Well there sure isn't anything recorded in the scriptures that indicates He has, but I haven't read anything about God working in you in the scriptures either but I sense that He has and does, so what should we believe? Should we believe only what is written or should we believe and be led by HolySpirit?
Yes we should be led by holy spirit, but it is dangerous to think that the holy spirit is going to come an sit down with us and have a nice ol chat to teach us about God.
I say its dangerous because the holy spirit is not a person, it is Gods spirit. Just as you have a spirit, so does God have a spirit and it encompasses all which is holy. If he gives us a portion of his spirit it can motivate us and help us to come to an understanding of things, but its not going to literally 'speak' to us.
And if a spirit is literally speaking to someone I would be very concerned that this spirit is not Gods spirit but rather an individual spirit such as Satan who 'keeps transforming himself into an angel of light' 2 Cor 11:14
Can someone who has never been a parent know all the happiness and disappointments involved?
I do agree with you that being a parent can help us to associate by way of imagining God's sacrifice, but there is a difference between imagining and experiencing.
Reading in a book or magazine about Tahiti does not produce the same knowledge as going there in person. One is a virtual the other is reality.
Unfortunately we cannot go back in time in order to experience Abrahams test ourselves. But if you are finding it hard to imagine what the situation must have been like for him, then you need to mediate on the situation. You could imagine yourself as Issac who allowed his father to tie his hands and place him on the alter. Imagine walking all the way up the mountain and not really knowing what you were doing up there until you father says "we will be offering God a sacrifice" and you ask him, "where is the sheep to sacrifice" and he says "you are the sacrifice today son"
You could imagine what it must have been like to believe that you were about to be killed because God asked it of you. What emotions must you be going thru knowing that your sacrifice is going to save all of mankind but you will have to loose your life...and if you dont go thru with it as God requests, then all of mankind will be doomed forever. A lot is riding on your shoulders and you are about to loose your life.
So imagine the sorts of emotions & fears you must be feeling. Now think about Jesus on the night before he died. What happened to him in the garden of Gethsemene? Imagine yourself being so stressed and anxious about what is about to happen to you (with your full knowledge) that you rub your forehead and see that your sweat has become drops of blood. Your body is actually bleeding with fear. The weight of the world is on your shoulders, your closests friends are soon to abandon you and you know that you are about to experience a cruel and painful torture and ridicule and death. You know that if you fail in any way at all...if you shout back at your accuser, or hide your face from your torturer, or feel any sort of hatred for your attackers that you will fail the father whom you love and your friends and all of mankind. You have to go thru the ultimate punishment knowing that you are completely innocent and you must allow all this to happen to you without feeling one tinge of anger.
That is what Jesus experienced and we will never have to go thru that, but he did and it was because of Gods love that he did it.
Do you love a stranger enought to go thru that? Can you imagine going thru that for a group of people who hate you and torment you? Think of the kid at school who called you names and tormented you thru your school years and now imagine yourself going thru that for him, so that he can have a better life.
Have I ever said to ignore the scriptures, much less ignore them completely?
"And we experience Gods love when we love..." I agree with you here Pegg because God is love, and I agree we shouldn't be just takers but there is something very important missing here. To experience the love of God we must trust (rest) in Christ's work at the cross to make us righteous, holy, and without fault and this is what is pleasing to Father.
True righteousness comes by meeting the standards of God. None of us can meet those standards though, which is why Jesus sacrifice does not literlly make us righteous. We should never think that we are righteous and holy because we are not.
Its important to understand what the sacrifice does for us. It gives us a new means by which we can be 'called' righteous. God is not looking for us to meet his perfect standards in order to be righteous as he did with Adam or the Isrealites, rather he is looking for us to have faith in Jesus sacrifice in order for us to be righteous. It doesnt make us without fault though. We are still sinners and we are still missing the mark of Gods perfect standards. We still committ sins, but the difference is that by Christs sacrifice, God is willing to forgive them because faith in his son is the temporary means by which we can be 'viewed' as righteous.
Tell me what do you think, Is it better to be a righteous person or is it better to be a good person? Which does God prefer?