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To: annalex; Quix
Are any of you ordained clergy? Confirmed laity?

I will offer you no credentials beyond my testimony. Please see for yourself whether my life evidences the gifts of Holy Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control. (Gal 5)

If any of those are missing (Matt 7, good tree/good fruit) - then by all means, ignore me.

Truly if a person says "listen to me because I am ordained or confirmed or whatever" he is changing the focus from God to himself - and that can never end well.

8,258 posted on 01/31/2007 9:06:47 PM PST by Alamo-Girl
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To: Alamo-Girl

INDEED

Though I have, on occasion, found some who were still works in progress on one or more gifts of Holy Spirit to be worth listening to as long as I was grounded in The Word and listening foremost to Holy Spirit affirming or disconfirming what I was hearing from the mortal.


8,259 posted on 01/31/2007 9:42:13 PM PST by Quix (LET GOD ARISE & HIS ENEMIES BE 100% DONE-IN; & ISLAM & TRAITORS FLUSHED)
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To: Alamo-Girl
Truly if a person says "listen to me because I am ordained or confirmed or whatever" he is changing the focus from God to himself - and that can never end well.

I could scarcely disagree more (with the possible exception of the "whatever" where, of course, I agree wholeheartedly).

From my POV: Ordination and confirmation are acts of the Holy Spirit. So, from my POV to say that someone has been confirmed or ordained is to say that the Holy Spirit has done a work in that someone. For someone to say, "Listen to me because the Holy Spirit has done a work in me," strikes me as Biblical and not very different from saying, "Judge my life and see if I show the fruits of the Spirit," - with respect to taking attention away from God and directing it to the individual.

However, neither is sufficient to justify drawing an audience. There are diversities of gifts, and displaying the fruits of the Spirit does not demonstrate that one has the vocation or gifts of a theologian or teacher.

This is formal disagreement; that is, it seemed you were making a statement you considered self-evident, and I wanted to note that it was not evident to this particular self.

8,280 posted on 02/01/2007 7:10:18 AM PST by Mad Dawg ("It's our humility which makes us great." -- Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothers)
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To: Alamo-Girl; Quix
I will offer you no credentials beyond my testimony

For the record, I am confirmed Catholic but not in Holy Orders and my only degree is in applied math. This being said, I do not claim individual guidance of the Holy Spirit, -- you do. Then you post a reference to sacramental introduction in the gifts of the Holy Spirit, do not notice it in the text, and say you claim no credentials. This is comical, so I make fun of it. Should I not have made fun of it?

8,284 posted on 02/01/2007 7:35:40 AM PST by annalex
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To: Alamo-Girl; Quix; Dr. Eckleburg; annalex
I will offer you no credentials beyond my testimony

The Great Commission has been carried out by many many people who had the testimony and the life. To say that the HS does not indwell them when God clearly says that He does and that He gives the power to spread the gospel is to deny the Word of God and the work of the HS. Dangerous territory.

8,300 posted on 02/01/2007 9:01:26 AM PST by 1000 silverlings
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