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Hi Brothers and Sisters im 17 years old and it is my first post on this forum. I Have a great problem with myself and my relationship with God. Im going to start with my testimony. I was born again one month ago, it was wonderful feeling i never felt that way before. I was changed completely i no longer swear, smoke or drink etc. I was so spiritualy awake, my friends didnt recognise me. My Mother was so happy because she is also a believer and she had gone through it. Since this time im all about Jesus Christ. I wont go more into details because that is not the case. The case is that since this time i failed the lord everyday and im still failing him right now. I left all computer games wrong music etc. But i didnt share the gospel how i should. I feel so ashamed of the gospel when im about to share it. Ofcorse i told my closest friends about it, but it is not the main topic in our conversations. Every time i meet with them i feel so bad because im not talking about Jesus and when im about to talk about Him i feel this great fear and then when im back home im So ashamed i didnt share the gospel with them. I've felt into depression and im in it for 3 weeks (i was happy with Jesus for only one week :(). I really take the words of Jesus seriously that we have to deny ourselves, that many are called but few are chosen. I took it so seriously that i left my piano lessons because it interupted time i could spend with God. I thought to myself that surely it would make God happy. But still i feel like i have buried my talent (not musical but spiritual) and i know i did it :(((. I didnt share the gospel and now if i would share it, it would be only because of fear not of love. God's presence has left me. im So spiritualy dead now i have no Joy at all, im just afraid of God because im failing him every second. I dont love Him at all, but i know i should! it is main purpose in human life. I really cant find in myself any love for God and other people and that makes me so mad! I know that im wicked servant and if Jesus would come tommorrow he would cast me into outer darkness... At the beginning it was so wonderful i was being convinced by the Holy Spirit about things that i should do and shouldnt do. I was getting those small revelations when reading the Bible, and all of that has left me... Now it is only pain and fear. I dont know if it does any sense for you but if anyone could help me or give me advice then please... Maybe someone had similar experience. God bless

Yesterday, as happens to me once in a while, I felt utterly hopeless in life. Like my life was utterly useless and like the next best thing I could do is kill myself. NOTE: don't be concerned. I wasn't really going to kill myself but I began to think that killing myself was better than living without any kind of hope. Hope that God would greatly use me. Hope that I would ever again see the kind of fellowship that I KNOW is possible and that God desires for us as His children between one another. This morning the Lord touched my heart through what I read and lifted my spirits up greatly. This post shares how I went from hopeless to filled with hope and faith this morning. First...why I felt hopeless. It has been fifteen years since I last experienced the kind of fellowship that I only read about in the New Testament. All out, committed fellowship. Total transparency. Involved. Life sharing. Not your typical Sunday sermon and doughnut fellowship afterwards. That's for sure. Last night I was feeling like I will never experience that again in this life and it was very depressing. And why was I feeling like that? Because churchy folks these days aren't willing to lay down their lives to make it happen. And that IS what it will take. Denying self, taking up one's cross, and living for others. Churchy folks are overall content to do the Sunday thing and little else (if that is even faith in Christ at all). When I share things that God gives me out of the Word, even here on this forum, nobody (well...hardly anyone) ever changes their mind. It's like what I say - out of the Word - goes in one ear and out the other. With no real effect on anyone's life. I know, I know...that what happens with what we share here is not always seen. Granted. But it's still tough to think that my sharing does absolutely no good and that I am wasting my life, my time, and whatever gift I have from God sharing to hearts that are not open to receive. This happens in real life too. I share and people go...that's nice, or interesting, or what have you...but no one surrenders their life to God to let Jesus do whatever He might want through their lives and to join me doing that. In a worst case scenario which happens more often than I really wish it would, so called Christians come out of the woodwork to beat up on me, put me down, assume the worst about me, and to otherwise poo poo what God says we ought to be about. Work wise...I have a confession to make. I am not motivated in the least to make money. Not one iota. I mean to the point where I should be. I would rather hang out talking about God's word than go work at some humdrum pointless job. I know, I know...work is good and we can work for God and all that. All true. But it just doesn't motivate me at all. I want to do the work of God NOT be involved in working FOR God flipping burgers. To top it off I am homeless (not a big deal...trust me) and sleep in a tent. It's rather adventuresome if you want to know the truth but it's also somewhat difficult in the sense that people simply don't understand how a homeless person can be sober, honest, reliable, and so on. One of the good guys (at least as far as the world is concerned). A guy looked at my washcloth that I hung over my little cart in a bathroom the other day (which I use to wipe the sweat from myself as I walk up this huge hill to get to the university that I frequent) and my cart I suppose with a sort of higher than thou attitude as if to say "What's THAT doing in this bathroom!". Kind of uppity in the nose department. People got so many preconceived ideas which are off the wall and I end up being subject to many of those assumptions and baloney. My dad passed away a few years ago, I am estranged from my brothers and sisters, and my mom lives in another country many thousands of miles away. Oh...and ALL my relatives live in this other country too. And I am separated from my wife. She doesn't want to get back together again. We've been separated for years. Since God says no to divorce and remarriage that's it. No wife for me again. EVER. I am usually okay with that. Until I start seeing some seemingly wonderful relationship in some movie and begin to think I am missing out or something. No car. No house. No assets to speak of. 53 years old. And so on and so forth. A GREAT BIG NOBODY in the world and in the Christian world as well. So there you have it. My life on the surface by what is seen. If YOU think you are hopeless I doubt you have me beat. Maybe. But probably not. But...this post is not about hopelessness but HOPE. That God will give you! If He can give it to me! This morning I read this...bolding is mine... Having God and having no hope don't mix! As soon as I read that I knew there was something wrong with my perspective. Not having any hope is something that is tied up with being an unbeliever. NOT a Christian! As I read this the Lord softened my heart to realize a few things that caused hope to well up within me again (whereupon the tears in His presence began to flow). What causes me to feel hopeless? It is what I SEE! My life such as I SEE it IS hopeless. From a natural perspective. I guess you could say I got no prospects. But...whatever mess I have made of my life, whatever sins I have fallen into, however much I have failed to live up to God's ideals for my life, have let down my wife, or what have you...there is PEACE with God my Father through Jesus Christ right now! There is PEACE!! Do you realize what that means? God, that's GOD, is on my side! If He is for me who or what can be against me? NOTHING! If He called me to be His own when I was a rotten sinner without God and without hope in this world through the Gospel why would He now abandon me and let me be? He wouldn't! If I am not living in unrepentant sin and I wish to do what pleases Him guess what? I can. I mean I can please Him. Through Christ. It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me. And I have been forgiven of ALL my sins. Nothing stands between me and God and His help and blessing over my life. I do not mean to say that I can now go out and believe it and claim it baloney. I mean that GOD is with me, in me, for me, and watching over me. With God on my side ALL things are possible! Another thing that brought hope to my hopeless heart.... Notice what it says that I am as a Christian? "you are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God" I don't know how many times I have been ostracized and spit on (figuratively) by so-called Christians. I sometimes HATE the Christians. They more often than not could care less about the things of God and take out their loathing of all things God on me when I come along sharing what God says. From head coverings, to women being silent in church assembly, to plurality of church leaders being God's ideal for leadership, the free operation of the gifts of the Spirit, and what have you. I don't care what you think of these things. There is NO excuse for the pure baloney that I have been subjected to from so-called believers (mostly elsewhere and not here) when I broach these subjects in the belief that God wills for us as Christians to do them. Yet I am subjected to what amounts to abuse from the Christians over and over again! Even church leaders have dumped on me. One church leader recently told me that he just felt uncomfortable with me being a part of his fellowship. Why? Was it because I was in some sin or something. Nope. It was because I knew the Word and was articulate and he was concerned that I might cause division by what I believe. Can you imagine? The unbridled ARROGANCE of that leader! To deny a true believer fellowship on the basis that I MIGHT cause division as a result of my not being your typical Sunday going sheep quietly sitting in the pews and taking in whatever they are taught without question! Yet the Lord says that I, yes I am... "no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God" I am of the household of God! And there isn't anything any so-called Christian can do about it. God says I belong! I am NOT an outcast. I am NOT the one that no one ever picks to be on their basketball team. When I was a kid I was the last one picked. But not with God! I have been selected by God! To be on His team! To become a member of His household! He chose me! From the beginning of creation He predestined me to be His. And He LOVES me. As I walked up that great big hill this morning I sang part of a song over and over again. It brought me to tears as I walked and tears are welling up in my eyes just now too. Jesus loves me this I know...hum, hum, hum, Oh Jesus loves me, for the bible tells me so. That's all I could remember of the song. I had to hum some sections as you can see. But that song rose up from my heart and gave me hope along with the thoughts from the verses I read. That GOD LOVES ME! There IS hope for my life! And if there is hope for mine, such as it is, hope that is to be found in relationship to God and not in who I am, my capabilities, my assets, or prospects there IS hope for yours too!! If you are a Christian GOD LOVES YOU too!! He is for you and not against you. He has chosen you from the beginning of time. He wants relationship with you. He watches over your coming and your going. He knows your every thought. He has forgiven you of ALL your sins and doesn't hold a grudge against you. In Christ He believes in you even if no one else does. He is YOUR Father and mother and brother and sister - if like me you don't have any left to speak of. And you are a part of His Body no matter what the Christians say or don't say about that! Look up! Take heart. Carlos