I Will Not Shut Up!!

In case you haven't noticed I'm a pretty strong opinionated girl and I have a strong christian faith, put these two together and it is a recipe for disaster, or greatness, whichever way God wants to use it. lol. If it is for greatness I'll tell you this, it's for His glory.

Now what inspired this post was a conversation (or rather an argument) that I had with my siblings a couple of days ago. In my household, I'm the only strong christian, my brother is saved but he's just starting in the faith and my other 2 siblings and my parents are catholic but they are not strong catholics. Now God is gracious and every once in a while he'll open little windows for me to talk about the gospel with my family. A couple of nights ago my siblings and I were all sitting in the kitchen and for some reason we got to the topic of religion, now I LOVE talking about the bible and God. I love it! I can do it 24/7 and my siblings are very aware of that because I do it all the time.

My siblings kept making arguments and arguments but it all came down to this: Please shut up. Just shut up. Just don't talk to us about that stuff, don't go out and evangelize people! See in their heads no one wants to hear that, and I get it, they are probably right because before I was saved I also didn't want to hear that. God has become such a "whatever" in our society that it's easier to go with the flow than to "bother" people with our beliefs. Now my sister kept telling me "it's just rude to go up to someone and tell them they are wrong because in their religion they are right and you are just disrespecting their beliefs. You people are rude and you don't respect what others think, you think you are right". Now let me break that down, first of all it's only rude if we don't approach it with love. Christians are supposed to evangelize but the key ingredient in that is L.O.V.E. It is because of love that Christ died, it is because of love that we share the gospel with people. Yes they are wrong! Excuse me but I'm the type of person that accepts when I'm wrong and I do my best to change it. Not every religion can be right and the reality is that Christianity is the reality. How do I know? The same way you know when you love a special person, my heart tells me. Cheesy huh? But think about it, you are sure you love someone, oh really? How?

I can feel God in my heart, the same way you feel that you love someone I feel God. I know Christ IS real because my heart recognizes it. Love and faith go hand in hand and I think that the moment someone proves to me that love doesn't exist, that's when I will say "Ok. God doesn't exist" because God IS love!! No I'm not disrespecting their believes, I'm trying to help them see reality and trust me, I do my best to be very subtle about things.

My siblings are begin me to stop evangelizing inside my house, to not tell them about the bible or relate verses to life but I will not do that. I know that the devil is trying to bring me down, if I do that he wins this battle and that's a pleasure I will NOT give him. The whole theme of the summer between me and God has been BE STRONG. I have no idea why but he keeps doing these little things and giving me these little challenges to build me up and he has sent me a couple of verses about staying strong (1 Corinthians 13:15, Joshua 1:9, 2 Samuel 10:12, Philippians 4:13) and about being strong in Him. I don't know why but I can tell you I have my guard up and my armor ready (Ephesians 6) because something is coming and this spiritual war is not getting any easier anytime soon. I love the gospel and the one thing I love about the gospel is that it got to me, that someway somehow the truth came to me and I was able to grasp it and embrace it. How can I shut up about the one thing that made me who I am today??

No. I will not apologize for being loud and proud about my faith and our God and the gospel. With some help, I've come to realize that my family needs me so much! God needs me inside my household because I'm the only person that can shine light on them. My gosh, every time I talk to my siblings I see how much they need God. I love these kids to death and I wish they would realize how amazing God is, they've had bad experiences with Christians so they let that get in the way of their relationship with God. I pray for their salvation all the time and I wish we would have had better experiences with christians but that's not possible, therefore my job is to show them what a christian is really like. To lead by example. To cover myself in God's truth and love so that they may see His great work, the great work He has done in me.

I won't stop telling people about God. Ever. He's telling me to be strong but he's also telling me to be brave, I'm going to need those two qualities if I want to do my job right. My job is to present the information about the gospel, to plant those seeds in the hearts of people, the Holy Spirit takes care of the rest.

I've been thinking a lot about the Olympics and the determination of these athletes, the commitment, and it makes me think. Committing to something like a sport is ok but committing to my religion is not? Well society, aren't you confusing? haha. I'm not an olympian but I am a warrior, man I wish I could be as determined as those guys. I want to seek God like they want to win that gold medal. I want to be that awesome warrior that always stands out in a movie? Ever seen the Lord of the Rings? Ever seen Aragorn? Dude is boss! Well that's how I want to be, I want to fight this spiritual war and win it for God's glory, in His name, and I know he's right next to me all the time!!

If you are NOT saved then I want to ask you a couple of questions: Can YOU handle the truth? What do YOU think of Christ?? Not religion, not christians, CHRIST!! Yeah I know you don't want to hear the gospel, but this isn't about what you want, it's about what you NEED!! Who says I want to take math next year? I hate math!! But this isn't about what I want, it's about what I need, I need that math credit to graduate, if I choose not to take it I won't graduate. You NEED the gospel, if you choose not to grasp it you are choosing eternal suffering. I don't want that for you!! Don't forget I wasn't always saved, I was once in your spot. That's why I want to share the gospel, because it's scary to think that....I could still be in your spot. Thank God I'm not. Thank God I'm free to share the gospel.

I will not shut up, not unless God tells me to and in all honesty, I don't see him doing that anytime soon :)