Paul reminds us that anyone who speaks in tongues, requires an interpreter. You are moving away from the text itself to your own religious experience, to a point of view that vexed Luther himself, for he noted those who do not think that even the Bible is necessary. Nonetheless, the Catholic “mantra,” is not that the issue reduces to a disagreement over texts, but a notion that the Holy Ghost speaks to the Church, that the Bible is addressed to a community, not coteries of mystics sharing a common vision, but to the disciples of Jesus Christ. To whom are the letters of John addressed? A Church. A community of believers joined by faith, and taught by fellow believers, who are themselves taught by the disciples of Jesus, and witnesses to his Resurrection. You beg the questions: How shall you be taught? By which human beings? What shall you be taught? For the message of the Bible is that God works through men , ordinary and extraordinary but all chosen for this task. You seem to have decided that you are his select.
God wants us all.
Catholics can't seem to grasp that God is not looking for a reason to reject us but for a reason to accept us; every single last one of us.
The reason we are some of His *select* is that we've recognized it and come to God on His terms and have come to know that His promises are true and *yes* and *amen* in Christ.
It's not that any one of us think that we're accepted by God because we're better than anyone else, which is Catholic mindset because that's the only way a Catholic knows to believe that God accepts us, is our closeness to perfection. On the contrary, we know what kind of sinners we are and that in our natural hearts dwells no good thing.
2 Peter 3:9 The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.
Acts 17:24-30 24 “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. 25 And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. 26 From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live.
27 God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. 28 ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’
29 “Therefore since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by man’s design and skill. 30 In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent.
God has done everything within His power to bring us to Himself. he does not want ANY to perish. This God that Catholics teach about who's going to zap us for every little fault and slip and forgotten sin, is not the God of the Bible. The God that they have to keep appeasing and begging for mercy, and going through saints in prayer to reach, is not the God portrayed in Scripture.
It appears that Catholics think that people (and themselves) are basically good until they chose to sin, and then they reject Christ and that by their own effort they can attain that goodness by refusing to sin.
They don’t realize that the human race is sold as slaves to sin, bound in its power until set free by the Son in the new birth experience. Only then can we be considered *good* and even then, it’s not our own inherent goodness but rather the goodness of Christ imputed to us.
The unredeemed man is not basically a good man who sins occasionally, but rather a reprobate who sometimes manages to do good.
Not a one of us can do anything to pay the debt of sin that we owe. It MUST be done for us and Jesus did that. All we have to do is accept it and Him. Just believe Him and believe IN Him and trust Him.
God will do the rest.
1 Corinthians 2:13 Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
14 But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
15 But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man.
16 For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? but we have the mind of Christ.
"The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned." 1 Cor 2:14 And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Counselor to be with you forever--the Spirit of Truth. The world cannot accept Him, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. But you know Him, for He lives with you and will be in you. John 14:16,17
The greatest progress and insight I have gained in my walk with Christ has been revealed to me through the Holy Spirit not taught to me by man.
You can learn all a man has to teach you in a few months, get all your doctrine and theology nailed down just fine.
But the real revelation of the things of God happens internally through the work of the Holy Spirit who is the ONLY one who can open our eyes to the truth of the spiritual things and make that transition from the head to the heart.
It's one thing to know things about God. It's a whole 'nother ball game to experience the things of God in a living, vibrant way.
The longer I walk with God the more I realize I don't know. There are depths of the relationship with Him that I'm just beginning to get glimpses of. It's way beyond the do not touch, do not taste, do not look, mechanics of avoiding blatant, outward sin.
I found Catholicism to be so shallow in that regard. The focus was on not doing the sin and getting into heaven because I didn't sin. But behind that mentality is the thought that we're basically good and occasionally sin and that gives God a reason to reject us but that we can attain goodness by refusing to sin and God will accept us.
What it doesn't convey is we are all sinners deserving of death for violating God's law. We are all reprobates, bound as slaves to sin, sinning as the natural default response to any situation we encounter in our lives.
Until Catholics grasp the concept that everything we do and everything we are is tainted by sin and therefore cannot be acceptable to God, they will continue to pursue salvation through what they consider good works, and miss the gift of salvation that God freely offers each and every one of us. And that is the work of the Holy Spirit. Only he can open the spiritual eyes of a person and reveal that to him.
When God clothes us in the righteousness of Christ, He sees us as having Christ's righteousness. Therefore, even if we ARE judged on our works, the good works of Jesus, having been imputed to us, are the righteousness of Christ in us and we are saved.
All we have to do is trade all that we are not for all that Christ is and God is satisfied. He makes the transaction and seals it with His Holy Spirit until the day of redemption.