I Practiced A Religion
But I Did Not Have A Relationship With God

(A personal testimony by a former Catholic)

I was born into a Catholic family. I went to catechism classes, received my first 'holy communion' when I was about 7 years old, was 'confirmed' at about age 12. I tried to be a good person and a good Catholic, went to confession, went to mass on a regular basis until I was about 15 or 16. Then I continued to go at Christmas and Easter until I got saved (became spiritually alive) at 30 years of age. Now when I tell Catholics that I am saved, they often say they are saved too, that they got saved at baptism and that they are continually being saved. What they don't realize is that what they have been taught about being saved is not what Jesus taught about being saved, and so these dear, sincere Catholics are not really saved at all but are destined for Hell unless Jesus personally saves them like he saved me when the Holy Spirit convicted me of my sins and showed me that I was a lost sinner who needed a Saviour. "For the Son of Man is come to seek and [Luke 19:10].

Jesus said: "ye must be born again to see the kingdom of God" [John 3:3]. This does not happen at baptism - it is a supernatural work of God who must create a new heart in someone which occurs when the Holy Spirit takes up residence in a person. It CANNOT be done merely by some man sprinkling water on someone nor does God even want any help whatsoever from man. God is perfectly capable of saving a person without their help, for the Bible says: "God was [2 Corinthians 5:19].

The supposedly 'one, true, church', that most of my lost Catholic relatives are trusting their eternal souls to, never told me I needed to be saved, mainly because they thought they had saved me when they christened me as an infant. What the Catholic church did not realize was that "salvation is of the Lord" [Jonah 2:9] and only He could save me, not the Catholic church, and that they could not even help to save me since they teach a different way of salvation than what Jesus taught.

So for almost 30 years, I thought I was headed for Heaven, perhaps by way of Purgatory, when in fact, I was a lost hell-deserving sinner, unaware that church could not save me, no priest could save me, Mary could not save me, my good deeds could not save me, only Jesus could save me. Neither I nor anyone else on my behalf could in any way contribute to my salvation. I owe Jesus a debt that I could never repay - the price for my salvation is far beyond my reach even with the help of Rome and all its sacraments, traditions, penance, prayers, incense, candles, statues, holy water, saints, priests, nuns, monks, bishops, cardinals, popes, or even the Queen of Heaven, whoever that is, because it is certainly not Jesus' mother Mary, not according to the Bible.

In the Bible Jesus described the kind of religion I had and most people have: "Howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men" [Mark 7:7]. Paul the apostle also talked about this kind of religion: "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].

As a Catholic, I was never told that the Bible says "all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags" to God [Isaiah 64:6] and if my name "was not found written in the Book of Life", I would be "cast into the Lake of Fire" [Revelation 20:15], not Purgatory, because Purgatory is never mentioned in the Bible, not by Jesus nor by anyone else. Why didn't Jesus ever mention Purgatory? Simply because if it existed, we would not need a saviour... we could burn off all our sins in Purgatory and so Jesus would never have needed to die on the cross for our sins. Jesus said "Except a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God" [John 3:3]. He said this because all are born spiritually dead and need to become spiritually alive by crying out to God to save them from eternal damnation in Hell. "For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." [Romans 10:13]. We are not saved by sacraments!

The Catholic church never told me how holy God is and that only Jesus Christ and He alone could pay for a person's sins because He was sinless. When Jesus died, He paid the COMPLETE penalty for every sin I ever committed or ever will commit, but I had to repent of my sins and call upon the Lord to save me. All the candles, prayers and mass cards in the world will not get a person out of Hell and into Heaven once they die lost.

Jesus said we must follow God's word in the Bible not the traditions of men: "Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition. Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying, This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me." [Matthew 15:6-8]

Now that I am truly saved, I know it is a sin to pray to anyone but God because the Bible says: "For there is one God, and [1 Timothy 2:5]. This means Jesus is the One and only mediator, and not Mary or anyone else. So I no longer pray to Mary or saints. I also learned that the Bible says: "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image... Thou shalt not bow thyself down to them" [Exodus 20:4-5] so I no longer own any statues, crucifixes, 'sacred heart' pictures, rosary beads or religious medallions. Jesus always elevated sacred scripture above human tradition: "Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition." [Matthew 15:6]. Many Catholic traditions and practices were borrowed from pagan religions and are an abomination to God.

When I see a priest I no longer call him 'father' because Jesus said: "Call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, in heaven" [Matthew 23:9]. This is a clear reference to a spiritual father as indicated by verses 7 and 8 in Matthew 23. I now know that the sacrifice of the mass is a false sacrifice that grieves God because the Bible says: "we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ [Hebrews 10:10-12].

Many priests, nuns and others have left the Catholic church after learning from the Bible that they had been deceived about what Jesus taught about Christianity and getting to Heaven. Many Protestant churches were started by such people during the Reformation of the 1500s. Many of these courageous people gave their lives trying to tell others the truth about God's plan of salvation. Many were brutally tortured and killed simply for translating the Bible into everyday language so that others could know that "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]. They were letting people know that the Bible says the Christ saves a person WITHOUT indulgences, penance, masses for the dead, or any effort on our part: "Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot" [1Peter 1:18-19]. The effort was ALL on Christ's part. Our part is our sins. If God saves us, He transfers our sins to Christ, and He transfers Christ's perfect righeousness to us as a free gift: "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." [2Corinthians 5:21]. So then, when God sees a saved person on Judgment Day, He looks at them as if they had the perfect righteousness of Christ, because it is that righteousness that makes us acceptable to God and makes us fit to be in His prescence for all eternity: "Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord" [Hebrews 12:14] ... "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." [Matthew 5:48] ... "For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all." [James 2:10].

Keep in mind that God is under no obligation to save anyone. If He did what was fair, He would send everyone to hell for all eternity, because that is what we all deserve for our sins. But because He is a merciful God, He has decided to save some, to have a people for Himself, who will share in His glory for all eternity.

Now that Christ has saved me I know that I am ready to meet Him someday. He is now my personal Lord and Saviour and Master. I no longer need to dread that He might be my Judge on Judgment Day, because Christ has become my scapegoat, the substitute for my sins. He has paid the ransom for my condemned soul. God, through the Holy Spirit has come into my heart assuring me that I am His and He is mine and assuring me that my sins have been paid for in full by the precious blood of Christ, the spotless Lamb of God. I no longer do good deeds with the idea that those things will somehow make me good enough for heaven. The good I do is meant to please God and out of thankfulness for saving me. I realize that only the work Christ did at the cross could remove any of my sins. When God saved me I discovered that it is possible to have a relationship to the Lord of Heaven and I understood that I had received something far superior to all the rituals and traditions of any religion on earth.

Once I became saved, I realized that I needed to find a good Protestant Bible-preaching church that was true to the Bible and I became baptized as a truly saved Christian to publicly acknowledge my conversion to Christ. Note that I did not say my conversion to a religion. To come to Christ is to come into a relationship with the living and eternal God. It is something that the Lord must do because salvation according to the Holy Bible is not something that you do or that a priest or someone else does for you. It is something God does without any help from man whatsoever. God saves a person, not by taking the old person and making him better through a combination of religious rituals, traditions and guidelines, but by supernaturally imparting a whole new nature into him via the Holy Spirit: " [Ezekiel 36:26-27].

When you receive the Holy Spirit you know it, because you start to think differently: "if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new" [2 Corinthians 5:17]. Your attitude about sin changes completely. You begin to hate the sinful things you do and you begin to desire to obey God's commandments even if you must go against the teachings of your religion, whether it be Catholicism or any other "ism". This change in you is bound to be noticed by others around you as well.

Dear reader, have you experienced this change? Do you realize that God is recording EVERY one of your thoughts, words and deeds? He knows everything you ever did, even the things you did in secret that you thought no one else ever knew about. Yes indeed, The Bible says: "The eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good" [Proverbs 15:3]. You will have to give an account to Him on Judgment Day, unless you are covered in the precious blood of Christ. Going to confession, doing penance or doing good deeds will not erase a single sin. You have repeatedly violated the laws of a holy God and are incapable of paying for your own sins. ONLY Jesus Christ, "the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world" [John 1:29] could pay for anyone else's sins.

The Bible says that unless God gives a person a new heart and a new spirit, they will suffer the wrath of God by being cast into hell for eternity: "So shall it be at the end of the world: the angels shall come forth, and sever the wicked from among the just, And shall cast them into the furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth." [Matthew 13:49-50].

Make sure that YOU have a relationship with the living God and that you are not still under His wrath. Seek the Lord today while there is still time to be saved!

by Ray Kane - former Roman Catholic