Pastor John,
I am up reading the Thought for the Morning, and it is a letter you wrote a sister named Jill, who got the holy Ghost and went into the Baptist sect. I love the love in it as you are trying to explain to her why it is wrong. You are saying the same things you said last night.
https://goingtojesus.com/gtj_thoughts.html?tname=tfm06-06
I thought about my own experience in Catholicism. I was trained to not move, not question, not seek, not feel.
I was trained to not feel!
And I didn’t dare question or step out of that box because I was terrified God would be angry and I would go to Hell. I was scared not to make the sign of the cross; I was scared not to take their communion; and very scared not to baptize my children and make them His. It was only when this world got too heavy for me to bear and I couldn’t even do those things, that Jesus came. In a sober state, I would have been terrified to even hear you say Catholicism was not of God. I would have thought it made God angry to even hear those words. So, when you quoted Hebrews 2:15 last night, it made my heart hurt for those bound so tightly by man’s religion. It is evil because it separates hearts from Jesus. It keeps you bound until Jesus cries, “Lazarus come out!” And I was not even a devour Catholic! I was just trained from infancy to follow these rules, or God will be angry. Imagine those hearts who really are trying to please God by doing all those things! It is perfect love, that God sees the heart, and perfect love that Jesus takes the binding off so we can raise our arms up to our Father. The love in your responses to Jill is that same love.
Heb. 2:15: “and set free those who through fear of death were subject to bondage their whole lives.”
Verses 16,17,18 are pretty wonderful too.
Beth D.
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