I don't give a lot of weight to the words of people who seem to only agree with me all of the time, mostly because I know I make mistakes and that I occasionally need to be corrected. If I were a pastor/teacher I would like the people on my support staff, fellow pastors, secretaries, and other personnel of course, to work with me in a spirit of oneness in Christ. I would also want and expect them to tell me honestly what they think about things. I would find such contributions invaluable I think.

I wouldn't necessarily always like what I heard, but I might need to hear it nonetheless. I wouldn't hear anything of any real value from those who only wanted to echo you or please me by agreeing with me. I get that a lot at work. It would be nice to hear the truth there all the time, even if it was tough to hear.

By the same token, I wouldn't allow myself to be surrounded by a staff of people whose attitude about salvation was simply to think positive and everything will be okay. I believe fellowship is vital for believers, and something the Lord meant to be used to build us up with. Kind of hard to gain spiritual strength through the experience when you're surrounded by believers who think their only job is to be happy and show others how nice you are because you're a Christian. For one thing, I don't think most of us could keep up with a veneer like that for long without suffering emotional exhaustion.

"I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it. I've been an atheist for years and years, but somehow I felt it was intellectually unrespectable to say one was an atheist, because it assumed knowledge that one didn't have. Somehow it was better to say one was a humanist or an agnostic. I finally decided that I'm a creature of emotion as well as of reason. Emotionally I am an atheist. I don't have the evidence to prove that God doesn't exist, but I so strongly suspect he doesn't that I don't want to waste my time. -- Isaac Asimov, in "Free Inquiry", Spring 1982, vol.2 no.2, p. 9"

Isaac Asimov was a brilliant guy, and I doubt you could miss from this quote just where he stood on the issue of God and the salvation He provides through His Son Jesus. With somebody like this, you know where you stand. I can't be responsible for what people think, but I can appreciative of an honest opinion.

When I get honesty from believers or unbelievers who disagree with me, whether it influences me to reassess what I'm doing or not, I appreciate it.