No, Rome Isn't My Home
As a former Roman Catholic who became a born again Christian by God's grace alone, I remembered the amount of hostility I got from others. Others say I've departed from the "church of St. Peter" but then, since when did Peter ever become the founder of the Church? It's a huge misunderstanding of Matthew 16:16-18. Do they even know what the passage means? Even the Good News Translation makes it clear that Peter is not the Rock with the words "you are A ROCK and upon THIS ROCK" stressing Peter was not the foundation of the church.
I've heard from many people who grew up in Evangelical homes but had converted Roman Catholic. At first, I thought that it's possible to lose your salvation but years later, I realized it's impossible to do so because true believers endure to the end. If you're truly saved, you're going to endure to the end and if you're not saved, the evidence you weren't saved was that when you left. 1 John 2:19 mentions that those who departed from the flock never were saved. Many of these Protestants who converted to Roman Catholicism weren't saved to start with. I'd blame some of the evangelism methods which I might discuss later.
The more I read the Bible, the more I realized nothing made sense anymore with my former religion. What shocked me was to realize how the second commandment (Exodus 20:4-5) was deleted in the Roman Catholic's official ten commandments while it's still there in the Good News Translation. We're told not to pray to any gods but it was okay to pray to "saints and angels". It just didn't make sense. When I ask Roman Catholics for their "evidence" all they give are Scriptures taken out of their context. If they can't even get context right then don't expect them to take things into context.
Praying to Mary just made no sense much less asking for her intercession between her and the Lord Jesus Christ. It's just as idolatrous as praying to anyone but God. The Rosary is nothing but vain repetitions which could just be played on a tape recorder. Praying to "Baby Jesus" never made sense because it's another Christ. The more I read the Scriptures, the more I couldn't agree with Roman Catholicism's religious system and the more I could agree, "It's not Christian." Infant baptism wasn't in the Bible, the Bible requires Old Testament priests to be married and all those facts struck me like thunder. I knew I was in trouble because I couldn't save myself from my sins. Then I realized salvation has never been by man's effort but it's all of God's work.
What's even so contradictory is that many Roman Catholics misrepresent eternal security. They can say something like, "Well I'm saved so I can sin all I want." They adhere to the teaching you can't be sure of your salvation and that you must work to keep it. But many of them end up living very sinful lives. Also, if anybody thinks salvation is a license to sin then such a person is a fake convert. True converts have no desire to keep living a life of sin. Sadly, many Roman Catholics are living like they have a license to sin.