by Glenice Mills
There is something in man that resists the truth of receiving forgiveness. We find ways of trying to twist Jesus death and resurrection by making it more complicated than it is. We cannot believe that we can walk in freedom because of the shed blood of Jesus Christ. The fruit in the body of Christ often does not bear witness to this freedom. In fact we often come across as the most restrained, uptight, serious, bound-up people around. We carry a wrong understanding of who the Lord is and what He wants to release to us, His beloved ones. Following are some questions we need to ask ourselves:
Why do we minimise the power of the Lord’s death on the cross?
Why are we resistant to believing God would want to release good things to us?
Why do we have this picture of God as a punishing God who wants to make us pay for our sins?
Why do we see God as a mean God who wants to withhold blessing from us?
Why can we not settle with believing God wants to release His blessings upon us without conditions?
How is it that we have been tricked with the lie that somehow we have to earn our way to heaven?
There is a lie from the pit of hell that has bound many of God’s people from coming into true freedom because of a wrong stronghold of thinking that is rooted in Catholicism. It has insidiously crept into the very fabric of the body of Christ and blinded God’s people and distorted how many see Father God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. It has kept people bound in shame rather than in freedom in Christ.
The lie is ‘say three our fathers and a pound in the poor box.’ The statement ‘three hail Mary’s’ is also a lie. We must be on guard watching where the name of Jesus is bought down and other names are exalted into the position that only Jesus holds. Jesus is the only name that absolves us of sin, yet mere mortal men are placed in positions that say a person is absolved from the responsibility of their sin by saying a few words and giving money. It is not the role of a Catholic priest to forgive sin.
How terrible is that!!! This lie must be exposed and challenged for many in the body of Christ have either been raised as Catholics or it is in their family generational line. Catholicism is a false doctrine. This word is not about condemning the innocent people caught up in this thinking, it is about what is being taught and the bondage that many have been entrapped in. The Lord was speaking to me about this the other night and the bondage as a result of these lies that has come upon His people. These lies must be exposed and it is up to us, the Christian body to speak up and speak out to confront them. The doctrine of doing penance must be confronted. The dictionary meaning of penance is: an act of self mortification as expression of repentance, a sacrament involving confession, absolution and act of repentance imposed by a priest. The key word here is imposed. This denies the very truth of the gospel which is we all have free choice, choosing to come and repent or to not repent. No man can make anyone repent, it is by the Spirit of the Lord that repentance comes. Self mortification is not conviction. We should not feel mortified because we have sinned but rather be convicted by the Holy Spirit. Mortification brings shame and puts a burden upon the person. This results in trying to earn our salvation and forgiveness and it is doing it in and of ourselves, in our flesh rather than the leading of the Lord. It is striving and doing things in good works whether that be doing things for God or giving money or striving to be ‘good’ to bring surety that we are forgiven and we will go to heaven. Fear driven ‘if you don’t do this you will go to hell’ is bondage of the worst order. Scripture is very clear, there is only one way to salvation and that is through the shed blood of Jesus Christ.
Hebrews 9:13-15, ‘For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? And for this reason He is the Mediator of the new covenant, by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant, that those who are called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance.’
We are no longer under law but under grace. If we feel compelled to strive to do good works then we cannot be living under the grace of God. Grace is God’s unmerited favour upon His people. It is His free gift to us and it is up to us to receive it and not question whether we feel forgiven or not. The truth is none of us are deserving of God’s grace, as He is a Holy God and as Scripture says, our righteousness is as filthy rags.
1 Timothy 2:5-7, ‘For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time, for which I was appointed a preacher and an apostle - I am speaking the truth in Christ and not lying - a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth.’
Scripture is quite clear here, Jesus Christ is our only mediator between God and man. The false idolatry of Mary, the mother of Jesus must be addressed. Giving honour, adoration and false prayer and worship through Mary and the icon of Mary is idolatrous. It is an abomination in God’s sight and it is sin. We need to come back to the Ten Commandments.
Exodus 20:3 - 5, ‘You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image’ - (Mary?) - ‘any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them or serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.’
Again Jesus is our intercessor and only through Him can we have redemption of sin. No man or woman can have this role and it has been lax of us lovers of Christ to have not spoken out and to have subtlety come in agreement with this evil, for it is evil.
Hebrews 7:25 -28, ‘Therefore He (Jesus) is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them. For such a High Priest was fitting for us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and has become higher than the heavens; who does not need daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for His own sins and then for the people’s, for this He did once for all when He offered up Himself. For the law appoints as high priests men who have weakness, but the word of the oath, which came after the law, appoints the Son who has been perfected forever.’
How can these false teachings bring freedom. Jesus shed His blood on the cross that we can have freedom and abundant life. If all we say and do is subject to man made religion, following rules set down by distortion of truth and man’s laws and regulations, then it is up to us as part of the body of Christ to challenge these lies and speak truth. We cannot and must not be in agreement with these teachings. The problem arises when those that come to salvation through Jesus Christ, carry these wrong mindsets and a fear driven lordship by a ‘man of god’. This makes it difficult for God’s people to receive the pure truth about Jesus Christ. The exciting thing is we can repent from believing these wrong doctrines and ask the Lord to release us from the curses resulting from these lies. We can also stand in the gap and repent where our family back through the generations have believed these false doctrines and ask to be released from the curse of this. I started this article with questions concerning whether you feel truly forgiven or feel you always have to make things right. Perhaps there is some Catholic mindsets that have bound you and stopped you coming into the freedom found in Christ Jesus?
That is the power of the blood of Jesus Christ and He wants us to come out of the curses of religion and come into true freedom so we can be all we are meant to be in Him and not by some man made institution.
Thank you Jesus for freedom!!!
