Tuesday, August 25, 2015

Awakened


Being born and raise within a Catholic family environment, God has always been a part of my life. I received formal education from the Catholic school system from grade school to college. Being Catholic for so many years, I understood God as judge and jury and that through long litanies of prayers and the rituals of sacraments, I would be able to be made right …justified in God’s eyes. When I became an adult, according to the Catholic faith, sin in my life represented that I was no longer able to receive the sacraments thus I felt unworthy in God’s eyes. Sunday church was the worst because if I didn’t walk down that aisle for communion, I felt all eyes were on me as if I was being judged by the whole community which deepened the feeling of guilt that I had with God. And yet, throughout all that time, deep down inside I believed that no matter how terrible of a sinner I was,  that God still loved me (as ironic as that sounds). The doctrine of justification by way of my Catholic experience can only be compared to a mice running in circles with no end in that no matter how strongly intended I was to be righteous in God’s eye, I was always faced with the reality of my sinful nature and how I could never measure up.

In hind sight, I believe that God had a calling unto my life and connecting to an evangelical church completely changed things around for me. In the past 5 years, I’ve learned so much about the Lord (and most especially myself) within an evangelical church than I did in 30 years within the Catholic religion. Learning the doctrine of justification within my own church allowed me to understand the love of God for all of His creation and allowed me to accept His call in my life, convert, repent and finally feel the blessing of living a life of righteousness and truth. As Erickson states “he (Jesus) saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal of the Holy Spirit.” (Erickson, Christian Theology, pg. 873).  My theological understanding of the doctrine of justification has left me even more humbled and committed to a life of prayer, fasting and the Word. I feel exactly as Erickson stated “justification is God’s action pronouncing sinners righteous in his sight. We have been forgiven and declared to have fulfilled all that God’s law requires of us.” (Erickson, Christian Theology, pg. 883)

All Praise and Glory to you, My God!