What keeps me From becoming Catholic despite my love for crucifixes and cathedrals is weakness. The Roman Catholic Church with all the glamor and opulence loses its luster when it demands acts of penance. Our Catholic cousins believe they can be saved by good works and God’s grace, even though St. Peter said, “And after there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, “Brothers, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe. And God, who knows the heart, bore witness to them, by giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us, and he made no distinction between us and them, having cleansed their hearts by faith. 10 Now, therefore, why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? 11 But we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will.” (Acts 15:7-12). Regardless of the Papacy and the scandals what keeps me from Rome is my weakness. No matter how vigilant or resolute I try to be I stumble, I fail. Like the Apostle Paul I can say, “I keep so My the things I don’t want to do, and the things I ought to do I don’t do.” (Romans 7:19). We are weak and frail mortals, and it is this weakness that keeps us from false gospels of works and instead keeps us on the True Gospel track of trusting and putting our faith in Jesus Christ alone to save us.
The Apostle said, “But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me.” (2 Corinthians 12:9). Indeed, I find in my fraility Christ is magnified. I am forced off my high horse of pseudo-virtue to behold Christ Crucified and Risen, who alone can pat for my weakness. Our Catholic cousins say the answer to our weakness is works, good deeds, but how can we do any good? Arnt we all tainted by Original Sin, haven’t we all “all sinned, and fallen short of God’s glorious standard,” (Romans 3:23)? How can I in my wretched sin do good when “No one is good--except God alone,” (Mark 10:18)? The answer is only Christ who is God can in me bear fruit, “Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5). Jesus alone can save us and change us, fruit bearing is beyond our scope, only He can attain it for us by His sacrifice on the cross and give us eternal life and the fruit as a free gift, by His grace through our faith in Him (Ephesians 2:8-9, Phillipians 3:9).
Our intentions are always meant for good. We want to do right, but Christ and Paul tell us that invariably we will struggle, “the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak,” (Matthew 26:41) and, “The sinful nature (the flesh) wants to do evil, which is just the opposite of what the Spirit wants. And the Spirit gives us desires that are the opposite of what the sinful nature desires. These two forces are constantly fighting each other, so you are not free to carry out your good intentions.” (Galatians 4:17). The Apostle flushes this out in his exegesis that “17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18 For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature.For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.” (Romans 7:16-20) and then I would argue you can says that when you bear fruit it is Christ the Vine in you (John 15:5) and the Holy Spirit that bears the fruit; so in this way you cannot take credit for nothing but give thanks to the Lord. Does this mean we are puppets between the Spirit and the Flesh? No, we have free will and can either build up our relationship with Christ or with the cravings of our flesh. If we surrender to our Lord and Friend Jesus He bears fruit through us and we bear fruit through Him (“remain in me and I will remain in you,” John 15:5), or we can cave to the carnal desires. Faith in Jesus guarantees us eternal life, Heaven, and infinite in His presence (Philippians 3:9, Romans 10:9-10, John 6:40, John 3:16, 1 John 4:15, Acts 4:10-12, Acts 15:7-11); but bearing fruit the same as salvation can only come from and through Jesus. Our works as the prophet said are “But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.” (Isaiah 64:6). Only the Alpha and Omega can produce holiness in us because He alone is holy and exchanges His righteousness for our sins (2 Corinthians 5:21).
Not only our Catholic cousins seek to dissuade us of our mighty freedom in Christ. There are some Protestant sects and cults such as Seventh Day Adventists, Church of Christ, Methodists, and other denominations that fall into the trap that we can do any good of ourselves, ignoring only God is Good (Mark 10:18) and Jesus alone can bear us fruit (John 15:5). Just as we must depend in our total weakness on Christ’s all sufficient sacrifice on the cross to cleanse us and save us, we depend totally on Him to have any good in us for only God is good (Mark 10:18) and Jesus is God (Colossians 2:9), and Jesus lives in us (Colossians 1:27) who believe in Him as Lord and Son of God (1 John 4:15, John 6:40). If you believe you can do good you are living a lie, Only Christ in you can produce good fruit for He alone is Good with Father and Holy Spirit, One God in Three Persons, Blessed Trinity. Thus, it behooves us to take our eyes off ourselves and being deluded into thinking we can do good and instead fix our eyes on Jesus (Hebrews 12:2) who does the only good in us! Step down from your proud horse and look to Jesus on His white steed. Our duty and joy is to keep faith, trust, and believing in Jesus Christ and His sacrifice as being enough, and to have relationship with Him and know Him through grace and faith.
How we stumble into the trap of keeping laws, trying to be perfect and delusionally believe we can make a pint of good by are own merit is confronted by The Apostle, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God--Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it.,“ (Ephensians 2:8-9), “He has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not because of our own works, but by His own purpose and by the grace He granted us in Christ Jesus before time eternal,” (2 Timothy 1:9), “But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior,” (Titus 3:4-6)
“I do not nullify the grace of God, if one could be saved by the works of the law, then Christ died to no purpose,” (Galatians 2:21), “Take notice: I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all.,” (Galatians 5:2), and, “If you believe you can be saved by the works of the law, you are cut off from Christ, you have fallen from grace, “ (Galatians 5:4); The context of the scary Hebrews 6:4-6, “For it is impossible to bring back to repentance those who were once enlightened—those who have experienced the good things of heaven and shared in the Holy Spirit, 5 who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the power of the age to come— 6 and who then turn away from God. It is impossible to bring such people back to repentance; by rejecting the Son of God, they themselves are nailing him to the cross once again and holding him up to public shame.,” (Hebrews 6:4-6) is Galatians 5:4, “If you believe you can be saved by the works of the law, you are cut off from Christ, you have fallen from grace, “ (Galatians 5:4). You either believe only God is good and He became a man and died on cross in your place for the sins of you and all mankind and rose from the dead and because He is God and good the power of sin and death was broken, or you believe you can do good works of your own and try to weight them against all your bad deeds and hope on Judgment Day that they surpass your bad deeds: the fact is they won’t (Revelation 20:11-15) and anyone who believes they can do enough good to merit Heaven isn’t a Christian but a Muslim, for doing enough good to merit paradise is called Jihad Ashgar, not the Gospel!
A Christian is helplessly dependant on Christ for eternal life (John 3:16-18), holiness, fruit, Love (1 John 4:18), and all things. Our only contribution is to believe and have faith in Christ and His accomplished work of saving us by His death on the cross and ressurection. We can’t even take credit for our faith for Scripture says, “But some of these branches from Abraham’s tree—some of the people of Israel—have been broken off. And you Gentiles, who were branches from a wild olive tree, have been grafted in. So now you also receive the blessing God has promised Abraham and his children, sharing in the rich nourishment from the root of God’s special olive tree. 18 But you must not brag about being grafted in to replace the branches that were broken off. You are just a branch, not the root.
19 “Well,” you may say, “those branches were broken off to make room for me.” 20 Yes, but remember—those branches were broken off because they didn’t believe in Christ, and you are there because you do believe. So don’t think highly of yourself, but fear what could happen. 21 For if God did not spare the original branches, he won’t spare you either.
22 Notice how God is both kind and severe. He is severe toward those who disobeyed, but kind to you if you continue to trust in his kindness. But if you stop trusting, you also will be cut off. 23 And if the people of Israel turn from their unbelief, they will be grafted in again, for God has the power to graft them back into the tree,” (Romans 11:17-23), and “But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me.” (John 14:26). We do have a choice, we have to keep believing and having faith, but this marriage to God, this glorious gift of salvation is done by Jesus Christ, we must accept it Yes, and that is the only work that exists, to believe only the work of Christ saves you and that you can do no good works except through Him.
Churches that promote virtue and bearing fruit with an almost ascetic zeal are full and the largest because few can lay down the pride and say “I can do no good, only God is good and Jesus is God and has made me good by His blood and sacrifice alone.” This is what I believe Jesus meant when He said, “the way is broad that leads to death, but narrow is the way to life and few find it.” (Matthew 7:14). I found this statement puzzling, how can few find it when over 2.5 Billion people are Christian? But then I realize, few are willing to keep believing only God is good and Jesus is God and became a man to die for our sins and faith in Him invites Him in us and He alone can bear any good fruit in us (John 15:5, Ephensians 2:8-9). Most churches can’t handle the gospel, they add a pinch of Man made merit and say “you can do it, you can be strong and holy, do pennance or at the very least boast in your two week sobriety or achievement of overcoming a flaw,”; even though little do you know you have five more flaws that have increased in strength and hidden sins (Psalm 19:12, Psalm 90:8) only Christ is aware of and died for. To embrace the full gospel is to believe Jesus alone saves you by His grace, and that you can bear no fruit except Christ bear it through you and in you. Until you embrace that, you aren’t Christian, you a Christoimposter who proclaims saves by grace and faith in Jesus alone but practices penance and Jihad Ashgar on the side.
If you believe my words to radical, you should read Jesus’ own red letters, “you Pharisees cross sea to make one convert and made him twice Son of hell as yourselves,” (Matthew 23:15) and check out Paul’s epistles, “I wish they would go ahead and castrate themselves,” (Galatians 5:12), and “If you believe you can be saved by the works of the law, you are cut off from Christ, then you have fallen from grace.” (Galatians 5:4).
So if you want fruit, to have progress in the flesh, you must focus on Jesus and let Him through your relationship with Him bear the fruit through you, for He is “the vine,” and you are the “branches,” and you can “only bear fruit in Him.” (John 15:5). Amen.
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