell upon the hard­ened ground rep­re­sent Sa­tan, or the evil one, who steals away that which has been sown in the hearts of these ig­no­rant ones. The seed which fell upon the rocky places, and which sprang up so sud­denly, rep­re­sents those su­per­fi­cial and un­think­ing per­sons who, when they hear the glad tid­ings, re­ceive the mes­sage with joy; but be­cause the truth has no real root in their deeper un­der­stand­ing, their de­vo­tion is short-lived in the face of tribu­la­tion and per­se­cu­tion. When trou­ble comes, these be­liev­ers stum­ble; they fall away when tempted. The seed which fell among thorns rep­re­sents those who hear the word will­ingly, but who al­low the cares of the world and the de­ceit­ful­ness of riches to choke the word of truth so that it be­comes un­fruit­ful. Now the seed which fell on good ground and sprang up to bear, some thirty, some sixty, and some a hun­dred­fold, rep­re­sents those who, when they have heard the truth, re­ceive it with vary­ing de­grees of ap­pre­ci­a­tion—ow­ing to their dif­fer­ing in­tel­lec­tual en­dow­ments—and hence man­i­fest these vary­ing de­grees of re­li­gious ex­pe­ri­ence.”

• Jesus demands l., not sacrifice

180:1.6Keep in mind: It is loy­alty, not sac­ri­fice, that Je­sus de­mands. The con­scious­ness of sac­ri­fice im­plies the ab­sence of that whole­hearted af­fec­tion which would have made such a lov­ing ser­vice a su­preme joy. The idea of duty sig­ni­fies that you are ser­vant-minded and hence are miss­ing the mighty thrill of do­ing your ser­vice as a friend and for a friend. The im­pulse of friend­ship tran­scends all con­vic­tions of duty, and the ser­vice of a friend for a friend can never be called a sac­ri­fice. The Mas­ter has taught the apos­tles that they are the sons of God. He has called them breth­ren, and now, be­fore he leaves, he calls them his friends.

• fruit of spirit

193:2.2“Peace be upon you. You re­joice to know that the Son of Man has risen from the dead be­cause you thereby know that you and your breth­ren shall also sur­vive mor­tal death. But such sur­vival is de­pen­dent on your hav­ing been pre­vi­ously born of the spirit of truth-seek­ing and God-find­ing. The bread of life and the wa­ter thereof are given only to those who hunger for truth and thirst for righ­teous­ness—for God. The fact that the dead rise is not the gospel of the king­dom. These great truths and these uni­verse facts are all re­lated to this gospel in that they are a part of the re­sult of be­liev­ing the good news and are em­braced in the sub­se­quent ex­pe­ri­ence of those who, by faith, be­come, in deed and in truth, the ev­er­last­ing sons of the eter­nal God. My Fa­ther sent me into the world to pro­claim this sal­va­tion of son­ship to all men. And so send I you abroad to preach this sal­va­tion of son­ship. Sal­va­tion is the free gift of God, but those who are born of the spirit will im­me­di­ately be­gin to show forth the fruits of the spirit in lov­ing ser­vice to their fel­low crea­tures. And the fruits of the di­vine spirit which are yielded in the lives of spirit-born and God-know­ing mor­tals are: lov­ing ser­vice, un­selfish de­vo­tion, coura­geous loy­alty, sin­cere fair­ness, en­light­ened hon­esty, undy­ing hope, con­fid­ing trust, mer­ci­ful min­istry, un­fail­ing good­ness, for­giv­ing tol­er­ance, and en­dur­ing peace. If pro­fessed be­liev­ers bear not these fruits of the di­vine spirit in their lives, they are dead; the Spirit of Truth is not in them; they are use­less branches on the liv­ing vine, and they soon will be taken away. My Fa­ther re­quires of the chil­dren of faith that they bear much spirit fruit. If, there­fore, you are not fruit­ful, he will dig about your roots and cut away your un­fruit­ful branches. In­creas­ingly, must you yield the fruits of the spirit as you pro­gress heav­en­ward in the king­dom of God. You may en­ter the king­dom as a child, but the Fa­ther re­quires that you grow up, by grace, to the full stature of spir­i­tual adult­hood. And when you go abroad to tell all na­tions the good news of this gospel, I will go be­fore you, and my Spirit of Truth shall abide in your hearts. My peace I leave with you.”

• human loyalty › Roman education bred unheard-of

195:2.3Ori­en­tal law was stern and ar­bi­trary; Greek law was fluid and artis­tic; Ro­man law was dig­ni­fied and re­spect-breed­ing. Ro­man ed­u­ca­tion bred an un­heard-of and stolid loy­alty. The early Ro­mans were po­lit­i­cally de­voted and sub­limely con­se­crated in­di­vid­u­als. They were hon­est, zeal­ous, and ded­i­cated to their ide­als, but with­out a re­li­gion wor­thy of the name. Small won­der that their Greek teach­ers were able to per­suade them to ac­cept Paul’s Chris­tian­ity.

• human loyalty › sacredness of all human loyalties

196:0.7The all-con­sum­ing and in­domitable spir­i­tual faith of Je­sus never be­came fa­nat­i­cal, for it never at­tempted to run away with his well-bal­anced in­tel­lec­tual judg­ments con­cern­ing the pro­por­tional val­ues of prac­ti­cal and com­mon­place so­cial, eco­nomic, and moral life sit­u­a­tions. The Son of Man was a splen­didly uni­fied hu­man per­son­al­ity; he was a per­fectly en­dowed di­vine be­ing; he was also mag­nif­i­cently co-or­di­nated as a com­bined hu­man and di­vine be­ing func­tion­ing on earth as a sin­gle per­son­al­ity. Al­ways did the Mas­ter co-or­di­nate the faith of the soul with the wis­dom-ap­praisals of sea­soned ex­pe­ri­ence. Per­sonal faith, spir­i­tual hope, and moral de­vo­tion were al­ways cor­re­lated in a match­less re­li­gious unity of har­mo­nious as­so­ci­a­tion with the keen re­al­iza­tion of the re­al­ity and sa­cred­ness of all hu­man loy­al­ties—per­sonal honor, fam­ily love, re­li­gious obli­ga­tion, so­cial duty, and eco­nomic ne­ces­sity.