We all have been and most likely be guilty again of speaking out of turn with one another. Hurting Our Lord in a most painful way by being full of self-righteousness towards another. Religious arguments can go ugly. And not all of us repent from what we say or write in the heat of the moment. Some things can’t be repaired, but only through the prayers of our heart. And God does listen. I remember somebody hurt me and I responded I think well, but for two lines, I wished I didn’t write. So we all do it. I wasn’t in a position to say sorry and I also was still in a temper over it. I prayed over the matter for about seven hours. And after two hours of prayer, Jesus showed me my prayer was really helping including me. Of course it was about this Protestant verses Catholic thing. Sometimes it feels like a waste of time trying to explain what Catholics actually believe in, but it is never a waste of time praying about it.

Things We Need to Know

One time when I was young I was saying to myself I really needed to learn patience and Jesus spoke to me and said with great keenness ‘meekness is more important.’ I misinterpreted Him for years. I have just worked out what He was actually saying to me. I thought He was saying meekness was the most important virtue out of the two of them. But now I find out what He was saying I needed to learn meekness more than patience. Just recently God has allowed me to see, as a whole I am a very patient person in most areas, not so with meekness. And something else He has shown me, when my heart arches so badly because of the words of another spoken, it isn’t my pain, but Jesus pain at the cross. If I respond in temper ‘how dare that person say that’ I have obliviously failed Jesus, because that is not what He is saying. He is saying ‘forgive them Father for they know what they do.’ This is not just true for me, it is a fact for all of us. We all feel some of the pain Jesus went through in His life. Jesus lives in us, so naturally we are going to experience not only His joy but also His sorrow. How we react to it is most important. We either give Him glory or we fail Him, by not accepting His cross from His hand.

During my seven hourly prayer for Protestants to have a better understanding of what Catholics actually believe in. I was shown to offer up the false accusation of what many Protestants are saying about Catholics, with what He suffered at the trial when He was falsely accused of things that He didn’t do and it would bring about conversions. What hurts me most are what EX-Catholics have to say about Catholics. I believe in truth even though they say they were more Catholic than the Pope, they were never true Catholics in the first place. They may be great Christians as Protestants but they were never great Christians as Catholics. Just because you do all the outward things doesn’t mean you have the heart of a Catholic. It just means you went about everything very legalistically. And didn’t really understand what it was all about in the first place, much like the Pharisees didn’t really understand Jesus that well. They were on a different planet so to speak. Same as with being a Christian full stop. Jesus says not everybody who calls Him Lord, Lord will enter the Kingdom of Heaven, because they are not really followers of Him. To the world they may look like Christians but they do not serve God but themselves.

The Difference Between Protestants And Catholics

If you can understand what I am saying here. I believe, as a whole Protestants are reapers orientated and Catholics are sowers orientated. And therefore they go about everything differently. God is calling them to serve Him differently. I hate it when I meet people who insist that I have to serve God their way. As if it is the only way and there are many out there that are like that. They don’t allow for individuality. The commandments of God are the same, but the path may differ from one another in getting there. In other words we have given different gifts. Do we all prophesy, teach and speak in tongues? Of course not. And it can get very confusing sometimes because the Protestants mostly preach that you should pray for healing and it will happen. Not so with Catholics. What about the many Catholics that have been called to be a ‘victim soul’ for the salvation of souls. I am one of them and I get confused when Protestants are saying the reason why you are still sick is because you don’t have enough faith. I was told by God, it was partly to keep me humble, accordingly to my interpretation of what He gave me to read in the Bible.

God is too big for us to take in and I believe we can’t do it all. We all are members of the Body of Christ we can’t say to the kidneys ‘we don’t need you get lost!’ or to our muscles we don’t need you because you are doing it all wrong! That is what people are basically saying to one another. When we think the only way to serve God is the way God is calling us to do, is very childish and narrow minded. And this prejudice that is creating hate and division in God’s Church, is just what the enemy of God had planned all along.

Romans 10:9-10

If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by confessing with your mouth that you are saved.

Catholics and Protestant both believe this. According to Paul we are both saved. We are both following Christ even if we don’t understand one another that well.

John 6:40

“This is the will of My Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in Him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”

Catholic and Protestants both believe in what is written in the Holy Bible to be true. Very few passages we do not interrupt the same way. Most of our beliefs say about 98% are the same. Just because of a few passages that we don’t agree on, people are filled with so much ungodly hatred to one another that you can’t expect God is please with us. How can we confess to God and the world that we follow Jesus and yet disobey the second commandment, which is to ‘love one another as I have love you.’ When you love people you are willing to hear one another out. If you are filled with self-righteousness you block your ears and you cannot hear. How many people have block their ears and are not listening to Christ teachings, but only listening to what they want to hear.

John 7:38-39

‘Anyone who believes in Me may come and drink! For the Scriptures declare, ‘Rivers of living water will flow from his heart.” When He said “living water,” He was speaking of the Spirit, who would be given to everyone believing in Him.

Both Protestants and Catholics have received the Holy Spirit. I have been both Protestant and Catholic and God has visited me whether I was a Catholic or as a Protestant. It doesn’t make any difference to Him. He knows what is in our hearts. And I have been let down badly by both Protestant Churches and Catholic Churches when I was in my greatest need. Jesus has never let me down and that is why I am still a Christian today.

1 John 4:12

If we love each other, God lives in us, and His love is brought to full expression in us.

I live in a country town and we are very privilege to have one Christian book store nearby. It is a Protestant book store and I have been buying books there for years, because I wanted to learn about how to grow in the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Like faith healing and self-deliverance. Catholic books stores don’t go in for that so much, they are more into contemplative prayer, which I have found very helpful too. The thing is out of all the Protestants books that I have read I would say at least 40% will eventually say something negative about Catholics. One of their favourite comparisons of the differences between the Catholic faith and the Protestants is that they say Catholics unlike the Protestants believe we enter in the Kingdom of heaven by our works. They say Protestants are basically superior even though they don’t say it like that, because Protestant believe we enter into heaven by grace. It kills me reading that time and time again, because it is not true. Catholics believe exactly the same as Protestant on this matter. If you read it once and a while, it doesn’t hurt so much, but to read it just about every time you pick up a Protestant book it really hurts. How would Protestants like it if about 40% of Catholic books were saying what Protestants are saying about Catholics?

I got so upset one day and I said to Jesus lets us convert the Protestants into the Catholic faith. I now know that is not God’s plan, but His desires with all His heart that we love one another and stop falling into the trap that Satan has made for us. He appeared to me and instead of all joy let’s convert the Protestants, His face was so serious. I would say it look like a face of war. The war is not of the flesh but of principalities and wickedness in high places. The war is against Satan. And Christians can’t see that, countless of them are falling into Satan’s trap. In Satan’s kingdom it is all about hating one another, trying to rule over one another. God’s kingdom is all about love to towards one another, to accept one another as He does. How can we get it so wrong!!! Because we are not really listening to Him, so how can we obey Him?

John 13:34-35

“Love each other, just as I have loved you, you should love each other. Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are My disciples.”

There is no other way to prove that you truly belong to the sheepfold of Jesus. We have to love one another, as Jesus loves us, or we are just fooling ourselves. And if you think there is another way and that God is going to say well done my faithful servant, you are wrong.