I can see where he is coming from, but again you are twisting things or showing you don’t understand.
Romans lays it out. An LDS person would say it is based upon ‘light and knowledge’. If you have never heard the name of Jesus but recognize there is a God and know that you can’t return to him on your own, then God responds with His grace (law written on their hearts).
For most of the Modern world, and esp. Americans or westerners, most pastors would state that if you have heard the Gospel of Grace, have heard of Jesus then God will hold you to that knowledge and for them, you for example, belief in Jesus Christ is necessary. Evangelical doctrine does not require ‘confession’ as a specific requirement. The acceptance of Grace WILL ALWAYS, ALWAYS, result in confession of His glorious name.
Confession of Jesus’ name as Lord is NOT a separate event or thing, it follows NATURALLY from belief. It is NOT a work. Separating the two is creating a schism where there isn’t one.
I don’t really care WHO you believe. In stating it is me or the preacher, you appear to be relying on the arm of the flesh.
Who you need to believe is God and His word (the Bible), not your LDS prophets.
I completely get that most LDS do not understand what we are saying, and for a very good reason. Understanding ONLY comes from the Holy Spirit and if you (plural) haven’t REALLY been Born Again, you (plural) will not understand, you (plural) cannot aside from God opening your eyes.
Am I twisting on purpose or am I asking questions because I don’t understand? Twisting things implies intent to deceive.
Lady R, (does it bother you if you call you that?) you said:
Many of my early ancestors never thought about not being able to return to God on their own. They never even thought about returning to God. A lot of my ancestors were Vikings. My flimsy claim to fame is that I’m descended from Lief Ericksson. As Vikings, some of my ancestors worshipped Odin, Thor, or whomever. It wasn’t about getting grace and returning to God to live in peace and harmony for the eternities. For them, it wasn’t, according to what I know, a matter of grace. It depended completely what they had done in this life.
According to you, only God can reveal the truth to me. Am I mistaken here?
If God can only reveal the truth to me, and He doesn’t, what am I suppose to do?
Will my praying help any? If praying isn’t a work, something that I do on my own, then God through His grace, more or less forces me to pray, because it’s not something I can do on my own and get an answer. Am I incorrect here?
You seem to be frustrated that I don’t trust you, in spite of you trying to be truthful to me of your feelings, but I have read the Bible and feel that God has led me in a different direction than you want me to go.
I have prayed about this and I have studied and I honestly feel that I am doing what the Lord wants me to do, yet you accuse of relying on the arm of flesh.
What it seems to me that you are saying is that I shouldn’t rely on the arm of flesh to find out what God wants me to believe and do, but if it’s not like you believe, then I am wrong. Don’t you see the problem here?
This is something that I have experienced many times with Evangelicals and other denominations who have tried to “help” me find the light.
They usually start out simply wanting me to trust them and their beliefs and accept what they believe is the truth as the truth. (Mormons do the very same thing and it irritates me to no end.) I have no doubt in their sincerity.
But when I question them about their beliefs, they start to tell me that I am wrong, wrong, wrong, and that if I was to simply ask God to show me the light and if I would just read Bible, God would create a new being within me and I will know joy like I’ve never know it before. (Hmmm, sounds like what some Mormons say also.)
They don’t want me to ask them questions, they just simply want me to believe.
So, I tell them that every night before I go to bed, I pray and I always ask God to help me find the truth and be willing to accept it, no matter where it came from. I ask Him every night for His help in making me a better person. I tell them that I have read the Bible several times and I just don’t see everything that they tell me that is in there. I don’t agree with how they interpret the scriptures.
Then I get accused of being close-minded and not relying enough on Christ. If I would just read the Bible with an open mind, like they do, I would see the errors of my ways and I would forsake them.
You know, it’s really irritating when I get accused of being closed-minded simply because I don’t agree with the other person, no matter how sincere they are.
I get accused of reading the scriptures with a biased eye. Well, I didn’t grow up in a vacuum and, in all my years, I have never met a person who couldn’t look at anything without some type of bias. And when I tell them that I can’t read the Bible without any biases and that I doubt if they can either, they get all upset. Here are people denigrating me without even knowing me and they are getting upset.
I tell them that I have prayed about it, many, many times about it, and God seems to be leading me to what I currently believe. He hasn’t led me anywhere else. More often than not, I get told that that is because I’m not praying to God; that I am praying to the Mormon god or maybe even Satan. They ask to me not get a picture of the Mormon god in my mind as I’m praying to God, that I should imagine the “Christian” God. Well, I ask them what the Christian God looks like and they say that they don’t know because He’s spirit and we don’t know what He looks like. When I tell them that they have just told me to imagine something that can’t be imagined, that they just asked to do the impossible. They get even more upset with me.
Wait, why are they getting upset with me? I’m being patronized and now I’m being told that I pray to Satan.
Then they usually start in telling me all the faults and problems of the Mormon Church and more often that not, they are very wrong with their accusations. I tell them that I don’t want to hear what is wrong about what I believe, but what do they believe and why. Nope, they have been told by God to confront me.
Lady R, I really, really hope that you aren’t going down this same path.
I get tired of being patronized and being treated as a know-nothing.