Re: No man's reason... quote

Are you willing to answer the direct questions i had asked you? If you caught yourself thinking sinfully at one second, would you stop the sin and repent there, or persist in it longer? Does your life look like the life of a disciple or apostle of Jesus in the book of acts? If not, why not? Do you believe David was prideful to believe that as a faithful child of God... that he could defeat Goliath?

"The gospel proclaims that it is the perfect righteousness of Christ in exchange for our unrighteousness (all as a gift) that is our only hope."

I absolutely agree that we need the perfect sacrifice of Jesus to be reconciled to the Father. This is a separate issue from the issue of knowing who we are in Christ once we have been truly born again and how important it is to choose with our free will to reject and renounce sin as soon as we become aware of it and to emulate the holiness of our Lord absolutely as much as possible. Or do you believe we are to use God's grace as a license to sin?

Please look up acts 19:1-6 where a dozen disciples who had not been baptized in the Holy Spirit were able to be baptized by God through Paul's prayer. I strongly suspect you are like these disciples before they received the Holy Spirit... and if this is true, would you even want to receive this baptism as they had? Ironically, i could very much help you with this as i have helped many others including a girl tonight who described 10,000 times stronger peace immediately after we prayed... and just as Paul helped these disciples. Vektek, if you want to experience heaven on earth, the kingdom of heaven now, you really do need this baptism. Book of acts emphasizes this pretty strongly. Before i received this life transforming baptism which gave me eyes to see and ears to hear as well as a 100 times stronger love for and commitment to my Lord (initially), i probably would have agreed with you on most everything you are saying. Please see also Acts 2:1-4 and other references.

"Comparing ourselves to other christians, in attempts to see who is the greatest, seems futile, and frankly very sinful to me in the light of Christ's perfect righteousness."

Back to my point, do you believe that God stopped raising up awesome men and women of faith once the bible was written, or do you believe servants of God today can be just as empowered by God as were the prophets and apostles in the bible?

"I think the reason you think you are so great in comparison to other christians is because you are comparing yourself to what you consider lowly, carnal christians instead of comparing yourself to the perfect righteousness of Christ. That's a huge mistake I believe!"

I am just being honest about the way i obey the biblical teaching of taking every thought captive and bringing it into obedience to Christ. Since this offends you, you then proclaim that i claim myself great while entirely missing the point. I am wishing to show the reader what is possible in our lives if we choose to live in obedience unto our Lord and the possibilities include having lives that look like the disciples and apostles in the book of acts, healing the sick, casting out demons, living in boldness, etc. Do you reject this obedient living and having a life that looks like the book of acts believers?

90% of those who call themselves christians will openly admit that they do not live this way and Jesus refers to this as "lukewarm", something to come out of. Once we truly come to Christ, are born again and are baptized in the Holy Spirit, the life of holiness my Lord Jesus lived is to be emulated as much as possible, repenting immediately of any sin that comes into our awareness. Do you disagree with this also?