The Early Years
Born Irish, in a family of
eight, my early childhood was fulfilled and happy. My father was a
colonel in the Irish Army until he retired when I was about nine. As a
family, we loved to play, sing, and
act, all within a military camp in Dublin.
We were a typical Irish Roman
Catholic family. My father sometimes knelt down to pray at his
bedside in a solemn manner. Most evenings we would kneel in the living room
to say the Rosary
together. No one ever missed Mass on Sundays unless he was seriously ill. By
the time I was about
five or six years of age, Jesus Christ was a very real person to me, but so
also were Mary and the
saints. I can identify easily with others in traditional Catholic nations in
Europe and with Hispanics and
Filipinos who put Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and other saints all in one boiling
pot of faith.
The catechism was drilled into
me at the Jesuit School of Belvedere, where I had all my elementary
and secondary education. Like every boy who studies under the Jesuits, I
could recite before the age of
ten five reasons why God existed and why the Pope was head of the only true
Church. Getting souls
out of Purgatory was a serious matter. The often quoted words, "It is a holy
and a wholesome thought
to pray for the dead that they may be loosed from sins," were memorized even
though we did not know
what these words meant. We were told that the Pope as head of the Church was
the most important
man on earth. What he said was law, and the Jesuits were his right-hand men.
Even though the Mass was in
Latin, I tried to attend daily because I was intrigued by the deep sense of
mystery which
surrounded it. We were told it was the most important way to please God.
Praying to saints was
encouraged, and we had patron saints for most aspects of life. I did not
make a practise of that, with
one exception: St. Anthony, the patron of lost objects, since I seemed to
lose so many things.
When I was fourteen years old, I sensed a call to be a missionary. This
call, however, did not
affect the way in which I conducted my life at that time. Age sixteen to
eighteen were the most fulfilled
and enjoyable years a youth could have. During this time, I did quite well
both academically and
athletically.
I often had to drive my mother
to the hospital for treatments. While waiting for her, I found quoted
in a book these verses from Mark 10:29-30, "And Jesus answered and said,
Verily I say unto you,
There is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or
mother, or wife, or
children, or lands, for my sake, and the gospel's, But he shall receive an
hundredfold now in this
time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and
lands, with persecutions;
and in the world to come eternal life." Not having any idea of the true
salvation message, I decided
that I truly did have a call to be a missionary.
Trying To Earn Salvation
I left my family and friends in
1956 to join the Dominican Order. I spent eight years studying what
it is to be a monk, the traditions of the Church, philosophy, the theology
of Thomas Aquinas, and some
of the Bible from a Catholic standpoint. Whatever personal faith I had was
institutionalized and ritualized
in the Dominican religious system. Obedience to the law, both Church and
Dominican, was put before
me as the means of sanctification. I often spoke to Ambrose Duffy, our
Master of Students, about the
law being the means of becoming holy. In addition to becoming “holy,” I
wanted also to be sure of
eternal salvation. I memorized part of the teaching of Pope Pius XII in
which he said, “...the salvation of
many depends on the prayers and sacrifices of the mystical body of Christ
offered for this intention.”
This idea of gaining salvation through suffering and prayer is also the
basic message of Fatima and
Lourdes, and I sought to win my own salvation as well as the salvation of
others by such suffering and
prayer. In the Dominican monastery in Tallaght, Dublin, I performed many
difficult feats to win souls,
such as taking cold showers in the middle of winter and beating my back with
a small steel chain. The
Master of Students knew what I was doing, his own austere life being part of
the inspiration that I had
received from the Pope's words. With rigor and determination, I studied,
prayed, did penance, tried to
keep the Ten Commandments and the multitude of Dominican rules and
traditions.
Outward Pomp -- Inner Emptiness
Then in 1963 at the age of twenty-five I was ordained a Roman Catholic
priest and went on to
finish my course of studies of Thomas Aquinas at The Angelicum University in
Rome. But there I had
difficulty with both the outward pomp and the inner emptiness. Over the
years I had formed, from
pictures and books, pictures in my mind of the Holy See and the Holy City.
Could this be the same
city? At the Angelicum University I was also shocked that hundreds of others
who poured into our
morning classes seemed quite disinterested in theology. I noticed Time and
Newsweek magazines being
read during classes. Those who were interested in what was being taught
seemed only to be looking for
either degrees or positions within the Catholic Church in their homelands.
One day I went for a walk in the Colosseum so that my feet might tread the
ground where the
blood of so many Christians had been poured out. I walked to the arena in
the Forum. I tried to
picture in my mind those men and women who knew Christ so well that they
were joyfully willing to be
burned at the stake or devoured alive by beasts because of His overpowering
love. The joy of this
experience was marred, however, for as I went back in the bus I was insulted
by jeering youths shouting
words meaning “scum or garbage.” I sensed their motivation for such insults
was not because I stood
for Christ as the early Christians did but because they saw in me the Roman
Catholic system. Quickly, I
put this contrast out of my mind, yet what I had been taught about the
present glories of Rome now
seemed very irrelevant and empty.
One night soon after that, I prayed for two hours in front of the main altar
in the church of San
Clemente. Remembering my earlier youthful call to be a missionary and the
hundredfold promise of
Mark 10:29-30, I decided not to take the theological degree that had been my
ambition since beginning
study of the theology of Thomas Aquinas. This was a major decision, but
after long prayer I was sure I
had decided correctly.
The priest who was to direct my thesis did not want to accept my decision.
In order to make the
degree easier, he offered me a thesis written several years earlier. He said
I could use it as my own if
only I would do the oral defense. This turned my stomach. It was similar to
what I had seen a few
weeks earlier in a city park: elegant prostitutes parading themselves in
their black leather boots. What
he was offering was equally sinful. I held to my decision, finishing at the
University at the ordinary
academic level, without the degree.
On returning from Rome, I received official word that I had been assigned to
do a three year
course at Cork University. I prayed earnestly about my missionary call. To
my surprise, I received
orders in late August 1964 to go to Trinidad, West Indies, as a missionary.
Pride, Fall, And A New Hunger
On October 1, 1964, I arrived in Trinidad, and for seven years I was a
successful priest, in Roman
Catholic terms, doing all my duties and getting many people to come to Mass.
By 1972 I had become
quite involved in the Catholic Charismatic Movement. Then, at a prayer
meeting on March 16th of that
year, I thanked the Lord that I was such a good priest and requested that if
it were His will, He humble
me that I might be even better. Later that same evening I had a freak
accident, splitting the back of my
head and hurting my spine in many places. Without thus coming close to
death, I doubt that I would
ever have gotten out of my self-satisfied state. Rote, set prayer showed its
emptiness as I cried out to
God in my pain.
In the suffering that I went through in the weeks after the accident, I
began to find some comfort in
direct personal prayer. I stopped saying the Breviary (the Roman Catholic
Church's official prayer for
clergy) and the Rosary and began to pray using parts of the Bible itself.
This was a very slow process. I
did not know my way through the Bible and the little I had learned over the
years had taught me more to
distrust it rather than to trust it. My training in philosophy and in the
theology of Thomas Aquinas left me
helpless, so that coming into the Bible now to find the Lord was like going
into a huge dark woods
without a map.
When assigned to a new parish later that year, I found that I was to work
side-by-side with a
Dominican priest who had been a brother to me over the years. For more than
two years we were to
work together, fully seeking God as best we knew in the parish of
Pointe-a-Pierre. We read, studied,
prayed, and put into practise what we had been taught in Church teaching. We
built up communities in
Gasparillo, Claxton Bay, and Marabella, just to mention the main villages.
In a Catholic religious sense
we were very successful. Many people attended Mass. The Catechism was taught
in many schools,
including government schools. I continued my personal search into the Bible,
but it did not much affect
the work we were doing; rather it showed me how little I really knew about
the Lord and His Word. It
was at this time that Philippians 3:10 became the cry of my heart, “That I
may know him, and the
power of his resurrection....”
About this time the Catholic Charismatic movement was growing, and we
introduced it into
most of our villages. Because of this movement, some Canadian Christians
came to Trinidad to share
with us. While much of what I learnt centered on pretended signs and
wonders, which I have later
renounced, the use of the Scriptures was truly a blessing to me. The love
the Canadian Christians had
for the Bible got me deeply into it as an authority source. I began to
compare scripture with scripture
and even to quote chapter and verse!
One of the texts the Canadians used was Isaiah 53:5, “...and with his
stripes we are healed.”
Yet in studying Isaiah 53, I discovered that the Bible deals with the
problem of sin by means of
substitution. Christ died in my place. It was wrong for me to try to
expidite or try to cooperate in
paying the price of my sin. “If by grace, it is no more of works, otherwise
grace is no more
grace..” Romans 11:6. “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned
every one to his
own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah
53:6).
One particular sin of mine was getting annoyed with people, sometimes even
angry. Although I
asked forgiveness for my sins, I still did not realize that I was a sinner
by the nature which we all inherit
from Adam. The scriptural truth is, “As it is written, There is none
righteous, no, not one” (Romans
3:10), and “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans
3:23). The
Catholic Church, however, had taught me that the depravity of man, which is
called “original sin,” had
been washed away by my infant baptism. I still held this belief in my head,
but in my heart I knew that
my depraved nature had not yet been conquered by Christ. “That I may know
him, and the power
of his resurrection...” (Philippians 3:10) continued to be the cry of my
heart. I knew that it could be
only through His power that I could live the Christian life. I posted this
text on the dashboard of my car
and in other places. It became the plea that motivated me, and the Lord who
is Faithful began to
answer.
The Ultimate Question
First, I discovered that God's Word in the Bible is absolute and without
error. I had been taught
that the Word is relative and that its truthfulness in many areas was to be
questioned. Now I began to
understand that the Bible could, in fact, be trusted. With the aid of
Strong's Concordance, I began to
study the Bible to see what it says about itself. I discovered that the
Bible teaches clearly that it is from
God and is absolute in what it says. It is true in its history, in the
promises God has made, in its
prophecies, in the moral commands it gives, and in how to live the Christian
life. “All scripture is
given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof,
for correction, for
instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly
furnished unto all
good works” (II Timothy 3:16-17).
This discovery was made while visiting in Vancouver, B.C., and in Seattle.
When I was asked to
talk to the prayer group in St. Stephen's Catholic Church, I took as my
subject the absolute authority of
God's Word. It was the first time that I had understood such a truth or
talked about it. I returned to
Vancouver, B.C. and in a large parish Church, before about 400 people, I
preached the same message.
Bible in hand, I proclaimed that “the absolute and final authority in all
matters of faith and morals is the
Bible, God's own Word.”
Three days later, the archbishop of Vancouver, B.C., James Carney, called me
to his office. I was
then officially silenced and forbidden to preach in his archdiocese. I was
told that my punishment would
have been more severe, were it not for the letter of recommendation I had
received from my own
archbishop, Anthony Pantin. Soon afterwards I returned to Trinidad.
Church-Bible Dilemma
While I was still parish priest of Point-a-Pierre, Ambrose Duffy, the man
who had so strictly taught
me while he was Student Master, was asked to assist me. The tide had turned.
After some initial
difficulties, we became close friends. I shared with him what I was
discovering. He listened and
commented with great interest and wanted to find out what was motivating me.
I saw in him a channel
to my Dominican brothers and even to those in the Archbishop's house. When
he died suddenly of a
heart attack, I was stricken with grief. In my mind, I had seen Ambrose as
the one who could make
sense out of the Church-Bible dilemma with which I so struggled. I had hoped
that he would have been
able to explain to me and then to my Dominican brothers the truths with
which I wrestled. I preached at
his funeral and my despair was very deep.
I continued to pray Philippians 3:10, “That I may know him, and the power of
his
resurrection....” But to learn more about Him, I had first to learn about
myself as a sinner. I saw from
the Bible (I Timothy 2:5) that the role I was playing as a priestly mediator
-- exactly what the Catholic
Church teaches but exactly opposite to what the Bible teaches -- was wrong.
I really enjoyed being
looked up to by the people and, in a certain sense, being idolized by them.
I rationalized my sin by
saying that after all, if this is what the biggest Church in the world
teaches, who am I to question it? Still,
I struggled with the conflict within. I began to see the worship of Mary,
the saints, and the priests for
the sin that it is. But while I was willing to renounce Mary and the saints
as mediators, I could not
renounce the priesthood, for in that I had invested my whole life.
Tug-Of-War Years
Mary, the saints, and the priesthood were just a small part of the huge
struggle with which I was
working. Who was Lord of my life, Jesus Christ in His Word or the Roman
Church? This ultimate
question raged inside me especially during my last six years as parish
priest of Sangre Grande (1979-
1985). That the Catholic Church was supreme in all matters of faith and
morals had been dyed into my
brain since I was a child. It looked impossible ever to change. Rome was not
only supreme but always
called “Holy Mother.” How could I ever go against “Holy Mother,” all the
more so since I had an
official part in dispensing her sacraments and keeping people faithful to
her?
In 1981, I actually rededicated myself to serving the Roman Catholic Church
while attending a
parish renewal seminar in New Orleans. Yet when I returned to Trinidad and
again became involved in
real life problems, I began to return to the authority of God's Word.
Finally the tension became like a
tug-of-war inside me. Sometimes I looked to the Roman Church as being
absolute, sometimes to the
authority of the Bible as being final. My stomach suffered much during those
years; my emotions were
being torn. I ought to have known the simple truth that one cannot serve two
masters. My working
position was to place the absolute authority of the Word of God under the
supreme authority of the
Roman Church.
This contradiction was symbolized in what I did with the four statues in the
Sangre Grande Church.
I removed and broke the statues of St. Francis and St. Martin because the
second commandment of
God's Law declares in Exodus 20:4, “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven
image....” But
when some of the people objected to my removal of the statues of the Sacred
Heart and of Mary, I left
them standing because the higher authority, i.e., the Roman Catholic Church,
said in its law Canon
1188: “The practise of displaying sacred images in the churches for the
veneration of the faithful is to
remain in force.” I did not see that what I was trying to do was to make
God's Word subject to man's
word.
My Own Fault
While I had learned earlier that God's Word is absolute, I still went
through this agony of trying to
maintain the Roman Catholic Church as holding more authority than God's
Word, even in issues where
the Church of Rome was saying the exact opposite to what was in the Bible.
How could this be? First
of all, it was my own fault. If I had accepted the authority of the Bible as
supreme, I would have been
convicted by God's Word to give up my priestly role as mediator, but that
was too precious to me.
Second, no one ever questioned what I did as a priest. Christians from
overseas came to Mass, saw
our sacred oils, holy water, medals, statues, vestments, rituals, and never
said a word! The marvelous
style, symbolism, music, and artistic taste of the Roman Church was all very
captivating. Incense not
only smells pungent, but to the mind it spells mystery.
The Turning Point
One day, a woman challenged me (the only Christian ever to challenge me in
all my 22 years as a
priest), “You Roman Catholics have a form of godliness, but you deny its
power.” Those words
bothered me for some time because the lights, banners, folk music, guitars,
and drums were dear to me.
Probably no priest on the whole island of Trinidad had as colorful robes,
banners, and vestments as I
had. Clearly I did not apply what was before my eyes.
In October 1985, God's grace was greater than the lie that I was trying to
live. I went to Barbados
to pray over the compromise that I was forcing myself to live. I felt truly
trapped. The Word of God is
absolute indeed. I ought to obey it alone; yet to the very same God I had
vowed obedience to the
supreme authority of the Catholic Church. In Barbados I read a book in which
was explained the
Biblical meaning of Church as “the fellowship of believers.” In the New
Testament there is no hint of a
hierarchy; “Clergy” lording it over the “laity” is unknown. Rather, it is as
the Lord Himself declared
“...one is your Master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren” (Matthew
23:8). Now to see and to
understand the meaning of church as “fellowship” left me free to let go of
the Roman Catholic Church as
supreme authority and depend on Jesus Christ as Lord. It began to dawn on me
that in Biblical terms,
the Bishops I knew in the Catholic Church were not Biblical believers. They
were for the most part
pious men taken up with devotion to Mary and the Rosary and loyal to Rome,
but not one had any idea
of the finished work of salvation, that Christ's work is done, that
salvation is personal and complete.
They all preached penance for sin, human suffering, religious deeds, “the
way of man” rather than the
Gospel of grace. But by God's grace I saw that it was not through the Roman
Church nor by any kind
of works that one is saved, “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and
that not of yourselves:
it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast” (Ephesians
2:8-9).
New Birth at Age 48
I left the Roman Catholic Church when I saw that life in Jesus Christ was
not possible while
remaining true to Roman Catholic doctrine. In leaving Trinidad in November
1985, I only reached
neighboring Barbados. Staying with an elderly couple, I prayed to the Lord
for a suit and necessary
money to reach Canada, for I had only tropical clothing and a few hundred
dollars to my name. Both
prayers were answered without making my needs known to anyone except the
Lord.
From a tropical temperature of 90 degrees, I landed in snow and ice in
Canada. After one month
in Vancouver, I came to the United States of America. I now trusted that He
would take care of my
many needs, since I was beginning life anew at 48 years of age, practically
penniless, without an alien
resident card, without a driver's license, without a recommendation of any
kind, having only the Lord
and His Word.
I spent six months with a Christian couple on a farm in Washington State. I
explained to my hosts
that I had left the Roman Catholic Church and that I had accepted Jesus
Christ and His Word in the
Bible as all-sufficient. I had done this, I said, “absolutely, finally,
definitively, and resolutely.” Yet far
from being impressed by these four adverbs, they wanted to know if there was
any bitterness or hurt
inside me. In prayer and in great compassion, they ministered to me, for
they themselves had made the
transition and knew how easily one can become embittered. Four days after I
arrived in their home, by
God's grace I began to see in repentance the fruit of salvation. This meant
being able not only to ask the
Lord's pardon for my many years of compromising but also to accept His
healing where I had been so
deeply hurt. Finally, at age 48, on the authority of God's Word alone, by
grace alone, I accepted
Christ's substitutionary death on the Cross alone. To Him alone be the
glory.
Having been refurbished both physically and spiritually by this Christian
couple together with their
family, I was provided a wife by the Lord, Lynn, born-again in faith, lovely
in manner, intelligent in mind.
Together we set out for Atlanta, Georgia, where we both got jobs.
A Real Missionary With A Real Message
In September 1988, we left Atlanta to go as missionaries to Asia. It was a
year of deep fruitfulness
in the Lord that once I would never have thought was possible. Men and women
came to know the
authority of the Bible and the power of Christ's death and resurrection. I
was amazed at how easy it is
for the Lord's grace to be effective when only the Bible is used to present
Jesus Christ. This contrasted
with the cobwebs of church tradition that had so clouded my 21 years in
missionary garments in
Trinidad, 21 years without the real message.
To explain the abundant life of which Jesus spoke and which I now enjoy, no
better words could
be used than those of Romans 8:1-2: “There is therefore now no condemnation
to them which are
in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the
law of the Spirit of life
in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.” It is not
just that I have been
freed from the Roman Catholic system, but that I have become a new creature
in Christ. It is by the
grace of God, and nothing but His grace, that I have gone from dead works
into new life.
Testimony to the Gospel of Grace
Back in 1972, when some Christians had taught me about the Lord healing our
bodies, how much
more helpful it would have been had they explained to me on what authority
our sinful nature is made
right with God. The Bible clearly shows that Jesus substituted for us on the
cross. I cannot express it
better than Isaiah 53:5: “But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was
bruised for our
iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes
we are healed.”
(This means that Christ took on himself what I ought to suffer for my sins.
Before the Father, I trust in
Jesus as my substitute.)
That was written 750 years before the crucifixion of our Lord. A short time
after the sacrifice of
the cross, the Bible states in I Peter 2:24: “Who his own self bare our sins
in his own body on the
tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose
stripes ye were
healed.” Because we inherited our sin nature from Adam, we have all sinned
and fallen short of the
glory of God. How can we stand before a Holy God, except in Christ, and
acknowledge that He died
where we ought to have died? Only through faith we can see, understand and
grasp Christ as our
substitute. It was Christ who paid the price for our sins: sinless, yet He
was crucified. This is the true
Gospel message. Is faith enough? Yes, born-again faith is enough. That true
faith, engendered by God,
will inevitably show good fruit, “For we are his workmanship, created in
Christ Jesus unto good
works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them”
(Ephesians 2:10). In
repenting, we put aside, through God’s strength, our former way of life and
our former sins. It does not
mean that we cannot sin again, but it does mean that our position before God
has changed. We are
called children of God, for so indeed we are. If we do sin, it is a
relationship problem with the Father
which can be resolved, not a problem of losing our position as a child of
God in Christ, for this position
is irrevocable. In Hebrews 10:10, the Bible says it so wonderfully: “...we
are sanctified through the
offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” The finished work of
Christ Jesus on the Cross is
sufficient and complete. As you trust solely in this finished work, a new
life which is born of the Spirit
will be yours -- you will be born again.
The Present Day
My present task: the good work that the Lord has prepared for me to do is as
an evangelist
situated near Austin in the central Texas U.S.A. What Paul said about his
fellow Jews I say about my
dearly loved Catholic brothers: my heart's desire and prayer to God for
Catholics is that they may be
saved. I can testify about them that they are zealous for God, but their
zeal is not based in God's Word
but in their church tradition. If you understand the devotion and agony that
some of the men and women
in the Philippines and South America have put into their religion, you may
understand my heart’s cry:
“Lord, give us a compassion to understand the pain and torment of the search
that devout Catholics
have made to please You. In understanding pain inside the their hearts, we
will have the desire to show
them the Good News of Christ’s finished work on the Cross.”
My testimony shows how difficult it was for me as a Catholic to give up
Church tradition, but
when the Lord demands it in His Word, we must do it. The “form of godliness”
that the Roman
Catholic Church has makes it most difficult for a Catholic to see where the
real problem lies. Everyone
must determine by what authority we know truth. For Papal Rome the ultimate
authority lies in the
decisions and decrees of the reigning Pope. In her own words, “The Supreme
Pontiff, in virtue of his
office, possesses infallible teaching authority when, as supreme pastor and
teacher of all the faithful...he
proclaims with a definitive act that a doctrine of faith or morals is to be
held as such.” (Code of Canon
Law, Canon 749). Yet according to the Bible, it is God's Word itself which
is the authority by which
truth is known. It was man-made traditions which caused the Reformers to
demand “the Bible only,
faith only, grace only, in Christ only, and to God only be the glory.”
The Reason Why I Share
I share these truths with you now so that you can know God's way of
salvation. Our basic
problem as Catholics was that personal worth and dignity was ingrained into
us. We believed that could
respond to the help God gives us to be right in His sight. This
presupposition that many of us have
carried for years is aptly defined in the Catechism of the Catholic Church
(1994) #2021, “Grace is the
help God gives us to respond to our vocation of becoming his adopted
sons....” With that mindset, we
were unknowingly holding to a teaching that the Bible continually condemns.
Such a definition of grace
is man's careful fabrication, for the Bible consistently declares that the
believer's right standing with God
is “without works” (Romans 4:6), “without the deeds of the Law” (Romans
3:28), “not of works”
(Ephesians 2:9), “It is the gift of God,” (Ephesians 2:8). To attempt to
make the believer's response
part of his salvation and to look upon grace as “a help” is to flatly deny
Biblical truth, “...if by grace,
then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace...” (Romans
11:6).
The simple Biblical message is that “the gift of righteousness” in Christ
Jesus is a gift, resting on His
all-sufficient sacrifice on the cross, “For if by one man’s offence death
reigned by one; much more
they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall
reign in life by one,
Jesus Christ” (Romans 5:17).
So it is as Christ Jesus Himself said, He died in place of the believer, the
One for many (Mark
10:45), His life a ransom for many. As He declared, ...this is my blood of
the new testament, which
is shed for many for the remission of sins” (Matthew 26:28). This is also
what Peter proclaimed,
“For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that
He might bring us to
God...” (I Peter 3:18). Paul’s preaching is summarized at the end of II
Corinthians 5:21, “For he hath
made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the
righteousness of God in
him..” (II Corinthians 5:21).
This fact, dear reader, is presented clearly to you in the Bible. Acceptance
of it is now
commanded by God, “...Repent ye, and believe the gospel” (Mark 1:15).
The most difficult repentance for us dyed-in-the-wool Catholics is changing
our mind from
thoughts of “meriting,” “earning,” “being good enough,” simply to accepting
with empty hands the gift of
righteousness in Christ Jesus. To refuse to accept what God commands is the
same sin as that of the
religious Jews of Paul's time, “For they being ignorant of God’s
righteousness, and going about to
establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the
righteousness of
God.” (Romans 10:3) Repent and believe the Good News!
Richard Bennett
If there is something on your heart that you wish to share, please email me
at: info@bereanbeacon.org, thank you
I give permission to copy this testimony if it is done in its entirety
without any changes.
WebPage address:
www.bereanbeacon.org
See also
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