I love your post.

Please forgive the mini-blog, it started as a trickle and turned into a torrent.

I find however, and please hear my heart, that we are overly concerned with religion as believers in the most anti-religious person in history, Our lord Jesus Christ. While I am not a Catholic by label I am most definitely a believer in our Lord and Savior.

I used to be a "Protestant/Reformationist" but in my search for truth in my "religion", I found Jesus of Nazareth. A young Jewish boy sent by the Almighty God, born of a virgin who would have been ostracized by the law observant community that she was living in at the time. A Jewish boy who taught in the temple on his Bar mitzvah when his parents had to turn back to find him.

Yes he is the son of God, but he was also a Jewish man living in 0 - 30 AD / CE who they called "Rabbi"

He observed the law more purely than any man could yet preached grace.

All believers in Jesus Christ have more to do than they think they have. It is actually sad that labels have divided us more easily than any other strategy that Satan has ever devised.

I am blown away when believers are unaware that Catholic just means "Universal"... I am more shocked when I find that believers are unaware that the reason we are no longer one church under Jesus Christ is due to our leaders having disagreements with each other and deciding to go their own way.

**1. 431 AD - Council of Ephesus, The Assyrian Church splits from the original church

1. 451 AD - Council of Chalcedon, The Oriental Orthodox Church splits from the remaining church
2. 1056 AD- The Great Schism, The Roman Catholic and The Eastern Orthodox Churches are formed
3. 16th Century AD - The reformations and "reunions" start
   **
   after this the Church and body of Jesus Christ just kept dividing.

I find it ludicrous that very few believers in Christ Jesus are talking about Satan's "divide and conquer strategy.

In John 17 our Lord and Savior prayed and in vs 11 he says "And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to you. Holy Father, keep through your own name those who you have given me, that they may be ONE, as we are."

in vs 21 "That they all may be ONE; as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be ONE in us; so that the world may believe that you have sent me."

Jesus keeps saying in that prayer that we were meant to be ONE in him and God the Father.

The most dire consequence of our leaders deciding that they couldn't agree with each other when they should have been listening to the Holy Spirit and not themselves... Is found at the end of verse 21...

"SO THAT THE WORLD MAY BELIEVE THAT YOU HAVE SENT ME."

Can it be that the division of the original church is the reason for the lack of belief in the world?

I found that there is a lot of legalism in labels, yet calling ourselves something doesn't make us that thing. Acts 11 : 26 was the first time that the disciples / believers in Christ were called "Christians" and yet some shy away from the term and others wear it like a badge.

We as believers are so preoccupied with things that matter less and thereby lose the truth.

Paul (Sha'ul) the apostle to the non-Jewish believers in Christ Jesus wrote in Romans 3 about the religious man, in Romans 2 about the good man, and Romans 1 about the pagan man. In each one of those chapters he highlighted the futility of each.

We as man can not add to Jesus Christ's completed work by our deeds. All we can hope to do is to please the God who sent him, and we most definitely should strive to please him.

If every one of the apostles were Jews that believed in Jesus as the Prophesied Messiah then how can we believe that the true church is a gentile one? If Jesus himself preached the futility of religious observance to reconcile us with God, then why do we turn against our savior and try to be overly religious.

Don't get me wrong, I am a firm believer in Jesus Christ and I believe in the Holy Bible, but I find, Especially because the love of my life is a Catholic woman, that there is a greater rift in the body of Christ than anybody cares to admit.

If one person can show me a denomination that Jesus Christ preached, I will follow that even to martyrdom... We were instructed to be of one mind in Christ Jesus and our leadership failed us over and over. The apostles had many councils in the book of ACTS, They didn't divide the body of Christ, They followed the guidance of the Holy Spirit as in ACTS 15 when there was division about the circumcision of non-Jewish converts to the faith.

Who gave our leaders the right to divide us?

There is no way of knowing who is the right church anymore and, at the risk of persecution from fellow believers in Jesus Christ, I propose that NO church is the right church anymore. We are too concerned with opinions and understandings of the text. Very few believers now strive to have a relationship with Jesus anymore.

After this long-winded comment to your amazing post I shudder to share the scariest passages in the Holy Bible to me:

Matt 7 : 21 - 23

21 Not everyone who says to me "Lord, Lord" will enter into the kingdom of heaven; except he that does my Father in heaven's will.

22 Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, Haven't we prophesied in your name? Haven't we cast out devils in your name? Haven't we performed miracles in your name?

23 And I will tell them to their faces, I never knew you: Get away from me, you workers of iniquity.

THIS IS SAID TO SOMEONE THAT CALLS JESUS "LORD, LORD"

We need to start building relationships with Jesus and stop worrying about silly labels.

And to make it worse Jesus even clarifies the point further in Luke 13 : 24 - 27

24 Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many, I say to you, will seek to enter in, and will not be able.

25 When once the master of the house is risen up, and has shut the door, and you stand outside , and you knock at the door, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us; and he will answer and say to you, I don't know where you come from:

26 Then you will begin to say, we have eaten and drunk in your presence, and you have taught in our streets.

27 but he will reply, I tell you, I don't know where you come from: Get away from me you workers of lawlessness.