Do I Avoid Sharing my Faith?

To often in our christian walk, we are "undercover Christians"...like agents on a secret mission we do not share our story or more important the story of salvation offered by our LORD!

I struggle with sharing my faith, even with my Christian brothers and sisters because my beliefs are often against the "norm" of what others believe. For example, I do not believe in the "rapture" taught by most churches. I researched the start of the teaching and found it based on a dream by a young girl in the
1500's then expounded on and exaggerated by her pastor. God teaches in his word (in proverbs I believe) that the righteous shall never be gone from the earth, yet at the point of a rapture, the earth will be void of HIS children if even for a moment. This coupled with the fact that if I had a stranger to Christ the bible, there is no way for them to "see" rapture in his word...it would be a secret message and we are told by the Word of God that no part of HIS word is left to "private interpretation" and that is exactly what the rapture is.

I also long to place the HOLY days written in Gods word in our home. Our culture has gotten away from the old feasts, but when you study early Christian history, they followed these holy days. God did not place these in HIS word because HE needed them, they were placed to help his children stay on track by remembering what HE has given us. Instead we celebrate heathen holidays that have been manipulated to try to reflect christianity. The biggest ones being Christmas and Easter. Easter is based on a pagan celebration of the God Estra...the eggs, bunnies etc that we pass around are all symbols of fertility...estra(I dont know if the spelling is correct) is a goddess of fertility.

When I chose not to eat pork, I was responded to by "your not going old testament are you?"...by a Christian sister.

When I share these veiws with those who are in the church, then I find that I am ostrized by fellow christians, and am treated like an idiot for not following the teaching of a church, but my heart is strong that this is what God has shown me. I long to find a church body that shares my beliefs, but to no avail, so often times I feel so alone.

However, I have found occassion when God has opened doors for me to witness of HIS great love and power, times I have been with a family member or friend in the hospital and just prayed with families of other patients, I recall one woman whose husband was near death, we prayed for him and God provided an answer to this woman's cry, I pray she still holds onto our LORD. This weekend I got the opportunity to witness to an 8th grader who goes to church, but does not see the power of HIS love. What a joy that moment was as he opened his heart...I think he is going to aske his parents to homeschool him to.

I have also found that I tend not to share my faith, not because I am ashamed of Christ, but I am concerned that I will be a shame to Christ. I am far from perfect, and struggle with my walk daily. "I do the things I don't want to do"...How can I be an Christian example when my own life is filled with sin? How can someone look at my life and see Christ?

As far as my whole story...it is a lifetime of HIM coming to me. Our LORD is persistant, from my youth, I would attend churches and seek HIM, I just did not see that that was what I was doing at the time. My in-laws have flat out told me I talk of God "to much"...they don't want to be around me because of that. My life in retrospect, God has been at each step even when I could not see HIM. I don't have a story where I was sitting on a Mountain top and GOD revealed Himself to me, it was a slow process of me surrendering my life to HIM. I dont need 10 minutes, I need a book! Thank you Lord for never giving up on me.

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