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I honor and respect passion towards God. That is very fitting and admirable, to me.

I think a lot of us are prone to getting our knickers in a twist out of our own stuff and out of our RELIGIOUS stuff instead of out of our PASSION TOWARD AND FOR GOD.

I think that Roman oriented threads are a lot like Calvinist, Pentecostal, Trinitarian, Sabbitarian etc. threads wherein a group seeks to emphasize or highlight or put forward or defend their spiritual distinctives. But a lot of time, it's their personal pet biases, RELIGIOUS distinctives [as opposed to and vs truly spiritual ones--and it's not the topic per se but the heart attitudes, I think, that make the difference.

Certainly we are called and challenged in Scripture and by Christ's character and by the excellent RM to follow Christ--even to follow the RM's great example, bless his tireles sheart . . . and to make our words as gracious as we can manage.

I also think we are called by Christ's example and Scripture to have pretty thick skins and to avoid undue offense and even a lot of deliberate offense. Offense can be sent. Offense can be assumed to have been sent when it wasn't. Offense can be out of balance with a 1,500 lb response to a 1.5 ounce stimulus.

But offense blesses no one.

Sometimes satire and hyperbole help highlight certain points or arguments and sometimes seem more than a little fitting. Sometimes they add needed humor. But like as not, they are more hazardous and more of a mixture in motive than they are worth.

I've probably been more assaulted by deliberate harsh, viscious personal attacks hereon than most Freepers I know. I haven't always responded with graciousness. I haven't always turned the other cheek.

But I've been pretty good at avoiding whining, most of the time, about the personal attacks.

And, by God's grace and the patient example of the tireless RM, I've learned to remove personal stuff from virtually all my posts. I virtually never attack anyone's personhood, sanity, heart etc. anymore. I'm very thankful for my mentors hereon in helping me grow up in that regard, at least a little more.

A lot of us can be passionate about our football team, baseball team, music idols, political idols etc. And, it's good we can be excited about some things in life. Apathy is deadly.

But I think that passion about any human group is often misplaced, at least out of balance. Even passion about mostly correct human groups is usually out of balance, ill placed.

GOD ALONE IS WORTHY.
GOD ALONE IS WORTHY.
GOD ALONE IS WORTHY OUR DEEPEST, MOST INTENSE PASSIONS.

And we really don't need to defend Him. We may need to defend our rights to worship Him in Spirit and in Truth. But He is beyond defense.

And if our organizations, even super correct organizations, are not demonstrating God's miraculous confirmations in the individual hearts and lives of their members and reaching out--to a hurting world--ongoingly, routinely, then I doubt seriously that they are very worthy of our passion, much at all.

I think that there are likely individual congregations in most all the remotely Scriptural Christian organizations wherein God is moving mightily and blessing people supernaturally ongoingly. And, probably, the opposite is true in the same Christian organizations.

Stereotypes are lesser or greater inaccuracies--virtually never wholesale true about all the groups in an organization--especially a Christian organization.

So I think humility about my own organization is highly in order and highly wisdom.

I've been around Pentecostalism all my life. I know it's outrageous flaws. But I also know much about the outrageous flaws of about every other commonly known Christian organization. None are immune. To pretend otherwise seems, to me, to be uninformed or blind to the truth due to bias or whatever.

It is normal to be devoted to one's chosen group. There are many reasons we are devoted which have little to do with Biblical faithfulness. And, if one is going to bother with a Christian group, I hope one can be devoted to it or change groups. This is not, after all, tiddledee winks. These ARE eternal issues we wrestle with in our Christian groups.

But if our organizations are worth anything TO GOD OR TO MAN, then they are reasonably quite beyond needing our getting all proud and puffed up about defending this or that aspect of them. We can't add any to our height or insure the length of our days. Regardless of how strident, fierce, justified, loud, haughty, angry, self-righteous, . . . . whatever . . . our defenses of our particular group or organization . . . such defenses are highly unlikely to add or subtract anything even very noticable to the organization and less so even to The Kingdom of God. At best such is likely to be chaff. Why all the intense emotion about what will likely be functional chaff even if it's not theological chaff?

Pride, Ego is an inadequate and self-belitting motivation. The need to be right is similarly inadequate as a motivation and likely to be born of insecurities better taken to The Cross and put on the altar with a plea for wholeness and healing from our Lord Jesus.

A lot of us get the grandiose notion that our splendid prose will win hearts and influence people. Apart from Holy Spirit's inner working in the hearts, spirits and minds of our readers, our best, even most saintly prose will be utter chaff.

And the more fierce hostile stuff will be worse than chaff, on average, if not virtually all the time.

If our goal is to become like and demonstrate Jesus, such is the opposite direction. We are rarely in the position of driving the money changers out of the Temple here. And I have yet to see a single case of feeling God anointed and appointed someone to do so . . . unless it's the current tireless RM, Bless his courageous soul.

I disagree with many hereon fiercely. Some of the doctrines I see posted hereon seem to me to come straight from the pit of hell. But those on the other side feel similarly about stuff they disagree with.

And, we are just not appointed to throw lightening bolts and fire and brimstone at one another hereon. Some may personally feel it's their gifting and calling but I have yet to feel the slightest confirmation in my heart and spirit--even about my own urges to do so.

There will be an abundance of fire and brimstone and lightening bolts in the coming months and years . . . at the hand of God Himself and of His Angelic hosts. We need not presume upon their roles nor hasten such horrors amongst us hereon.

And, then there's JimRob. I think all of us have tended to minimize his standard of ALL CONSERVATIVES, FREEPERS are brothers and sisters based upon the Constitution and upon JimRob's standards, goals and policies hereon. As I understand him more and more, HE REALLY DOES DESIRE AND EXPECT US TO CHARITABLY FEEL GRACIOUS AND ACT GRACIOUSLY TOWARD ONE ANOTHER BASED ON OUR SHARED VALUES AND GOALS--ABOVE ALL OUR OTHER VALUES AND GOALS.

That's a rather minimally high Christian brotherly standard. Why do we Christians make such a poor showing of exemplifying it? He asks so little of us in return for giving so much to us with FR.

We track mud through his living room. We scream about the color of the paint on the walls. We don't like his decor. We carp about some of his friends and relatives. And mostly, he asks us to just get alone and support one another in our shared goals. And we fail so miserably at that so often. It's a wonder his keyboard is not chronically shorted out by tears.

Therefore what?

I don't know. Just sharing my heart. I love Roman believers and feel a great kinship with a fair number of them. I'm aware of the flaws. I'm aware of a lot of predictions and pontifications about end times stuff related thereto.

BUT ALL OF US SEE THROUGH THE GLASS DARKLY.

And none of our organizations; none of our congregations are flawless. NONE.

We have such a precious, priceless forum here. But it is routinely trashed and stinks worse than a barnyard because of how we treat one another. And yet we claim to be Christian. Something's very wrong with that picture.

I'm not looking down my nose at anyone. I'm must groping around about the issues. I think we can do better. We must do better if we truly Love Jesus.

If we don't truly Love Jesus, then what are we doing calling ourselves Christians and daring to pontificate on the forum under the label "Christian?"