I was walking along the street when Maria stepped out from her gate to place something in her rubbish bin which was sitting on the strip awaiting collection. We had not met previously, but I knew who she was and her name. She and her husband had lost a daughter in a well-publicized multiple murder incident just under two years earlier.
When I introduced myself, immediately her hurts surfaced and she began to cry, expressing anger towards God, saying she could never believe Him to be a God of love and peace. Maria was a Catholic lady but she said to me, “Jesus couldn’t possibly exist. A loving God could never let that happen to my daughter.” This was no ordinary, chance-meeting I was having with this broken, hurting lady, it was a divine appointment (one that I had no intention of making) so I remained quiet and listened to her. Wiping her eyes, she invited me inside.
As we walked up the footpath towards her door she repeated with anger, “You’ll never convince me. You’ll never convince me that God is who He says He is.” As she made some coffee, Maria again repeated these words. I replied by saying that I agreed with her entirely, that no person can convince another of the reality of God or His attributes. But I then gently asked Maria, “Are you willing to be convinced?”
In her home, like most Catholic homes I’ve been in, I saw religious pictures on the wall that supposedly depict Jesus and Mary and the like, but it was very apparent that this lady had absolutely no experience of the reality Jesus in her being. For all her religious beliefs and practices, whatever they might have been, they failed to support or sustain Maria in time of her greatest need. Once again I was to observe the futility of outward religious practice substituting itself for an inward relationship and fellowship with God.
Maria grew up with the knowledge that, “Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins,” but in her hurting, her question was, “If He died to take away sins, what was the point, when there is still so much sin in the world?” I then asked her what her understanding was of that question before this tragedy came into the family. She didn’t answer, she just kept shaking her head saying, “I can’t believe. I can’t believe.” Clearly that was true. Maria had never believed.
The word “believe” in the gospels, means: commit, trust, put in trust with, to entrust one’s spiritual well-being to Christ. Multitudes of religious practitioners are told to put such trust and commitment in, “the church” or “our church” and in it’s teachings – which effectively bypasses the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. The Roman Catholic church, for example, is one among many who teach this. She claims to be God’s one true church and all members are to promise obedience to the Bishop of Rome, whom she claims is successor to Saint Peter, Prince of Apostles and Vicar of Jesus Christ.
On the other hand, a biblical “experiential believer” – or – one who experiences the moment-by-moment presence and reality of Jesus Christ deep within them, recognizes the Holy Spirit’s ministry as one that guides us into all the truth of the Scriptures, where we read that Jesus did not leave His church to human leadership. He Himself is still the Head of His church.
All biblical experiential believers know that Jesus Christ speaks to them both personally and corporately through His infallible Word the Holy Scriptures, as ministered to them by His ever-present and infallible Holy Spirit. He or she knows that Jesus Christ is the Rock and only Head of the Church and that no other foundation can be laid in His place. He or she knows this and it lives within, deep in their spirit, not simply in their head, intellectually or academically.
It was this such belief, that Maria lacked at this time. So when she said, “I can’t believe,” she was responding as naturally as any religious practitioner might who knew nothing of the reality of Christ. In the three and a half years I did this work, such responses (and far worse) from multitudes of Roman Catholic practitioners were as common and as predictable as night following day.
Man’s institutional religion is powerful. In those years, I observed 2 things in people presently affiliated or once affiliated with churches who claimed to be, “God’s one true church.” This applies not just to Catholic people.
- For those presently affiliated: They are deceived with regards the true Jesus Christ and become slaves to the religious doctrines of men. The by-products of such slavery are expressed through fear, guilt, bitterness, anger, sickness, idolatry and religious legalism.
- For those who come out from them: They remain fearful, guilty, bitter and angry, to the point where they say they hate God, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Bible and the church and want nothing more to do with them. Such people will say, “I came out! I left!” But the sad reality is, it hasn’t come out of them. It hasn’t left them, they are still trapped. Unless these people allow the true Lord Jesus Christ to reveal Himself and release them, they remain trapped regardless of what they say or don’t say. Read more in my post: The Religious Spirit.
Maria told me that her fear was greater than ever before. She was constantly worried and scared. I said to her that being fearful, worried and scared could never bring her daughter back, “but if you ask the Lord Jesus to come into your spirit, He will do so right now and in time He will make it His business to heal you spiritually and mentally of your grief and hurts, as a result of your great loss.”
I explained to this dear lady that the taking away of sins is an individual issue, not a world issue. I then asked her if she was willing to be convinced of the God who says He is loving and merciful. This time she nodded and said, “Yes, I suppose so.” I led her in a prayer and then she asked the Lord to forgive her for her anger and unbelief towards Him and to reveal Himself to her. She shed lots of tears, telling me she had “doubtful feelings” about God’s love and mercy.
I encouraged her through the Bible, that says it is by faith that we believe, not feelings, telling her also that God would give her the faith she needs, we cannot manufacture it. The fact that Maria could speak the words, acknowledge and ask Jesus Christ for forgiveness, then claim her forgiveness through the shedding of the blood of Jesus, proved to me another fact. Nobody can do any such thing, unless God Almighty Himself, in the name of Jesus Christ, through the ministry and power of the Holy Spirit, is in the midst urging them to do so.
Maria also told me that she had never been able to cry for her daughter, that is, really grieve. I encouraged her by saying that God would assist her in that and that the moment she felt it coming on, to go into a room, close the door and let it come out. Later that afternoon I was walking on the opposite side of Maria’s street. She was outside collecting her bin. I gave her a big wave and she did the same.
I saw both Maria and her husband quite a few times in the street after that visit and they smiled as we stopped to greet each other, but no further ministry took place. “Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on a rock: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat upon that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on a rock.” Matthew 7:24-25.