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Thank you for your reply!

adiaireton8 to Quix: What makes you think you are so much smarter and "in tune with the Spirit" than all the heretics of the first four centuries?

My comment: What we (any of us) think doesn't matter. Only God matters. His name, His will, His kingdom. Our challenge is to walk in His Light and not wander off into the darkness of our vain imaginings.

adiaireton8 reply: If it didn't matter what any of us think, then there would be no such thing as "damnable heresies".

In my reply and as I understood your original usage of it, the word “think” means “judge” as in “I think you are smart.” I was not using the word in the meaning of “mental reasoning” or “belief” as in “I think Mary is co-redemptrix.” Though certainly the two usages overlap.

Again I assert that only God truly matters. He is the First Cause and the Final Cause, the Alpha and the Omega. He alone sits on the Great White Throne and judges the hearts and intents of men. No matter whether we believe Him directly or through the counsel of trusted religious leader(s) – in the end, He alone is the judge – and everything that fails His judgment will not continue into the new heaven and the new earth:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. – John 1:1

It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, [they] are spirit, and [they] are life. - John 6:63

For the word of God [is] quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and [is] a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things [are] naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do. – Hebrews 4:12

He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day. - John 12:48

When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth [his] sheep from the goats: And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. – Matt 25:31-33

And he [was] clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God. – Rev 19:13

And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is [the book] of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works. And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire. – Rev 20:11-15

And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful. And he said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely. He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son. But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death. – Rev 21:5-8

Your quote from Galatians 5 is most excellent. Below is the passage in context with emphasis on what I assert is the key to judging ourselves, whether we are walking in His Light or whether we have wandered off into the darkness of our own vain imaginings (e.g. heresies, idolatry):

[This] I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would. But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law.

Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are [these]; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told [you] in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. – Galatians 5:16-23

In sum, I assert we should be devoted to God above all else (Matt 22:37-38) and we ought to continually weigh our own thoughts, words and deeds against the above fruits of the Spirit, to know whether we are walking in the Spirit or the flesh (Romans 8.)