Christians who are so hell-bent (oh appreciate that irony) on distancing themselves away from the term "religion" which in actual fact is just another term for "denomination" because they are so terribly afraid of being accused of being from an orthodox or Catholic-Christian faith -- or that with the word "religion" comes a stigma of being fundamentally indulgent of works over faith.

At this point in my faith, I struggle with protestant beliefs because some refuse to recognize the fact that the Catholic Church was in fact the first Church ... and reformed when things didn't really go their way in the 1500s. I have been questioned so many times as to "Why Catholics get 'extra' books in the bible." ... and it makes me angry because we didn't just "get" them, but rather, their good mate Martin Luther decided to REMOVE the original 6 books from the bible during the reformation.... and also he wanted to take away The Book Of James because it went against everything that he taught.... that you can't get "saved" by Faith alone.... In James 2:14 and onwards, he wrote;

So you see, faith by itself isn’t enough. Unless it produces good deeds, it is dead and useless.

And then goes on to say; "Now someone may argue, “Some people have faith; others have good deeds.” But I say, “How can you show me your faith if you don’t have good deeds? I will show you my faith by my good deeds. You say you have faith, for you believe that there is one God. How foolish! Can’t you see that faith without good deeds is useless? Good for you! Even the demons believe this, and they tremble in terror."

I don't know if it can be said any clearer. And so, before protestant revolt, did that mean that no one was actually ever saved because perhaps no one said, "I accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and personal savior!"? It's stupid...

The bible clearly makes reference to religion. Of course don't partake in religious activities, or decide to be a part of a religion if you don't follow it with your heart or practice for the right reasons -- that's just outright foolish, but the bible actually addresses religion and tells us to practice our religion and bring our children up to do the same.

Give proper recognition to those widows who are really in need. But if a widow has children or grandchildren, these should learn first of all to put their religion into practice by caring for their own family and so repaying their parents and grandparents, for this is pleasing to God. (1 Tim 5:3-5)

If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless. Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. (James 1:26-27)

Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. (Colossians 2:16)

My problem is that even really hardcore protestants who pride themselves on being SO bible-based, cherry pick from the bible. They interpret it how they want and when someone tries to correct them based on Church History or the teachings from the Catechism, they retort that nothing else should have authority over the bible.... but won't accept that the bible does not precede the church! ... Essentially, the church was formed by Christ himself when he gave Peter the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven and said whatever is bound by Peter (the first Pope) on Earth will be bound in Heaven and the gates of hell shall NEVER prevail. Therefore, St. Peter, our first Pope was appointed and elected to make the Earthly decisions and whatever he wanted to pass on to the other Apostles, was okay ... because Christ had given him that authority.

"Now I say to you that you are Peter (which means ‘rock’), and upon this rock I will build my church, and all the powers of hell will not conquer it. And I will give you the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven. Whatever you forbid on earth will be forbidden in heaven, and whatever you permit on earth will be permitted in heaven.”  (Matt 16:18)

I've had other people argue that Jesus was speaking about himself as the rock, but He is very clearly speaking to Peter, since he then continues the next sentence with, And I will give you the keys of the Kingdom Of Heaven.... Seriously, I don't know how anyone could misinterpret this scripture.

I guess other religions  er... denominations have problems with the idea of having a Pope... The Pope is a Vicar of Christ -- he doesn't claim to be God, or claim to be Jesus ... but He is there to guide the church and was chosen through divine power to be a shepherd to the church -- his herd -- by doing this, God sets a standard through tradition of the Early Church -- through doctrine, church teachings and more -- to prevent everyone from taking whatever they want and interpreting it as they want... so that it suits their beliefs or whatever that denomination has decided to teach.

Do people understand that the Catholic Church actually are responsible for the formation of the bible? True story. And then people came along who didn't agree and chopped and changed it until it suited them... but interestingly enough, Martin Luther managed to look over the very last paragraph of the bible....

And if anyone removes any of the words from this book of prophecy, God will remove that person's share in the tree of life and in the Holy City that are described in this book. (Rev 22:19)

I have also been bugged about church Sacraments as well, why on Earth would we confess to a priest rather than just confessing to God...

Then, he breathed on them and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone's sins, they are forgiven. If you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven" (John 20:23)

Simple, to the point... and pretty precise.

Anyway, I hope not to offend anyone... feel free to argue with me if need be, and I'll get around to responding sometime within the next century.

Huzzah.

For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted. - Luke 14:11

As humans we look so hard to further ourselves through any means possible.  It is easy to get caught up in the so-called race of life that we are all dramatically trying to run in some semblance of an effort to fit in to a mould that society has carefully and craftily built for us. We strive so hard to gain accolades and commendations from those around us, to push on, sometimes manipulatively to achieve a goal, fulfill a plan that we ourselves have set, or to accomplish something that will take us up another rung.

During this race, sometimes time flies so fast by that we are also quick to forget why we are here, who is in control and who to thank for the gifts that we receive. It is easy to build up possessions to impress others, to give in to temptations – to manipulate, deceive and scheme against our peers, colleagues and sometimes even friends and family.  Ironically, we do this so that we can receive praises, so that others will accept, love and respect us, be proud of us, talk about us, trump us up and make us feel important. Anything really, which will take us up the ladder, yet another rung.

With this comes an over-inflated sense of confidence – a sense of accomplishment and pride in achieving so-called success.

But guess what? God doesn’t care about your career status or your business status or what your friends think of you, what you possess or how much money you have in your bank.  How far you get in the race of life means nothing if you have done nothing righteous to show for it.

There have been times in life where I have felt like everyone is against me – and I submit myself to feelings of jealousy and envy toward others for having what seems like more in their life than I have; A loving partner, a clean bill of health, a close-knit family, a great career, possessions, or wealth that I could sure well do with. I could get a better paying job if I lied on a resume, I could quicker find a partner if I pretended that I was someone I wasn’t or was more willing to negotiate my beliefs, I could travel more often to see friends and family if I was okay with always owing money to someone –or rather, attaining everything that my very human heart wants, without involving God at all.

Every now and then I seem to have a birth of a thought followed by an “a-ha!” moment. I was thinking about how many blessings in my life to date are attributed to prayer. For instance, I prayed for a closer Christian family – and shortly after Christmas, I looked around to find that most of my friends are strong Christians. I asked for finances, and jobs kept popping up all around the place. It occurred to me that in order to have God bless us through prayer, we have to not only believe that He will provide, but also help ourselves by accepting an opportunity that God has provided.  You don’t get showered on by a bag of $1 coins just because you prayed for money (ouch!)… but God will serve you with a path that you can either ignore or take on – that will lead you to what you want or what you have asked for. So then I realized, I would have to more carefully watch for God’s signs or His lead that I may have missed earlier.

Almost as if confirming these thoughts, I was watching Evan Almighty, the other night – quite a funny movie based around Genesis and The Great Flood. Can you imagine my ears and eyes when “God” (played by the adorable Morgan Freeman, once again) revealed something to Evan’s wife? “If someone prays for patience, you think God gives them patience? Or does he give them the opportunity to be patient? If he prayed for courage, does God give him courage, or does he give him opportunities to be courageous?” (http://imdb.com/title/tt0413099/)

I recall a time late last year when I was buckled down with studies that I barely came up to breathe -- I was feeling extremely far from my faith and when questioned if I had been to Mass, my reply was a quick shrug and a feeble, “I’m too busy and I don’t have time” and I gave much the same answer when I was asked to stop and pray with a friend about my emotional state.  Almost immediately I found myself dealing with temptation all around me coupled closely with fear and shame. I suffered through the rest of my studies, and eventually realized that I’d made a mistake. I should have involved God in what was hammering me down. I should have laid down all my worries and fears at the cross, I should have “let go and let God.”

It was then that I realized that without God, I am nothing. Without God, we are nothing – just dust. I arrived at the conclusion that if I dedicated myself to being a humble servant of God, then He would provide just as the scripture promised. If I involve him in prayer – regardless of how little time I feel I have, if I ask for something that I feel is necessary, then God won’t just hand it to me on a platter, but will provide me with a path to take so that I can receive the blessings that He delights in providing to my loving and serving heart.

It is easy to become so self-assured, to believe that we are the most important people in our own little world. It is easy to believe that we are extremely clever for our achievements or talents. It is, though, hard to always recognize that it is not our doing and that God is to thank. It is harder to remember every time we receive commendation or so-called acceptance from our peers, to praise it back to God Almighty for the blessings that we have received.

We need to make God a part of everything in our lives – to turn to prayer in difficult times. We need to constantly give prayers of thanks and for the graces to keep our hearts humble. We need to recognize that what others think, matters not in the eyes of God – it is how we treat others and how we honor God. We shouldn’t assume to be the most important person – we don’t have the right to treat those around us as though they are inferiors because we may have a higher job status or more money, or the ability to word ourselves more cleverly – we need to treat others how Jesus asked us to.

Once I overheard one friend marvel out loud to another friend about her generosity and her humble reply really struck a chord with me. It was a simple yet effective statement that confirmed my own revelations to be true. She said, “God blesses those who bless others.”

And it’s true, Jesus said it clearly in the gospel of St. Luke – Honor God, and you will be honored, don’t succumb to your own ego, but rather humble yourself with prayer and serving and worshiping the Lord – and then you will be blessed.

Do not let any occasion of gaining merit pass without taking care to draw some spiritual profit from it; as, for example, from a sharp word which someone may say to you; from an act of obedience imposed against your will; from an opportunity which may occur to humble yourself, or to practice charity, sweetness, and patience. All of these occasions are gain for you, and you should seek to procure them; and at the close of that day, when the greatest number of them have come to you, you should go to rest most cheerful and pleased, as the merchant does on the day when he had had most chance for making money; for on that day business has prospered with him. --Saint Ignatius Loyola

"A final Word: Be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power." -Ephesians 6:10

I have discovered that fear is one of the easiest ways that an enemy can attack us. If we succumb to fear in any aspect of the word, God's whole plan for can be changed and the blessings that Jesus has promised us become harder to attain.

For example, about 2 and a half years ago, I wanted to start a web design business. I researched it in and out and a couple of friends were interested in hiring me for their businesses and I was a bit scared to actually pull out the big guns and submit to their requests for fear that I would let them down. (Even though I let them down by not following through with their jobs) And then an ex friend contacted me out of the blue and said that she knew the manager of this musical band that were starting out in Melbourne. When I realised that the manager was actually a well known Australian musician, I freaked out and thought I would never be able to do the job well enough and made up some half-hearted excuse about how I didn't have the time and I let the job go -- even though it wasn't a difficult job to begin with.

Fast forward to about a year and a half ago, I was in the car with my friend and discussing about how I had fallen victim to not following through with amazing opportunities out of fear. I then told him my bit about the band, and the website and my fear and he sat wide-eyed in shock and stared at me in disbelief and informed me that the band (that I hadn't really heard too much about except a myspace page at that point) had just signed to a major record label - SonyBMG... !!!!!!!  He blatantly told me, "you're an idiot" ... we sort of had a laugh and a "oh well, what can you do?" ... and then just last week I was in a music chain store and saw this bands debut cd in the CD display ... and I realised I'd made a stupid mistake because I let someone less powerful than God whisper things in to my ear that I believed over Christ's words.

And that is one of many, many little examples as to how my life has been ruled by something or someone else instilling fear in to my heart - and having been consumed by that and turning away from God's promise.

If you decide one day that you wont take on a job, you won't take an opportunity that you feel is possibly pulling you -- if you succumb to not participating in something due to laziness or don't work to your very potential ... these minor little things can possibly deter the ultimate plan that God has for each of us. He wants us to be the very best that we can, He wants us to do everything for the Glory of His name, not someone else's...

BIG revelation!

Also.......