I admit that I am unsure that I am following you either, my dear friend :). If you are quoting John 19:30 and saying that God's "Plan" is already finished from our perspective, then we must be talking about two completely different plans.
I would say that John 19:30 does complete one of God's plans, an especially critical one, but that it didn't complete God's overall Plan. From our perspective, God continues to work in our lives. I would also respectfully disagree that God's plan for humanity is/was to save it, as in all of it if that is what you mean. I hold that God always gets what He wants. Clearly, not all are saved. Therefore it couldn't have been His plan to save all.
I do agree that it is part of God's plan that we do good works. I see it as one means of glorifying God.
We are not cattle being led to the gates of heaven or hell, but human beings, God's creatures whom He loves very, very much and would have us all saved (1 Tim 2:4).
I agree that we are not cattle, but rather, we are sheep, among the dumbest animals. Simians, pigs, and dolphins are all geniuses compared to sheep. If enough food was available, a sheep would literally "eat" itself to death. I would say that we absolutely do need leading and we are led.
Your verse certainly does use the phrase "all men", but I would distinguish between a general wish and a decree. A general wish (I wish I had a Mercedes) is fine and does indicate something about the wisher. In this case, it shows God's love. However, I don't think this saying can be a part of God's Plan because it doesn't happen.
God interacts with us only for the purpose of helping us, not because we somehow determine if His plan will work or not. Oh, it will work with or without our cooperation, trust me! God is not obliged to save anyone save for His love for humanity.
I have no problem with this part. Right after this, you refer to 1 Peter 3:18. This is my (Bible's) translation:
18 For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit, ...
When I first read this I made the classic error of substituting "and" for "for". Since the word is "for" it must relate back to the previous clause. The righteous (Christ) died for the sins of the unrighteous (you would say all, I would say the elect because they are the only ones brought to God). As I have said, I do believe the blood of Christ is sufficient to pay for the sins of all, but it just wasn't God's intention because not all are saved.
With God everything is possible (Mat 19:26), so if we repent He can and does change our destiny. The Scripture teaches that time and time again.
In your faith the whole cocnept of sin, fall, repentance and redemption for our sins becomes meaningless because you are just a "slave to rigtheousness," a passive treveler who neither sins nor repents on his or her own.
This is another matter of perspective. I would say that from God's POV, nothing is possible, it is certain. Of course from our POV, "all things are possible" with God. That is why I think you are switching perspectives within your overall thought in the above two paragraphs.
Only God could possibly see us as passive travelers because He already knows everything we will ever do. It is old news to God. But from our perspective, we cannot be passive travelers, indeed there is much to be done! We absolutely are slaves to righteousness, God is in control of our lives, but to us every day brings something new. There absolutely is meaning.
This is not a subject of how you "feel." Where does it say in Scriptures that only the "elect" are saved?
Sure sounds like the Scripture says that one man's suffering may help even the elect obtain salvation. What? Works of faith can affect the salvation of mankind, even the elect? Is that not a little contrary to your theology?
+Paul (Rom 3:10) clearly says that there are none who are righteous (in the Christian sense, because Gospels do mention the righteous in the Judaic sense). Since no one is born righteous in the Christian sense, Christ died for all, for every one of us, that is unrighteous, past, present and future; so that all may be saved.
(2) that, according to your theology, we are not to be judged according to our deeds (Mat 16:27), as the Scripture clearly states, but divinely preordained to heaven or hell. Your beliefs hold that, just as no amount of good works glorifying God can benefit your salvation, no amount of evil can condemn you, and send you to hell. In that case, everyone's is God's "elect." Just the roles are opposite!
(3) If God is the author of everything good and evil then repentance, of which the Bible is full, is a meaningless "ritual". Since God already knows how you feel, and since everything you do is done because you are only doing God's will, repentance becomes a nonsense.
(4) If everything was preordained, from the beginning and is preprogrammed until the end, why did Christ die for the unrighteous when the unrighteous are unrighteous by God's hands? In this case God is redeeming us from Himself!
(5) Thus the redemption becomes an oxymoron, because humanity has been prepackaged in an inflexible and rigid, even morbid Reformed choreography of God's Plan (never did find that word in Scripture).
(6) What God set out to do, He has already accomplished. God is not building new worlds. His job is done: because He is here and yesterday and at the end of times all at once. Surely His plan stands finished at the end of times. I am not changing perspectives, but you seem to be confusing His eternal nature with our temporal world.
(7) And if God is involved in our lives I beg to know why (from your Protestant point of view). He preordained what will be and nothing will change (because it's perfect as you say), so God is rendered less than omnipotent by being subject to necessity!
(8) You pray because you don't know, but why not just resign yourself to saying that whatever happens to me is what God decided -- it is merciful and just, for mercy will triumph over judgment (Jam 2:13). If everything has been predetermined, each step and each word we make and utter, why would He be in our lives?
You see, there is a big contradiction in what you are saying: God has preordained everything, yet He intervenes in our lives?
Take that pitiful man, Pat Robertson, for example -- his latest "pearl" is that God is punishing Ariel Sharon for selling Israel (because Israel is His land)! First, Israel means people of God and God never intended it to mean only Hebrews. But, I must wonder, on whose account and by whose will is Ariel Sharon selling Israel that he is being punished when God, according to you and your cohorts, is in full control of Mr. Sharon -- and, by the same "logic" -- Mr. Sharon is doing "God's" work by selling Israel, according to the Reformed theology that is.