Contemplating Our Core Values

This week on the Cosmic Citizen we will be discussing core values in the context of The Urantia Book's teachings.  One of the core values that emerged from our shows on bullying was the idea of being an upstander rather than a bystander. Being an upstander means valuing courage. Courage is a core value. Truth, beauty and goodness are also three foundational values frequently expounded upon in The Urantia Book and love is at their core. Consider the following:

(2:7.12) Truth is coherent, beauty attractive, goodness stabilizing. And when these values of that which is real are co-ordinated in personality experience, the result is a high order of love conditioned by wisdom and qualified by loyalty.

Values are the fabric of reality, consider these statements:

(5:4.2) Sooner or later, God is destined to be comprehended as the reality of values, the substance of meanings, and the life of truth.

(7:1.3) Spiritual values and spirit forces are real. From the viewpoint of personality, spirit is the soul of creation; matter is the shadowy physical body.

(100:3.5) Values are not conceptual illusions; they are real, but always they depend on the fact of relationships. Values are always both actual and potential—not what was, but what is and is to be.

Our values are, in fact, powerful drivers of how we think and behave. Ultimately we focus on and create what we value. In the next few weeks we will feature guests who will discuss values and how they effect us and our relationships. 

Jesus taught that values manifest as fruits of the divine spirit: loving service, unselfish devotion, courageous loyalty, sincere fairness, enlightened honesty, undying hope, confiding trust, merciful ministry, unfailing goodness, forgiving tolerance, and enduring peace.