Many Witnesses

DEVOTION
1 TIMOTHY
MANY WITNESSES
1 Tim 6:12
12 Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses.
So it is a fight, this faith thing. I knew that because of all the temptations which are bombarding me from every side and even face on at times. It is a fight to the finish. I fight to the death, winner takes all, and loser gets thrown into the lake of burning sulfur. A struggle of epic proportions, a duel of the wills is this fight of faith. Satan wants nothing more than to make me the loser, but he will fail. He does not have the right fire power, nor enough of it to cause any permanent damage. I will never give up fighting this good fight of faith. I have my armor, and especially my shield to ward off any of those flaming arrows. So there, back off dude, get thee behind me and flee from me, in the name of Jesus! I have the right fire power and more than enough of it. I have the name of Jesus. As far as taking hold of the eternal life to which I was called. I am impressed with the fact my calling to eternal life was a result of my good confession in the presence of many witnesses. This surely has to mean it was because of my choice to accept the provision God made for me when he sent Jesus to die on the cross for the atonement of my sin. I made that good confession in front of many witnesses. I did not become a believer and just keep it to myself. I did not evolve into believing and just started acting like a believer. I was not elected by God to be a believer without my permission either. No I made a good confession in the presence of many others that I accepted Christ as my personal Lord and Savior. I stood up and said I want to be counted in that number. I knelt before God with hundreds watching as I turned my life over to Jesus. True, I actually did that alone in the solitude of my own home, but within 2 days I was making my public confession of faith in Christ. I have no problem at all with this idea of confession. I am a little put off at the idea of pastors asking everyone to close their eyes while in the event someone might actually slip their hand up in response to a message or call to salvation. What kind of public confession is that? How does that comply with this command to fight the good fight and accept eternal life when they make their confession in the presence of many witnesses? I know it is a personal thing, but I cannot see hiding it from everyone, or trying to make them feel comfortable, that no one will know they are accepting Jesus, like it is a secret. No, I wanted to be seen, I did not care who was watching, I wanted the world to know I was born again, shouldn’t everyone else?