Dedication
This book was written with all my family, friends, past co-workers and acquaintances in mind. But, of course, upmost in my mind are all my brothers and sisters in the Catholic church that I believe are being led astray. Read the Bible, let Him speak to your heart and He will renew your mind and show you the truth of His word. Knock and you will find that the door will be opened. May our Lord be with you.
Acknowledgement
I want to thank my family for their support in writing this book. Everyone was always encouraging considering I've never written a book before! I also want to thank my husband Gary and my sister Roseanna Spinale Boaz for proofreading and making suggestions and just plain listening to me through this whole process.
Introduction
I was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area in California. I've been married for 40 plus years with two children and two beautiful granddaughters. I can't really remember a day when I didn't believe in Jesus. Now at the age of 65 I felt compelled to write of what I've learned as a layman, and what God's word says to me. My goal and what drives me to write is Jesus, the only name under heaven by which we must be saved.
I want to share God's word to whomever has ears to listen. This, my first book, is about the Roman Catholic Church because that's where I had my own start. My intent is not to condemn your beliefs but to get you to honestly question them. It's not easy to leave a church that you've believed in all your life, believe me, I understand. For me, it was a long, slow process. I look back now and wonder how could I have accepted all their distortions and deceptions for so long. Studying and reading His word, reading and listening to biblical scholars helped me to understand and see the misinterpretation and errors of the Roman Catholic Church.
Let me introduce myself. I grew up in a typical Italian American Catholic family. We weren’t strict Catholics by any means, but we did go through first Holy Communion and Confirmation within the church and attended mass sporadically. As I grew into my teen years and beyond I now see I yearned for a relationship with Jesus but didn’t know how to go about it other than attending Mass. And if I missed a Sunday Mass I recall feeling very guilty, yet I would miss it again and again. I got past the guilt trip and went on with my life. After marrying in the Catholic church and having two children baptized within the Catholic church, we went on as most families do, busy with our lives and not really searching and reading God’s word with any regularity.
I realize that this is a boring introduction to a very uneventful life, but most of us have ordinary lives and this was mine. I hope you hang in there because there can’t be anything more important in our lives than meditating on His word and spending time with our Creator. This book is my journey and quest for the truth of His word. Sometimes you feel like a Ping-Pong ball bouncing back and forth between verses trying to figure out what He is really telling us. I don’t claim to have it all correct, but there are some things that the Bible makes clear. Then we come along and try to muck it up anyway.
If you read Ephesians 6:12 you will learn for yourself who we are battling. “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” So there you have it, our battle is against the spiritual forces of evil and the father of lies. There’s our answer as to why we are all so confused. Satan has done and will do everything in his power to distort God’s word to us now and since the beginning of time with Adam and Eve.
The main purpose is to ask you to open your mind and read the Bible as if it's the first time disregarding all of your past preconceptions. Let Him remind you of His word. With a sincere and humble heart read the Bible and compare it to what you were taught and are now following.
Apostasy has occurred all over the world. Following any institution without comparing what they teach to the Bible is allowing yourself to be deceived. Don't stubbornly cling to your pride and preconceived notions. Let God speak to you and learn His word so you can't be fooled into believing errors. It's only the most important action you can undertake in your life. As He tells us in John 3:36 "Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on them." This is a message of love, not hate, as is sometimes portrayed.
Daniel 10:12-14 gives us a glimpse of the supernatural and what’s happening behind the scenes, you might say. “Then he said to me, “Do not fear Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart to understand and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard; and I have come because of your words. But the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me twenty-one days; and behold, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, for I had been left alone there with the kings of Persia. Now I have come to make you understand what will happen to your people in the latter days, for the vision refers to many days yet to come.”
I find this verse interesting because it shows us two things. It demonstrates the invisible supernatural activity in a realm outside of our dimension. Michael, one of the chief princes, had to come and help this other angel fight a prince of another kingdom that lasted 21 days. The fight against good and evil really exists not only in this world but in a realm unseen by human eyes. It also shows us that if we humble ourselves and seek our God, He hears our prayers! What a great confirmation from our God if we will just open the Bible to see for ourselves.
As time passes, God has a way of pulling at your heartstrings and we sort of go in and out of His word. We continued as a family to attend Mass occasionally, but the connection wasn’t there. There is a need inside most Christians to know and understand God’s word and so occasionally, especially in times of need, we pick up the Bible and read some more. But we inevitably get caught up back in life and raising little ones. But as we go through life we have that nagging feeling and the need to get back into His word. My appetite wasn’t appeased by attending Mass so, besides reading and studying on my own, I started listening to Christian radio programs. Every day to and from work I would listen, then go home and read until one day, over time, I realized I couldn’t attend Catholic Mass again. In fact, I was no longer Catholic. That was kind of a surprise even to me because anyone who has grown up Catholic knows that we are taught that we are the true church and that Peter was the first pope and all the made-up lies that go with it.
Oops, my husband says I should say “misconceptions” and that’s certainly what they are now. But its foundation is a lie from the father of lies, and I have a hard time softening it. Catholics are wonderful God-fearing people that are being misled by the Vatican and its dark roots. Let me make myself clear. The priests within the church are not the deceivers but the deceived, in turn becoming the deceivers unknowingly.
We all have one life to live and one life to figure out the truth. I can’t think of a single thing that is more vital in life to pursue than God’s truth. I say vital because truth (His word) can lead us to eternal life with no pain, sorrow or sickness. Revelations 21:3 tells us “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” The dictionary describes “eternal” as everlasting, never-ending, endless, without end, perpetual, undying, immortal, deathless, indestructible, imperishable, immutable, abiding, permanent, etc. Do you get it yet? Can we really understand or comprehend eternity? Life without end, with our maker, with no pain, crying, sorrow or sickness, sounds like heaven on earth! That’s what He promises to believers. The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life! His grace is a free gift, but a gift that you must first accept, then realize that it will make us a peculiar people, according to the bible.
We are His special people made in His image and likeness. In fact, science doesn’t want to admit it but it seems that the Earth is in the center of the universe, in what they
