Are Different From Catholics?

Have you wondered why the pope does not speak about Christ outside of the mass? I can tell you, because he is not about Christ, he is preaching social reform not repentance or the way to become saved. His reference to Christ is merely a ritual reserved for the mass, outside the mass, Christ's name is off limits.

As a former Catholic I can tell you that, whenever I spoke to my in laws about God in a social gathering they became irritated, embarrassed and even angry, calling me a Bible thumper. Their disdain for me slopped over into other relationships on the basis of their testimonies against me. 

These were people who never missed a Sunday or Saturday night mass, kept all the "holy days of obligation", bowed and prayed to Mary, lit candles for the dead, prayed on the grave stones at the cemetery for their dead relatives, but turned red in the face, either from embarrassment or anger, at the mention of the name of Christ outside the mass and it had to be coming from a priest. 

They demonstrated hatred toward anyone who claimed to read the Bible, even enraged when asked to explain why they did certain things in the church.

One of the reasons I left the church was the hostility I saw on the part of the people whenever asked to explain the reasons for rituals. I began to read the Bible, pray for understanding and all the things I saw were explained to me in the Word. The hostility demonstrated to me that there must be something they are hiding or worse, they are following ritual while having no idea why they do it. Pride caused them to rage to throw me off the scent. All it did was manage to make me more resolved to find out the reasons for things. 

I was never a person who could follow something just because everyone else was doing it, I had to know why I did it. If the reason for doing it was not good enough I would feel stupid for doing it.

The Catholic church had a saying they lived by in raising their families, "get a child for the church by six and you've got him for life." In most cases that is true, people are too weak to let go of their comfort, familiar and predictable status.

The Catholic church trains their people to live under guilt and shame for not following the crowd, the reason so many Catholics don't think for themselves, but follow what the rest of the culture wants them to do.

Why can the Catholic church change their stances and doctrines? I can tell you, because their standard is not the Bible. They follow their church traditions much more than they do the Bible, because they do not read it to find truth. Doctrines can change because in the Catholic mind the pope is the "Vicar of Christ", he makes the rules and changes them when it suits him.

When a group of people follow a system or a person, they will never be able to stand alone when things are not right, they will always go with the flow of prevailing winds.

It might be good to do a check of ourselves, to see if we are doing the same thing in the gatherings we attend. Do we just accept what the "Protestant Popes" (educated seminary graduates) tell us to believe, or do we understand that the Holy Spirit teaches and trains every believer, making even those seminary grads accountable to every other believer, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit?

John 16:13 ""But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come."

The passage in John is not speaking to an educated class of people above everyone else, it was written to all born again Spirit filled believer, every single one! Yes we have teachers who have been called to teach, but that doesn’t make them "pope like", it merely makes them much more accountable and under more scrutiny.

James 3:1 "Let not many of you become teachers, my brethren, knowing that as such we will incur a stricter judgment."

Acts 17:11 "Now these were more noble-minded than those in Thessalonica, for they received the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so."

Even the Bereans proved Paul's words, not accepting them because he said them, but testing all that he said against the Scriptures.