Got your attention didn't I!?
I hadn't been saved long and we were at my mother's house one night. My youngest brother Roy Gene and his family was there also. His wife was from a polish family and was raised as a Roman catholic. He had started going to mass with her and as we talked he soon got out his catholic "Bible" - the one with the extra bonus books...that we mere protestants don't get to have in ours.
At that time I didn't know as much about the Scriptures as I do today. Although I might add there are no experts when it comes to the Bible as we are yet students no matter how long we've been reading this amazing living words of God book.
I knew nothing about the catholic book at all but taking it from my brother it opened "by chance" to the book of Serach.
There in front of me seemingly coming off the page was a verse;
Sirach 3:30 says:
Water extinguishes a blazing fire: so almsgiving atones for sin.
Uh-oh. Now even though I was no Bible scholar an alarm went off in my spirit. If doing good deeds did away with my sins then what did the death of the savior accomplish? In a moment of time this and more flashed through me. I began to discuss this with my brother who fortunately was not a hardened catholic. But he had been influenced by his wife whose family were die hard Roman catholics since St. Peter agreed to become the first pope (never happened!)
He agreed that only Jesus and His sacrifice, blood, death on the cross could give us right standing with God.
At that time he was working in his father in law's liquor store and had been questioning God about quitting. He had made application with an engineering company as a electrical draftsman and as he was leaving their office he prayed "Lord if you want me to get out of the liquor store then give me this job".
Cutting to the finish, God gave him the job and his father in law decided that it would be best to retire and sell the store.
My brother and his wife left the catholic church and she got filled with the Holy Spirit. Gene is a 100% DAV Army medic from the Vietnam era and had had 11 operations and takes 18-20 meds a day in order to stay alive. Prayers for him I know will be appreciated.
God moves in wondrous ways to salvage lives and turn men and women to Himself. How he manages to cause us to open Bibles to the exact place He desires is far beyond my understanding but many have seen Him do the same thing. But praise be He can do anything He pleases. From that conversation with Gene at our mother's that night God worked salvation and great changes for good in his family.
Thanks be to God for the Bible we have and that we do not have to partake of false teachings drilled into others by generations of traditional scripture twisting.
I am forever in God's debt for the fact I knew, nothing about Him or the Bible when He showed up at he appointed time to show me who ran things and who alone was responsible for my rescue from the dung heap of worldly life.
But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
Titus 3:4-7 NASB
Oh give thanks to the Lord , call upon His name; Make known His deeds among the peoples. Sing to Him, sing praises to Him; Speak of all His wonders.
Psalms 105:1-2 NASB
Making known His deeds is a joy.
I hadn't been saved long and we were at my mother's house one night. My youngest brother Roy Gene and his family was there also. His wife was from a polish family and was raised as a Roman catholic. He had started going to mass with her and as we talked he soon got out his catholic "Bible" - the one with the extra bonus books...that we mere protestants don't get to have in ours.
At that time I didn't know as much about the Scriptures as I do today. Although I might add there are no experts when it comes to the Bible as we are yet students no matter how long we've been reading this amazing living words of God book.
I knew nothing about the catholic book at all but taking it from my brother it opened "by chance" to the book of Serach.
There in front of me seemingly coming off the page was a verse;
Sirach 3:30 says:
Water extinguishes a blazing fire: so almsgiving atones for sin.
Uh-oh. Now even though I was no Bible scholar an alarm went off in my spirit. If doing good deeds did away with my sins then what did the death of the savior accomplish? In a moment of time this and more flashed through me. I began to discuss this with my brother who fortunately was not a hardened catholic. But he had been influenced by his wife whose family were die hard Roman catholics since St. Peter agreed to become the first pope (never happened!)
He agreed that only Jesus and His sacrifice, blood, death on the cross could give us right standing with God.
At that time he was working in his father in law's liquor store and had been questioning God about quitting. He had made application with an engineering company as a electrical draftsman and as he was leaving their office he prayed "Lord if you want me to get out of the liquor store then give me this job".
Cutting to the finish, God gave him the job and his father in law decided that it would be best to retire and sell the store.
My brother and his wife left the catholic church and she got filled with the Holy Spirit. Gene is a 100% DAV Army medic from the Vietnam era and had had 11 operations and takes 18-20 meds a day in order to stay alive. Prayers for him I know will be appreciated.
God moves in wondrous ways to salvage lives and turn men and women to Himself. How he manages to cause us to open Bibles to the exact place He desires is far beyond my understanding but many have seen Him do the same thing. But praise be He can do anything He pleases. From that conversation with Gene at our mother's that night God worked salvation and great changes for good in his family.
Thanks be to God for the Bible we have and that we do not have to partake of false teachings drilled into others by generations of traditional scripture twisting.
I am forever in God's debt for the fact I knew, nothing about Him or the Bible when He showed up at he appointed time to show me who ran things and who alone was responsible for my rescue from the dung heap of worldly life.
But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
Titus 3:4-7 NASB
Oh give thanks to the Lord , call upon His name; Make known His deeds among the peoples. Sing to Him, sing praises to Him; Speak of all His wonders.
Psalms 105:1-2 NASB
Making known His deeds is a joy.
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