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.
All this happens in the Sanctuary while you are just chit chatting with people.
Lady R, (does it bother you if you call you that?) you said:
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I prefer Baroness. :)
As to the rest, the fact that you keep saying you are doing what you FEEL God want’s you to do, and that it is how YOU interpret scripture, is starting from a false premise. It is never about US, how WE feel, what WE want, it is about God, what the Bible says
That being said, I did have the “LDS blinders” on for many years so I do have some idea of where you are coming from. All I can tell you is I will pray that God will open your eyes. This is NOT an intellectual exercise (meaning we can understand it on our own), it is a spiritual thing (and I do not mean relying on feelings).
How do you know He isn’t revealing the truth to you? Seriously. God revealed the truth to me through my doubts about the LDS church. My feelings wanted me to stay, I LOVED being LDS, I felt ‘worthy’ and (looking back) self-righteous about being a good “temple mormon”. But the doubts wouldn’t go away, I researched and I understood the issues in intellectual way, but I didn’t understand. I couldn’t understand, until He smacked me upside the head, broke me, and changed me. ONLY THEN could I really understand topics that you are bringing up.
Christianity is not well explained, it must be lived to be understood.
If you are sincere, if you really want to see what God wants, stop going to Church, get a different Bible (non LDS), only read that, DON”T use KJV english in prayers, don’t go to the temple, don’t watch conference, don’t read the Ensign, don’t go to priesthood meetings, give up your callings and spend ONE YEAR ONLY ONLY reading the Bible (preferably a non KJV). You will be surprised what God shows you, where your doubts are. But until you are spiritually Born Again you (or anyone) cannot have a true understanding
Also, I suggest reading “Born Again Mormon” (you can download it for free) and watching the FIRST TWO episodes of the TV show where he talks about how he became a Born Again Christian (in an evangelical sense) and God led Him out of Mormonism.
www.bornagainmormon.com
I believe that we are each given a gift from God that can guide us aright. John speaks of Christ being “the true light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world” John 1:9
This light of Christ is of immeasurable value to all of God’s children. It can act as a conscience, a guide, as a discerner between truth and error.
How do we know that kindness is sweet, that meanness is cruel, that murder is wrong, that sacrifice is noble, etc. We can feel, sense, discern these things through the light of Christ that is within us.
Incidentally, I believe this light can be dimmed and possibly extinguished through sin and disobedience.
Before I became a Latter-day Saints, I was sincerely seeking the truth of God. I had studied many different religious denominations and although I could find much that was good and positive, I was unsettled with all of them for one reason or another. There was always something that didn’t feel right.
When I first came across Mormonism and learned of its teachings it was as if I naturally recognized the truth and rightness of the Church. It is hard to describe, but it was very real and tangible to me.
I know that many people would consider me deceived, but my personal experience is that I am not.
We need guidance in life, and the light that comes from Christ can be a priceless guide. The Holy Ghost can provide additional light and truth — but this light is a gift to every human being.