Jehovah’s Witness Convert

http://www.abouttherosary.com ^ | September 20, 2014 | Robbe Lyn Sebesta

[NKP_Vet]

Lou Everett was one of Jehovah’s Witnesses for more than 14 years. During that time, he served as a full-time minister as well as other major roles within the congregation. Lou’s journey to the Catholic Church was truly a rough road traveled.

From Jehovah’s Witnesses to Catholicism: My Journey

In 2005, I find myself inside a Catholic church for midnight mass. My future wife, born and raised in the Catholic Church, by my side; silently showing me something that I never thought I’d see or feel. At the age of 31, a realization set in that I never would have expected to occur – thus begins another part of my journey to the Church, my home.

Peering back into my childhood, I realize that my journey actually began as a child. My father was in the military so our family traveled around quite a bit. I was born in San Francisco, California while my father was stationed there in the Army in 1974. Both of my parents are ‘cradle’ Catholics and had very different experiences with the Catholic Church. Throughout the various moves from place to place, my parents were contacted by Jehovah’s Witnesses. Their message seemed to touch my parents enough to eventually become baptized in 1984 as Jehovah’s Witnesses.

[LurkingSince'98]

‘they didn’t care what others did anyway’..

close quote but not quite - what I said was ‘I never thought about and don’t care what a protestant thinks or does’...

however, I do love to hear stories about some one who was formerly not Catholic - become Catholic, or someone who fell away from their Catholic faith revert and come into the Church again.

what they were doing, what they thought or what they believed while protestant is of no consequence to me.

The important point is that they are home.

For the Greater Glory of God

[RedHeeler]

Inquisition, much?

[LurkingSince'98]

maybe you didn’t get the fact that JW are not Christian in that they deny the divinity of Christ and are therefore considered a cult....

maybe like the splinter group, sect or cult you may belong to.

do you attend a Church on the Lord’s Day or do you stay home and ‘Church yourself”??

AMDG

[LearsFool]

There is no place where a person can get closer to Jesus Christ than...

Like the saints in Rome, I have been baptized INTO Christ, INTO His death. I have PUT ON Christ. (Romans 6)

Instead of trying to get closer and closer to Christ, why not go straight to Him? Leave off the empty, man-made rituals which are but an empty show, and follow the Master instead. Be buried with Him in baptism, and raised to walk in newness of life. (Romans 6 again)

How can you get any closer than that? What is this idea of "getting closer to Christ", but a vain, empty promise? What it is NOT, is new:

Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ...So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ. Let no one cheat you of your reward, taking delight in false humility and worship of angels, intruding into those things which he has not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, and not holding fast to the Head, from whom all the body, nourished and knit together by joints and ligaments, grows with the increase that is from God. (Colossians 2)

[Iscool]

He realized he was forming a relationship with Jesus Christ, however, the casual reader may not be able to deduce that.

Your religion constantly denigrates the claim of a personal relationship with Jesus but lauds a relationship with the 'Church'...So I doubt he was finding a relationship with Jesus...

Oddly, what he did fail to mention was the constant teaching of a personal relationship with Mary, the Queen of Heaven...

[Iscool]

Where did you get this idea? “Jehovah’s Witnesses” are not considered to be Christian. They deny Christ as Deity.

But they worship the same God as Cathlics, muzlims and Mormons...

[LearsFool]

maybe you didn’t get the fact that JW are not Christian in that they deny the divinity of Christ and are therefore considered a cult....

That's a very imprecise usage of the word "cult".

do you attend a Church on the Lord’s Day or do you stay home and ‘Church yourself”??

Assembling on the Lord's Day (Sunday) is a practice established in the churches by the instructions Jesus' apostles gave as directed by Him through the Holy Spirit. We can read all about it in the Scriptures. It was bound in heaven, so they bound it on earth.

Were I to disregard that inspired instruction, and abandon that practice, I'd be as guilty as those who substitute their own traditions for those found in the Bible. So as a member of a church following the example Jesus' apostles set, I join in assembling on the first day of the week.

[Iscool]

There is no place where a person can get closer to Jesus Christ than at a Mass where you can receive the Holy Communion. Only the Catholic and Orthodox churches have the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist.

That is the lie your religion teaches you while also teaching you the lie that you can not understand the scriptures, only Catholic clergy can...

All Christians have the real presence of Jesus Christ inside of them...No wafer involved...

[Iscool]

do you attend a Church on the Lord’s Day or do you stay home and ‘Church yourself”??

Every day is the Lord's Day...

[Karl Spooner]

The poster knows exactly what to say in hopes others will believe the lie.

[imardmd1]

The woeding of your Post #58 was, to me, ambiguous. Here's that post:

Jehovah’s Witness, like Mormonism, is considered non-Christian by Catholics, not Protestant Christian.

Here's how I did read it as meaning:

"Jehovah’s Witness, like Mormonism, is considered non-Christian by Catholics, not (by) Protestant Christian(s)."

I now know that's not what you had in mind so of course, my response sounded weird to you.

But for anyone who thinks JWs are denominated as "Christian," no -- they are not classed with other non-Biblical "Christians" like "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints" (= LDS = Mormon) or "The Unification Church" (= Sun Myung Moon = Moonies).

I misunderstood your post.

[af_vet_1981]

Inquisition, much?

If you're members of a cult I have probably already have heard of it and dont need to hear the name again. If you hate the Catholic Church and think you have an alternative church that is holy, catholic, apostolic, historic, and visible, I'm listening.

[Karl Spooner]

maybe you didn’t get the fact that JW are not Christian in that they deny the divinity of Christ and are therefore considered a cult....

The only organized cult that I see is the Catholic cult. It doesn't even try to stand by the word of God.

[RedHeeler]

Of course. Thank you, for the response.

[Graybeard58]

All Christians have the real presence of Jesus Christ inside of them...No wafer involved...

No truer words spoken on this thread, so far, my brother (or sister as the case may be).

[Graybeard58]

I misunderstood your post

So did I. Having read it a couple of times, I did understand what you were saying because I am familiar with and usually agree with your replies.

[Salvation]

You have been to a Catholic Mass, I hope?

The first part of the Mass is a reading from the Old Testament on Sundays, from other biblical authors, often St. Paul on weekdays.

The a Psalm

Then a Gospel

Then the homily where one of the readings, usually the Gospel, is explained in detail.

That is just the first half of the Mass....totally centered on the Word of God.

I don’t understand your objection.

[imardmd1]

Where did you get this idea? “Jehovah’s Witnesses” are not considered to be Christian. They deny Christ as Deity. (imardmd1)

But they worship the same God as Cathlics, muzlims and Mormons... (Iscool)

I believe we are on the same side, but your assumption needs a little correction.

(a) Catholics believe in a Triune Godhead, as do Biblical redeemed followers of Christ. But it is my opinion that their Christ is another Jesus, of the same kind as the Jesus of the Bible, but a Jesus who does not ask us to believe (alone) in Him (alone) on the basis of His Holy Scripture (alone), for Him to reconcile a human to the Father by His Incorruptible Blood (alone), apart from any works by the vile human He is redeeming. They believe that only the addition of last rites, and a surplus of good works, and a sufficient period of punishment in Purgatory for venal mishaps, will permit one to enter into God's Heaven. They also believe in and have practiced grossly carnal means to extend their idea of the dominance of their religion, by physical death, if necessary. In my opinion, they represent a false christ and a false "Christian" doctrine.

(b) The JWs believe in the God of the Bible, but do not accept that Christ Jesus is both Deity and Humanity indivisibly combined in one Being, Who as the executive of the Godhead, is the Jehovah of the Old Testament. Their Jesus, whom they admit as a human begotten (somehow) of God, but only human, is another Jesus of a different kind, thus a false christ. They have a completely different eschatology in which only 144,000 will enter heaven, graded by their works, especially of recruiting converts.

(c) Mormons do not believe in a Triune Godhead, AFIK. They believe that Jesus and Satan are brothers, and that the Father God has a body, whereas true believers, Catholics, and JWs believe He is Spirit, that only The Jesus is begotten of God in the flesh. The Mormon Jesus is another Jesus of a different kind, so that one is a false christ. Entrance into their scheme of the future demands good works and holiness as they define it (plural wives has been OK with them), and recreational use of coffee, tobacco, and ethanol definitely a no-no. Mormons are both anti-God and anti-Christ.

(d) The God of Islam, Allah, has no Son. Therefore, Allah is not and cannot be the God of The Bible. A Jesus they recognize is only a human, supposedly a good teacher and a prophet, but superseded by Mohammed in authority. They believe there is a messiah yet to come. They believe that only an acceptable surplus of good works can provide one's entrance to a paradise after physical death. Therefore, their god, their messiah, and the spirit behind their religion are all false.

(e) The Jews of today verus the Jews/Hebrews of the Bible believe in the same God and Father, but this otherwise too long a matter for this brief response.

In summary, I feel that the converted man discussed in this article has at least admitted to an important theological necessity for salvation, which is that the Jesus of the Bible is Deity personified, as well as being a perfect human in form, but I am far from convinced that the being the Romanists proffer is the same Father God's Begotten Jesus of His Bible account.

It is the Jesus of the Bible, who bore all my sins in His Body on the Cross, ans suffered the fire of Hell in my place, to Whom I bow in reverence and allegiance as my Savior, Redeemer, and Owner.

Respectfully --

[imardmd1]

If you hate the Catholic Church and think you have an alternative church that is holy, catholic, apostolic, historic, and visible, I'm listening.

You can listen for a long, long, time, because there is no such local visible church, let alone a whole unscriptural denomination having supralocal governance.

Apparently, you do not understand the differences between the Kingdom of Heaven (which is temporal and impure, containing both tares and good wheat) , and the Kingdom of Heaven/Christ (which is not of this world, and consists only of faithful regenerated believer-priests).

There is a Holy Church (Heb. 12:22-24), and there are visible churches (cf. 1 Cor. 3:1-3, 5:1-5 and other); and there is no word or concept of "catholic" regarding an association of local churches in the Bible. So there is no holy, visible, catholic Church in the Bible, or commended by it.

[narses]

+

Freep-mail me to get on or off my pro-life and Catholic List:

Add me / Remove me

Please ping me to note-worthy Pro-Life or Catholic threads, or other threads of general interest.