Passion without contempt

I have indulged myself over the past few days by venturing into social and political discussions that I usually skip on by doing my best to keep my eyes fixed on Jesus—the Author and Finisher of my faith, but sometimes you just have to jump into the fray, especially when all dignity has been cast aside.

I don’t know if I have contributed to the productive discourse of our great but sometimes ever so fragile republic, or just entertained myself in a unique way as if I were smoking a Cuban cigar and enjoying a glass of Sangria from south of the border (pre-wall vintage).

I pray that we incline ourselves to more civil discourse.  Passion is wonderful.  Zeal must abound.  Debate is fantastic.  The synergy of diverse ideas produces the best results, but condemnation of our brothers and sisters and contempt for our leaders are forces directly from Satan.  They are the darkest side of our human nature.  Do not be deceived, hate and contempt are not effective communication tools.  The one who tells you that they are has your destruction in mind and is celebrating with your every vile word.

For those who do not claim Jesus as Lord, this likely is a meaningless appeal.  The command not to judge (condemn) others, the command to love each other, and the direction to not only respect those in authority but pray for them are only words in a book.  But for those who do claim to follow Jesus, these are standing orders.  We are not relieved of them because we don’t like who got elected, do or don’t like guns, or think the Constitution to be antiquated or immutable. 

If we can’t post and comment without condemnation of others,  or if we cannot bring ourselves to love each other as Christ loved us in our words and deeds, or if we can’t express our point being respectful of those in authority; then we need to log off, pray, study our Bibles, pray some more, practice loving one another in person, and do some inspection to determine how much lumber we need to extract from our own eyes, before we even think about logging back on to this media that begs us to bring acrimony and vitriol.

Decide this day whom you will serve.  Is it the gods of hate, vitriol, acrimony, ambivalence that abound online?  As for me and my house and our posts, we serve the Lord!