Thank you for sharing your past long/hard experience in life.
I am not sure how I gave you the impression I knew Jesus as you did.
It happens I am created as a rational and intellectual man besides being spiritual.
So when I was teen (about 15 years), I felt an important need to find out, once for all, if Jesus sayings (as written on my Arabic NT) agree on the Church's teachings, I use hearing of, or not.
So I analysed carefully how Jesus and Church (starting from the one at Vatican) present every teaching and idea about life and God. To my big surprise, almost all Church teachings contradict, in a way or another, what Jesus says very clearly. Naturally, I met the few priests (or Pastors, if you like) whom I used respecting to a great extend when I was a kid to hear their opinion/view (one priest after another) of what I discovered. I got another surprise when I heard them reply something like "If we preach Jesus sayings as they are exactly, we would lose almost all our Church's attendants. So our main role is to find always how to please, in the name of Jesus, the hearing of our believers."
(Matthew 6:5-8) is an example of which ANY Church in the world has its own good reason not to remind Christians.
Anyway, as long the way you live gives you real peace in your soul, you can be sure you are on the right path that God made for you. I mean, how do you think I am sure I am on 'my' right path?
I am not sure how I gave you the impression I knew Jesus as you did.
It happens I am created as a rational and intellectual man besides being spiritual.
So I analysed carefully how Jesus and Church (starting from the one at Vatican) present every teaching and idea about life and God. To my big surprise, almost all Church teachings contradict, in a way or another, what Jesus says very clearly. Naturally, I met the few priests (or Pastors, if you like) whom I used respecting to a great extend when I was a kid to hear their opinion/view (one priest after another) of what I discovered. I got another surprise when I heard them reply something like "If we preach Jesus sayings as they are exactly, we would lose almost all our Church's attendants. So our main role is to find always how to please, in the name of Jesus, the hearing of our believers."
(Matthew 6:5-8) is an example of which ANY Church in the world has its own good reason not to remind Christians.
Anyway, as long the way you live gives you real peace in your soul, you can be sure you are on the right path that God made for you. I mean, how do you think I am sure I am on 'my' right path?
We know there is a power above man power because man can't make grass grow, man can't make the Grand Canyon, or create a baby. Even cloning takes work of the Lord. To make all this happen takes superior intelligence, beyond anything man has. Scripture and the part of us that is made to communicate with God are the only places we can go to for instructions on any of this work that has been done. You are going to the church and to men to find out about it, and taking their word for all of it. That is not a good source for accurate information.
Your report of what the church says is very limited, and even I from my tiny corner of the world have found different reports of the church about what they think God says. Your reports, that you are taking as thorough, are both man made and limited.
You are basing learning truth of the way the world is created and meant to run at its best on whether it gives peace. You can even take certain medicines to give you a feeling of peace, and it certainly does not prove truth. So even your truth proof is in error.