Are We True Christians?

Summary: This is a Bible study. Comparing churches' doctrines and teachings to the Bible, I find all churches are severely deficient, and producing spiritually dead people. I urge you to temporarily set aside what you learned in your church and open your heart to these biblical truths. So many people are misled by their church! My only bias is towards God. My wisdom comes from God, not from earthly organizations or church denominations. ​​

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John 14:15

Jesus said: If you love me, keep my commands.

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1 John‬ ‭2:4‬

“The one who says, “I have come to know Him,” and yet doesn’t keep His commands, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.”

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Does anyone know Jesus' commands? Is anyone keeping them?

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 The majority of Christians today are not true Christians, because they're running Christianity their way, not God's way.

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Most "Christians" today are one of these:

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• Praying to Mary and saints to intercede.

They don't know God!

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• "By faith alone" - ignoring Jesus' commands

 Don't know the other side of the Bible!

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•  God already mysteriously selected people.

 They don't know God! 

  

 

No wonder there is no peace on earth, which is also why Jewish people are mocking us and are still waiting for the "true messiah" to come!!

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After years of attending churches followed by years of diligently seeking God in the Bible, I realized how far off we all are. I documented my notes of how to be Christians as God intended, here: How to Be True Christians and here: The Lord's Prayer is Severely Misunderstood.

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I'm not selling anything! It is all out of love for God and for all people on earth.

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What gives me the right to do this? Direct orders from the Apostle Paul in the Bible:

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‭‭2 Timothy‬ ‭4‬:‭2-‭4

Paul: "I give you this charge: Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction. For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear."

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We have without a doubt reached that time! And I am rebuking and correcting!!

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Let's start with the church leaders and so-called "Christian theologians" of today, our supposed role-models and top decision-makers on doctrines and theology. It is obvious none of them are true believers; none are filled with the Holy Spirit. Yes, a bold claim; how dare I say this? Here's why:

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John 14:12-14

Jesus: Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.

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If the pope or the most devout protestant church leader walk into a hospital, can they heal anybody in the name of Jesus? No. Can they put their hand on a child in wheelchair and make her walk? No. And yet they are the top decision-makers on doctrines, theology, and what to teach people!! And people are still in churches listening to their misleading teaching and false doctrines!! It is true we are called to obey our spiritual leaders, but only when they are teaching sound biblical doctrines!!

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1. Comparison of Christian Leaders' Accomplishments, Then and Now

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Disciples & Apostles' accomplishments, then:

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• Preached the Word correctly? Yes

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• Laid their hands on sick people and healed them? Yes

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• Laid their hands on crippled people and made them walk? Yes

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• Brought dead people back to life?! (Peter and Paul did!) Yes

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• Paul accidentally picked up a venomous snake and it did not harm him.

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• Number of changes in God's realm: 0 - As it should be!

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• Having dedicated every moment of their lives to this, they were poor and homeless, with barely enough to eat. 💝

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Church leaders' accomplishments, since then:

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• Preached the Word correctly? No

  • Protestants brain-washed people into doing nothing, and just keep saying these words: born-again, saved by the blood, saved by Grace.

  • Catholics brain-washed their people into praying to Mary and saints to intercede with God. 

  • Calvinists brain-washed their people into "God already decided; it's all His will, we have no say". Anything else is "devil doctrines".

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• And the resulting number of miracles performed in the name of Jesus: 0

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• Number of dead people brought back to life: 0

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• Number of changes in God's realm: 2 - Horrible & blasphemous

  • The Pope seated Mary next to God in heaven as God's mother.

  • The Pope created a mini-Hell (aka, Purgatory) to process certain type sins after death and provide a path to heaven, that Jesus didn't/couldn't provide.

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• Any church leaders homeless or hungry? No, they improved some on that.

  • Protestants stressed the need to tithe 10% - Church leaders are Millionaires with private jets.

  • Catholic churches collected donations and sent to the Vatican. The Vatican's worth is in $trillions. It's an organized spiritual mafia.

 

Each church-denomination preaches from their side of the Bible, limiting it to verses that support their individual theologies, and ignores the rest of thousands of pages opposing to them.

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👉 Consider this analogy of facts:

• Old-covenant - God gave the leadership high-priest role to Moses who became Godly and performed miracles in the name of God.

1500 years later, the Jewish high-priest and the whole Sanhedrin voted unanimously to crucify Jesus, despite knowing He was the awaited Messiah!

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• New-covenant - Jesus gave the church to Peter who became Godly and performed miracles in the name of Jesus Christ.

2000 years later, (fill in the blank) ________.  Hint, use from the bullets above.

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Humans will be humans. God gives it a push, then years later human-corruption takes over. It always did, throughout history, causing God to take drastic measures - Noah's flood, Sodom & Gomorrah, Jews exiled, etc.. And now awaiting the final big one. See my page on The Rapture.

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If you are truly seeking God and His kingdom, then seek God in the Bible on your own or with a small group. More details here How to Be True Christians. 

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God never intended for us to have all these contradicting denominations, but rather one Christian body of believers. Did you know there are 41,000 Christian denominations today? What is God's view on all this? Here's what the Bible says:

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Matthew 18:20 

Jesus said: "For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them."

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The 2 or 3 gathering in Jesus' name would be one example of that church. If the 2 or 3 are gathered truly in His name, then God would not mislead them or give each group of 2 or 3 different interpretations of the scriptures. So only one explanation, leaders in church-denominations are not truly filled with the Holy Spirit. This is why people need to be on their guard, and not blindly follow their church. It is our eternity we're talking about; are you willing to take a chance with earthly loyalties? There is no "oops" later; no changing your mind after death!

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For Jesus, the "church" is the Christian body of genuine believers, led by Jesus Himself through the Holy Spirit within us.

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Matthew 16:18

"And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it."

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When He told Peter he was the rock to build His church on, He meant Peter was the role model He intended for Christians to follow. So, we don't need an earthly church leader, because Jesus Himself is the leader of the church consisting of genuine Christian believers filled with the Holy Spirit, and with one interpretation of the Bible - Continued with supporting Bible references here: How to Be True Christians.

 

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2. The Deficiencies in Church-Denominations

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Trying to be fair here and listing some good for each. But mainly focusing on the deficiencies and abuses of God's scripture.

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2.1 Protestants

(Including Baptists, Evangelicals, Pentecostals, etc.)

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I listened to Charles Stanley's weekly sermon for 30 years, and Chuck Swindoll's for a number of years. The parts of the Bible they preached, they preached very, very well. And the parts of the Bible they avoided, they avoided very, very cleverly!! Never did either of them touch on the verses highlighted here below. They only preached from one side of the Bible; the side that agrees with their lip-service-faith theology! And ignored the rest.

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• Saved, nothing else to do? - The bible is full of verses and parables about spiritual maturity, but all ignored by protestant churches! Why? To please people with the "do nothing" message. They stick to the high-level verses in the Bible, please the people, and collect donations. See my page on What Does "Believe in Jesus" Really Mean? for more shocking truths.

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• Impossible to become unsaved? - Protestants spend whole sermons on "once saved always saved", ignoring the many parables from Jesus about becoming rejected and sent to hell if you're not growing spiritually. Examples, John 15:6 "branches that wither and die", Luke 13:6 "cut the fig tree down", and Matthew 25:30 "cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness". See my page By Faith Alone? for more details and Bible references.

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• By Faith Alone? Paul introduced Jesus to the Gentiles. But Protestants ran with the intro as the complete message!! ​ Protestants ignore the Bible saying that this meant "no added works of the flesh"! Instead, they call it: "By faith alone and nothing else, nothing, nothing else at all, nothing at all". It is clearly stated in many parts of the Bible as no added works of the law, example, Galatians‬ ‭2‬:‭16 "know that a person is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified.” By faith alone means we still have to learn Jesus' commands and keep them! Spiritual maturity is not "works of the flesh", seeking God in the whole Bible is not "works of the flesh", and praying the Lord's Prayer daily as He commanded is not "works of the flesh"! See more details in my page By Faith Alone?

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• Refuse to pray the Lord's Prayer - The key part of God's salvation!! Protestant churches utterly refuse to pray it in their sermons, and never encourage their members to pray it daily as Jesus commanded. Why? 3 reasons: (1) Because Catholics pray this prayer! (2) Because they call it "repetitive works" - it's a burden to have to pray it daily; contradicting to their "by faith alone" theology. And (3) because their arrogant theologians decided Jesus meant it only for the Jewish people. They connected it to the manna from Moses, or some worthless explanation like that. They decided, and that's their final answer - But you stopped seeking God! Go back and look!! You messed up big on this one!!! You're not covered by the blood, nor saved by grace; you're spiritually dead, unless you pray the Lod's Prayer daily - we need the Bread of life daily. It is one new covenant from God, not two - not one for Jews and one for gentiles?!! See my page The Lord's Prayer is Severely Misunderstood for eye-opening Bible references.

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• Pentecostals? They're just Protestants, equally lost with the same by-faith-alone theology but kicked-up a few notches with energy and charisma. And people flock there like they flock to the newest restaurant in town! Making a lot of noise jumping up and down and waving hands, does not mean the Holy Spirit is anywhere near there. It is not a sports game. The Holy Spirit is given by God to those who obey Him:

Acts 5:32 ...the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey Him. This clearly means not jumping up and down, not waving hands, not making noise, not faking speaking in tongues, and not faking miracles!!! It means first learn Jesus' commands and keep them. If you truly know Jesus' commands? you wouldn't be doing this. I don't say this to criticize everybody. I say it to make those who genuinely care, look closer at the Bible. Don't just join the charismatic crowd.

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• Must tithe the whole 10%? - Protestants would spend a whole sermon on the subject of tithing; digging up verses all the way back from Leviticus and making sure that people tithe the full 10% of their income, not 9% or 8% because "they'd be stealing from God." But the Lord's Prayer? "Jesus meant that for the Jews." When in fact the 10% amount of tithing was the one meant only for the Jews, for their 11 to 1 tribes' ratio! Tithing was part of the Moses law!!! Hebrews 7:5 Now the law requires the descendants of Levi who become priests to collect a tenth from the people—that is, from their fellow Israelites. Tithing was later modified by Paul for the Gentiles, to: "Any gift is good" Philippians 4:14-17. See section below on Still Tithing 10%?  

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• Solely going by Paul's message as the one for the gentiles, and ignoring the fact that God gave us 1 new-covenant not 2!!  Protestants brush off discrepancies between Jesus' message and Paul's as something like: "Jesus meant that for the Jews; Paul's message was for the gentiles who became Christians later..."  This is so dangerous on so many levels, disrespectful to God, and causing spiritual-death to so many people! Those churches missed the following scripture from Jesus after His resurrection talking to His Jewish disciples:

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Matthew 28:17-20

... Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you...”

Notes: This clearly says, "teach all nations to obey EVERYTHING Jesus commanded His Jewish disciples". Any church who preaches otherwise, makes it no different than the Pharisees who crucified Jesus despite knowing He was the Messiah. Jesus is GOD!! All His teachings are for all people, not just the Jews. And Paul is a human. His teachings to the gentiles were elementary, a supplement to Jesus'. Paul mainly pointed to Jesus. Any discrepancy between Paul's and Jesus' messages meant check what Jesus said for completeness! See my page on Jesus for Jews & Paul for Gentiles?

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• Giant Screens & Loud Music, But No Seeking of God - The focus shifted to big screens, loud music, and waving of hands. When instead it should be on seeking God and His kingdom. Even if we spend every moment of our lives seeking God in the scriptures, we'd barely scratch the surface. But churches went on with what pleases people!! And the sermon preaching is always yearly-rotating the same simple, safe, and unoffending subjects. No preaching on Jesus parables that contradict their theology!! Nor on "politically incorrect" subjects of today's culture; careful not to upset people and lose donations.​

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Related Readings

Jesus for Jews & Paul for Gentiles?
Why didn't Paul Preach the Lord's Prayer?

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2.2 Catholic Church (including all Orthodox)

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I grew up Catholic, went to Catholic schools and the rest. So, I know Catholicism inside and out, and I can write a hundred books on the subject.

They got the Nicene Creed right. They pray the Lord's Prayer in their sermons, although they don't mean it right. Other than these, everything else they do is problematic! And even blasphemous!! The Catholic church and their side-kick the Orthodox church teachings, for hundreds of years, have been mostly unbiblical. And the people following them are duped by the grand display of authority, and are being misled!

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The root cause of the mess in Catholic & Orthodox churches is this:

They don't know that God does not use "sin" as the measure of our "righteousness" - they're still canonizing "sinless" saints!! And the message to people is, minimize your sins to maximize your chances for heaven.

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Here's one example verse in the Bible that explains why this thinking is wrong:

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Matthew 5:20 Jesus said: "For I tell you that unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven."

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The Jewish scribes and Pharisees were the role models in perfection and living sinless all their lives. But Jesus told them it's not good enough!! He specifically said, "you will never enter heaven"! He said we need to exceed that level of sinless perfection! How do we achieve that? We do by getting renewed day by day through praying the Lord's Prayer daily. The "righteousness" achieved by receiving the Bread of life daily, is impossible to achieve any other way!!  For how the Eucharist relates to the Lord's Prayer, see section 1.8 in The Lord's Prayer is Severely Misunderstood.

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• ​Canonization of Saints - An unbiblical doctrine. A process where the pope and cardinals anoint so called "saints", based on investigations into their lives and determining that they were "sinless". Which is contradicting to the Bible teachings and the whole sin-redemption sacrifice of Jesus. The process is mostly political. They try to satisfy all countries by canonizing a saint from each. Some churches around the world take it a step further and use sensational tricks like mummifying the "saint", showing blood still oozing out of their body, and putting him/her on public display!!!​

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• Pray to saints - The Vatican canonize them, and people pray to them! Some get on their knees before the statue of so and so, and others lay face down at the feet of another. The church is not doing anything to stop it - being careful not to upset people (where donations come from), but is ok with upsetting God! 

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The Vatican's difficult process to confirm a "saint" got the Catholic people thinking, "if it is that impossible to become a 'saint' and get into heaven, then there is no hope for me. Thus, the only remaining way for me is to pray to the 'virgin Mary' and to those 'saints'!!!" Catholics think that turning to Mary and saints is the same as turning to God via these people. They ignore the Bible saying, Jesus is the only mediator (1Timothy 2:5) who's sacrifice is sufficient for them to become true saints! I am extremely sad! So many innocent people are/were lost, including my own parents and ancestors. Misled by the church!!​​

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• Mary the Mother of God?! Pope Pius in 1950 declared it a doctrine. There were 259 Popes before Pope Pius XII. 1900 years and 259 Popes; none of them touched this. Why? Because despite pressure from the people, they were still part of the church-generation that feared God! So then, was Pope Pius XII and his cardinals smarter and Godlier than the 259 before him? That they got this great idea to seat Mary next to God?

What I find most puzzling is that Catholics and Orthodox make the biggest celebration on Easter commemorating Jesus' rising from the dead and the forgiveness of sins, and with the same breath declare that the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross was not sufficient to forgive all their sins!!! particularly the sexual sins. They felt they needed to turn to the "virgin" Mary and the "sinless" Saints to beg God for them. This is not Christianity!! it's something else! Matthew 15:8 ‘These people honor Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me. My Catholic relatives keep pressing me to read a book about all the miracles of Mary. It is a hopeless situation 😪. Continued in my page Mary the Mother of God?

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• Little to no spiritual growing - The Catholic church is still running with their antiquated plan since the 3rd century: The church (its priests), supposedly study the Bible (but in reality, they don't), then turn around and teach it to the people who are illiterate and can't read or understand the difficulty of the Bible for themselves." Maybe this was acceptable in 300AD, but now in 2023, I think we can do it ourselves and don't need bishops anymore. We have no excuse not to, except laziness.​

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• No Seeking of God as Jesus Commanded - People don't read the Bible - instead they look to the priests. And the Priests don't read the Bible - A church priest behaves more like a social worker - he doesn't have time to read the Bible. He learned it in theology school? No, all he learned there was about how to run a Catholic mass. If people have difficult Bible questions, they usually ask the priest. And the priest usually does not know. Because all he knows is what to do in the repetitive activities of sermons. The usual Catholic sermon Bible reading time is nice stories from the New Testament. Followed by a message from the priest about "let's all be good and nice".

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• The Lord's Prayer not interpreted right - The Catholic church would not acknowledge "the Bread" = "the Bread of life". Obviously, because it makes it a DIY version of their Eucharist. Which would belittle their bishops' and priests' roles - if people can receive the Bread of life at home by directly praying to God, then they won't come to church and donate! Is the Catholic church thinking from God's perspective here? Or their financial perspective? see my page on The Lord's Prayer is Severely Misunderstood.

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• Purgatory (Catholics only) Another unbiblical doctrine created by the Vatican. It is a kind of a mini hell, "required for those sins that Jesus' sacrifice did not cover"! It is a result of misunderstanding some verses in the Bible: ‭1 John‬ ‭5:16-17‬ and ‭‭Mark‬ ‭3:28-30‬. They took these 2 references and extrapolated a whole doctrine. All because Jesus used the term "will not be forgiven in the next age" related to the "unforgivable sin of the spirit". I have a good explanation on my page: Purgatory?​

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• Confessions! People confess their sins to a priest. Then based on the number of death-sins and not-death-sins they committed, the priest determines how many times they should repeat the hail-Mary prayer as a penalty for their sins in order to be forgiven, but no guarantee on the death-sins - they may need Purgatory for those! So people spend their lives aware and afraid of the Purgatory time they have coming to them! Some even think Purgatory takes place before death; depending on how much the person suffers before they die!! It's a pagan religion, completely opposing to the Bible. They've been making it up as they go, the past few hundred years.

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• The Vatican - A hierarchy of people with glittery costumes and props - They're more concerned with levels and appearance than with substance, in-line with Jewish temples and Pharisees. ... instead of spending their time on seeking God in the scriptures to revisit their ungodly doctrines and see if just in case, ... just in case they messed up! But no, like the rest of churches, they created their niche and cookie-cutters, and are marching forward.

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Related Reading

Purgatory?

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2.3 Calvinists

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"Watch out and be on your guard for the yeast of the" Calvinists. So I reused Jesus' words here (as in Matthew 16:6). I'm sure Jesus won't mind.

Giving a quick summary on this subject for those who don't know. Christianity today can be sliced in many different ways in terms of Bible interpretation, one example is the different church-denominations out there. But at a higher layer, there is a fork-in-the-road disagreement on the free-will subject:

• Calvinist: God predestined us for His mysterious reasons, before creation. We have no say. > Calvinist churches.

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• Arminian: We have the free-will to choose God's grace or reject it. It's our free-will decision. > All other churches, Protestant, Catholic.

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Calvinist Doctrine Summary: Based on some verses in the Bible that contain these words "Elect" and "Predestined for His pleasure" and a few other verses that allude to them, the Calvinist church built a whole doctrine around that, ignoring the rest of the thousands of verses in the Bible that say otherwise, and preaching that God is the one who "elects" us based on His mysterious reasons. The Calvinist doctrine states that we have no say in it, no matter what we do. Which makes us mere robots; and which is the complete opposite of what the God we know, would do! The Calvinist doctrine, being human-limited-thinking at its best, cannot see that God is not in our space-time continuum. God is "I Am"; He foresaw us before creation. Romans 8:29 "For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son". God foreknew our tendencies first, then destined second! I am very sad for the people following the Calvinist church. They are so misled.

The line that separates Calvinists from Arminians is "free will". Calvinists say we don't have free will; God decides everything. Arminians say we have free will, and we decide to accept God's Grace or not. 

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I listened to RC Sproul's sermon for a couple of years and read one of the Calvinist books. So, I am qualified to say a few things about Calvinists:

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• Do nothing, God already decided for His mysterious reasons - Calvinists are even worse than the regular Protestants, in the "do nothing" message. They take it a step further to tell their members that no matter what they do, God already decided who will be saved and who won't. Calvinists don't encourage reading the Bible either. They do however encourage to read some books from famous Calvinist leaders!

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• God's election decision is Unconditional - ignoring the many Bible statements from Jesus/God saying things like, "if you love me, I will love you back..." and "if you obey my commands, you will be my people..." But Unconditional is the only way the Calvinist doctrine can hold. If God's predestination was conditional, their whole doctrine would crumble.

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• Scripture meaning manipulated - They also try to put words in the scripture's mouth; make it seem that "the Bible did not really intend to say 'that', but rather it meant to tell us 'this'..."  For example they teach: "any biblical reference to 'the whole world' actually means 'the whole world of the Elect', not the actual whole world." I can understand human incompetency can lead to misinterpretations, but this? I don't see how their church members can swallow it!  And sometimes the meaning is manipulated to accommodate certain psychological human behavior...You get the picture. They're in the same league with Mormons, Jehovah's witnesses, etc..

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• Violent Internet Forums - I see thousands of violent internet forums and debates raging on between "Calvinists" and "Arminians". So much time and effort wasted. People treating this like a sports game; who will win? When instead, we should all be Christians, and direct our efforts to seeking God. But the competitive-sports-minded people, which we have ample supply of in this country, chose to run with it for the win. 

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A Calvinist saw my post on one of the forums about the Lord's Prayer. He replied "I see you so arrogantly state this. What makes you think that God would change His plan because of your praying?" Whether the Calvinist church taught him this or not is irrelevant. The problem is, this is what their people think!!!

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And in a separate forum a Calvinist was mistaken for an Arminian. He replied: "heavens I am no Arminian. the doctrine of human freewill is Satan's no.1 deception in my mind and the mainspring from which flows salvation by works and conditional salvation [probation] oh no no I am not an Arminian." I'm guessing this person left the Catholic church and became Calvinist, because of this: "conditional salvation probation", which is purgatory. So he left one bad church and joined a worse one!

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Related Reading

Predestination Demystified​