“Actually, isn’t it the opposite? “
Addressing the non-Catholic issue, first.
Accepting Jesus as your LORD and Savior is not a matter of words. It must be accompanied by the true repentance of sin. The acceptance of Jesus is so hard because it’s an act that can only be done as a individual - a single entity of man interacting with the LORD God.
The walk of a Christian is a daily struggle against evil in the most basic manner and we must always remember that the only way we were forgiven was by the debt paid by Jesus. And we must *always* remember how fallen we are in all our ways and actions because we can become far more full of vanity than the non-believer in our ways.
This is why accepting Jesus as the LORD and Savior and in worldly terms, the Payor of our Eternal Debt is so hard to hundreds of millions of people: Because it’s nothing, absolutely nothing we have done or can do on our own to clear that Eternal Debt and it irks mankind beyond clear thinking.
That being the most important deed leads to the natural act of wanting to please the LORD God and yet walking around in our earthly body. We then strive for living for Christ in gratitude for His Mercy. Not that we *have* to; because we *want* to live for Christ. We unfortunately are still shackled to the earthy in our bodies and as such fall to temptation and must deal with the consequences of our actions.
For those who believe they have only to mouth the words, they have not heard the Truth of the Word.
For Catholics, it’s actions. Always actions. Go to confession. Go to Mass. Go to confession every week or even daily if you plan to take Sacrament daily.
The Church teaches priests must be the one to forgive sins. They teach various levels of sins. By confession and Absolution sins may be forgiven is the Catholic Church’s tenant.
What if no priest is available? Is a Catholic bound for hell because he or see had no one to forgive them? The Catholic Church speaks of the Spirit of the Church yet teaches man is the one to put forgiveness into action.
I’m not speaking against men being the priests, by the way. I have no issues at all with that stand. Men being the leaders of a church is a Biblical instruction and for a reason.
It’s about the Truth the Catholic Church does not teach that hurts my heart for so many Catholics. The Forgiveness of Sins is done by the Acceptance that only Jesus could and did pay that debt, once for all mankind. Only Jesus being God made man could pay that price.
Once the Church decreed Mary was free of sin (therefore perfect) and could bare Jesus they opened up the Group Think.
See, if Mary was free of sin, how? She was born of both man and woman and thus fully human. Was her mother then free of sin as well? If it continued backwards like that, then Jesus would not have been the only one who was/is perfect. If she was protected from sin, as the Catholic Church speaks of, then it implies the same thinking; that there is more than one perfect being.
Mind you, Mary was not elevated until much later in the development of the Catholic Church. There were women who sought to elevate women and weak men who went along with it for various reasons.
The Catholic Church has a full and rich history of both good and evil. For that matter, what denomination made of man doesn’t have such history? My issues are not with denominations in general.
The lack of Truth being told is my issue with the Catholic Church.
The lack of Truth being told is also my issue with the other denominations as well. For what’s a church’s reason to exist if they don’t adhere to the teachings of Truth as well as the telling of the Truth?
I am very sorry if this has rambled on and I make no sense.
You know, how the feeling/heart is....you have the want to say something and yet the inability to say it.
I was so, so, very lost before accepting Jesus as my LORD and Savior.
And still, I manage to sin every single day.
A side note: Want to know why many Catholic mothers who have lost children prior to them getting baptized by a go insane? Because they are told their child cannot go to Heaven because they were not baptized. Over my life as a Catholic I was always curious about that being told to the mothers. No priest was able to tell me why they would say that to a mother or push that baptism for a child. The baby/child is incapable at that point of even knowing what sin is and yet they would be in the eyes of the Catholic Church separated from Christ for all eternity.
And that, my friend, is the first step in scaring a mother into ‘Group Think.’
Because they are told their child cannot go to Heaven because they were not baptized.
That's not even what Catholicism teaches. So, you've kind of outed yourself. Either you never really were Catholic, or you were Catholic in name only,, and never really learned anything until anti-Christian bigots got ahold of you.
Jesus gave you a gift. If you choose to reject it, don't blame it on Him.