No humility. Humility is required for dialog, compromise. Pride is clear-sighted about the weakness/sin of the opposition, but blind to my own weakness/sin. Pride fuels war, ISIS, superpower status. While pride ridicules the opposition, humility respects the opposition, listens to the opposition, attempts to understand them, find common ground.
Wonderful opportunity for Christians to be salt and light in our deeply-divided land, by a contagious humility. We Christian leaders/followers are skilled at pseudo-humility, but real humility is impossible. Humility/Jesus-dependency/faith/repentance is not something I can generate from within. Only happens through the convicting work of the Holy Spirit. Until the Spirit enables us to see the logs in our own eyes, so that we are contrite, undone, we believers will not have a contagious humility, our nation will continue to be deeply divided politically, and we will continue to be a big part of the problem. And the pre-believers around us will continue to be unwowed by, uninterested in, our Jesus.
Brothers and sisters, what can we do? We can ask for the Spirit, claiming the promise of Luke 11, that if we ask for the Spirit, He will give us His Spirit — fresh conviction of sin/idolatry. We who see the problem, are the weakest links — the ones most needy of further overhaul, no matter how much He’s overhauled us to date.
–ShepherdDave, who sometimes sees the problem, but is powerless to convict himself of the sin of confidence/independence/worldliness/pride
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