Ephesians 2
8 God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. 9 Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it.
The more I read this the more questions kept coming up. For years, I was trained in the liturgy, confession, communion, and penance to wipe the slate clean, praying to saints to intercede for me, the rosary and first Friday mass for indulgences, Holy day service, all of this to “work” my way to heaven! Sound familiar to any of you?
I believed that all of this “work” was necessary or I could not get to heaven. I’d be on the outside looking in. And to top it off, there still was no guarantee that I’d make it under these rules! I most likely would still not have worked good enough or hard enough to make it! I would most likely, at best, go to Purgatory; that ambiguous place in between Heaven and Hell. I would need other like minded good Catholics to pray me out! For once in Purgatory I could no longer do anything on my behalf, I would need the “intercession” of the Saints and the living to get me out!
Was I surprised and intrigued, when I started to read the Word.
Remember, as a born and raised Catholic, my religious education really ended with my confirmation probably around my 13th birthday. We did not have Sunday school or anything like that to continue learning. Read the Bible? We may have had a kids Bible from our 1st communion, but daily reading, that wasn’t even a thought, let alone a practice. Ring a bell to anyone?
When I read those verses in Ephesians and others like it, Wow! What a relief! God’s grace would save me! All I had to do was believe in Jesus, and that he shed his blood to save me from my sins. That was the easy part for I already did believe in Him! It didn’t matter how hard I worked… I was saved by God’s grace and my belief that Jesus.
It was as if all the heavy chains I was carrying were lifted from me! I felt so free!
This just made me want to read more; I needed to understand more, what other wonderful surprises awaited me in this book?
The journey begins…
READ THE BIBLE – IT WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE!
Next week: Why me, Murphy’s Law or Satan’s Power
thecatholicdropout 
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