Erwin Lutzer -- Receive Christ or receive God's wrath #erwinlutzer

My relatives were all Catholic when I was growing up. I tried to faithfully follow Catholic traditions thinking I could find my way to heaven.

And then I did something a bit brash--I read the Bible. And I found this, I found that, I found the God of the Bible said nothing about praying to Mary, nothing about purgatory, nothing about a lot of things the Catholic church taught as dogma. So not being a rebel and believing in my church, I cornered a few priests and asked for clarification. They said it was "tradition".

I stayed for five more years, not wanting to upset my family, who refused to discuss scripture or their beliefs, they simply said, "Stay in the Catholic church and don't talk religion anymore in the house."

So I left, and I've never regretted it. I don't advocate for a certain faith belief system, I advocate for following God's word. God's wrath doesn't care about your man-made-traditions.