Eye To Eye

Recently, I had a friend misunderstand me. Most likely, I spoke in a confusing way. We both love our Lord, and I mentioned the Lord seems to have led me back to the Catholic religion for a time. She took that to mean I was returning to that denomination, only because she was unaware that I’m obligated to take my daughter to the Catholic church, under the threat of jail time.

Twice now I’ve been on a court docket defending the truths of Scripture, as I understand them, versus the doctrine of the Catholic faith. I was raised Catholic. I am very proud of my upbringing, and my God had to help me heal and forgive when he took me out of that denomination. I fought and studied and read and asked questions for several years to discover what was true of my early catechism and what was tradition.

This is not a post to denounce the Roman Catholic denomination. This blog is simply to share what I’ve learned. Man separated from each other. God did not separate us. God created something beautiful. He told his disciples to build a church on a rock (Matthew 16:17-20). He was not referring to a brick and mortar building on a cement foundation. Jesus used the word “ekklesia” (https://www.givehim15.com/post/april-13-2021), which means a governing body or assembly with authority (https://biblehub.com/greek/1577.htm). Jesus is the rock, the cornerstone (Genesis 49:24, Deuteronomy 32:3-4, 1 Corinthians 10:1-4). He was telling his disciples to build a church of believers, a church made of people carrying his authority throughout the earth. As with everything beautiful God creates, satan infiltrated it (2 Corinthians 11:12-15). Our enemy twisted the truth, as he has done since the Garden of Eden. It’s not hard for the deceiver to lead men astray, confuse them and help them wander off the pure, holy path God placed us on. We are a fallen people, what else would we expect?

So, I am not going to officially “become” Roman Catholic or Lutheran or Pentecostal or any other divided category of man. I am going to remain simply a follower of Jesus. He gave us his word through the Bible (2 Timothy 3:16). He gave us his Spirit of Truth, who leads us into all truth and righteousness (John 16:12-15). Our heavenly Father told us to ask for anything, especially understanding, wisdom, knowledge, and discernment (Matthew 7:7-11). He promised when we ask, he’d give to us freely. Our Lord also said in the last days he’d reveal even more knowledge to us (Joel 2:28-29, Matthew 11:25-26, 1 Corinthians 2:6-16). Still, we must be careful! The knowledge God wants us to seek is not from the conspiracy theories. Remember, when Peter took his eyes off of Jesus, he sank (Matthew 14:27-30).

I am not saying leave the church or denounce your denomination. Quite the opposite, I encourage everyone to stay closely connected to a body of believers. Predators always pick out the animals traveling alone. What I am saying is this, we must remember we are all brothers and sisters in Christ. Believer or not, he created us all and he loves his creation! We must stop thinking our denomination is better than another’s. We must love each other unconditionally, sacrificially, and humble ourselves enough to recognize we don’t know everything. We don’t see the “big picture”. Only our Lord sees the big picture. We all make mistakes. I’m an expert at that. However, let’s be quick to forgive and love each other through our differences. If we point out something we feel is in error and that loving rebuke is not well received, we need to let go and let God handle the situation. Father knows best, and he may be using that person in a way we don’t understand.

With over eight billion people in the world (https://www.census.gov/popclock/world), there are over sixteen billion eyes. We are not all going to see eye to eye, and that’s okay. Let’s respect each other anyway.

For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free—and have all been made to drink into one Spirit. For in fact the body is not one member but many. If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I am not of the body,” is it therefore not of the body? And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I am not of the body,” is it therefore not of the body? If the whole body were an eye, where would be the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where would be the smelling? But now God has set the members, each one of them, in the body just as He pleased. And if they were all one member, where would the body be? But now indeed there are many members, yet one body.

1 Corinthians 12:12-20 NKJV