This has been on my heart for some time. When I saw today’s “Daily Verse” on The Catholic Company’s devotional today (of all places!) the Spirit inside of me decided today was the day to speak about a certain issue that I noticed in the Church, specifically, the Roman Catholic Church, and the more specifically, the Latin (Extraordinary) form of the Mass.

Now, before you start raising eyebrows and want to silence me (because 🙄that’s what normally happens), HEAR what the HOLY SPIRIT has to say about this part of worship in HIS Holy Scriptures.

Yes—this is a “Holy Spirit” rant within me, and I am going to let Him say whatever He wants to say, because honestly, the TIME is SHORT, and God’s people are in such a mess spiritually and Scripturally, that only the grace and mercy of God is keeping us ALL (and I do mean ALL!) from eternal perdition at this point (“as it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one…”—Rom. 3:10; see also Rom. 3:20,23)

The ONE main problem I have encountered as a Catholic growing up, and now again as a revert, is how most of the the faithful church goers do NOT read their Bibles. Church history teaches that the laity were not taught to read and study the Word of God. Hence they do not know the very verses I just copied from Scripture on the image (notice the man’s outstretched😉hands?😏)I purposely chose.

So certain authoritarian figures of the Church down through the millennia, made decisions on what the celebrant can do, and what the laity can and cannot do, without paying mind to what the LORD GOD said WE can do, in His Word.

This has been the crux of the problem with the hierarchy of the Church almost since the beginning.

“Man’s interpretation”—I’ve 🙄heard that until my ears have almost bled, yet the very ones that say that, know very little themselves what is IN the Holy Scriptures!

It🤔seems like every human being that desired to follow the LORD God, accepted Jesus Christ as (or at least😕should have)BOTH Savior AND Lord of their lives, FORGOT what the Lord Jesus said was to happen when a person truly becomes a child of the Most High, the LIVING God: the Holy Spirit (Jn. 3:3,5,7) comes INTO that person, ONLY because that person made a DECISION (if it was a true and certain one!) to accept the Lord Jesus, and then the Holy Spirit DWELLS IN that person (Jn. 14:16-17; 16:13-14; Rom. 8:9;
1 Cor. 3:16; 2 Tim. 1:14).

There’s no hard saying here enough to confuse anyone—it’s simple enough to understand that because of Christ’s death, resurrection and ascension, and then sending the Holy Spirit on Pentecost to the disciples (Acts 1:5, 8; 2:1-4), that was appointed time HE was to LIVE IN us! The Lord Jesus not only made it so, but He told us BEFORE He even did it(Jn. 14:16-17; 15:26; 16:7-11).

And if there is one thing that has irritated me more than most other things pertaining to the faithful—that I, even I as a wretched sinner saved by the grace and mercy of God, yet I must “occupy” (Lk 19:13) until the Lord Jesus comes back, and “endure to the end” (Matt. 24:13) in order to be saved and counted as one of the righteous—is that many who profess faith in the Lord Jesus, have forgotten that it is the HOLY SPIRIT Who (notice the capital “W”??) is to LEAD and GUIDE us, teaching us these very things that are in Scripture, bringing them to our MEMORY (Jn. 14:26), so that we would not end up making all these exegetical and hermeneutical errors in Scripture?? But it is like no one even BELIEVES that the Holy Spirit, the THIRD PERSON in the TRIUNE GODHEAD, even DWELLS in them!!

From the top down when it comes to ecclesiastical hierarchy, from whatever “branch” of Christianity one hails from (there never was supposed to be all these splits in the Church!), EVERY person, no matter what title they took for themselves, or someone gave them, WILL be held responsible and accountable for NOT teaching the faithful the REAL hermeneutical and exegetical Holy Spirit-inspired teachings of Holy Scripture!! The LORD God never meant for man to just “figure it out” on his own—THAT is exactly why the Holy Spirit was to LIVE IN each and every true child of the LIVING God who “called upon the name of the Lord to be saved (Rom. 10:13; Joel 2:32; Acts 2:21)”. The problem is, most human spirits, even those who call themselves believers of God, do not HUMBLE themselves enough to even trust the LORD God that He WOULD carry out His Word, and dwell with them 24/7.

If a person who professes to know the LORD God, His Son, and the Holy Spirit, thought about that enough each and every day, that they actually HAVE the LIVING HOLY GOD dwelling INSIDE of them, they (we!) would all most likely watch more what we would think, do, and say. Maybe, just maybe, IF we “had ears to hear” what the Spirit said to us (Rev. 2:11,17; 3:6,13, 22), and actually paid ATTENTION to HIS interpretation of Scripture, instead of what we all “think” it means, we would not have split up thousands of times, and had so many different Christian sects out there in the world, to further confuse those who know not the LORD, and also drive them farther away from ever wanting to have a relationship with Him. 🤨😣😞

So what did this all have to do with my pointing out the earlier verses about “lifting holy hands” and “singing” and “dancing” -especially within the temple of the LORD?

WE ARE THE TEMPLE OF THE LIVING GOD (1 Cor. 3:16-17,19; 2 Cor. 6:16; Eph. 2:21). WE are commanded to PRAISE Him, WORSHIP Him, give Him thanks and LIFT UP our holy hands to Him in both worship and when we pray. The early church, and even those worshippers in the Old Testament did not seem to have issues like we have now—who’s raising their hands in church, who’s folding their hands a certain way, who’s singing louder or who’s NOT singing, who’s dancing in the aisles, who’s praying in a certain ecclesiastical language (Hebrew, Latin, Aramaic, Greek) in church—or not; who’s better than who because they go to a certain church and sing certain songs, whether an organ is playing, or someone plays a guitar, or NO instruments are “allowed” to be played (like some of the Amish, for example), but only singing is permitted, etc. WHO made up all these extra “rules”?? WHERE are they in Scripture?? And WHO (hint-I know it is demonic-a fiery dart🤨) started all the arguments about NOT reading the Bible because we may not be able to understand it all, so it was better for only CERTAIN people of the clergy to read it TO us, and explain it??

THIS is the reason why man’s so-called “Christian witness” to the unsaved and unregenerate looks so hypocritical! Because almost ALL believers in Christ were not trained by their clergymen (who they themselves NO longer were LISTENING!) to HEAR what the Spirit says—so how can anyone who is under the authority of such men of God, ever possibly KNOW such things in Scripture, if they are not taught them? And how is a person of God to GROW and MATURE in their spirit man, ALSO knowing how to fight the very enemy of our souls—the one who desires to see mankind FAIL miserably, and end up in the same eternal fire as they are destined to be in? HOW does one solve all these problems, and many more (individual, marital, family, church, social, global)? One who truly has the Spirit of the LIVING God inside of them would not get all flustered about people lifting up their hands in church to pray or praise God, because they would already know that Scripturally, it is permitted, and God is pleased with such that praise Him, whether they desire to lift their hands in the sanctuary, or not. The important point of it is—they ARE to pray to Him, and also praise and glorify Him!

DO what the WORD OF GOD tells you to do. “How can a young man keep his way pure? By guarding it ACCORDING TO YOUR WORD. With my WHOLE HEART I seek You; let me not wander from YOUR (not man’s!) commandments! I have stored up YOUR WORD in my heart, that I might not sin against You. Blessed are You, O LORD; TEACH me Your statutes! With my lips I declare all the rules of Your mouth…I will meditate on YOUR precepts and fix my eyes on YOUR ways…I will delight in Your statutes; I will NOT forget Your Word”(Psalm 119:9-13, 15-16).

ALLOW the HOLY SPIRIT to be that ONE Spirit that Paul the Apostle spoke of in Ephesians 4:4-6, to lead and guide you. There was only supposed to be ONE BODY of CHRIST—as it is written in Ephesians 4-6, “There is ONE body and ONE Spirit—just as you were called to the ONE Hope that belongs to your call—ONE Lord, ONE faith, ONE baptism, ONE God and Father of all, Who is over all and THROUGH all and IN all.”

But, is He really “IN” all professing Christians? LOOK at their “fruit”—see if it is good, or rotten. That is what the Lord Jesus told us to do, is it not? Are those who are in leadership within the BODY of Christ (no matter what sect they are in, or hail from—they will ALL be held accountable—James 3:1; 1 Peter 4:5; Heb. 13:17). ALL of us will be held accountable for what we learned not only from those leaders, but also ON OUR OWN, and have to stand before the Lord Jesus at the Day of Judgment (Matt. 12:35-37)—none of us will escape that.

If this post has been something that has made you think about where you stand with the Lord Jesus, and whether or not you fully have the Holy Spirit leading and guiding you, then spend time reading all these verses I put in this post, including these here: Ps. 143:10; Ez. 37:1; Rom. 8:4; Matt. 4:1; Acts 8:29; 10:19-20; 13:4; 16:7; 20:22; Gal. 4:6; 5:22; 1 John 3:24; Rev. 4:2, 17:3. SPEND TIME in prayer to the LORD God, and ASK (as the Lord Jesus told us to do in Matt. 7:7) the Holy Spirit to TEACH, GUIDE, CORRECT, INSTRUCT, CHASTISE (where necessary), ENCOURAGE, and COMFORT you, each and every waking day henceforth. Ask Him to REMIND you of His Word, by also READING and STUDYING and MEDITATING (Joshua 1:8-9) on it, so that it will embolden and empower you to speak that very Word of God out, when the Spirit INSIDE you, desires for it to be SHARED with others, as you have seen me do (because He leads me to do it!).

I lovingly CHALLENGE all of you who call yourselves children of God, and followers of Christ, to make sure you have the ONE Holy Spirit leading and guiding you daily. Also, have Him point out anything that is NOT to be in you, and ask the Holy Spirit to deliver you from any and all evil spirits that have managed to influence you in whatever way, making you stray from His Word, and causing confusion and contention with it. Allow the Spirit of God to “sanctify” you, “cleansing” you “by the washing with water through the Word”, so that He can “present you to Himself as a glorious Church, without stain or wrinkle or any such blemish, but holy and blameless” (Eph. 5:26).