"Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved. For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. For, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes." Romans 10:1-4 The new Pope is in town and everyone is asking my opinion, "Is he a good Pope or a liberal politician? Does he really know what he is talking about? Why do so many people like him?" I think people ask me about the Pope for two main reasons: (1) I am a pastor, I am supposed to be up on all things religious. (2) Many people know that I use to be Roman Catholic myself. In fact, just this morning someone asked me, "Why did you leave the Catholic Church?" Hmm, dangerous subject? Or it could be a great subject for my next blog? So here we are... Let me begin: I thank God for my Roman Catholic heritage! I miss so much of it, I love my extended Catholic family and friends who are still are associated with it. I love the beauty of it. Growing up, my family went to a gorgeous church with one of the biggest crucifixes ever of Jesus, St. Raphael's in Bay Village, Ohio. When I get the opportunity to go back to Ohio I love to go inside it and just sit...it really is quite a place. To quote Paul in Romans 10:1 and his love for his Jewish heritage, I have the same feelings toward my Catholic upbringing: "Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved. For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge." In other words, the family and friends I grew up with loved the Lord, but it was a human love based on human knowledge. They had a zeal, but it was misdirected. I know this because I had a misdirected zeal for 23 years until the Lord woke me up to the truth. When I say I had zeal, I am not kidding. I was raised with very devout Roman Catholic parents (My mom was German Catholic, my dad was Polish Catholic), I was baptized Catholic, received First Communion, was Confirmed, was an Altar Boy for 4 years. I went to a Roman Catholic Grade School for 7 years, went to a Roman Catholic University, University of Dayton, for 4 years, and I even loved going to mass with my Grandmother while attending college. So when I say I know what it means to be Catholic I do know what I am talking about. I was a Catholic of the Catholics because I really wanted to be sincere in my faith. That is why I left, my faith demanded me to. So why did I leave? 3 main reasons: The Eye Test, the Ear Test, and the Heart Test THE EYE TEST I have learned overtime that just because someone says they believe something doesn't mean they actually do. For instance, when I was going to University of Dayton, I played Rugby. I can remember my sophomore year a new student started going to our school and he said he played rugby at the previous school he came from. I said great, try-outs for this years rugby team were in the afternoon the next day. So he showed up to try out for the team and he had new cleats, wore rugby shorts and he even brought his own rugby ball. He sure looked the part! So when the coach saw him he put him immediately in a live inter-squad scrimmage. It was apparent right from the first play that this kid never played rugby in his life! In fact, he got hurt that day and never came back. Just because he said he played rugby didn't mean he played rugby. And it is exactly the same with most Roman Catholics I know, they say they are Christians but they have no idea what that means. Just because you go to church on Sunday doesn't make you a disciple - - in the same way, just because you are in a garage doesn't make you a car. The guy who played rugby failed the eye test: When you watched him in scrimmage, his actions clearly proved he had no idea what he was doing. As I grew up watching most Catholics and their behavior, it was clear they didn't know the Lord at all. Just go to my undergrad college the University of Dayton on any given weekend - - drunkenness, sleeping around, fighting and taking the Lord's name in vain is their "modus operendi". In fact, when I was going to school there, Dayton was one of the top party schools in the nation, which the students took great pride in. (Majority of them were practicing Roman Catholics; with me being one of them.) This is anything but Christlike (See Galatians 5:19-21 [a great description of parties in the ghetto] and Philippians 3:18-19). Most Roman Catholics don't act anything like Christ. Sure they can put on an act Sunday morning or say the right words during mass - - but the fruits of the Spirit as found in Galatians 5:22-23 did not characterize most of the Catholics I grew up with; especially the Catholics that ran in my circles. It surely did not characterize me, a man who drank, swore and chased women. Sure I was a nice guy, but I wasn't holy and set apart as Jesus wanted me to be. At this point I can hear many Catholics say, "Well, I know a lot of Catholics that really live to please Christ today." Oh sure, you can always find some...but please, be honest - - drinking, sleeping around and swearing is Roman Catholic standard fair. And tell me, why are most nuns feminist liberals, supportive of homosexuality, often quiet on abortion and anti-capitalistic? And this says nothing of the priests I grew up with. In my mind, saying that Roman Catholicism promotes Christ-like living, the eye test fails. THE EAR TEST Romans 10:17 says that, "Faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ." It is here that your average Roman Catholic is completely ignorant. How many Catholics really, and mean really, read, study and live by God's word? Some do, but most don't! Check it out. Two events proved this out in my life: One summer my sister and I were attending a bible study at our church in Chicago. The priest had 16 college students over at the church for a study, some volleyball and hot dogs. He was a nice priest, a really good guy. During the study the issue of hell came up and the students started arguing. Some said hell cannot exist because God is love and he will not send anyone to hell, my sister and I said, "But Jesus talks about it all over the New Testament (It was mostly my sister because she read her bible)." So we were at a stale-mate. I turned to the priest and asked him what he thought about hell, Here is his answer verbatim, "Don't worry about it, it is not that big a deal - - it will all work itself out in the end." Tell me, how can hell not be a big deal? Then a couple months later I came home from college and my brother confronted me with this question: "Chris, if you were to die today where would you go?" My response was rather angry and snide, "Don, that is a stupid question, no one knows the answer to that." He looked at me with earnest conviction and said, "I do because 1 John 5:13 says, 'I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.' And John 1:12 says, 'To all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become the children of God - children born not of natural descent (not being born into Christianity), nor of human decision (no infant baptism) nor a person's will (no works to earn it), but born of God.' See Chris, I know and so can you!" It was then that I realized I did not know what the bible said...at all. Up until then I trusted the priest and the liturgy; it wasn't my own faith it was what people told me. I knew I had to search for myself. And I began to. For a good three years I started reading the bible, studied Catholic history & theology, and stopped accepting other people's words for things. I needed to know for myself. One of the first things that shocked me was that the Roman Catholics actually believe that we eat Jesus every Sunday. No, it is not a spiritual thing -- it is his actual flesh and blood. This shocked me, transubstantiation sounds good on paper and said in pious tones off the lips of a humble priest; but in real reality, there is no way a piece of bread becomes human flesh - - no way! I decided after all my study, I didn't know God at all...and not only that, Jesus treated hell as a real place and I knew I deserved it. One single sin sent me there according to Romans 3:23, and I knew I couldn't work my way out of all the sins I committed, especially when you read Isaiah 64:6 and Romans 6:23. I was in trouble before a Holy God and Revelation 3:16 was the nail in my coffin. My Grandma, being named after St. Christopher, being sprinkled as a baby, watching the 10 Commandments or going to church on Sunday and taking communion couldn't save me - - I was lost! I failed the ear test. THE HEART TEST There is a powerful verse in 2 Timothy 3:1-5 says there will be terrible times in the last days, and one of the signs is that there will be a "form of godliness without power." That was me, I followed forms, rituals, and did what I was asked to do, but I had no power. My heart was dark. I was driven by my lust. I was grabbing after the world, and Jesus was my butler to get it for me. The more I read the Bible, Jesus was scary, really scary. He was Lord, the God of Fire, jealous and deserving of my whole life. He only got my scraps. One day I was miserable, I won't tell you the whole story, but I knew I was done. I told God on highway 44 in Mentor, Ohio that I was making a mess out of my life and I needed him. I use to ask for forgiveness on Sunday and then sin Monday through Saturday, but no more. I was done playing games. So I gave him my life, and asked him to take it all. I knew he did...and I knew I was set free. Salvation was mine because the Spirit of God took over after I completely repented for the first time, I knew I no longer could play games, I was his and he was mine... You can look at it like this. . . Salvation is like a 10 Million Dollar Home. It is something amazing I can never earn on my own, but boy is it tremendous. However, the way Roman Catholicism and the Bible teaches about acquiring it are two completely different things.
Roman Catholicism is the first home. Jesus put the down payment on my salvation by dying and rising again, but now to keep it is up to me. I must make monthly payments by being good and going to communion. I must be a righteous and pious man, like monthly upkeep of a house, and if I fail at the upkeep I must pay fines: Confession, saying the Rosary, giving gifts to the poor, not eating meat during Fridays in Lent, going to church on Sunday, etc, etc, etc. I must do, do, do. It gets exhausting because you never know when enough is enough. And honestly, the house is a nice gesture but it really is up to me to keep it. In a sense, Jesus didn't really pay the whole way into a Catholics heaven, he only did a little, and signed me up for a very exhausting religious life. When I turned 18 I quit trying because I had enough, I figured that I didn't need to be the good Catholic boy I was raised to be because I couldn't be perfect. I failed, I fooled around, I sinned, I was done. Biblical Christianity is the second home. Jesus paid it all! And he gives me not just the house, but himself, the Holy Spirit, to live in it with me. I don't have to upkeep the house because I own it completely; but since it is mine I want to keep it up. Grace excites me now to live for him! If I choose not to the Holy Spirit will say, "Chris, you represent Christ, don't you want to glorify him?" Yes, I do, I don't have to, but let me tell you, since I have a new heart, I want to!!!!! When Jesus died on the cross, he said, "It is finished." For the Biblical Christian it truly is finished, once I believe I am done. For the Roman Catholic it is never finished. So in a sense, the Jesus of Roman Catholicism is not the Jesus of the Bible because he didn't fully save. Sadly, the Pope is just a man, and ignorant at that. (George Will calls him a false prophet in a recent article). And he and most of your priests don't really know which house to buy. If you don't believe me, read two verses, that is all I ask. Make your faith your own: - Ephesians 2:8-9 - Titus 3:4-5 You tell me, according to these two verses, do you pass the Eye, Ear and Heart test? You better make sure because hell is real, and so is Jesus!
2 Comments
Gina Braspenninx
9/25/2015 06:13:58 pm
Chris, what do you think was the original reason why when the catholic church was founded that the leaders who had read the new testament completely missed the entire point of salvation and somehow just went with it and founded an entire religion on the opposite message of being saved by grace to being saved by works. How could thousands of priests throughout the years have not realized what Jesus was saying about 100 times over and over again. Why did this happen in the first place and why is it still happening? I understand that the catholic (universal church) was mandated as the required religion of the time by Constantine... was he the one that also founded the ignorance of the church as well?
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Beth
9/29/2015 02:24:48 pm
Wow Chris. I can say that I can related to you on that part of growing up in Catholic faith. I, too, had a dark heart just like yours. I recalled me hated to hear when my Mom praised Jesus and I always rolled my eyes every time she said that. Wow now I got out of Catholic and now I'm a member at your church and I am proud to say that I am NOT ashamed of Jesus and I no longer rolled my eyes when I hear Jesus name! I feel sorry for my Dad because he doesn't know Jesus and his salvation at all. My mom is a believer and she reads Bible every morning. You can say that again that Jesus is scary as I have learned that from reading my Bible. Great job on your blogs. I enjoy reading your blogs.
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